Loving The Crash

Me. Too. 🙂

Is it really a lesser bubble?

Zidiot...

It means the guy who wrote it doesn't have a clue 🙂

Excellent post. Me either - I will also be raising prices and wages towards the end of the year (- already did this in January.) Feels like a nasty recession is coming - the one the UK should have had in 2007 plus some.

Cash

Well put. It was cheap money that created the housing bubble, and its ending which will fuel the crash. The money printing with our trading partners was well co-ordinated. If the pound falls, the UK will import yet more inflation. Rising unemployment, a recession, and a house price crash - it's all baked in. There is one asset guaranteed not to fall in nominal terms as interest rates rise - make sure you have some

The only thing I could see stopping it from happening would be a major crash in the housing market.

+1 Well said and thank you for the graph.

Spiking? 3% is pretty close to the City's central forecast for IRs next year.

Our company needs bigger office premises and we have been looking for a suitable place for well over a year. One place came up for sale at the weekend and we had a look around this morning. The property ticked most of our boxes i.e. right size/number of rooms, right amount of parking etc, but was just in a slightly less than desirable part of town. Anyway, I got speaking to the agent and he said to me that they hardly have any stock whatsoever and that this has been the case for a good couple of years - which chimes with my experience as a buyer. He also said that this had had a highly adverse effect on his business as a commercial property agent. I asked the agent why there was no stock and he said that the owners of commercial property in town are not selling, and that this was because they had all reached the same conclusion - that once the property was sold, they had nowhere to put the proceeds. I hadn't really appreciated the supply side effects of low interest rates before this encounter as I suppose these apply to a lesser extent to residential property than to commercial property. Still, I guess this goes a long way to explaining why boomers aren't also getting rid of their second homes, buy-to-lets etc, or even for that matter downsizing. Maybe we'll reach the tipping point once interest rates exceed yields achieved on property? IMO, for residential property this won't take much of a rise. Our landlord (South East) is getting a gross yield of around 2.5%....

Looks like the sustained deflationary environment has led to a collective amnesia regarding the balance of power between the bond market and the government.

There's a political risk to this business model in the UK, especially around the setting of SDLT rates: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/stamp-duty-land-tax-corporate-bodies Still, guess these rates can also be adjusted to favour corporate ownership. For more expensive properties, SDLT could prove to be a big factor where prices are falling e.g. in London.

Well, you've just put in an offer for £215k for a 1 bed flat in Croydon. Are you looking for other reasons, or was the question rhetorical?

https://www.eastbourneherald.co.uk/lifestyle/shopping/eastbournes-town-centre-and-beacon-receive-awards-ceremony-1376810 Eastbourne council won the award for the public and private sector investment that has most transformed the town including the £85 million investment by Legal & General to bring new shops, restaurants and a multi-screen cinema to the town; the £8.85 million investment in the public realm delivered in partnership with East Sussex County Council and the £54 million Devonshire Quarter project “to put Eastbourne on the map as a top sporting and cultural destination”. “A huge amount of work and planning over many years has gone on behind the scenes to bring about this transformation, so we are delighted to win this award for Eastbourne. Our thriving town is open for business.” Andrew Rice, the fund manager for Legal & General, said, “We were very pleased to be short listed for this award which recognises the key role the extension of The Beacon has played in not only transforming the town centre, but also kick-starting the night-time economy in Eastbourne.” "The Beacon" was half empty before Covid hit and at night the centre is a ghost town. Looks like I'll be paying for this award to our esteemed boomer councillors via my council tax for many years to come....