D'artagnan

...unless it's true. As many people seem to forget, estate agents only get paid when the property sells. If buyers are flexible, it's absolutely best to convey that message to potential buyers to get a higher chance of completing the sale and earning that commission! It is starting to feel a bit like 2008 again!

Very interesting indeed. Anecdotally, I know somebody who is quite keen to sell up (and rent) but did not want to fork out the money for a HIP. This could kick things off nicely. Ultimately I think the tories will go for the free-market approach rather than New Labour's 'prop it up at all costs' approach. Rock on! P.S. An unrelated anecdote: Paid some money in at a well-known building society today at the height of the lunchtime 'rush hour' and was amazed when I got served straight away - no queues and barely a customer in sight! It was quite surreal compared to the hustle and bustle of the high street immediately outside!!! I guess savers are few and far between these days...

Easy - they're keeping their powder dry until the election has been announced. The public have short memories!

I have a lot of sympathy with Alastair Darling. He seems like a decent bloke and is not afraid to speak his mind! All this and he was given perhaps the worst job going. As others have said, not only has he got to try and clear up Gordon's mess, but he's got to continue working with him too!!

Conservatives - Open Source Planning

...or maybe Cameron is actually being pretty clever. If he also says he will not make cuts, suddenl;y the gilts market would look very interesting, would it not? There was an argument to say that the only reason we haven't yet had a gilts crisis is that investors assume that the tories will win the election AND that they will make "swingeing cuts" to the public sector. By coming out and saying what he has, he: a ) buys a lot of public sector workers' votes. b ) brings forward the gilts crisis so that it happens on Gordie's watch Genius :-) Edit: typo!

Well, I wouldn't rule anything out - I just hope people don't start turning to the likes of the BNP :-/

lol - I wondered about that - this is my first recession as an adult (I'd probably not have noticed these as a youngster in the 80's). Still, it really shocked me.

Don't think so - there was definitely a space. and the 'sign' was on a piece of A4.

I was paying a visit to some family in Brum over the weekend and already knew that the area had been arguably hit hardest by the recession (10% unemployment) but it really hit home when I saw a sign in a factory/warehouse window saying 'no jobs' in large letters. It was reminiscent of the sort of signs they had in the Great Depression. Things must be fairly desparate! :-( I also took in a footie game (West Brom vs Newcastle) whilst I was down there, and despite cut price tickets, attendance was the lowest I have ever seen on my numerous visits to the Hawthorns in recent years! Will be especially interesting to see what happens at the election, since B'ham and the Black Country is predominantly dyed-in-the-wool labour territory.

Personally, I don't think he had a choice. I reckon he made it 'clear' that he was 'happy' to attend before the election assuming that it wouldn't happen. I think Sir John called his bluff lol I will love watching him squirm and rightly get tarred with the same brush as Tony Blair. It just keeps getting better lol Edit: Just to say that it'd be worth watching just to actually see Gordie give a straight answer to a question!!!

Doh, my maths is dodgy (been a long day!) - 1.45% :-)

http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/1005361.article?cmpid=MME01&cmptype=newsletter Ouch! That's gotta hurt!!

Nothing like a bit of hypocrisy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Darling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_blair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Harman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Balls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessa_Jowell

In my opinion, house prices will remain flat until after the election, but once the tories are in, I reckon they'll abolish HIPs. Frankly, I think a lot of people that are sailing pretty close to the wind in terms of their finances and would perhaps like to sell up, but cannot afford a £400 outlay on a HIP. The whole house of cards looks as vulnerable as ever - but I do not feel there is anything (yet) that has sparked it off. But when this baby goes, I don't think there will be any stopping it next time. Personally, I think there will be some sharp rate increases in the near future, perhaps forced by a currency crisis at some point in 2010? I think that will be the trigger as those on SVR's/trackers suddenly find they simply can't afford their mortgages anymore... Also, I guess we shouldn't underestimate the impact of tax rises etc. after the election, whoever wins. Anecdotally, there seem to be an awful lot of adverts for lodgers at the moment!

Hi there - not sure when this happened, but I noticed today that Egg are no longer offering personal loans. It also looks like they're currently not taking mortgage applications because they're ' reviewing their range of products'. Seems fairly significant given that Egg did not actively target subprime customers! Very strange... P.S. Hope this is not old news :-)

But doesn't QE make the whole thing irrelevant? what's to stop the BoE just printing out way out of this mess?

I do not have much knowledge in this area, but even I can see something is brewing. What are the likely effects of a gilt strike? Are we looking at higher interest rates? If so, are we talking 2%? 5? 10%? I guess investors would be looking for a greater risk premium which would lead to the higher rates? Shoot me down, by all means :-)

Hi there, Not sure whether this has been posted before, but I found this very interesting video on the idea of taxing Land rather than income, thereby rewarding those who put things into society and taxing those that take things out of society: Not sure about the idea of a 'Citizen's income' though! :-/

thanks for the replies so far guys - some interesting stuff :-)

I'd really appreciate some answers to some questions from one or more of the resident HPC economics gurus: What happens if we have to go (to use the phrase) 'cap in hand' to the IMF? What happens to interest rates? Presumably, there would be conditions to stop us inflating away the debt? Are we talking possible double-digit interest rates? Also, why might we be forced to go to the IMF? What might precipitate this situation? ...and finally, looking at the bigger picture, would this be a good thing in that it might finally stop the recent madness and force some return to sanity from the 'more heroin for the drug addict' policies that the present government appear to be pursuing? With the added bonus that it would definitely finish off Brown and hopefully Labour also? Thanks for your time :-)

Really weird stuff going on here!! It seemed like the housing market was indeed 'moving' again three weeks ago with FTB-type properties going under offer left, right and centre. Over the last week or so, however, the trend seems to have reversed again, with some of these properties starting to trickle back onto the market, sales presumably having fallen through. I have noticed the reductions have also started again on many properties, and mostly not small amounts either (7 or 8% a time). Very strange!

Should have said, it seems to be almost exclusively the first time buyer (i.e. low end) properties that are going under offer. Should cause some interesting statistics when looking at the average sale price! It may very well speed up the falls on the indices. Will be interesting to see ecactly what happens

I have been watching the local market here for a while now and it really seems like, after some very promising initial falls, houses are starting to shift again now (or at least going 'Under Offer'). Weirdly, despite this, there still seem to be quite a few properties being further discounted. I do not live too far from Bradford, which has been hit quite a bit recently by redundancies and has the potential for many more. Will be interesting to see how many of these actually convert to sales.... I am assuming that you do not need to have a mortgage arranged in order to have an offer agreed? (Sorry if that is a dumbass question, but have never been through the housebuying process!!) Keep the faith :-)

Up until the last week or so, virtually nothing had sold for some time round here (a small-ish Yorkshire market town). However, in the past few days, I have noticed that many of the lowest price properties have gone 'under offer'! Are we seeing an influx of FTB's or investors? The ones that have gone under offer don't seem to be particularly reasonably priced and asking prices round these parts have so far not reflected the kinds of falls being reported by the Haliwide indices. I can only assume that there are some very cheeky offers being made (and accepted). That said, still nothing really seems to be shifting in terms of more expensive properties...