calliope

You are looking at what has happened in a specific time period (1970 - 2005 when the boomers were trading up houses) and presuming it will happen in the future. that's like choosing last week's lotto numbers for next week. with the collapse of sterling and the unsustainable over-inflated bubble in uk housing stock, combined with growing unemployment, there is no way houses go as high as 2005 in real terms for a generation at least.

Tr1boy

Utter rubbish. Nobody forces you to buy a house, there are other ways to make money if that's the priority. If you needed a 125% mortgage to buy a house then how on earth was that going to end any other way? 'They' are not responsible for the choices 'you' make. If 'you' are weak enough to succumb to pressure without analysing whether something is appropriate for your own situation then 'you' have to live with that. Sounds like I'm sticking up for the lenders which is not the case at all, but I'm a fan of individual responsibility and not resorting to the blame culture.

calliope

When Thatcher privatized social housing she created a rentier society that directly contributed to the GFC in Britain, this along with her deregulation of banks cooked up this mess. An "individual" is easily pushed about by the sweep of history, in this case the pressure to put a roof over her children's heads, but the only problem is there are no council houses and rents and mortgages are severely unaffordable. Choice - sleep under bridge or borrow too much money on a mortgage that is approved by the government in law and backed by the Bank of England. It's actually the great crime of our era.

lapin_windstar

Hi, OP. It looks like you're in Queensland.

Bankruptcy law in Australia is practically all federal: as mentioned above, the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia is the relevant government body and they have a FAQ on their website which may be useful. If you do petition for bankruptcy, it is the Federal Courts that will hear the application.

Before you get to that stage, you should consider seeking debt counselling. There are paid providers ("debt doctors" and "debt consolidators"), some of whom are very controversial. There is also free advice available from organisations who receive state funding to help people manage their financial position. You can find a director for Queensland here: http://www.fcqn.asn.au/Lists/Find%20...rd%20View.aspx The Salvos is one of the lead advice organisations: http://salvos.org.au/need-help/finan...ounselling.php

If you have urgent legal questions, you can get qualified and free legal advice from a Community Legal Centre: http://www.qails.org.au/ http://www.legalaid.qld.gov.au/about...l-centres.aspx

bybyQLD

Thank you for the comments,
Is there anyone out there with actual experience of bankruptcy

pumpkin blossom

No, I am looking at what is happening NOW. The population is growing and growing. That means more and more houses are needed innless and less space. This pushes prices up. They will go FAR higher within the next generation, and quite frankly I think you are an idiot to not realise that. I am thinking that you really must be trolling, because nobody could be that blind. I won't bother with this thread again as I have better things to do with my time than listen to such stupidity.

Sorry op, no experience of bankruptcy here.

sr71

Not sure what experience you need but out is a fairly black and white process.

You declare yourself bankrupt, the assignee takes over all your assets and debts and you are subject to the restrictions whilst you are bankrupt. After 3 years (I think) you are discharged along with all your debts and in 7 years your credit record will be clear.

If you have enough surplus income whilst bankrupt you may be asked to pay an amount of that to the assignee too.

If you have anything dodgy you will be investigated and there are further penalties but these are for pretty serious things like borrowing fraudulently, large sums of money or assets disappearing a month before you go bankrupt etc

But as others have alluded to, your estimation of you house value is irrelevant, it is the affordability of the payments and why you can no longer service these which will be of interest.

sr71

Isn't this the standard argument that has been used during the boom to create the panic of people buying homes?

calliope

there are 750,000 empty houses in britain, and less than 10% of the country is built on. there is no space issue so forget that as a pricing factor. the population is growing, but they are being forced into smaller and smaller properties because of the outrageous house prices. this is unsustainable. anyone who thinks that the greatest economic depression in history is going to push houses prices up "far higher" shouldn't be throwing the word idiot around, in my opinion. right now their policy is to stop deflation by deliberately inflating assets. this too is unsustainable because of the financialization and offshoring that has emptied our economies. when this fails assets will deflate and fast. you think houses are stable or rising but they only loook like that because they give the banks five billion a month.

also, take a look at countries that are a few months ahead of britain like spain - prices down now fastest on record 12% in first quarter - at this rate 50% off in a year. by some measures britain has a lot more debt than spain. when it reaches britain it's going to bring a lot of pain to a lot of people. aus is similarly over-valued.

pomtastic

So what happens when people pay a larger and larger proportion of their income on housing and rent relative to actual income on ever increasing prices of housing? Answer: They have less money to spend in the general economy, businesses therefore go bankrupt, people have less disposable income to spend on other stuff.

Have a look at the Eastern states, shops and businesses are going bankrupt daily at unprecidented levels, businesses can now renegotiating lower rents because they now have the upper hand with so many empty shops, which is happening NOW.

Australian house prices are now down 10% from the peak, so that blows up your theory.

You are completely deluded and have no idea.

moneypenny20

And none of you are taking any notice of the OP.

carling black label

In all fairness, you are correct in what you are saying............But

Unless you are a real houseprice CRASH nut, then the average Joe, like me, will always think, and state,that houseprices will continue to rise in price.This is just a function of money supply. As the supply of money, .i.e. credit expansion increases, over and above wage growth, then the asset class the money supply is aligned with will blow even higher, as we have seen. So when pumpkin blossom states house prices will go higher, she is correct, they will, but so will the cost of an hair cut, and so will the cost you pay the mechanic to fix you car, .i.e. wages. These costs will all rise along with valuations...of houses

But what you are saying is, and i agree, is the cost of a house at peak cost, circa 2006 to 2010...... relative to the cost of paying Joe an average wage relative to an average house cost, will never be repeated again in history, .i.e, we reached peak debt, now we are deleveraging, had our fingers burnt, and the whole economy is suffering, because me as a renter, and my mate Joe as a home owner, well renter from the bank, are suffering from paying such a lage prortion of our weekly income, so... in putting a roof over our heads.The cost of this surcharge will not fall, only rise, but the valuation of the asset class which the debt is set against or aligned to; may fall as new entrants into the market cannot afford to service the debt cost at current cost/valuation levels....


And why should we burden our children with such a high debt cost... Who does benefit, not us, not our children, the money lenders...

roaringmouse

There was an OP on this thread? Seems like 2 separate threads to me.

bingobob777

I'd be willing to bet a couple of hundred bucks that in real terms house prices won't exceed the peak of a few years ago in the next generation.

And to say that less space is an issue in Australia is quite frankly ridiculous.

macy

I have no experience but I do know of people that have gone bankrupt in Australia, in England it would be considered quite a shameful thing to do and I can't imagine people would tell even some of their closest friends however my experience in Australia is totally different and I have been told in hairdressers, shops etc etc by people I hardly know, there was no shame it was just something that happened to them in life and they moved on from the experience.

I don't think the stigma of going bankrupt is as bad over here.

I assume you are going to look into all your options, I wish you luck and I wouldnt' judge anybody...sometimes in life things happen and hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you can come to some kind of financial agreement with companies that you owe money to you might find they would waiver interest fees etc. Good luck.