We Will Not Allow A House Price Boom

[Executive Sadman]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319711/We-allow-house-price-boom-Minister-insists-young-buyers-chance.html

By any conventional measure, earnings to prices, FTBs in the market, mortgage approvals, houses are already in the realm of the unaffordable.

So am i right in thinking if we're in a boom NOW theyre gonna raise rates, free up land, etc etc?

[_w_]

‘It is in everyone’s interest to have stable house prices for a long time, because the only way we can make sure housing is more affordable for future generations is not to have these crazy housing booms.’

Mr Shapps, who is due to make a speech on house prices today, insisted buy-to-let purchases, which have been blamed for crowding out first-time buyers, did have a role to play.

Or in other words: 'it's in my interest to have a stable BTL portfolio value for a long time'.

Stable = don't let them fall.

[goldbug9999]

Stable = don't let them fall.

No I don't read it that way. To me the speech is in general very encouraging because it signals that there is no particular appetite for massive intervene if prices start to slide. I think this is best statement you can expect from any incumbent gov - I mean its not as if they can come out and say "yeah a HPC would be great, tough shit if a few million people get bankrupted because its all for the greater long term good" even IF that is privately what they think.

Edited October 12, 2010 by goldbug9999

[Beggar Thy Children]

Yeah yeah Grant, it's really easy to promise you won't allow a boom when we're at the peak of a boom and prices simply couldn't go higher even if you did want them to.

nob.

[billybong]

Mr Mas said the situation is ‘extremely unfair on those who cannot rely on parental support for a deposit’.

In the past, buying property has been ‘their best chance of wealth creation and saving for the future.’

Ah well you see that's not really exactly true again. Selective memory. Selective when "in the past" means in the past 13 years.

There was a time when saving for a pension stood a good chance, maybe even the best chance, of wealth creation but not since Gordo's changes to pensions, all the pension fund crooks were allowed to get their hands on the funds and all the taxpayer/borrowed money was used to support property prices.

[_w_]

No I don't read it that way. To me the speech is in general very encouraging because it signals that there is no particular appetite for massive intervene if prices start to slide. I think this is best statement you can expect from any incumbent gov - I mean its not as if they can come out and say "yeah a HPC would be great, tough shit if a few million people get bankrupted because its all for the greater long term good" even IF that is privately what they think.

Experience has taught me to be cynical when it comes to politicians.

Show me that he isn't loaded to the hilt with debts backed by several properties and I'll believe you.

Until then I will believe that that like all his predecessors for the last two generations, this politician is only acting in own self interest, to the detriment of everyone else if necessary.

P.S. Was it him who decided to ask for the help of the biggest tax evader in the UK to lecture us on the need to close the budget deficit?

Edited October 12, 2010 by _w_

[_w_]

There was a time when saving for a pension stood a good chance, maybe even the best chance, of wealth creation but not since Gordo's changes to pensions, all the pension fund crooks were allowed to get their hands on the funds and all the taxpayer/borrowed money was used to support property prices.

Nonsense. Pensions were designed to fail. They never had a chance to provide what they promised.

[billybong]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/oct/12/mortgage-deposits-first-time-buyers

Britain is in danger of creating a whole generation of people who will never be able to buy their own homes.

This is the conclusion of Professor Steve Wilcox, chair of the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York, who in collaboration with the specialist insurance company Genworth Financial, has written a report on the extreme drop in first-time buyers in the UK housing market.

....

The problem is the old one of deposits. Until the last couple of years, people could borrow 100% of their new home's value without too much difficulty – but now a lender is unlikely to consider an application unless the potential buyer has a minimum 10% deposit, and 25% is by far the preferred amount.

.....

The one thing that first time buyers pray for to help them achieve their goal will, ironically, probably make the situation even worse. As house prices fall – as they look set to do now – lenders will get even more concerned about negative equity and demand even bigger deposits.

Wilcox suggests several solutions: the return of an insurance contract called the mortgage indemnity guarantee (MIG), paid for by the buyer, which protects the lender should the buyer default on the mortgage; strengthened regulation to enable lenders to feel more confident about their lending decisions and therefore return to 95% and 100% mortgages; and more help to enable social tenant households to share in the equity growth of their homes.

Yes it's so ironical that lower house prices will make houses less affordable for FTBers. The boom so did FTBers a favour. Gordo the peoples friend

What's so ironical is that the market is so rigged and not one of the "several solutions" includes lower prices.

The remark in the text about house prices look set to fall was probably made by the reporter.

Plenty of good comments after the article as well.

Edited October 12, 2010 by billybong

[red]

No I don't read it that way. To me the speech is in general very encouraging because it signals that there is no particular appetite for massive intervene if prices start to slide. I think this is best statement you can expect from any incumbent gov - I mean its not as if they can come out and say "yeah a HPC would be great, tough shit if a few million people get bankrupted because its all for the greater long term good" even IF that is privately what they think.

I agree.

In order to get 'stable' prices, they need to fall first, but he ain't gonna say that, is he?

[billybong]

Nonsense. Pensions were designed to fail. They never had a chance to provide what they promised.

I'll grant you that they've often had a very dubious element running them and probably never more so than now. I hold no brief for pensions I assure you but I do try to be realistic.

You're wrong and it's nonsense when you say "never" unless you're referring to "never" meaning during the last 13 years. Yes indeed as good as designed to fail in the last 13 years and I do agree that even before that time far more was creamed off pension contributions than was ever fair but there was a time, before Gordos changes, when they could still work despite that.

Before Gordos changes you could still expect a reasonable return from a pension and then there were the final salary schemes. There were still the pension cheats and swindlers, Maxwell being just one famous example, but you had a reasonable chance of avoiding those given some luck. In recent years the chances of avoiding the cheats have been very slim indeed.

It was a more balanced system in that the young stood a chance of getting on the housing ladder and paying the loan off before retirement and they could still afford to pay into a pension scheme and get a reasonable return on retirement.

Now it's all been totally unbalanced with housing having been in such a dodgy and corrupt boom and pensions being so dodgily undercut and dodgily run.

[_w_]

It was a more balanced system in that the young stood a chance of getting on the housing ladder

I was over the top but your sentence above describes exactly what I mean.

The 'property ladder' ....

What you describe is a pyramid scheme and is by definition designed to fail.

Like pensions were.

Not because evil ones wished people harm mind you, but because some people with influence were going to make a ton of money and they couldn't give a toss about the consequences later.

[billybong]

I was over the top but your sentence above describes exactly what I mean.

The 'property ladder' ....

What you describe is a pyramid scheme and is by definition designed to fail.

Like pensions were.

Not because evil ones wished people harm mind you, but because some people with influence were going to make a ton of money and they couldn't give a toss about the consequences later.

Ok. I could have equally just said the young stood a chance of buying a house (and staying put in that house which some people still do) without reference to the ladder which these days can have negative connotations which I didn't intend.

Although these days housing and pensions are both ultimately pyramid schemes there used to be a more balanced and benign (relatively) system than currently and provided it wasn't over exploited and not cheated on and corrupted it was far more in balance and had far more longevity than the current system and going back to my original point on the newspaper article pensions could outperform property in those days to provide a balancing alternative,

I'm not even sure it's 100% inevitable that pyramid schemes have to fail if there's more balance and less exploitation but perhaps those conditions are just too difficult to achieve in practice and it isn't helped by the government tampering all the time.

Edited October 12, 2010 by billybong