mgr

Yes, I think it probably will. Involuntary repossessions are obviously going to happen anyway, but the question is how hard people will try to hold on when it is in the balance. In America, people like Jim Cramer have been saying to people that they should walk away from their house before they walk away from credit card debts. The fact is that they have been doing it on a large scale already. It means that in America the banks take the biggest hit, but in the UK the ordinary Joe is the one who will suffer even more. Big political implications.

I've always loved that scene where Laurel and Hardy are in a boat with a hole and the water is coming in fast. Laurel turns to Hardy and says - I've got an idea - if we make another hole on the other side of the boat, it'll let the water out! Hardy says - that's a good idea! You can just imagine Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson having the same conversation about interest rates : Hank - Ben, we've had interest rates too low for too long and it's caused a runaway debt boom that is about to sink the economy Ben - I've got an idea - reduce interest rates now all over again and that will help. Hank - that's a good idea!!

I think what they are talking about is that people in Zimbabwe thought they had a nice nest egg for retirement and then found themselves bringing their entire life savings in a wheelbarrow down to the shop to buy a single loaf of bread. Decent savings rates are no use in a hyper-inflation scenario. Of course it all depends whether you think hyper-inflation is possible or likely. I don't know, but if you believe it is then diversifying out of cash is something to be looking at.

Cash - as good an investment as any at the moment. It's the one thing that will suddenly be scarce for a few years, and people with it will get new respect. Remember that at the height of the property bubble, to hold cash was considered to be a dumb thing to do and technically it was because you could make millions by maxing out on debt and speculating on property. Think of what is to come as a mirror image of that.

I spoke to and estate agent outside Belfast about the situation yesterday. He is in favour of further large drops in the market and thinks it will happen in the spring. He says that in his town prices need to come back to £100k for a first time buyer home. In the spring a typical one would have gone for £220k, and now you could get it if you bid £160k. So he said "we're half way there" cheerily. I don't think he expects his own business to pick up until we do get there, so now people like him will be making it their business to make that happen.

The last comment about for new for sale signs reminded me that Property News added 40 today, up from recent performance of 20 a day. I wonder is this the start of an acceleration where people are putting their properties on in time for January? Too early to say I guess.

In Northern Ireland recently the crash has started with a vengeance, but in the last quarter a University of Ulster survey actually showed an increase in average price to over £250,000. What is in fact happening is that only bigger houses are selling, hence the increase. The true picture is of a huge and fast crash in transaction volumes, with a more gradual fall in asking prices lagging behind it. When small houses start to sell again the everage figure will drop like a stone, of course, but we don't know how long that will be. Just offering this as evidence to back up earlier comments.

Sorry?? Don't be nuts - that's what this site is for!

Here is a question for you - does anyone know someone who is waiting to put their house on the market in January? I know 4 - 1 is an estate agent selling first house as he bought a second house last year 2 is a small investor with a couple of houses in South Belfast 3 is a large investor with a portfolio that must sell soon 4 is someone else moving house who has already bought and needs to sell own house If little old me knows about multiple houses going on the market, maybe other people do too. Anyone else with knowledge of January sales? My point here is that I would be fairly sure we will have the Property News inventory racing ahead again in January. The growth has slowed to a trickle in it now, but probably just because very few going on. Maybe it means that property is starting to sell, but I doubt it. If that was happening I think we would hear about it.

Disagree about Northern Rock. Britain is very vulnerable to the credit crisis and we only have seen the tip of the iceberg of that vulnerability. The root cause of the vulnerability is Brown's policies going back years to stoke the housing market with cheap debt, and not regulate bank lending. If people on this site could notice over a year ago that Northern Rock was an accident waiting to happen, then it is not too much to ask for someone involved in running the country to have an idea about it as well.

Did you see BBC breakfast news this morning with a political correspondent with a forgettable name in Downing Street? More than enough twaddle for you. Bill Turnbull asked him about Brown and Darling now being compared to John Major and Norman Lamont in 1992. The lacky correspondent said words to this effect : '... but of course that is an erroneous comparison. In 1992 Black Wednesday was clearly the fault of the Conservatives. Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling can justifiably say that they didn't lose those disks and they didn't cause the American sub-prime crisis so Northern Rock's collapse can't be blamed on Labour. They are just very unlucky to have to deal with these issues right now.' Searching analysis from the impartial BBC, indeed.

Kagiso, you seem to be discussing things in a more measured way than before, and so this discussion hasn't got out of hand, thank God. I was offended by your original posts, because of the way you made sweeping generalisations which stereotyped everyone living in NI. When you tar an entire population as being bigoted or stupid or whatever, it's fairly likely that the argument has a flaw, because in most places you get a fairly good mix of people, sensible, stupid, bigoted, broad minded etc. NI is not that different to other places in that regard. Your central charge is that the NI population is bigoted because they have voted for 'extremists'. I have never voted DUP or Sinn Fein - I was always a pro-agreement Trimble unionist, and I have argued against drift to the other two parties, so I would be expected to agree with you. However on long reflection I don't think that the drift to DUP and Sinn Fein is a sign that people have become more bigoted at all. Some points to illustrate that : - DUP and Sinn Fein have in fact changed their policies to come into line with the old policies that SDLP and UUP pioneered. Sinn Fein are part of a British administration in Stormont. DUP are sharing power with former terrorists. Sinn Fein are supporting the police force and courts for the first time. These are not policies of extremists, but of pragmatic realists. Nowhere else in Europe would you get coalition government between such different parties, so the fact that they are both working hard at it is evidence of their intentions. - UUP and SDLP were seen as weak negotiators. Their parties were tired and aging after the long years of the troubles. Trimble lacked a lot of people skills and tactical skills as leader. SDLP lost John Hume as leader. With the likelihood of major violence receding, people wanted strong negotiators to finalise the deal, so they felt safe in voting for DUP and Sinn Fein. - The relationships between DUP and Sinn Fein in the government departments in Stormont, especially in Office of First and Deputy First Minister are actually very good - much better than between Trimble and Mallon previously. They didn't speak to each other, and their officials were even worse. - If you lived here now I think you would feel that things really are changing. - It is not so realistic to say that ordinary people can be blamed for voting for 'bigots' or whatever. What happens in any political system is that it is only realistic to vote for people who have a chance of winning, so the incumbent structure is very durable. Also you can't expect the Unionist / Nationalist fault line to disappear just because you want it to. It reveals a real historical and political division that is not the fault of anyone alive. It's just there and we have to live with the consequences of it. The sectarian dividing lines won't be broken overnight. It will take at least a generation. To make a realistic stab at doing it, you can't just shout at people and call them bigots, and expect them to vote for so-called non-sectarian parties. The job of my generation is to lay the ground work for a new politics to emerge in about 20 years time by : - stopping the violence - building support for NI structures among all of the population (eg police) - building a politics based on issues such as health, education, economy, rather than constitutional issues - encouraging religious integration in society, including expanding integrated education - building a strong prosperous economy I can assure you that that work is underway and there are many signs that it is gaining strength. When my young children grow up, they will have a different perspective than people like me who grew up during the troubles, so there is a lot of hope for a stable future. Just a quick aside - my local Protestant school is going for integrated status, and last week the teachers and parents welcomed the local Sinn Fein MLA, to help lobby the Sinn Fein education minister to grant the status. The mostly Protestant parents are relieved we don't have a DUP education minister (yes really), as they tend to be less supportive of integration. An example if you want one how real political issues can start to break down old barriers and create common ground across differing camps. One last thing - I am proud to British and Irish, and I have heard Paisley say the same. The attitude seems to be more common than you thought. Anyway - back to house prices. Kagiso, please do post again in the NI thread - but maybe we can stick to house prices and stay off religion and politics :-)

Firm up that bid and hit it. Your thinking here seems to be centred around trying to get as close as possible to an imaginary past price that would have solved your problems. The fact is that taking the best price you can now is the best possible option. If you really believe that everything will be fine in the spring then you should hold on, but you don't really believe that do you? If not then get the house sold ASAP.

Ho ho - great find! What I hate now is hearing politicians and pundits saying that no-one predicted this or no-one could have predicted it. It's not about predictions, it's about whether or not to take leave of your senses and do things which are clearly financial madness. Northern Rock did, and only HPC people spoke out.

I don't think Northern Rock is the reason they suspended the election, or if it was then it was a bit dumb. For now the consensus is that bailing out the bank was the right thing to do and criticism of the government and BoE centered around saying they should have done it earlier, given a blank cheque to all banks the week before, not charged penal rate, etc. Even now, no-one much except people on here are seriously doubting the value of NR's wonderful loan book or that the government will get all its money back. It will be many months before the full horror of what they have got themselves into starts to become apparent, and by then the election would have been long over. Gordon missed his chance.

Obel - this is interesting as they were all booked six months ago. I enquired and there were none left. It must mean that people have been backing out. Ormeau Bakery - they are all booked too, but only for a small booking fee of a couple of grand, with no tie in clause. Don't be surprised if you see it being marketed heavily as well. Apparently £295k each for small apartments. Ho ho! estat_eagent_ni - please keep us up to date every so often. Your posts are extremely valuable to this thread. An estimate of the transaction levels in Belfast would be good. Are they running at 50% of last year? 25%? 65%?

As far as I can see the investors and EAs are mainly ignorant of the law and feel they can get away with ignoring it. I am no expert, but I am pretty sure that a practise like an Estate Agents quietly selling an apartment to a favoured client before they are released to the public at a higher price is illegal. That has been happening a huge amount. "Phase 0" they call it. The other thing which is bound to be against trading standards is to advertise a property at a price and then give an unadvertised cash back payment. This is happening right now in Belfast. Anyway, nothing will be properly investigated because too many have a stake in keeping the charade going on. Only the market can flush it all away, and it will.

It's nice the way us HPCers get to know about news items a couple of weeks before the BBC. Can we have a final final copy of the viral email - just in case you have made any last minute changes. When you publish the next version I will start sending it to people.

I like it. One issue : You say the average house price is over £200,000, but in fact the UU survey quoted in yesterday's Newsletter reported that the average house price had reached £250,000. I would use that figure, which would make the point even more strongly.

I don' think this can be correct. 1. Jamie Delargy quoted a figure of 4,500 in 3 month summer period last year, down to 1500 in same period this year. 2. 7000 would be just 16 per agent - not credible in boom year. 3. Property News inventory was falling all last year, suggesting 100+ properties selling per working day, which would be 30,000 + in year. Why not just say that transactions have slumped so badly this year that properties for sale have increased from 4,000 to 21,000 on Property News?

Very interesting. Pooler's house is 135k and others on the street are 167.5 to 170, and they don't look any better. Also note that the only agreed house is Pooler's as well at 170 (that must have been the 'bottom' a month ago or so). If he keeps going like this he will need the market down nicely and be the only agent to sell houses in East Belfast during the slump.

I wonder is it Eric Cairns? I heard a rumour via a separate source a few weeks ago relating to them (that they were short of money) and their public ramping in the paper in the last few weeks would suggest they have an urgent need for this 'spring recovery after the usual end of year lull' they tell us about.

I agree. What Merv is most criticised for is allowing a 'run' to happen. In fact what the run did was to destroy the Northern Rock brand and wipe out most of the shareholder equity without harming depositors and with the BoE holding a charge on all the best assets. In other words he avoided moral hazard, punished the guilty, and saved the innocent from ruin. Not a bad result, Merv! It's certainly the least worst option I can see. Unfortunately it is unrealistic for him to publicly state it in those terms, but in private I would guess he thinks the outcome is as good as could have been expected.

Any ideas to torture him? Maybe you could pretend to be a first time buyer who can't get a big enough mortgage. I wonder what his advice would be.. Tel: 028 9045 0045 Email: property@watsonpropertysales.com Fax: 028 9045 0555 Postal address: Watson Property Sales 22 Cregagh Road Belfast BT6 9EQ Web: www.watsonpropertysales.com

The contrast between Christopher Pooler in Pooler Estate Agents and Norman Watson in Watson Property Sales is getting very interesting. It's like a textbook case of how to treat a property slowdown in completely opposite ways. No wonder they couldn't work together. Here is Pooler's weekly update from last week : --------------- Here is a list of properties that we have recently agreed for sale. 96 Grace Avenue, Bloomfield 25 Kathleen Drive, Ballystockart 76 TildargStreet, Woodstock 25a Dundonald Heights 10 Heatherbell Street, Beersbridge 63Woodcot Avenue, Bloomfield 2 Woodcot Avenue, Bloomfield 20 Melrose Avenue, Bloomfield 21 Barnetts Crescent, Stormont There is one thing that they all have in common. They were extremely good value and it proves a point that there is a market for correctly priced houses. If you are thinking of buying, we have many other houses on the market that are equally good value. Take a look at our 'just on the market' section along with amended asking prices on our website www.poolerestateagents.com Best regards Christopher Pooler --------------- Watson's tirade about estate agents organising a seller's strike seems to be directed at his old partner, who is apparently one of the few agents in Belfast selling any houses, because he is trying to be realistic about prices. Watson's window on Cregagh road is plastered with crap arguments to ramp HPI. Personally I wouldn't mind if someone put a brick through it - or maybe just a few stickers with LIAR on them.