PalmerEldritch

The brochures always look very professional although I must admit to only glancing through them before consigning them to the trash.

Ha and they big themselves up as "business people with accountancy experience". Probably too busy examining their BTL balance sheets wondering where it's all gone wrong. Seriously, I was quite surprised to find such a relevant question in the paper. Still won't help my chances of passing though, the exam was brutal. Oh well, re-sits in May08 it is then.

Just sat one of my CIMA exams and one of the long questions was regarding a house building business and it's apparent reliance on the relatively strong housing market even though sales seemed to have halved in the last year and it had no real assets to speak of except of course it's unsold inventory of new build crap? Come on. Who's responsible? The sentiment seems to be spreading EVERYWHERE.

Yep. It was your previous posts that started me looking at the builders and I'm astonished just how far they (and the banks) are falling. Full steam ahead to affordable housing please captain. Cheers.

I've been considering putting a little cash aside and start doing some online trading. Can you suggest a good trading site? Is there somewhere you can practice with "virtual" funds before risking your own cash?

http://ichart.europe.yahoo.com/c/3m/b/bdev.l DOWN DOWN DOWN

How much of the £24k is going in the bank's back pocket? ie. Interest So you've lost £22k on the value of your house and been paying the bank interest on the full value for the privilege?

OK. So on the Hometrack report it says "Overall we expect the rate of house price growth to slow over the coming months but the scale of these falls is likely to be limited by a lack of supply of properties coming to the market for sale." BUT Julian King of National Homebuyers says, "Many homeowners have found it necessary to opt for a quick property sale, usually because of financial problems." "Today we are seeing a surge in enquiries from people who are looking for a fast property sale because they understand that the immediate future is not so rosy." Strange!!!

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1288417,00.html Some decent news on an otherwise depressing Monday morning.

This whole mess has been a mixture of ramping, speculation and cheap/easy credit. It's all over. A few months of dropping prices mixed with front page headlines and the bubble pops.

Seem to remember a few people on here banging on about how prices were still going through the roof in Aberdeen. Not anymore according to the local paper... http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/displayNo...tentPK=18653157

Nope. From what I could see he's already sold a major chunk of his "empire" on and is waiting on other projects finishing up. Actually says he'd "rather have his money in the bank than in residential property" the way things are panning out. Predicts a 30% fall in property over the next 2 years. You shouldn't underestimate the importance of this type of article. There are a lot of wannabe wide boys/girls who read the Standard (especially Friday for the ES Magazine) and this may all come as a big shock to them.

Interesting article in todays Standard. VERY Bearish. BTL investor (worth £700m) says he hasn't bought residential property in 15 months and that the market is now dead. He goes on to say how the man on the street who's jumped in over the last 2 years will be in for big trouble. Hopefully thousands of amatuer BTL idiots will read this on their way home on the tube tonight. A thoughtful weekend in store for some of them ha ha ha ha ha ha.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home "Purchases declined 8.3 percent to an annual pace of 795,000, the lowest level in more than seven years, from a revised 867,000 rate in July, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median price dropped 7.5 percent from August 2006, the most since 1970." This problem is going to get a LOT worse in the coming year.

Noticed that, especially in London. Even the 200k-250k properties were down 22%. All the 800k + properties were up around 17% which I think explains the average price still going up by so much. Top end properties were still shifting 3 months ago but the bottom end of the market seems to have dried up. Looks like there is no bottom rung anymore.

I've been quite bearish about the housing market since 2004 when I actually started to be in a financial position which should have allowed me to consider buying. I was honestly blown away when I discoveed it was around a quarter of a million pounds for a small 1 bedroom flat in the area I was renting. But HPI just kept rolling on and there seemed to be no end of fools ready to stretch theirselves dangerously to get on the ladder, not to mention BTL parasites. So I stayed a "Neither" and watched with wonder as the madness continued. Now....I finally believe the end is in sight. The amount of bad news trickling through about subprime has turned into a flood, the stock market is on a knife edge and most important of all the aforementioned fools will not be able to get a mortgage rate to make their financial model work. Bring It On.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1282239,00.html "The housing boom is coming to an end. There's a good chance that prices will fall next year. Don't believe me? Well, let's look at the house-price data that's come out during the last few days. The Land Registry said yesterday that UK house prices only rose by 0.1% in July while Rightmove said that prices fell in London in August. What happens in London could spread elsewhere in time... Then the Nationwide Building Society chipped in today. Admittedly, Nationwide's seasonally-adjusted number shows a 0.6% rise in UK house prices for August compared to a 0.1% rise in July. However, the non-adjusted figure shows a slight fall and annual house-price inflation has slowed from 9.9% to 9.6%. Then there's Nationwide's sales-to-stock ratio. This looks at sales as a percentage of the total housing stock on the market at that time. It's tumbled to below 40% this year compared to a ten-year high of around 60% in 2002. Nationwide says this ratio lags house prices by five to seven months, so that's not a good sign. What's more, Nationwide said today that there has been a 'collapse in new buyer enquiries.' Not good..."

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNew...421587720070816 DOW may be in even more trouble than it thought !!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home ``We're hearing Beazer is supposedly going bankrupt,'' said Michael Nasto, senior trader at U.S. Global Investors Inc., which manages $5 billion in San Antonio. ``If in fact that comes to fruition, the market's going to be in a world of hurt.'' Ooops.

Well it must be an absolute palace then. £1200 for a 1bed in Hackney???? I can confirm that rents around my area (NW3) have gone up this year by around 10% but it's only the nicer places that are achieving that premium. I reckon all the people who should have been able to afford to buy a nice place are fighting for the nicest available rentals, and so pushing up the prices, but the lower end stuff has been around the same price p/w for the last 5 years.

We are in BIG SCHTUCK. Love It.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

£150k for a flat in London? You are Billy Liar. Either that or you live in a crack den. Go and smoke some more crack......nutter.

Debt at record levels. Reposessions on the way up. Over a million fixed rate mortgages to be re-set this year. UK interest rates to be increased at least one more time this year. Global economies pricing in increasing inflation and therefore more interest rate rises to look forward to.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6751655.stm These .25% interest rate rises are having absolutley no effect whatsoever. Time to raise them properly if the BOE want to contain the inflation monster.