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It was glorious Costa Del Whitechapel, where I shared the house with five or six other reprobates and several semi-tame rats until we evicted them. When I moved in I filled a skip with the rubbish in my room, painted it, laid a new carpet, hung a new door and kitted it out with old furniture from the morgue which was being refurbished at the time. Total cost was under £50 and most of that was the new bed. That was proper student living! East End geezer me ?.

I was a student in the early nineties. Lived in shared student house £17 a week, then hospital accommodation in London for the rest of the 90's and early naughties similarly heavily subsidised. I used to get last minute tickets to shows and gigs across London, loved it and similarly walked everywhere, no car, no house, footloose and fancy free, happy days.

Winkie you may have a point, but equally it could just be that Greg and I are getting old ?

I lived on the edge of the City for years, my haunts were Central and the East End so we probably overlapped and who knows could have been in the same pub at the same time ? I do like a good gastro pub still, but even before this occurred I wasn't going very often and certainly not tempted currently. It's difficult to see how the trend in pubs closing won't accelerate as a result of this.

The pub near to me had a real crowd in their garden as soon as the new rules were announced, the following day was a ripper too. The numbers in the garden have dropped each night until last night perhaps four people sitting in an empty forest of tables. I will be interested to see how many are in there tonight and tomorrow.

If you look at all the new builds that have been going up over the last few years, I would say we are about to face a very similar situation. Flats in big towns and cities in particular look exceptionally vulnerable as do HMO's in university cities and towns.

Prior to the expenses scandal in 2009 something like 1 in 3 MP's was a landlord with a portfolio often built up using the overly generous expenses allowances for second homes. This figure has now dropped to roughly 1 in 5 being a landlord. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/05/government-by-landlord The reason for the drop is probably linked to the removal of the old expenses system, but they still kept a second home allowance of £17,000 per annum which has since risen to £22,000 of legitimate, tax free lolly. Lovely jubbly! https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/mps-accused-of-claiming-expenses-for-dependent-adult-children We live in a Democorruptcy.

One for you Blackhole

You are quite right of course Gray. There isn't much they can really do now, the point that this could have been averted has long since passed. I do believe that the last attempts to show willing could have been better targeted, no matter how tokenistic those actions may have been. Recriminations aren't going to fix the mess that successive governments have made of this country. Good advice by the way, hopefully I will be able to follow it.

When the developers are panicking, you know it really is game over. They will act in the same way they always do in this sort of situation ... walk away from their debts scot free and leave good businesses in the supply and building trades to suffer as a result.

First time I have ever heard a 3% fall 'a bounce', but all things are relative I guess

Have to agree, but it wouldn't directly benefit the lobbyists so our why would our government do that? Far too close to philanthropy for their liking.

No fear. Burger King always gives me horrible indigestion. I'd rather eat the carton.

Sadly true. The internet was always going to lead us to this point. Lax regulation and taxation of companies like Amazon, eBay, etc. has only exacerbated the problem and then COVID-19 as the final nail in the coffin. This is looking worse and worse as far as unemployment is concerned and can only have seriously negative impacts across a whole range of areas, including as we are on this site, house prices.

It doesn't help. It isn't designed to help. It is just an effort to appear to do something to 'support' the housing market. i.e. to keep the overinflated bubble going just a bit longer ...

Great film. Must watch it again whilst I can still afford to pay for the electricity, or even have electricity for that matter.

In other words it has done exactly what it was intended to do. Let's call this what it really is, namely a grotesque asset grab by those how already have vast amounts of unearned wealth, with the rest of society being ground into the dirt and expected to be grateful for it. Gotta love a Democorruptcy. Where do I put my X for none of the above again?

Actually not too bad thanks! During that time I have paid down debt, built a decent deposit and I am ready to buy, if we have falls of as little as 10% it will have proven to be the right call for me. If I am proven right, one thing I won't be doing is telling others how clever I was, or how wrong they were. In the unlikely eventuality that you are right, then sure I could have done a bit better, but not markedly so and I will buy in and accept my lot. My 'choices are half chance, so are everybody else's'.

Snap. That kind of fall would do me nicely. If it's more, then all the better. Roll on Q3, let's see what insanity it brings us.

Agreed. All is just noise until then. Advice to buy NOW! or trying time the nominal bottom of any drop is about as useful as ... I am going to see where we are in September/October and make my mind up then based upon the market trajectory. PS; Much respect for that one liner Timm ?

I have never bought but have a healthy deposit. The very earliest I could have bought would have been 2007, so avoided that bullet. Arguably should have bought in 2012, but personal circumstances, job etc. not favourable at the time. I had planned to buy later this year as I am fed up of the vested interests in this country constantly adding more fuel to what is completely unsustainable. COVID-19 has put a stop to that and now I am watching with keen interest as this awful melodrama plays out and I continue to build my deposit. Fully intending to buy in 12-18 months depending upon how the market looks at that time. What should happen? Things are so far beyond sensible, due to excessive lending and government props that a 40-60% falls would be entirely reasonable. What will probably happen? Turkey's don't vote for Christmas and you can bet they will throw the kitchen sink at this. What daft scheme they will use I couldn't tell you, but it will be disguised as help, when a closer analogy would be giving a bottle of Scotch to an alcoholic. My best guess is 10-20% falls will result independent of government interference. What will actually happen? Your guess is as good as mine. I didn't expect any great falls until the initial props ran out, furlough etc. so I think things will start in September/October, the early stuff is just background noise so I am rather sanguine about Rishi's latest little wheeze. What actually counts is unemployment. The key is unemployment. If they control unemployment by some means then I expect the lower end of falls to occur. If unemployment rises so will the falls. If they loose control of unemployment then it truly will be full crash ahead independent of the props. As always, 'You pays your money, you take your chance'. Good luck to you

I think you are likely to remain unhappy then. Drops, quite possibly substantial ones look increasingly likely, but I can't see it getting anywhere near 85%. Frankly if it falls 10% I will be better off having chosen to rent rather than to buy.

Channel 4 News; 11,000 more unemployed in the last 48 hours

THIS! The first graph shows UK unemployment rate, Feb to April data from the ONS has that currently standing at 3.9% (https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment) The second is from the front page of the site, the correlation between unemployment and house prices is stark.