I Have Been A Rock Solid Bear For 2 Years Now

[Badlad1967]

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Pot kettle black??

[kissmyb]

Pot kettle black??

   

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[Badlad1967]

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So I take it you bought your council house, kissmyb?

Notice you're posting quite late today. Doing the EA graveyard shift and not many punters?

Still, with your obsession with rent that you stand you in good stead for your new career when your shop closes. Pimp ya booty boy!

[Warwickshire Lad]

Wishful thinking ! Do you honestly believe sellers will sell at 80% less than current value

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80% isn't required for me. A good 30% off in real terms will suffice.

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[kissmyb]

So I take it you bought your council house, kissmyb?

Notice you're posting quite late today. Doing the EA graveyard shift and not many punters?

Still, with your obsession with rent that you stand you in good stead for your new career when your shop closes. Pimp ya booty boy!

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80% isn't required for me. A good 30% off in real terms will suffice.

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Well you'll be waiting til the 12th of never for 30% off. [Deliberately annoying/disruptive text removed by moderator]

[spline]

Kissmyb – I'm impressed by your enthusiasm for posting on HPC - have you just bought a house and are worried that it might drop in value?

[bears all]

Haven't had time to read all the posts on this thread, but if Sam's still reading the replies:-

This time last year people like Miles Shipside were saying a crash could never happen because the economy was strong and there was no trigger in the offing. Personally I didn't think the economy was fundamentally strong and I didn't think a trigger was necessary. A year later there is widespread consensus that the economy is in trouble - just look at today's newsblog if you're sceptical - and as for a trigger, well look at oil prices.

Do you think the housing market can withstand an economic downturn? If you honestly believe that, buy if you can afford a property which can cope with your changing family circumstances over the next decade. Otherwise be patient and stay out of negative equity.

[Portent]

A house opposite me has just gone on the market and I know it's neighbour sold last year. So I checked out the prices:

Last year: 3 bed, pretty run down: sold for £330k

Today: 4 bed extended, excellent condition: asking price of £350k

It won't sell for the asking price as there are too many on sale in this road. But even if it did somehow magically did then £20k difference for a much better condition house with an extra bedroom and more ground floor space is paltry. Prices have fallen in NW London in a year.

[sam]

Sam, BUY A PROPERTY

I dont think it is the first time you have started a thread like this.

And I think you will go on thinking you have missed out on something until you buy. So stop worrying and buy. You may need to experience what it is like to own property now.

You will lose your anxiety about not owning. It will be replaced by HOMEOWNERS ANXIETY, which means:

+ You can make large monthly payments on your mortgage, instead of smaller payments on rent,

+ You can realise that those payments wll go on for a long, long time whatever happens to your job, and your willingness to go on living wherever you are,

+ You can start worrying about the possibility of rates rising, and going into negative equity if House prices fall after you buy,

+ You can start noticing that there are hidden costs of homeowning: things to buy, things to repair, and that just having bad neighbors can impair the value of your investment

So do, go on and buy. Some can only learn the hard way

Hi Dr Bubb

I agree with everything you are saying, and i know exactly what it feels like to own property, most of my working life i have owned my own home.

The arguments put foward by many on this board are spot on including your own, the only thing that i was trying to bring into the argument was that there is possibbly strong enough forces out there to hold off any kind of correction.

Yes, i probably have made the same point before, sorry, but you have also done so day after day.

The one point you have repeatedly said is that many on this board should just get on with their lives and just be glad that they are paying so much less in rent, i also agree and for the majority of the time i live by that rule, but i would be a fool to say that i never have my doubts.

To me, not getting into the property market is a no brainer, under no circumstances will i do so at the moment, but that said, it can be tough at times(maybe not for you), you can feel that many other posts on this forum feel the same way as i do.

You used the right word, ANXIETY, it is not part of my normal make up, but right now i do feel a little that way, and as you quite rightly pointed out it would be worse(far worse) to enter the market right now.

Another point i would like to make, i believe that most people on this board are the kind that know the real truth about this so called miracle economy, i think where most peoples frustration comes from is that they are impatient for everyone else to also find out so we can get this mess sorted, something i believe is now taking place.

Sam

[red]

Put an offer on a house, get it accepted. This concentrates the mind. You will be sh*tting yourself, you'll pull out and you won't need reminding again for a while.

I can only liken it to shagging a really attractive chick who you know has a contagious venereal disease. If you had any doubts about why not to do it, they would evaporate when she spread her legs and you caught sight of her weeping, crusted lesions. You would run a mile and the lesson would be learned.

edit: apologies for the grotesque nature of this post.

aaah, Geez. Just as I sat down with a cuppa and a fruity flapjack. You b@st@rd!

[Jem]

This is exactly my position.

I do however agree with the main thread - prices are not falling in the manner they "should". I like to think I've missed something.

Problem is, I think this will just slide slowly for the next 10 years.

Prices will stagnate or fall slowly (top down) and wages and inflation will rise slowly (bottom up) until we are back near long term trends.

Spot on, some contributors on this forum have gotten so work up about the crash that they have neglected to face the facts. No crash without unemployment, unrealistic pricing leads to stagnation until the FTB's can catch up. It might take another 3-5 years, but this is the more likely scenario. Prices have never fallen beyond 33% in any crash. This means at the most it will wipe out two years worth of increases. Prices will fall to 2001 levels at best, some may already be there. At some point or other FTB's will have to enter the market. We are not immortal and besides life is short.

[Once Bitten x2 Shy]

Prices have never fallen beyond 33% in any crash

I am sorry to correct you, but in the last crash some properties fell by more than 50%. This was not just one isolated incident also.

It is fair to say that depending on location, property type etc price falls were not all the same, but your statement is incorrect.

[Catch22]

Prices will fall to 2001 levels at best, some may already be there.

All the predictions on this forum are just personal opinions, some arrived at by the herd instinct, some through spin/ignorance, some by way of studying data, some maybe in part by experiencing past corrections. But one thing is for sure all corrections are not the same, some would say [and I'm in agreement with this line of thought] There are seismic changes taking place regards the creation and consumption of wealth, plus the onset of Peak Oil. Changes that never were an issue in regards to the West's ability to enrich the lives of its workers, even taking into account past Booms and Busts.....We in the west by and large are consumers of wealth not producers, why should your labour and hence your rewards be worth 100 times that of a worker from India or the Far East ? What do we produce that they dont already or in the future be able to produce for themselves at a lower cost than we can supply? What profound wisdom do you call upon to caste in stone the prediction house prices will only fall to 2001 levels?

This time it may indeed be very different.

Edited September 26, 2005 by Catch22