nickb1

according to LSL Acadata, new release, based on LR figs, Reading is down 4% YoY and 2% MoM. "Worse" than Bracknell.

+1 You can also see this in Richard Werner's work, who distinguishes between credit issued for productive and non-productive (transactions with existing assets) purposes. Very close fit to GDP with the former. His "new paradigm in macroeconomics" should be a modern classic.

The article focusses on an argument based on net present value of future rental income. This assumes that people know interest rates will continue to be low far into the future. Surely more concrete is the fact that lower interest rates increase the amount people can afford to borrow looking only at their monthly outgoings. They also state that houses are an asset, not a good, so the price is driven by NPV of rents. In that case if you taxed rents 100%, the price would be zero?

I hope and believe you are wrong on all counts 😉 I have in mind that there will really only be the current regime to blame for food and medicine price hikes and shortages, collapsing pound etc. and reactions even from within the C party to the "proroging" (= pro - rogue?). As for QE, well printing money is always an option, but to do this to buy back bonds? with interest rates so low this limits government ability to borrow via further bond issues, which will leave it in a fix in the recession. They could use money printing for other purposes having left the EU (at the mo. Maastricht treaty prohibits overt deficit financing) but to do so would break the current social contract between government and finance, which leaves the banks in control of the money supply.

A no deal Brexit may be high price to pay for the long overdue death of the conservative party, but a silver lining in every cloud. Plus, finally, a HPC? In the meantime, stocking up on medicines, beans and pasta.

er, a house?

Is this it? Have been following the LSL Acadata series as it's based on LR data but using data as it comes in. There is some statistical jiggery pokery providing estimates for the data yet to arrrive. Last month they published E&W figures for May which were -0.1% MoM and +0.3% YoY. This month's release (with more data for May) says May -0.2% MoM and -0.1% YoY. This month's release for June says +0.1% MoM and +0.1% YoY After about 3 months their data should approximate the LR data. From Jan the index is showing falls YoY for E&W, up until May with a weird uptick showing for June. So the more information is incorporated the more the index is showing (so far small) falls for E&W as a whole. The regional graph for May (in the new release) looks promising: But we know that the ONS series for London (which also has some estimation for missing data) is now showing -4.4% for May YoY.

£40bn pa net increase in mortgage lending per year seems high, gut feeling, especially recently. Not sure what the logic is of translating into newbuilds if it includes loans on existing properties. The £1.3tn sounds plausible but don't see how it relates to the £40bn figure as we are then comparing stocks and flows. But maybe I am talking crap jumping in on a thread I've not read from the start ... it's more entertaining than work ...

? doesn't total debt need to have repayments subtracted.

I guess the mortgages on newbuilds count as that - less the land price element

Agree 100%. Alas it's far from the case here...

Is it not the case that mortgage debt is the single largest component of UK lending? and therefore money creation? I think it has been about 55-65% of it according to BoE M4 and M4L series.

LSL Acadata -0.1% MoM April-May 2019 (latest release). But pick a number: -0.3% YoY (Apr-Apr) + 0.3% YoY (May-May).

how good is this as a "leading indicator" of prices?

A leading indicator related to the above is change in time taken to sell. Rightmove has data for example... year on year, Apr 2018-2019, these show an 8% increase in time to sell nationally (64 days April 2019 versus 59 days April 2018). In the SE 74 days versus 70 days April 2018. I think this plus YoY changes in stock per agent would be good indicators. This shows a similar increase in Rightmove data. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/