Is It Time To Give Up ?

[dances with sheeple]

I first started reading this site in around 2006 I think, and that year, and every year since, house price annihilation has been "imminent". The fact is, if many had bought back then and paid plenty off their mortgages, they could sustain a fairly large crash now without even going into NE, but instead they've been paying off their landlords' mortgages instead. This is the power of group-think where many people together can convince each other of something that isn't true but it feels like it is just because the hive mind thinks it.

And of course landlords are bad people who don`t fix their dangerous gas appliances ( although that can get you jail time I believe) and always increase the rent ( I pay the same as I did in 1998 for a similar flat) The biggest Hive Mind con of recent years is "You can`t go wrong with bricks and mortar!"

[Ash4781]

One just come on near me. 2007 sold £250k, 2013 £249k. Now on Rightmove at £300K. Nice house but it's not a £300K house IMO. Examples like this would have sold for £210/220K in the 2010 dip.

Hearing annectdotes about very slow chains with a market ground to a halt.Also tallies with wider reports rom RICS. Osb' appears to have an emergency budget pencilled in so expect some scheme on the ddemand side. He may even tinker with stamp dutt land tax again.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

I first started reading this site in around 2006 I think, and that year, and every year since, house price annihilation has been "imminent". The fact is, if many had bought back then and paid plenty off their mortgages, they could sustain a fairly large crash now without even going into NE, but instead they've been paying off their landlords' mortgages instead. This is the power of group-think where many people together can convince each other of something that isn't true but it feels like it is just because the hive mind thinks it.

Strange you seem to have missed the massive crash in 2007, the banking system collapse and the fact nominal house prices outside London still under the 2007 level in nominal terms and way under in real terms.

the only reason aren't down 50% in nominal terms, yet, was the massive government intervention.

I suspect many estate agents are now realising this as they see their pre election boom evaporate.

buying a house would now mean being stack in a country that is going down the pan.

Thank God for not owning a house gw tho UK now.

[rxe]

Strange you seem to have missed the massive crash in 2007, the banking system collapse and the fact nominal house prices outside London still under the 2007 level in nominal terms and way under in real terms.

I think this is very dependent on where you are. We bought in Berkshire, and only effect of the "crash" was to knock a few additional houses onto the market and the elimination of the nutters offering 20% over asking. I distinctly remember being very concerned about buying a house, but that was tempered by not being concerned about having a load of cash in the bank. Since then, it has been a relentless march upwards, no bargains round here. There may well be places in the country where there are bargains, but I'm not aware of them.

I honestly think anyone expecting 50% drops is going to spend a lot of their life waiting.

[Sandwiches33]

UM just to add, a lot of people I know who bought back in early 2000s thing was they didnt spend down there debt they done a bit of re mortgaging go some nice cars I pads and designer pants and such. I think you would be amazed how many people havent really paid down anything and pretty much owe what they started with or more

[hirop]

I guess I kind of gave up. In the round, I'm glad I did what I did. The debt is more than any of my peers had to take for a first home, but it's not really equivalent to a first home. Pro-rata I'd say I have more bang for my buck, but less time to pay it off. Anyone in the SE has my sympathies. Come to Scotland, it's a bit wet at times but the air is clean and the people are down to earth.

[winkie]

UM just to add, a lot of people I know who bought back in early 2000s thing was they didnt spend down there debt they done a bit of re mortgaging go some nice cars I pads and designer pants and such. I think you would be amazed how many people havent really paid down anything and pretty much owe what they started with or more

Think you are right...after the outstanding debt is repaid and any equity is divided between co-owners very often very little is left, meaning what is left very little can be bought with it....no means to borrow along with fewer years of working life left to repay any new debt....first, many properties have more than one interested party who lays a claim. Secondly, what can be borrowed is determined on how much can be earned not on how bigger the deposit. Thirdly, cash has to be spent before help will be offered.

They say a family fortune can be won or lost in two generations...... Doesn't take much to do that.

[Sandwiches33]

Think you are right...after the outstanding debt is repaid and any equity is divided between co-owners very often very little is left, meaning what is left very little can be bought with it....no means to borrow along with fewer years of working life left to repay any new debt....first, many properties have more than one interested party who lays a claim. Secondly, what can be borrowed is determined on how much can be earned not on how bigger the deposit. Thirdly, cash has to be spent before help will be offered.

They say a family fortune can be won or lost in two generations...... Doesn't take much to do that.

Its also down to personal circumstance too, some folk I know it would have been a good idea to buy, they stuck the same job for ten years and didnt move. I wasnt fortunate to have that sort of job stability so if I had bought even with crazy HPI i dont think I could have covered all the fees and costs involved wiht the number of times i moved. It has made much more sense for me not to buy and focus on getting a much more stable better paying job. In the past 15 years, living all over the UK I can say though that my rent has not went up much. Renting the best cheapest I could afford was always the economically more sensible option for me

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Is that a troll with 1,400 posts? That's either a very persistent troll or a contrarian.

I Pointed out a few weeks ago how easy it was to spot the trolls with their 200 post, no picture and standard story of missed out pm will buy now, or we were wrong.

We now see the 1000+ post troll with a picture. You couldn't make it up.

This thread and the London one are prime troll threads.

they actually think I started this thread because we might give us, where it was intended to be a sarcastic thread.

Of course we shouldn't give us, the 2008 crisis is still on up,hence why interest rates are at nothing percent.

Wake me up when invest rates are at 5 percent.

Edited May 16, 2015 by TheCountOfNowhere

[rxe]

I think that suggesting someone who has been on the site since 2006 and bothered to make over 1000 posts is in fact setting up an elaborate troll is a bit weird. Facing facts, everyone who has been "trolling" on here since, er, whenever the site started has been proved right - the great crash has not happened.

When I bought in 2008, the groupthink here thought I was nuts. I thought I was nuts. But we were all wrong. And most importantly for me, I've had 7 rather good years in a place I have grown to like. As a percentage of your likely lifespan, how long are you going to wait?

Do I think the current price situation is barmy - of course. Can I see a 10 - 20% drop happening? Probably, more likely to flat line. 50%? You'll be waiting quite some time in sterling terms. There are enough owners who have paid off their mortgages (50% of the OO total), and they are completely unaffected. For every anecdote of some muppet mewing for an X5, there are three sensible people paying it off. They're just not so obvious.

[Bloo Loo]

I think that suggesting someone who has been on the site since 2006 and bothered to make over 1000 posts is in fact setting up an elaborate troll is a bit weird. Facing facts, everyone who has been "trolling" on here since, er, whenever the site started has been proved right - the great crash has not happened.

When I bought in 2008, the groupthink here thought I was nuts. I thought I was nuts. But we were all wrong. And most importantly for me, I've had 7 rather good years in a place I have grown to like. As a percentage of your likely lifespan, how long are you going to wait?

Do I think the current price situation is barmy - of course. Can I see a 10 - 20% drop happening? Probably, more likely to flat line. 50%? You'll be waiting quite some time in sterling terms. There are enough owners who have paid off their mortgages (50% of the OO total), and they are completely unaffected. For every anecdote of some muppet mewing for an X5, there are three sensible people paying it off. They're just not so obvious.

waiting is for waiters.

Its like saying you cant get on with your life while waiting to buy something...that might be true about water, food, but a house...no, there are alternatives.

The question is, how many people now have a reduced opportunity to be free to buy...its a lot less than it used to be, most priced out it seems, even to move on up if they are on the ladder...

Props to keep the opportunity open are manifold and finite...ie, they are running out.

Ive gotten on with my life, in spite of 12 months of serious disablement following a road accident, renting, working as I can. My family is shortly to expand, a long break planned for the birth.

At this time, housing is low on my list of needs to get on with my life.

[Up the spout]

I have a picture but not many posts, although I make up in quality what I don't in quantity.... so the wife says.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

I have a picture but not many posts, although I make up in quality what I don't in quantity.... so the wife says.

Loose the picture, get to 200 posts agreeing with everyone then tell us you are buying a house, we all love one of them trolls.

[Venger]

I think that suggesting someone who has been on the site since 2006 and bothered to make over 1000 posts is in fact setting up an elaborate troll is a bit weird. Facing facts, everyone who has been "trolling" on here since, er, whenever the site started has been proved right - the great crash has not happened.

When I bought in 2008, the groupthink here thought I was nuts. I thought I was nuts. But we were all wrong. And most importantly for me, I've had 7 rather good years in a place I have grown to like. As a percentage of your likely lifespan, how long are you going to wait?

Do I think the current price situation is barmy - of course. Can I see a 10 - 20% drop happening? Probably, more likely to flat line. 50%? You'll be waiting quite some time in sterling terms. There are enough owners who have paid off their mortgages (50% of the OO total), and they are completely unaffected. For every anecdote of some muppet mewing for an X5, there are three sensible people paying it off. They're just not so obvious.

You also have to look what buyers can afford... it's all about new entrant buyer's position... rather than those who are sitting on the assets even owned outright at high prices.

BTW - you are on my suspect list... but at lowest end of it.

You were in it for this post.. nothing overt troll about it though.. on some thread about BTL and 'blame'. I do wonder why you're on the forum too...

I don't mind relevant questions that challenge HPC theory, and some jolts to see if we're being complacent or overlooking a turn in markets (maybe from QE) for something that has less chance of occurring in future...

It's when there's an edge in some such posts that gets to me (not from you). "How long you going to wait" - followed by "get on with your life." And then there are more tactical ways some go about it.

I don't blame people for getting into it at all. For the last 18 years it has been an unstoppable gravy train, and to be honest I feel a bit of a chump for not getting properly onboard as it left the station. I am partially onboard, but not in a "fill your boots" way. As with all investments, climbing onboard as the train flies over a cliff is not optimal.

Investment is a funny thing. Look at Apple. Share price bid up to the most extraordinary levels on the basis that they will sell every man woman and child on the planet at least two iPhones. Everyone knows that isn't going to happen, but everyone seems surprised when it doesn't. You can see the cliff edge coming, but still everyone jumps on.

So how did I get on this particular gravy train? Simple, we didn't sell my wife's first house. All bought and paid for (I wrote a cheque for the remaining mortgage after we got married...), and the simple truth was that I did not know what else to do with the money. If we'd sold it, I'd have either stuck it in the bank (losing to inflation) or stuck it in the stock market (losing to everything). So instead we kept the house and let it out. The act of passive investment has produced the second best return on any investment I have made. On a purchase capital basis it is yielding close to 25% PA, on a current value basis, about 3% (ignoring capital appreciation). It is in a top SE location, strangely still rising in value (no I don't get that either), and I'm not overly worried about a crash - property would have to crash 80% before I lost money. Incidentally, the best investment I have ever made was also property - can you see why this has been so damn attractive over the last decade or so?

There is lot written about evil landlords and all that, and I simply don't get it. I think that most of the problem with BTL is actually driven by agents, with landlords probably not even being involved. Agents are c**ts. Our current tenants moved in 3 years ago. They are nice people, they like the house, they look after it and they pay on time. Every year, the agents write to us telling us we are below markets rents, and every year we tell them to **** off, copying the tenants in the email. Agents are desperate for churn - that is where they make real money, from both landlord and tenant. As a landlord, the last thing I want is a pissed off tenant - because they will leave and then I will face the expense of inventories, "management fees" and other ********.

Charles Ponzi justifies why austrian postage stamp investments are great.

In other news, tulips growers expect a shortage this season.

Whilst driving, if I spend too long looking in the rear view mirror, I'm more likely to crash.

This calculation boils down to:

"If you assume that what happened over the last 30 years is going to happen again in the next 30 years, you should buy a house."

If, on the other hand, you think that the next 30 years are going to be very different (e.g. "an immense and unstoppable mean reversion is going to happen across the developed world in the next decades"), a different investment strategy may be better.

Even Seppy, who usually posts such higher order concept intelligent posts I struggle to follow, suggests there could be future HPC, unless Asia money flows back into buying up our real-estate at these sort of high prices.

In the end, the generational iniquities will be reset as the population ages and a large quantity of elderly asset owners all try and sell their property to a smaller number of younger people with no money. Holding property through that correction will not be for the faint hearted or those who are weakly financed.

[winkie]

[renting til I die]

Just out of interest, are the mods banning people who are pro-HPI?

Overt trolling would ruin the forum, but banning anyone with an opposing view would do the same, right?

(Genuine questions btw)

+1, EA's on here telling everyone that we are sad c***s, that's a no no. But well argued contrary views I welcome. In fact I enjoy reading them. The fact is we are all here for confirmation bias, because we believe we are right but there is more than one way for a reset in UK property values (note: values not price) and there is certainly a leaning from a few on here towards a currency crisis.

But I still hope for the big nominal correction! before anyone calls me out as a troll!

Loose the picture, get to 200 posts agreeing with everyone then tell us you are buying a house, we all love one of them trolls.

Haha , I'm going to wait until I get to 10,000 posts before I come out But hopefully I be somewhere other than the UK by then and not caring about the UK housing market!

That kind of brings me back to topic, as I have kind of given up. So unless there is a serious correction 70-80% and all the economic turmoil that will accompany that, I really don't think I'm interested in staying in the UK. I'm too sick of everyone telling me how much their home is worth and how I am a fool for renting and how 'property is their pension'!

I actually want to see all the overleveraged fools suffer! Yes, I am bitter. Bitter that I waited patiently until 2008 and the reset was more like a slight hiccup. Bitter that even after this reset I would have to have leveraged myself up to the eyeballs to buy somewhere. Bitter that now, because I'm sensible and on a good wage, I don't even have a choice on whether I rent or not! So, I want to leave this sad little island and find a bridge for me and the misses to live under!

[renting til I die]

BTW the main reason I find myself still here is to have a good old rant from time to time (see above ), it really clears my head and lets me get on with my day!

So, let the trolls post. I am here to get my anger of my chest and occasionally have a good laugh about the ridiculousness of the UK (mainly SE) property market!

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

We're all adult here and it's just unacceptable to dismiss someone with an opposing view as a troll just because you're unable to counter with an actual argument. You cannot deny what I write about prices since 2006, because it is a fact, and it was a passing thought that perhaps people on forums like this have reinforced bad decision making because people feel safer in groups.

Your post was so glib and patronising it didnt deserve an adult response.

A lot has gone on in the housing market over the past 10 years and the house buying landscape was practically bi-polar. Changes in mortgage rates, availability, fix/track, housing supply, transaction volumes, job prospects. And even if every single member of HPC had bought a house in 2006 and site had been shut down, millions of people would still be dispossessed of decent housing.

So excuse me for not partaking in your house price always go up book of patronising idioms.

Edited May 16, 2015 by 25 year mortgage 8itch

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

I think that suggesting someone who has been on the site since 2006 and bothered to make over 1000 posts is in fact setting up an elaborate troll is a bit weird. Facing facts, everyone who has been "trolling" on here since, er, whenever the site started has been proved right - the great crash has not happened.

When I bought in 2008, the groupthink here thought I was nuts. I thought I was nuts. But we were all wrong. And most importantly for me, I've had 7 rather good years in a place I have grown to like. As a percentage of your likely lifespan, how long are you going to wait?

Do I think the current price situation is barmy - of course. Can I see a 10 - 20% drop happening? Probably, more likely to flat line. 50%? You'll be waiting quite some time in sterling terms. There are enough owners who have paid off their mortgages (50% of the OO total), and they are completely unaffected. For every anecdote of some muppet mewing for an X5, there are three sensible people paying it off. They're just not so obvious.

You don't need orange hair and live under a bridge to be accused of trolling. Dropping into a 20 page thread with a list or pro-buying cliches is going to get a rise.

[docus]

I'll stick my head above the parapet. I've been lurking here for years. I'm not a troll, I'm just full of doubts.

I bought a (relatively) well priced place in 2011 with my then-partner. Now we're separated - she has the house and our two kids most of the time. Most of the equity in the house is hers, but I'll get a small deposit out of it. Now I need a place to settle and ultimately retire into, to provide some stability for my kids when they're with me.

I've just turned 40 and I feel that time (and the world!) is against me. All my peers are settled with secure seeming homes and futures. Of course no-one knows what's around the corner, but I feel very insecure.

I'm not any kind of troll but my resolve is starting to crack. Of course I feel that the HPC must come, and I want my patience to be rewarded... but I'm losing faith. Most likely I'll keep renting, but I've started looking at 2 bed places in my area (east Herts / Uttlesford) for £220k, that would have been £180k just a couple of years ago. I would be absolutely maxing out what I can borrow at that price, very vulnerable to any rate rise. It makes me feel sick and I just don't know what to do Of course they can't be worth that! But yet... they're selling. Who's mad - them or me?!

I can't believe the Gov't have kept the pyramid scheme going as long as they have - and now I can't imagine them being able to lower interest rates for a long time. Also, the world is different from the 80s and 90s - the globalised economy has turned UK housing into a financial instrument for foreign investors, and I don't see that reversing now the Tories are back in power. But what do i know. All I know is that I don't know what to do...

Not everyone with doubts is a troll!

[TheCountOfNowhere]

I'll stick my head above the parapet. I've been lurking here for years. I'm not a troll, I'm just full of doubts.

I bought a (relatively) well priced place in 2011 with my then-partner. Now we're separated - she has the house and our two kids most of the time. Most of the equity in the house is hers, but I'll get a small deposit out of it. Now I need a place to settle and ultimately retire into, to provide some stability for my kids when they're with me.

I've just turned 40 and I feel that time (and the world!) is against me. All my peers are settled with secure seeming homes and futures. Of course no-one knows what's around the corner, but I feel very insecure.

I'm not any kind of troll but my resolve is starting to crack. Of course I feel that the HPC must come, and I want my patience to be rewarded... but I'm losing faith. Most likely I'll keep renting, but I've started looking at 2 bed places in my area (east Herts / Uttlesford) for £220k, that would have been £180k just a couple of years ago. I would be absolutely maxing out what I can borrow at that price, very vulnerable to any rate rise. It makes me feel sick and I just don't know what to do Of course they can't be worth that! But yet... they're selling. Who's mad - them or me?!

I can't believe the Gov't have kept the pyramid scheme going as long as they have - and now I can't imagine them being able to lower interest rates for a long time. Also, the world is different from the 80s and 90s - the globalised economy has turned UK housing into a financial instrument for foreign investors, and I don't see that reversing now the Tories are back in power. But what do i know. All I know is that I don't know what to do...

Not everyone with doubts is a troll!

read as, its different this time.

Get real, if any investment can just go up forever why the hell has it never happened before, is it because it needed a bank collapse before this magical new paradigm caught hold? Maybe it's the people at the free food centres, food banks to you. That has made it all possible?

or is it possible the unaffordable nominal house prices is because our money has been devalued via qe but prices look affordable to the idiots abroad and the London mega bubble is actually just 2007 prices gone up in real terms but we've been shafted by our own government to save the banks so they look crazy to us but sane to a Russian ?

Either way, the market is even more unsustainable than it was in 2007 and it has collapse written all over it.

They called it qe and printed money to devalue your earnings, your savings and generate inflation. It's no different from any money printing in the past and it never ends well.

The big question is how much the government and their banker mates are willing to screw us all before they think they will be strung up.

If they qe again I'm joining the protests for sure.

We've been robbed and people are celebrating, the words moronic ####s do not do them justice.

For all the trolls saying there is no crash, will be no crash, please explain to me the nationwide graph on the front page?

Ah, thought not.

Edited May 16, 2015 by TheCountOfNowhere

[docus]

Count, I want to believe. I know your argument makes sense, or at least, I want it to make sense I don't know if 'it's different this time'. I suppose it can't be. I feel very aggrieved. I've been working so hard for so long, solidly slaving my guts out doing way more than full-time work, struggling to save on a not-very-big NHS salary, and yet I have no prospect of getting anything to show for it, or to provide my kids with. I'll be renting into retirement, my quality of life severely diminished with rent sucking away my small pension.

The big picture is too complicated for me. You say we've been robbed, and I agree - but what's to stop the Gov't and their banker mates from robbing us more? No-one around me seems to feel robbed. I just sincerely don't know what to do. I'm 40 and assuming I bought right away I would be 65 by the time I would have paid off the mortgage!

Thanks for your thoughts, Count - I will try to keep the faith

Well, after all that perhaps I'll go back to lurking

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Count, I want to believe. I know your argument makes sense, or at least, I want it to make sense I don't know if 'it's different this time'. I suppose it can't be. I feel very aggrieved. I've been working so hard for so long, solidly slaving my guts out doing way more than full-time work, struggling to save on a not-very-big NHS salary, and yet I have no prospect of getting anything to show for it, or to provide my kids with. I'll be renting into retirement, my quality of life severely diminished with rent sucking away my small pension.

The big picture is too complicated for me. You say we've been robbed, and I agree - but what's to stop the Gov't and their banker mates from robbing us more? No-one around me seems to feel robbed. I just sincerely don't know what to do. I'm 40 and assuming I bought right away I would be 65 by the time I would have paid off the mortgage!

Thanks for your thoughts, Count - I will try to keep the faith

Well, after all that perhaps I'll go back to lurking

Hey man, your right of course.

There is no option now though. It's buy a house and loose everything or don't buy a house now and loose everything.

they, she government, will take everything if they need to, in the name of freedom or some such nonsense.

They send young men out to die to further their ends. Do they really give a ×××× about anyone's house price or savings, I think not.

they exist to maintain the establishments status quo.

they just take take take. they must think we are their servants.

My big worry is not financial melt down its war. I am not sending my child out to die for those ####s.

No matter what path I look down I come to the same conclusion, it's time to leave.

[PopGun]

The time to give up was nearly four years ago frankly

[Guest_northshore_*]

read as, its different this time...

Ok I'll bite, because this troll stuff's annoying

Bullish is a position on future prices, not attempting to interpret the past. There's also a difference between analysing the market in terms of price vs stock. One is primarily demand driven, the other supply. If we all come at this from different analytical perspectives there will necessarily be conflicts. People can't even agree on what's driving prices (the answer is credit and leverage).

For example the talk on BTL above. This impacts available relative OO supply, rental options and price support as a discount factor. It's also self-perpetuating while facilitating a subsidised investment class vs productive land use for a basic consumption asset. But I don't think it's the marginal price setter, at least where I live (same area as docus). Available stock and prices turned when Osborne announced HTB; because the Government put its balance sheet behind part nationalisation and adding leverage: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/65082-e-herts-w-essex/page-24#entry1102695159

Whether that's investor frontrunning rather than actual FTB purchases I don't know, but probably. That likely means even in the event of BTL clampdowns (tax/borrowing terms), price changes will depend on whether it impacts broader bank lending and/or stock can be absorbed at constant prices from state-leveraged buyers.

Point being - the argument for why prices might stop rising is not the same as explaining why they'll fall. I agree with a lot of interpretation of the difficulty in justifying further price increases, but Osborne underwriting private housing and selling off public housing is a significantly corrupting factor.

Of course the population has been stuffed; for centuries. But like circus seals most clap it on, pointing fingers at nonsense explanations - including implicitly much of this forum with contradictory politics, bias and truisms. That doesn't bode well for assuming a wake up in the general population. Challenging that isn't a VI or bullish stance, it's just the way it is right now but stakes no claim on what will happen in the future.

It won't end well because the ponzi won't work among an ageing wealthy demographic. Land has become too expensive to permit an efficient productive economy. Everyone sort of knows it but most won't admit it yet. But I'm willing to admit that won't be tomorrow and I have no idea when. I increasingly think most core economic ills stem from economic rents, which makes an assessment of land and property more than just a cyclical thing, it's at the heart of everything that's wrong which is why the pushback is so strong. If that's considered VI I'm happy to shut up because having other perspectives shouted down or banned makes for a waste of time.