Don

Especially for you, Mike

http://www.powroznik.freeserve.co.uk/

MikeStanton

Thank you for that insight

However, I'll stick to views of economic commentators I respect.

Don

There are a few good quotes in there if you can put up with the graphics and slant

Mercedes

I put my sunglasses on...

tony blair

Try out this link to see the "prudent" chancellors gameplan.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec328.html

odaat

Tony,
Excelent post - remind's me again that New Labour is out of touch with people's perception of the housing market.

Pubs and papers are full of Taxi driver to bell hops opinion on cashing up and getting out of property investment - IMO the perception is strong that the market has peaked and its a slow fall or possible crash from here on in.

It will take a lot of persuasion to get people to buy and inflate the property market even higher - or am I crediting the Brit nation for having more sense compared to its appetite for greed and obsession for debt

robertd

Thanks Mike
I have agreed with everything you have ever written, except this, I still own property in the UK, so if things go down I will be crying into my VB, watching the footy???
I`m only stating the obvious, I think a house should cost no more than 100k,nobody wins from high property prices,
You sound like your missing scorcheeo OZ, I just wish I could grow a beard and marry my cousin???? If you want, we will have a wager, a slab of xxxx gold!!! that I am right. When are you coming over for a holiday to watch all the V8`s hooning around. Regards Rob

MikeStanton

Except it's not obvious. Property prices in the UK - like most places - are set by supply and demand. Yes, it is true that house prices are high relative to wages. Yes, it is true that house prices (in most cases) have either plateaued or are dropping. But that, in itself, does not mean that they will drop by 40%.

The UK economy is in pretty good shape and interest rates are low-ish. If you want the conditions for a crash, the rates need to rise and/or the economy needs to falter (of course, rising oil prices could trigger it). Yes, there will be some panic sellers - probably most on this forum - but, overall I'm pretty confident it won't be a crash. Seems to me it's the usual Brit thing of looking on the dark side of things.

If you really believe the UK prices will drop so significantly, please explain why they have not done so in Oz, which has higher real interest rates and little underlying property shortage?

odaat

Stanton - you have totally missed the point, of course it is obvious to those who are buying that prices have fallen by up to 20% in some areas of UK.

Estate Agents, banks and lenders are sobering up at last and admitting silly priced property is no longer selling and they are pulling back on lending easy money.

I would hazard a guess that you are one of those who bought late and prefer to believe all will be rosy and there is still a "bundle" to be made out of bricks and mortar.

Property website Hometrack said prices dropped 0.3% during September – faster than the 0.1% falls seen in the previous two months.

The number of buyers registered with estate agents dropped by 5% at a time when more properties were coming on to the market, which Hometrack said pointed to further falls in house prices over the coming months.

The figures echo evidence offered yesterday by estate agent Countrywide, which said the number of transactions in its pipeline was 20% lower than last year.

The figures from Hometrack revealed that the percentage of their asking price sellers were achieving had fallen for the fifth month in a row to 94.5% in September.

Meanwhile, the time taken to sell a property increased to 5.8 weeks and 11.4 viewings from an average of 5.3 weeks and 11.1 viewings in August.

The heaviest falls occurred in west London, Surrey, east London and central London and City.

We are in a slide down - how far down depends on market sentiment nothing else, with the war in arabia, oil price hikes , George Dubya Bush politics and trillions in UK debt traps - it can only get worse.

MikeStanton

There's nothing like sound economic analysis. And that was nothing like it.

As I've already said, I'm looking to buy, not sell - so you're way-off beam with your guess. The 20% drop is i) not across the board and ii) could easily be due to gross over-pricing, even taking into account the high cost market

The figures you quote tell me and the rest of the world what has happened, not what will happen. You provide no rational analysis to support a large drop in house prices of 40%

Of course, such a crash may be brought about by large-scale irrational behaviour. If so, I expect to find you amongst the sheep.

odaat

Stanton - you are correct, I will be amongst the sheep - slaughtering and feasting on very rich pickings

BTW, when did you read that I suggested a 40% drop

Anyway, I leave analysis and probing to educated dolts like you. I prefer to be on the road making the money and burning road rubber buying, selling and earning.

One very very wealthy and sucessful man that I respect once gave me a "tip" - "rational analysis" = personal paralysis.
He lost count of the number of spouters he met who talk and spout and never get thier feet wet and get in / out of investing for personal and future wealth building.

Good look on the housebuying, at least you have the horse in front of the cart - hope you know how to negotiate on a price as well as you can spell and spout on forums.

MikeStanton

Sir, thank you for your advice. As a rather wealthy and educated dolt, I still appreciate that you have taught me everthing that you know.

But now it's time for me to move on.






To primary school.

Badge

Some interesting analysis - Ive been wary of a correction ever since I bough in London in mid 2000. I wish I´d bought even a year earlier - 1999 was the start of the *acceleration* in the recent cycle which started in 1997ish.

I sold in late 2003 for a profit that amazed even me. I was able to haggle 20pc off our Melbourne home, and we have a low mortgage, which is OK. The only thing that will kill us is 15pc rates but I don´t think we will see these - and even if we did I am happy on beans and toast we dont spend much.

I agree that we are seeing the signs of a correction in London (call it crash whatever) but like Mike don´t think it will necessarly be 40pc. Australia saw this 9 months ago but there is no panic (yet). Would be nice though for those poor buggers trying to own a home, not make money.

I agree there are people getting burnt in Australia because they jumped on the negative gearing bandwagon - I would not have touched this past 2002.

BM

Don

Not sure why Mike keeps going on about -40%, nobody else on the forum is. Maybe it's reverse layman's psychology.

I reckon we'll see -25% at least, peak to trough (maybe -40% if you look for the highest peaks and deepest troughs but on average, -25%). That's a crash, in my books.

But what does it really mean? Let's assume you didn't buy at the peak but a year or so before. You've probably made a paper gain of at least 10%. That gets eaten away by the crash, but you're only back to square 1-ish. Inflation over 5 years will be about 2% pa, let's just screw the maths and say another 10%. In nominal terms and with crap maths, therefore, over the next 5-ish years you'll only see about -5% vs what you paid a year or so ago.

Anybody in the market before about 2002 will just be seeing paper losses.

But they'll feel a helluva lot poorer.

linda 1

not being a mathmatical type of person, I don't follow most of this thread, but I know this, we have bought and sold many houses over the years both UK and NZ, only lost a little money on 1 and it was in NZ. Have just bought in UK mortgage free. Are we going to lose sleep or money..........no way.