Bring on the repossessions

Cheaper by the gross, I imagine. 22p seems reasonable, but I have no
real basis for comparison.

 

You think so?

<Baffled>

Why not?[/QUOTE]

I would imagine the voters would see a house price crash not as the
operation of the market but as being the responsibility of the
government. As the government have done nothing to discourage people
from participating in a house buying frenzy and thus encouraged
consumption via huge amounts of debt I can see people being plunged into
negative equity as a problem. I imagine the interest rate rise will
bring on the panic headlines of impending doom in the Mail and Express
tomorrow as they attempt to hammer another nail in the coffin of New
Labour. "Now they can't even run the economy - Blair's legacy is to
leave you with huge debts and no means to pay them back".

If there was even a moderate correction of about 20 % then I'd guess
lots of people would be saddled with big mortgages which were in excess
of the value of their properties. I have a sense that people who were
affected in the 90s have not forgiven the Tories for their management of
the economy at the time but also have not learnt the lessons concerning
their personal finances and risk levels. There are also many more
people now who are playing at being landlords and who are thus exposed
financially across a portfolio of properties. While renting tends to do
well when the housing market has a spasm the real test is whether would
hang on and see the correction through (long term view) or panic and try
to sell to reduce their perceived exposure (short term view).

My own view is that the housing market is not working properly given how
many people cannot afford to get on the property ladder. Something has
to give sooner or later and I expect there will be casualties when it
happens.

 

Personal consumption fuelled by "equity withdrawals" would pretty much
collapse, for starters.

 

<snip>

Not wishing to get drawn into a whole debate on politics and economics but
you do appear to have missed one small point (in a few minor stages),

1. After the early 90s property crash the Tories were re-elected.

2. Given Tory Bliar's last few years' worth of listening to the public I
reckon he's arrogant enough to assume that he'd get re-elected even if it
happens again.

3. But he won't care as he's already going and, given he seems to dislike
the heir-elect he'd probably happily ****-over a few million poor people to
make a political point ("Look! Gordon presided over a housing collapse, the
dopey fat Scotch twat!") whilst raking it in on the talk circuit to pay off
the mortgages his political slaray could never feed on their own.......

So Tony walks off with a few directorships and a guaranteed couple of
million a year for a few years for speeches (plus the inevitable memoirs
etc), the housing market has a shit-fit, Gordon looks crap, someone other
than Cameron gets in and Tony doesn't GAF.

I'll wager 50 Euros on it, with the first 10 people to step up......

Dave

 

How many people do you, or in fact anyone here, know who actually could
not buy a house if they really tried?

Is a change that where people in previous years might have accepted
slightly shitty houses to get on the ladder, a lot of people now expect
the perfect house (as with a lot of things - I want it now!) as a first
time house and then whinge because they can't afford it...? Not all
obviously, but it's something I wonder.

I do also wonder how many of the people who claim they can't afford it,
can't afford it because they've racked up mountains of unsecured debt
or are just too bloody fussy.

I know a few people who claim they cannot buy and that it is 'so
unfair' yet they have two cars, loads of credit cards and prefer to
work an absolute minimum rather than put the effort in - that's a
different kettle of fish if you ask me.

Of course, the downside of this is the ever increasing demand for
subsidised housing.

It's certainly no better over here - in fact in some respects it's
worse in terms of what people appear to expect to be given for simply
being alive. "I'm owed it/I deserve it"

 

That'll be a lot of the people who work for me, then.

Even around here, the entry level for a house is around £100k - I know
of families surviving on one full-time wage of £6 / hour and a part-time
wage of £minimum wage / hour.

By my reckoning, that's nowhere near enough to get authorisation for the
mortgage required.

 

Possibly it's a diversified portfolio of whic some of it is cash?
Otherwise I would agree - I wonder where Mol's get her dosh

I must say the one thing about living in a 'financial centre' is that
you can't really get away from investments etc.

 

Okay - fair enough.

Being slightly tangential, but when did the idea that we all had a
right to buy our own house come into being?

Did people in previous generations all own their houses?

Not saying it's fair or unfair - just interested in whether the
attitude has changed as well as the price

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Bear

It stuns me how few people do that.

It must be very few, because it always seems to confuse the **** out of
the bank-drone. It's clearly not in their script.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, dwb

During Thatcher's second term, IIRC.

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

I *think* the explosion was when the Tories decided to raise some cash
to offset their tax cuts by offering to sell the council stock to the
current tennants at knock-down prices in the 80s.

Not that I know of - hence the large number of council houses in the UK

 

Okay - fair enough.

Being slightly tangential, but when did the idea that we all had a
right to buy our own house come into being?

Did people in previous generations all own their houses?

Not saying it's fair or unfair - just interested in whether the
attitude has changed as well as the price

**Oohh.. It(OE) hasn't added indents... Never mind.**

It's not attitude, but law and banking practises. I'm too young to
remember, but my parents remember well how things changed pretty rapidly for
them in the 70s and suddenly they *might* be eligible to pay the same in
mortgage on their own home as they currently were in rent (with nothing to
show even if they rented for 60 years) so they jumped at the chance.

This lesson has, I assume, been handed down to anyone around my age and
since (so maybe early 40s and lower) who were children of parents of the
same era and that has just progressed.

Or something.

Dave

 

That's an interesting point actually - I think the housing market here has
started to work a lot more like, for example, Germany, where owning your
house is not as widespread and lots of people cannot afford to get on the
property ladder.

I think unless something really unexpected happens it's now a matter of when
rather than if.

Unless the market simply stagnates for a long time.

 

I'd go with around the mid-70s when people realised they finally
could/actually could do it, the mid-80s when a lot of people thought they
*must* as it was cheaper to buy a house than rent, especially as all the
council/social housing was being sold off anyway. And then the exaggerrated
boom/bust cycle kicked in.

Dave

 

I don't do DDs. Well, except for the cellphone, where there's no option.[/QUOTE]

They aren't dangerous you know. It is actually all right to use them.

I'm almost as conservative as you when it comes to how I do my banking
but I think direct debit is an excellent and easy to manage system that
saves a lot of bother in traipsing to the bank to pay regular bills like
council tax or utilities. I might be more concerned with credit card
bills - especially if I ran up large bills as I think you do and then
decide the optimum way to clear the balance given finances at any point
in time.

 

I shall have to remember that one for the rare occasions that my bank
even bothers to call me.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, Bear

I had some young burd ring here earlier today. I'm with the TPS, so I
get very few sales calls, and I have caller recognition that weeds out
most of the rest. This one had an 0117 number, so I answered and got the
tell-tale pause before a voice said:

"Is Cassie there?"
"Sorry, you have the wrong number."
"Oh, are there any other female members of the household there?"
"Nice try, ****." <click>

--
Wicked Uncle Nigel - Podium Placed Ducati Race Engineer as featured in
Performance Bikes and Fast Bikes

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
SBS#39 OMF#6 Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"
Suzuki TS250 "The Africa Single" Yamaha Vmax Honda ST1100 wiv trailer

 

housing supply is less than housing demand hence the high prices
increasing immigration , marraige failures etc are unlikely to decrease
in the short to meduim term to pressure on housing will stay

A house price crash would see billions in tax revenue lost , through
debt write offs capital losses and stamp etc , not good for a government
mid term in office

It would follow that our psbr would have to rise to cope with the fall
out , not good for anyone , to minimise this taxes would have to clime
further , whenever this happens we end up with hihg inflation and high
unemployment

 

I would imagine the voters would see a house price crash not as the
operation of the market but as being the responsibility of the
government. As the government have done nothing to discourage people
from participating in a house buying frenzy and thus encouraged
consumption via huge amounts of debt I can see people being plunged
into negative equity as a problem. I imagine the interest rate rise
will bring on the panic headlines of impending doom in the Mail and
Express tomorrow as they attempt to hammer another nail in the coffin
of New Labour. "Now they can't even run the economy - Blair's legacy
is to leave you with huge debts and no means to pay them back".

If there was even a moderate correction of about 20 % then I'd guess
lots of people would be saddled with big mortgages which were in
excess of the value of their properties. I have a sense that people
who were affected in the 90s have not forgiven the Tories for their
management of the economy at the time but also have not learnt the
lessons concerning their personal finances and risk levels. There
are also many more people now who are playing at being landlords and
who are thus exposed financially across a portfolio of properties.
While renting tends to do well when the housing market has a spasm
the real test is whether would hang on and see the correction through
(long term view) or panic and try to sell to reduce their perceived
exposure (short term view).

My own view is that the housing market is not working properly given
how many people cannot afford to get on the property ladder.
Something has to give sooner or later and I expect there will be
casualties when it happens.[/QUOTE]



true inflation under labour as been running far higher than the 2.5%
they like to quote , if they used the same formula as the tories then
it averages out over 8%

taking housing costs out of the formula was rediculas considering it is
as esential as food and water

 

Trying (and failing) to not be offensive but how the **** did you ever even
spell mortgage, let alone get one?

Dave