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Hpc Cost Of Living Index?


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HOLA441

Has anyone thought about HPC.co.uk having its own set of figures for comparison? They could be used as an official release to counter the bullish spin. e.g.

"Rightmove say houses are 'flying off the shelves' but the HPC have released their latest index which is showing a marked decline in sentiment/affordability."

If the indicators are honest and accept that the market doesn't always look like it's about to die (although we all know it's gonna happen some time :) ), I think it will attract attention.

Figures from all over the place: BOE, Halifax, RICS are always challenged, so why don't we as a collective, agree upon a set of figures which we feel are key to the HPC argument? They can be tracked every month and made into an index? This could include not just things like financial figures/interest rates etc. but the values produced from the sentiment survey. We could have a graph of our crash likelihood index posted on the front page and details of how it's calculated in the wiki.

Research companies pay loads of money to gauge public opion and we'd be giving it out on a plate.

So what should be included and how? (I think consistency will be an issue.)

That should keep us busy until the crash! :lol:

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HOLA442

Well, in 1993 I bought a 486 sx 25mhz with 4mb of ram and a 40mb hard disk (and a 14" monitor). That cost £940 delivered.

For a similar amount of money now I can buy a 2.5Ghz 4Gb ram and 400GB hard drive (and a 21" monitor).

So thats about 1000 - 10,000 % increase in product value over 13 years. Or -380% pa? :lol:

So perhaps we should disallow high tech?

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HOLA443
"Rightmove say houses are 'flying off the shelves'

In certain circumstances they are right. Someone I know is emigrating later this year, and has managed to sell to a cash buyer within 1 week of going on the market with her 4 bed home. It's in a really good school catchment area though which I think may have a lot to do with it.

The properties I'm looking at, in the areas I'm looking, have been sticking for months and months and months....

Well, in 1993 I bought a 486 sx 25mhz with 4mb of ram and a 40mb hard disk (and a 14" monitor). That cost £940 delivered

I bought my first PC - 1 386 sx 25MHz (without the maths co-processor), 2MB RAM (who would ever need more?), and a 40MB disk (the biggest available) and 14" CRT monitor in 1991 for the grand price of £1760 :-( Good machine though - my mother was still using it until a couple of years ago.

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HOLA444
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HOLA445

BRILLIANT IDEA!

Where I am, a bottle of good lager is 30p, a bottle of champagne-quality fizzy wine £2 and a meal for 2 with wine £15.

And to rent a 1200 square foot medieval casa, with pool, all mod cons, and bills thrown in, £800 a month.

And it's 24 degrees today.

Excellent Idea

Where I am pint of lager cost me £3 at weekend (inflated price cos of the tourists) petrol is £1 a bl**dy litre and houses are stupidly overpriced

How/who are you/we going to start it then?

CS

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HOLA446
Guest Guy_Montag

Well, in 1993 I bought a 486 sx 25mhz with 4mb of ram and a 40mb hard disk (and a 14" monitor). That cost £940 delivered.

For a similar amount of money now I can buy a 2.5Ghz 4Gb ram and 400GB hard drive (and a 21" monitor).

So thats about 1000 - 10,000 % increase in product value over 13 years. Or -380% pa? :lol:

So perhaps we should disallow high tech?

Nope, the way to do it is take the most expensive PC World (for example) PC from any given year. The same with iPods, compare like with like, not like with identical. I know picking the most expensive is not ideal, but nor is the cheapest. Maybe the median?

Or we could do it by software, that has risen. Compare full cost of windows 98 with windows xp. It is possible, it just needs to be done the right way & DOCUMENTED.

It has been suggested on this board before that we introduce an Essential Prices Index (EPI), including fuel, food, rent/mortagage, council tax, TV licence, public transport fares, second hand cars, telephone line rental/calls, clothes etc. Of course we would never be able to agree on the basket & weighting.

Edited by Guy_Montag
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HOLA447

Ok - how about the frequency with which you 'need' to replace a particular item type (TV, Washing machine, computer, convertible, house etc) and the quality of item - eg High end, middle range, beginners.

So we say in 1993 a mid range pc was £900 you expect to replace it in 4 years. Now its £600 but you expect to replace it every 2 years. Personal music players midrange - walkman late 80's at £40 replace in 10 years mp3 player now £40 replace in 8 months?

Edited by RichB
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HOLA448

Ok - how about the frequency with which you 'need' to replace a particular item type (TV, Washing machine, computer, convertible, house etc) and the quality of item - eg High end, middle range, beginners.

So we say in 1993 a mid range pc was £900 you expect to replace it in 4 years. Now its £600 but you expect to replace it every 2 years. Personal music players midrange - walkman late 80's at £40 replace in 10 years mp3 player now £40 replace in 8 months?

are you sure 900 was mid-range in 93? thought it might be cheaper than that.

and I dont think having a P4 processor means top of the range today.

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HOLA449

Where I am pint of lager cost me £3 at weekend (inflated price cos of the tourists) petrol is £1 a bl**dy litre and houses are stupidly overpriced [Cornwall Sceptic]

Lager? Please, if we're going to compile an index, let's include a quality product: a pint of Doombar.

Nope, the way to do it is take the most expensive PC World (for example) PC from any given year. The same with iPods, compare like with like, not like with identical. I know picking the most expensive is not ideal, but nor is the cheapest. Maybe the median? [Guy_Montag]

I suggest the median price of Apple's desktop range.

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HOLA4410

Nope, the way to do it is take the most expensive PC World (for example) PC from any given year. The same with iPods, compare like with like, not like with identical. I know picking the most expensive is not ideal, but nor is the cheapest. Maybe the median?

Or we could do it by software, that has risen. Compare full cost of windows 98 with windows xp. It is possible, it just needs to be done the right way & DOCUMENTED.

It has been suggested on this board before that we introduce an Essential Prices Index (EPI), including fuel, food, rent/mortagage, council tax, TV licence, public transport fares, second hand cars, telephone line rental/calls, clothes etc. Of course we would never be able to agree on the basket & weighting.

i think that most inflation has occured with higher quality products. go to dell and you will see very cheap machines, but up the spec and things dont look to be quite so much of a bargain.

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HOLA4411

are you sure 900 was mid-range in 93? thought it might be cheaper than that.

and I dont think having a P4 processor means top of the range today.

93 my 486 was mid range - there was a dx50 above it or a 386 below. A similarly positioned system would be about 900 now. (eg athlon 64 3.5, 2gb ram, ok gpu, 300gb hdd, monitor etc.)

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HOLA4412
Guest Winners and Losers

Personal music players midrange - walkman late 80's at £40 replace in 10 years mp3 player now £40 replace in 8 months?

I still have my Aiwa walkman, purchased in 1988, for about 30 quid. :unsure: I'm so wired for sound.

Edited by Winners and Losers
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HOLA4413

BRILLIANT IDEA!

Where I am, a bottle of good lager is 30p, a bottle of champagne-quality fizzy wine £2 and a meal for 2 with wine £15.

And to rent a 1200 square foot medieval casa, with pool, all mod cons, and bills thrown in, £800 a month.

And it's 24 degrees today.

I want to move there!!!

Near Bath, South West UK - just went into a local supermarket and bought a couple of 66cl bottles of a well known beer from Belgium for £1.69 each. Two weeks ago they were £1.99 a bottle ... that's a 15% price crash right there! :P

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HOLA4414
It has been suggested on this board before that we introduce an Essential Prices Index (EPI), including fuel, food, rent/mortagage, council tax, TV licence, public transport fares, second hand cars, telephone line rental/calls, clothes etc. Of course we would never be able to agree on the basket & weighting.

I agree. I really want to see an index that relates to stuff that I have to buy on a regular basis: food, warmth and shelter essentially, and then a mix of 'luxuries'.

We could create a straw wo/man average HPC member and see how life pans out for this character or characters. It could end up being quite funny, we could give them names and fill out their lives as I've seen on here before. There could be one for each region and wage bracket. Although fun I think it would also be quite serious in terms of they will relate to real people and we all should be able to identify with at least one of them.

You have to watch averages though, as a good friend of mine says "the average person has one t!t and one b0llock!"

So here's your starter for 10, what would we include in the food category? Number 1 has to be bread and a pint of beer??? Also what regions should we have?

I eagerly await your responses :P

BRILLIANT IDEA!

Where I am, a bottle of good lager is 30p, a bottle of champagne-quality fizzy wine £2 and a meal for 2 with wine £15.

And to rent a 1200 square foot medieval casa, with pool, all mod cons, and bills thrown in, £800 a month.

And it's 24 degrees today.

You're the one responsible for cpi then!? This is our chance to actually have meaningful figures.

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