tenroom

You can get a one bed place in my manor - Ladbroke Grove - for £200 a week which isn't that bad. There's plenty of cheap places to eat. Tube is diabolically expensive as are taxis and minicabs but that's London-wide. Too many of us expect the latest style in furniture and stripped wood floors and while they're nice-to-have, they don't half cost

I think you believe that everyone sets as much store by money and its perceived enhancement of daily life as you do. For sure, if you're blighted by status anxiety the I guess you willfeel pissed off about not having the appropriate flat/house, the new M3 convertible, the management role at work and a bird with the right looks and a deep cleavage but that's only if you measure yourself by whatever everyone else appears to have. I know plenty of people who rent off the council, drive buses or tube trains, work in shops or for the post office who are perfectly content and don't spend their lives bitching about not being able to buy property. Trite as this may sound, there is much more to life

Well, y'know if we lived in a country where employers owned all the properties, then I guess there wouldn't be a problem with paying a grunt 40 large to do a job. But hte fact is that it's not an employer's fault if an employee can't afford to buy a property and nor should it be. Shelter is a basic requirement but ownership of said shelter is not. In any case, the comment was meant to highlight why Britain can no longer be a manufacturing powerhouse.

Oh we still do make things . . . it's just that our workers expect £40K, a company car and a final salary pension scheme to do it. I think people hark back to Britain's golden age far too much. Thread after thread has discussed why we cannot compete with the emerging economies when it comes to manufacturing cheap goods. Everyone - on here anyway - tends to slate London but the fact remains that our lovely capital city is stupendously successful as the financial centre of Europe and maybe one day, the world. It's not an accolade that'll ever be foisted upon Beijing, Shanghai, Pune or Delhi. Things have moved on - much of it to our detriment - but I can't see a day when the expertise of our financial sector is shunted to the far east.

Erm . . . No - they didn't ! I clearly recall a stampede for fixed rate deals around the time I fixed mine at 4.95% for 5 years and that was in Oct '04. Obviously I can't be sure how many took 2 or 3 year deals but I do remember those deals running out a lot quicker than the 5 year ones. Again, where are all the stories of mounting difficulties of people coming to the end of their 2 or 3 year deals ? Time to stop clutching at straws methinks

I really wouldn't mind so much but you've been bleating on about the shock awaiting fixed rate borrowers for ooh . . . . lemme see . . . . ages and, lo & behold, there hasn't been the tiniestsniff of a crisis. People have been coming to end of fixed rate deals for the last year. RB . . . just how long have you been calling the crash ?

Well, Spain built 750,000 homes last year . There's lots of supply. the UK built fukk all to be honest.

Nicely put . . .

What ??!! That's the sort of thing that someone getting their social commentary from the Daily Mail would say. You're effectively saying that news of a 10 year old boom in house prices has only just filtered down to the non-white Brits and that makes you a fukking tool.

The thing is . . . if PG was anything of the sort, he'd not have sold his fictitious"empire" 2 years ago and missed out on a significant chunk of HPI. As I've always maintained, he's just a parasite . . . never makes much of a contribution other than last year when he stuck his pencil neck out for a nanosecond to whisper the phrase "Q107" before scuttling back under his bridge. Needless to say, the hopeless gimp was wrong as he always is.

Now isn't that timely ?! The uber-tool, PropertyGuru returns. The man who made £3m on BTL and then done it all on lapdancers and a drinks bill at Venus

like I said, there's sweet FA for sale in Kensington and Notting Hill. The OP's on drugs.

Nonsense ! There's still as little available for sale as there ever was . . . I DO love it, though, when people predict "exactly" what's going to happen. ie

There might be merit in what you say were it not for the fact that neither Jade Goody nor her mother's race has been used to hold back her socio-economic advancement in what is a predominantly white anglo-saxon country. I'm sure, however, that had Jermaine called her a really racist name like "honky" or "cracker" he'd have been summarily evicted . . . if he could get past all the bodies writhing on the floor in laughter-induced agony.

I don't think the US is going to go into recession . . .. well not a deep and prolonged one at any rate. Any damage as a result of their housing bust has been largely limited to people who - for lack of a better description - simply don't matter. They still have very low unemployment and there doesn't appear to be any major single catalyst in sight. It does appear that we are in a "Golden age for capitalism" and time-honoured, reliable signs of impending doom are no longer relevant. We have full employment, the crowing on this site at the prospect of inflation busting pay deals has proven to be embarrassingly premature and the financial sector is still seeing no abatement in M&A activity. It all looks rosy . . . but . . . I've got this feeling. Can't quite place it but something is definitely going to blow up and it's going to start with the hedge funds and PE. Watch this space . . .

Didn't realise there was a market outside London Seriously though, the crash has been called time & time again. First that uber-tool, PropertyGuru rocked up with his "Q107" bo11ox and RB's been banging on with his "GC2" for the past 3 years whilst, all around, there've been despairing posts from bears who've had the fight knocked out of them and have finally capitulated to the great media swindle and gone out and bought. I've no doubt the correction's coming but I just find it highly amusing that the hardcore bears simply can't stop getting it wrong.

Oh FFS . . . I wish people would just shut the f**k up about people working in the City. I work here - in recruitment, not banking - and although I don't bust my balls, I still work fairly hard and pull down just under the City average. There are lots of guys who make 3 times that but they're here 100 hours a week and are too tired to go out and have a real life at the weekend. They're driven by all sorts of things . . . fear of being skint, wanting to beat the other guy or just plain avarice. Equally there are lots of guys who make half what I earn and are the most relaxed, charming and wonderful people. Who gives a toss what the Standard thinks ? Reading that paper, anyone'd think that London consisted of the Square Mile and Notting Hill in isolation. We all know the party's coming to an end soon so who really cares ? Jealousy ain't half ugly . . .

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sure it will but by nowhere near the levels you lot are expecting. Literally everything in any decent part of London is selling and i include ex-LA in that.

Even if they have been calling the top of the market longer than RB

No I can't say that I knew that but it's of no great significance. E London have seen much new build development because they were 5hitholes before. The rest of London - even South - continues to fly off the shelves. Where there are real communities rather than tumbleweed-ridden housing estates populated by poncey, smug "professionals", there will always money to lend

Ok so a couple of areas aren't pulling their weight but overall, London property is runnign away with the ball. Thing is . . . you all know it. No amount of spin is going to convince anyone that the South East is in trouble. 90% of what is on the market in London, is snapped up. . .

They are . . . London's a prime example !!

They are . . . London's a prime example !!