94% of property transactions to still go ahead.

[Belfast Boy]

This misquote of Rudyard Kipling applies so well to anyone who thinks it is a good idea to buy a house during this crisis - "If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs..." then you simply don't understand the 5hit we are all in!

Sorry for the language. 50+ minutes on the naughty step for me 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Belfast Boy

[winkie]

Bit like the corona virus R1, R2 or R3 depending on how many kids you have.....the greater the population the more children the population have, therefore the more demand for homes in the areas of high density, stay with what you know.....some will walk away, f this for a laugh.

 

[winkie]

 

[Belfast Boy]

20 hours ago, winkie said:

.....some will walk away, f this for a laugh.

My favourite is R.E.M ITEOTWAWKI … but I feel fine(ish).

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Belfast Boy

[A.steve]

59 minutes ago, Belfast Boy said:

I have a feeling that people are soon going to have a lot more to worry about than house prices. 

That's a bold statement, for a site like HPC.  What might people find to worry about that could be more relevant than house prices?

[neon tetra]

2 hours ago, LetsBuild said:

Hmmmmm this is a hard one, do I believe the Lloyds bank profit report that says they expect house prices to crash over 10% YoY for the next 3 years or do I trust estate agent ‘Lucy’ that the market is ‘coiled like a spring like it was during the Brexit years.’ ?

Do you have a link to this?

[RJJR]

6 minutes ago, neon tetra said:

Do you have a link to this?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-losers-and-a-few-winners-from-a-crash-in-house-prices-2tm2rr56w

[Belfast Boy]

32 minutes ago, A.steve said:

That's a bold statement, for a site like HPC.  What might people find to worry about that could be more relevant than house prices?

Really? OK… at this moment health... soon, (un)employment... soon after, loss of wealth. The everything bubble is going to unwind. You must not read this forum much 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Belfast Boy

[RJJR]

19 minutes ago, neon tetra said:

Do you have a link to this?

Slide 18 https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/globalassets/documents/investors/2020/2020_lbg_q1_ims_presentation.pdf

[Jozers]

With everything that's happened in the last few months, if all this doesn't cause house prices to tumble, then I don't know what possibly could.

[Si1]

16 minutes ago, RJJR said:

Slide 18 https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/globalassets/documents/investors/2020/2020_lbg_q1_ims_presentation.pdf

So the 30% house price falls are a worst case scenario and the base case is flat?

[Si1]

3 minutes ago, Jozers said:

With everything that's happened in the last few months, if all this doesn't cause house prices to tumble, then I don't know what possibly could.

It depends on the contagion, break up of the EU, cold war with China, that kind of thing

[RJJR]

6 minutes ago, Si1 said:

So the 30% house price falls are a worst case scenario and the base case is flat?

Yeah covering all bases, anything between 2.2% - 10% down for 2020. 

[A.steve]

44 minutes ago, Belfast Boy said:

Really? OK… at this moment health... soon, (un)employment... soon after, loss of wealth. The everything bubble is going to unwind. You must not read this forum much 

I could have guessed, but I feel: "Explicit is better than implicit."

While my question was tongue-in-cheek, there was a deeper interpretation... the one (I think) I learned during the 2008-2009 financial collapse.  In this "everything" bubble, founded on misuse of debt, the collateral of debt is critical. The price of the collateral is a consequence of the debt (that can be) secured against it - not the other way around.  In this topsy-turvey world, it doesn't matter if the debter is insolvent - or has no viable sources of income... all that matters is that more credit will be extended in future. In this sense, perhaps, there is nothing more important than house prices - as, upon this, all other economic activity depends.

I don't think there's much point in worrying about health.  We're in for a lot of deaths - but we could have inferred that from the population pyramid alone.  There will be big consequences from the NHS having suspended its usual healthcare provisions (assuming those provisions had a net positive effect in the first case - which seems a sensible assertion) but that is an entirely predicatable conseqence of government response.  This much of our future has been 'baked in'.

Edited May 2, 2020 by A.steve

[Si1]

4 minutes ago, RJJR said:

Yeah covering all bases, anything between 2.2% - 10% down for 2020. 

So they're actually quite positive and not predicting 30% falls at all

[“Nasty Piece of work”]

3 hours ago, Twenty Something said:

I still feel we are paying fair price for what we are buying.

If you also count being anally abused with a broken bottle, 2020 price minus 10% is fair.  Fair hasn’t featured in house prices for 20 years plus.

[RJJR]

Well down isn't positive but I was just sharing where the earlier comment came from and what has been reported in the Times. 

[neon tetra]

32 minutes ago, RJJR said:

Slide 18 https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/globalassets/documents/investors/2020/2020_lbg_q1_ims_presentation.pdf

 

Thanks. I calculated the weighted numbers, which are interesting.

[Si1]

5 minutes ago, neon tetra said:

 

Thanks. I calculated the weighted numbers, which are interesting.

What does 'weighted' mean here?

[neon tetra]

1 minute ago, Si1 said:

What does 'weighted' mean here?

They quote the approximate percentage chances of each scenario.

So the weighted figure is 0.3 x upside figure + 0.3 x base figure + 0.3 x downside figure + 0.1 x severe downside figure.

[Belfast Boy]

20 minutes ago, A.steve said:

... perhaps, there is nothing more important than house prices - as, upon this, all other economic activity depends.

I don't think there's much point in worrying about health. 

… perhaps. However, I have a feeling that is about to change. 

I'm not really concerned about my health (though there appears to be a very small percentage risk.) It's the older generation of my family that concerns me. I'm just not ready for any of them to go. Maybe I never will be ready. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Belfast Boy

[Si1]

4 minutes ago, neon tetra said:

They quote the approximate percentage chances of each scenario.

So the weighted figure is 0.3 x upside figure + 0.3 x base figure + 0.3 x downside figure + 0.1 x severe downside figure.

Oh

You'd think that the base case should more or less equal the weighted outcome. But it doesn't.

[Si1]

Important question. Are they Lloyds house prices predictions in nominal or real terms?

[A.steve]

37 minutes ago, Belfast Boy said:

I'm not really concerned about my health (though there appears to be a very small percentage risk.) It's the older generation of my family that concerns me. I'm just not ready for any of them to go. Maybe I never will be ready. 

I don't think you're experiencing an unusual feeling. I don't think you'd feel differently if there were a functioning economy. I don't think you would feel differently if, worldwide, the media and governments had not adopted policies to promote a hysterical fear of death.  I don't think you'd feel differently if the NHS were continuing to provide routine healthcare to promote quality of life.

From where I observe, the long term economic, social and political implications of interventions will have dramatically more significant effects than the direct consequences of a virus - for any reasonable way of trying to measure outcomes.  House prices seem as good a proxy for a meaningful metric as any other numbers we see promoted.

If house prices fall - that is one thing.  If (as seems to be happening) the housing market  (and asset markets in general) catastrophically fail... then that is another.  With the former scenario, there's a transfer of wealth between demographics.  With the latter, there is a systematic failure of 'free' civil society... and, after that... who knows?  Perhaps health care will be the least of our worries?  In 1918, there was a "Spanish Flu" (yes, I know it didn't originate in Spain, but it was reported, lots, from there) and by 1936 there was a full-blown civil war - where anarchists and communists overthrew government... and, with that, the overthrow of existing civil conventions.  After 3 years of that reality, I suspect (having read Orwell's personal account of it) the Spanish had moved on from being afraid of the flu.

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by A.steve

[btd1981]

For what it is worth, a house on my estate has gone SSTC in the last few days.  No chain,  not an expensive area,  but people still seem minded to buy  even now. I was astonished...

Maybe the sellers accepted a ridiculous low offer,  or maybe the buyer has a gazunder in mind for the future? But clearly not everybody thinks like us.