ReggiePerrin

In the recent past the following records have been broken 1. The biggest house price drop in a month (Halifax) 2. RICS report showing the largest number of valuers reporting drops as opposed to rises since records began. 3. CML data showing the lowest number of mortgage approvals since records began. 4. The biggest and most ****-ups by any Government since Neville Chamberlain and his piece of paper. (10% tax, CGT, HPI, losing my bank details, etc, etc) 5. The largest bailout of UK banks since they invented the bank note. 6. The highest price ever paid for a barrel of oil. Any ideas on the next record that will be broken? Are there any records left that can be broken?

You have to have your acount upgraded, there's a sticky above, after that you can create threads without having to wait for a mod to do whatever the mods do.

And todays winner of the double speak award for gibberish is awarded jointly to Rod Bowers and Jeroen Heijdeman of Moody's So things are getting worse and because things are getting worse they're going to get even more worse, soon?? I'm afraid English is my first language so I may not have translated this properly.

Wasn't that place on the League of Gentlemen? The picture looks like them/there.

The bottom of the market has been totally mucked up by the BTL Brigade and overall by lax lending. In order of value it used to be from the lowest to highest, very roughly and by no means complete. 1. Flats. 2. Terraced House 3. Semi-detached 4. Detached Prices used to be based on the next level down plus some more. If the bottom falls out of the market then the rest have to come down as well. It's anyone's guess what will happen when the BTL'er influence disappears or they flood the market in the short term. My guess is that selling prices will all drop substantially, a conservative figure of a minimum of 20% drops across all property types. IMHO

So the suckers (BTL'ers)/developers who are crying out for housing associations to buy their 1 and 2 bed 'luxury' apartments and won't because they're rubbish are losing out to the people who live on luxury estates and don't want housing association people anywhere near them.

LOL Oh.. So this isn't the companies email system? You lot don't work here?

If this causes BTL'ers to wet their pants then what will happen when ... a £100,000 home with an £85,000 mortgage falls in value by 10pc and the lender reduces the maximum LTV from 85% to 65%. My mistake.. it is happening.

But the example you used originally to justify income mulitipliers greater than normal is different to the argument you make in your post above. The problem is people who go for high mulitpliers are doing it right up to the limit of affordibility, they rely:- On HPI to reduce the LTV when they remortgage. Wage inflation to reduce the size of the replayments. Low interest rates to keep replayments small Inflation generally to reduce the "size" of the debt, e.g. £20,000 20 years ago bought a lot more than it does now And worst of all, credit cards and unsecured loans to pay for everyday stuff and/or emergencies, e.g. the wheels fall off the car, because they'll MEW later. If one or more of these fails to happen then the individual is in for trouble. As this hasn't worked out very well for a lot of people the economy is in crisis because of lax lending, and this has nothing to do with what we write here, that's why the banks have to go back to the tried and trusted methods for determining the maximum they should lend. I thank my god that we didn't go down this route to financial disaster.

Because, Interest rates have for the last 8-10 years been below the historical average. A mortgage is generally for 25 years, so loading yourself up with debt to the point where £50 a month becomes important (I speak in terms of the example given, £50 is a lot of money to a lot of people) then you are over exposed to any upward movements in interest rates or downward movements of house prices. You can easily cancel the Sky package if your circumstances change, you can't cancel a mortgage so easily and be guaranteed to be able to pay off the debt. Any bank that allows itself to become over exposed to borrowers who are unable to service debts could be in a lot of trouble.. which is where we are now. Edited last sentence for clarity

Your original post I only clambered onto my high horse when you came onto this forum already mounted on yours (the worst analogy I've ever written) You originally stated "It puzzles me why almost all the people on here seem to so desperately want a property market collapse and are quite gleefull about it." You then lambasted us with the statement "Only in the case of people here you aren't prepared to risk large sums of your own cash or acrifice your lifestyles." I explained my situation to you, why I won't take risks and why I greet price falls with glee and ignore the thoughts of people who "risk" their future. You came back at me about businesses. You now compare renting on the continent to renting in the UK.. Do you know about AST agreements and the limitations we have on us when we rent compared to the continent? We can't paint our daughters room pink (I'm actually quite thankful about that) or have pets for the children, you explain to a 5 year old why she can't have a cat when her friends do. Your comparing apples with pears. Now I'm willing to climb of my horse if you will. Perhaps you can explain the impact that price falls will have on you and what the future lies ahead for you if things go pear shaped. Individuals who detail their personal situation aren't generally greeted with hostility here. Although GB and AD might get a hostile reception.

You mean a business that deprives others of a home or puts people in to so much debt that they will be ruined? Yep, I'll gladly greet the demise of such a business with glee. I apologise to the OP for going off topic.

I've rented since 2001, long story, very boring, but I'm married with two children .. We (My wife and I) were not prepared to sacrifice the childrens lifestyle or cash that could be spent on them by buying an over valued box in the hope it would provide us with a better pension, more holidays or a bigger car. The only thing we want is a home, only one, not overpriced, nothing extravagent, just a place to live in as a family. The other luxuries in our life are paid for from our wages and what we can save not by gambling on house price rises. If we offend you with our gleeful welcome of bad news with no regard to BLT'ers etc then we are no different to the BTL'ers etc who welcomed price rises with glee and no thought to our feelings .. I can live with that, they gambled their families future, mainly for personal gain and lost, we didn't gamble our familes future and appear now to have made the better decision. That's life. Edited for spelling

The Questions The Journalists Should Be Asking [Themselves] What have I been doing ramping HPI for so long, why didn't I question this madness years ago? I'm as much to blame for the misery that many people are suffering now as the politicians are.

Great stats.. if you're waiting for the HPC. Mewing down and falling, credit card debt up and rising... That's going to mean some serious pain for a lot of people in the coming year. All it needs now is for the credit crunch to lead to higher unemployment and the housing market is finished, big time. I'm actually starting to feel some sympathy for those who fell for all the VI spin on house prices... No wait... it's ok, that feeling has now passed.

Isn't that a feedback loop? :- If banks don't want to give up their best AAA MBS, leaving themselves with just the junk MBS, and only a few desperate banks take advantage of this BOE offer then:- LIBOR goes up, banks need to raise more cash to pay the BOE, the banks increase lending rates to each other... repeat If all banks take up the offer then :- LIBOR goes down, banks need less cash to pay the BOE, the banks decrease lending rates to each other... repeat I wonder what impact the BOE bailout will have on the worlds financial markets and their continued use of LIBOR as the standard for setting interest rates on loans? If they thought the UK banks were misreporting the LIBOR rates before, now they'll be positive. As well as hitting LIBOR this bailout looks like it's also going to impact upon the gilts market, Goldman Sachs is recommending clients to short them, which I guess will hit the value of the BOE issued Gilts?? Link

Daily mail article If 50-100bn wasn't enough, now the banks want benefits increased for homeowners who lose their jobs. What will the banks ask for next?

Hi Azbola The graph is Nationwides, you'll find it on the HPC home page. We've been watching it go up over the last few years for no good reason, now it's looking very interesting.

You might save some money by cutting out the middleman and apply directly to the BOE for a mortgage?

Mr King added: "The aim of the scheme is to increase the liquidity of the banking system as a whole. It's not part of this scheme to take us back to the excessive lending of a year or more ago. It's to return the banking system... back to a state of normality. It's not part of the scheme to prevent desirable adjustments in the mortgage market from taking place." Interesting article, I enjoyed the passage above. Has anyone found a press report which describes how this injection will actually improve liquidity problems? There's plenty of coverage about the total amount that could be injected, details of how banks get their grubby little mits on this money, how much it will cost banks to use this facility and some VI spin about 'this will help' but no one gives any details on how it will help? Do you think anyone knows or is it just magic? edited for clarity

Thanks ParticleMan Cool, so any VI who thinks this is going to re-ignite the housing madness is in for a nasty shock Listening to BBCnew24 in the background, Declan is giving the BBA man a bit of a hard time, the BBA man dodged the questions about their irresposible actions in the past causing this mayhem.

This may be the dumbest thing I've ever posted but if you want to understand what the man on the street really knows or doesn't know, then you can't do better than me As I understand this I as a bank have £100 worth of existing mortgages papers, an asset, which I would normally use as security to borrow money from another bank. The problem is other banks think my mortgage paper is rubbish and won't lend to me any money. I as a bank can now go to the BOE with my £100 of mortgage paper and get a bill for £85 (after the haircut thing), which I can use as collateral or as a security to borrow money from another bank. e.g. I can borrow £85 from someone else but if I fail to pay it back I have to hand over my BOE bill to the bank I borrowed from. Is this right so far? My problem is. As far as I can tell the bill has to be given back to the BOE after 9months, they will then re-issue it to me for another 9 months if I want. If I default on the money I've borrowed using this bill as collateral then the other bank will end up with my bill, they take it back to the BOE and they, I assume, hand me the mortgage paper that was used to get the bill in the first place. The bank with the bill can't spend it, they have to at some point give it back to the BOE? 1. So whats the point of the bills, if I lend money to someone, default, the lender still ends up with the rubbish mortgage debt anyway? 2. Plus I have to pay interest not only to the BOE but also to the person I borrow from.. Isn't that going to be very expensive? Thanks for your time in advance for reading my verbal diarrhea

It's a con. The majority of people taking out a mortgage compare products by only looking at the interest rates. By up'ing the arrangement fee the banks etc can quote a lower interest rate. You would think people would twig this con but they don't??

I see it's the most commented on column and is flagged as a 'Times recommends' article. Hopefully they'll ditch Anne whats-her-name who seems to atract a lot of negative comments every time she "writes" something for them.

I know this doesn't add anything to the thread.. but the comments on that article make for a fantastic read