oliklom

What I find incredible about English news, they were quickly announcing that due to the latest figures from the Uk economy, been still in recession, that the sterling had already lost so much and looking at it now it is almost back to 1.11 but not a word on the news! Not a single word that would encourage, absolutely NADA!

chulo

A slight increase in the exchange rate is hardly major news and won`t affect the majority of UK residents.

Q3 results showing less growth does have an impact.

There is only so much you can place on a 30 minutes news programme.

jojojojojojojojojojojojo

They're now questioning this tho arent they!!!

The markets are liking the news on this banking splitting business has been mentioned on the news and that could be having an effect! Also they're buying a bit of sterling at the mo incase there is some good news next we - re the QE
Jo xxx

bigglesworth

Strangely I agree with BOTH the last posts. The restrictions in a 30 minute programme, and of course that the media rarely report good news.
However, as an ex trader, I use Reuters a lot. Monitor it several times a day in fact. There is no doubt at all that any bad news on the economy or the UK is reported 6 times in the next two hours. An good news hardly gets a mention. (Which does make tracking WHY things are happening in the economy a bit tricky).
The reason of course is that Reuters' sources are of course the banks and funds in the City. The really useful information we can take from that is that the professional traders, - the banks, funds etc- are SHORT of sterling.

Me - I have always been a contrarian. And although I think the Government has made a hash of the UK economy, they are very far from alone in that. The ECB has done at least as bad a job as Gordon Brown.

oliklom

FAIR POINT!

These slight changes in the sterling do have quite a bit of an impact on ones mood, well at least it does with us, our business relies so much on it !

chulo

I`m no fan of Brown or Labour.

Having said that the past few yrs I believe would have made any PM`s job a thankless one.

Especially since the 90`s arm chair experts have had a larger audiance.

brianc_li

The only properties that are getting 100% mortgages now are those that are actually owned by the banks. Reposessions, bankrupt developers, etc. The banks are now so desperate to shift these off their books that they are offering all sorts of incentives to shift them. This in turn is causing more problems for those trying to achieve ´normal´ sales.

HBG

I understand your point, but the example I was quoting was a house for sale at 50,000 Euros, privately, the bank valued it at 100,000, and offered a mortgage on their valuation at 60,000, a 120% mortgage to the buyer.

I should add that the buyer seems a bit eccentric and the estate agent is definitely in need of treatment. I don’t know about the bank people. The seller bought 25 years ago and is still making a profit, enough to pay for a few years in a retirement home.

(If the buyer is to be believed, his mortgage repayments will be under 400 Euros a month, and he is currently renting a much smaller house for 500 a month).

(And, after all his costs, he should have 5,000 Euros left over, which would pay his mortgage for the first year).

CazW54

Surely if someone is not buying the product it means you are selling the wrong product or you have the market wrong?

jojojojojojojojojojojojo

You're right, they are selling the wrong product - property! Its not a good time to be selling it.

Jo xxx

chris fisher

If you bought your property before 2005 you have prob broke even or its worth now still more than you paid.

A friend of mine has moved into a rental and is paying the same as me for a small 2 bed flat as what I am paying mortgage for a 4 bed house house purchased 2002?

If you can afford it and you can get a loan and the property is a bargain I say buy.

The main problem with the boom was the agents (i was on of them) we all told sellers that there properties were worth far more than they infact was, it was going on in the UK too.

Untill the pound strengthens property here will not sell to the UK market easily.

<<snip>>

chulo

Its a good time to buy.

Biggest hurdle though is the UK banks, public opinion and govt.

The UK banks are being run by the govt, never good, especially Labour government.

The UK public are idiots, in general, they believe everything there told and never act against it.

Labour are trying to not win an election or sort out the finances, there basically run by people out of there depth with no comprehension of running UK PLC.

The US is out of recession, why they dumped there bad debts onto UK Banks, who were influenced by govt to do so.

I know for fact there was a meeting of certain financial individuals and govt when the US pushed us to take on the risk.

Friendship never works in business, the UK has still to learn that.

The banks had the govt to fall bank on and huge profits if it worked out.

Now the US financial industry is making huge profits and there property market is beginning to move again.

Now matter how much you slag off banks, they have to be run by people willing and able to take risks, without intervention by govt.

You cannot invest in a market run as the UK is at the moment.

You cannot work with a govt ruled and run by trade unions with Socialist ideas, the both work against Capitalism, not with it.

The UK public should be well happy bankers are earning millions in bonuses, it means there earning huge profits for there companies.

The Banks aren`t stupid, influenced yes, but not stupid.

Ask yourself, if your earning £30,000 a year, but your making your company and its directors billions, wouldn`t you want a % for all your skills.

I`d suggest if someone is being paid £30,000 a year and is not getting a bonus for there efforts in an industry which traditionally did and still does around the world, why would you bother taking the risk.

You must always be prepared to loose in the markets, only a small percentage is based on knowledge, the rest is a gamble or rather a calculated risk.

Somebody has to take that risk and support it, if your £30,000 a year guy looses a large sum of money, the media and public will hang him in public.

So why would you want that job, when you could move elsewhere.

The only way out of recession is for banks to lend, to everyone, stop quantative easing and make the boom return.

Otherwise we may as well become Europes Cuba.

HBG

I wouldn’t buy in Spain for at least another year, but the simple fact is that UK property prices are slowly rising again, while Spanish property prices continue to fall. That’s an ideal situation for a UK buyer, but it would be best to wait until the Spanish market has reached its bottom. But who knows when that level has been reached, and who knows what UK property prices will do in the future?

And what about the Euro?

There are no experts, they continue to get it wrong. In my betting days, I used to back a lot of favourites, and only the bookmakers got rich.

chulo

Exchange rate in the Mail today puts the Euro at 1.08 to Sterling.

I also read in it that a Chelsea star is trying to sell his 10 Million Euro villa in La Zagaleta, Marbella.

Also the ex Tottingham star Ossie Ardiles is selling his Villa in La Quinta and returning to London. Its on sale reduced from £2 Million to £1.55 Million.

There lookin for a base in London and another property elsewhere in the Med. Although they will keep there holiday flat in Aloha Golf, both properties are in the Marbella region.

brianc_li

For those who don´t know of him Edward Hugh is a highly respected, Barcelona based economist. He was one of the first to forecast the current turmoil (In Aug 07) and is very pessimistic about the outlook. He expects Spain to call in the IMF sometime in 2011.

His latest look at the situation in Spain makes particularly grim reading. On property he says this:

"The arrival of the 5 million immigrants kept Spain's population median age below the critical 40 level for a few more years, and sustained housing demand for as long as the good times lasted, but if many migrants now pack up and leave and at the smae time we have a surge of young educated Spanish people also leaving, then the median age will be pushed beyond the critical point, and the Spanish land and housing market, like the Japanese one, will simply never recover. Which means we are in danger of entering a continuing downward spiral, and path dependency dynamics are everything here, and lack of reaction amounts to the same thing as throwing in the towel before you start."

Full article is on Facebook here. You may need to request that you be his friend before reading it.

http://www.facebook.com/edward.hugh#...5181118&ref=mf