tabliski

In my area there is a marked uptick in property transactions. I suspect that this is more to do with catchment areas and the desire to get kids into decent primary and secondary schools in time. Whether it will continue I don't know. I am also interested in sold prices as these will be the baseline for the next round of properties coming onto the market. Hopefully it will continue the slow downward drift. Nothing dramatic so far but on top of a couple of years of stagnation and some wage rises it all adds up.

The big issue with the perma-bears is they are correct. There is an everything bubble. This is a lot of debt. There will be a correction. One day. Where they are totally wrong is that timing that correction is unfeasibly difficult. They also presume that governments will do nothing to tackle the correction. I can predict with some certainty that my car will break down in the next 5 years. Does leaving it parked up on my drive for the next 5 years make me savvy or should I drive it regardless and take action when it does breakdown knowing a mechanic will put it right, even if it does cause a temporary financial hit and some inconvenience?

So the man who: Sold the nations gold at historic lows Ushered in the era of BTL mortgages Built less social housing than the previous Conservative government. Made the BOE independent and shifted inflation target from RPI to CPI. Meddled with pensions and tax relief for short term gain. Ignored repeated warnings from the IMF that the housing bubble in the UK was out of control. Called voters in the Labour heartland Bigots for daring to discuss immigration and unwittingly paved the way for Brexit. Thinks something should be done about poverty. There hasn't been a politician with a vision or level of competence in the UK since Thatcher. And I despise her vision and the path she took the UK on, but I can at least respect that she had a plan. I despair at the lot of these clowns.

No. I do however respect the right for people to do so and will address them accordingly. Personally I am not sure if this movement is causing greater inclusivity or just muddying the waters of any meaningful action. The fact that being born with one set of biological differences or another should have any cultural meaning, should influence dress or behavior, should influence pay or career choice, should be differentiated in law or provision of services. Or that people should have to conform and adopt the norms or expectations of either based on biology is absurd. For me these are the big battles and the focus on biology or language are a little futile, but it's not my war and I won't dictate the terms of engagement. I do think it gives corporates and governments a mandate to do very little though. A few token gestures that are very visible like social media pages with rainbow flags, email signature policy, a member of staff getting a salary to promote inclusivity etc but behind the facade it's business as usual and nothing really changes

I get this by knowing what a professional be they skilled manual trade or certified profession actually earns. The average wage doesn't reflect this. An experienced plumber or sparky is easily on 35-50K, A secondary school teacher with management or responsibility points is on 30-60K, a skilled IT person 30-70K. These are what I consider lower middle class professionals. The old money Law, Medicine, Accountancy etc should be earning far north of these figures by their late 30s to mid 40s.

I would hazzard a guess that people who live in cities feel that the work opportunities, cosmopolitan atmosphere and the abundance of culture outweigh the noise, pollution, crime and costs. People who live in the countryside enjoy the natural beauty, peace and quiet and relaxed pace of life and will accept that there are less work opportunities, less music, theatre, arts and often some isolation from other parts of the country and airports and other means of international travel. Strangely if you asked someone who had deliberately moved from the country to the city or vice versa they would say that it was a good decision after all they made it. London and Paris and Tokyo and New York have a lot to offer but are expensive, have always been expensive and I don't expect that to change. They don't offer the best standard of living for those of slender means but can offer some great work opportunities, particularly when you're starting out in a career. I wouldn't head to Penzance if I wanted a career in the media or the creative industries or high finance etc. Regional cities and towns can also be fantastic places to live. Horses for courses. You do seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about London.

200K deposit so a mortgage of 320K or so if we factor in moving costs. So just over 2K per month at 5.2% over 25 years (less than the after tax income of the lower earner). I'm not sure it's that risky. I guess it's down to your appetite for risk.

I have tried repeating my know your enemy mantra on here a few times. By this I mean the people competing with you to buy a house. As you rightly say 100K joint income is what I would expect a couple of professionals to be earning by their late 30s / early 40s. For the traditional old money professions like law, accountancy, medicine they could easily be achieving this by their late 20s. Then we have the totally outrageous incomes of CEOs, CTOs as well as most senior management who will easily be earning that figure (in many cases just as a bonus) on their own.

100K combined household income is what I would expect most middle class professionals ( as in those with a profession skilled manual or otherwise rather than the generic term given to an office worker) to be earning give or take £10K or so. It's most definitely not a huge amount of money. For the old money professions such as law, medicine, accountancy it's the sort of figure I would expect a few years after graduation rather than by the mid to late 30s that say an engineer, skilled tech worker, skilled plumber or electrician with a partner working in a middle management, teaching, HR job etc. One problem with HPC is there is the idea that everyone is earning very low salaries. Successive governments have failed to build sufficient social housing or affordable housing so it's no surprise that the large numbers of people on decent incomes are chasing the 28% of property that comes onto the market. (32.6% is owned outright, 17% social housing, 20% rented, couple of %. not specificied may be derelict etc).

They have obviously never heard of Woking, Byfleet, Chertsey,Knaphill,Staines etc Plenty of property around the £600K mark in catchment areas and commuting distance to London. Your not going to get a 30s semi or a Victorian villa in Ealing or Islington on the salary she quotes unfortunately.

You both fail to mention that in 2008 it was incredibly difficult to borrow. The world was reeling from the biggest financial shock since the great depression and rates were dropped in a radical and desperate attempt to revive the global economy. Cash was king and it was the incredible buying opportunity for anyone who didn't need a big loan.

Honestly. I have no idea. It all depends on the direction of travel of interest rates. With the current geopolitical situation I don't think anyone can really know what will happen next month let alone next year.

Agreed.

32% of the total property pool in the UK is owned outright. The last 5 years in particular saw a huge surge in people paying off their mortgage and if we put 2+2 together I think we can say that is people doing so before they retire. There is a lot of data that people are not downsizing for various reasons. A big one being the total collapse of young people buying property with estimates that up to 50% less since the 80s peak. A record number of under 30s live with parents in the family home. Then are reasons of keeping the equity to pass on to their kids. So yes I think a lot of the mass exodus of so called boomers property flooding the market and assisting a crash is nonsense. If it isn't used for care it's likely to be passed on to offspring. They may sell, rent or live in it. Only 48% of total UK property is mortgaged ( the remaining 17% being social housing). So this makes up your pool of potential crash houses. 20% of which is rented. So far the mass consumption boomers you dismiss appear to have been fairly financially savy. There is fairly compelling evidence that the explosion in the growth of the stock market over the last 40 years ago was accelerated and in response to the boomers preparation for retirement. Personally my thoughts around this are: Flood of housing helping HPC NO Shrinking of the stock market as the boomers draw down and fewer people invest (due to demographic and wealth destruction) POSSIBLE Increasing in inflation and taxation YES for a bunch of reasons too long to summarize here.

Sorry to hear this. I am at an age now where parents and particularly inlaws are getting frail and have had numerous fairly serious health scares.

I guess the question is how high do they go. So far the real economy has absorbed 5% with some pain but no real drama. Can the stock market do the same?

So do you have a compelling argument to persuade me that the boomer demise is another factor that will assist a HPC or is that it? Had you said that demographic changes will possibly lead to interest rates staying higher for longer or put pressure on taxation we may be on the path to some interesting discussion.

Well you have just provided another reason why the boomer HPC wave of properties is going to help the crash is most likely just more hot air.

The point of the thread is that the first wave of the boomers (post war generation like my parents) are now in their late seventies and early eighties. Fairly erroneously (in my view) this generation are blamed for taking all the assets and having easy street pensions. Well a lot of these assets will shortly be available again sadly as people are not immortal. I have heard people say this will cause a house price crash as so many end of chain properties will hit the market at once (I don't think this is true for various reasons already being discussed). There is more nuance as well as to the idea that the last couple of decades having lower inflation partially due to a more prudent generation putting a bigger percentage of their wages into private pensions during the latter years of their working lives rather than buying goods and services. My parents were very much delayed gratification type of people. In fact I would not be surprised if they have spent more on goods, services and holidays in the last 10 years than they did in their entire working lives (starting at 15 or 16 right though to 65).

Nope Gen X lived through that and the Millennials had a toehold. Most of the boomers would have been suffering the peaks and troughs of the 70s, 80s and 90s and those quaint olde worlde recessions we used to enjoy.

In real terms I wouldn't be surprised if my area has already "fallen" 10% + It's been fairly static for a couple of years and wages have gone up. There was a bit of optimistic pricing (trying for the COVID peak) with houses not shifting but many have now been reduced by 4/5% or so. I am interested in the final land registry prices as I would expect buyers to be offering 5% or so less. This will become the baseline for future EA valuations. Things are picking up (circumstantially) in some areas. Is this enough to tempt you or are you waiting for the big one? Even bigger than the 2007 crises that saw significant falls but were not seen as significant enough.

For me everything points to western countries having to adapt to lives that developing nations have been living for generations: A shaped distribution of wealth Less reliance on the state to provide and more reliance on themselves and their extended family. More frugal use of energy and raw materials. Re-evaluation of the way we cook and eat. A less dominant position on the international stage. Etc. It's going to be a boiled frog situation. These are not changes that will happen abruptly. We are already in transition. My primary concern is that the populace won't accept this and politicians certainly won't like the idea that they are no longer top dog in global affairs. Draw your own conclusions about how this may end up

If they stay in London or the SE and live in the inherited home or sell it to buy another one they are "virtual" millionaires. It's not real unless they cash it in and move elsewhere.

Not always possible. One of the biggest problems with people living far longer than the past are conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's which can require specialist round the clock care. Increasingly we are seeing situations where the retired elderly who a a bit frail themselves have to look after the extremely elderly.

This is a good point. My neighbours both went into a care home a couple of years ago. One has now died but the husband is still going strong.