House prices..

The wheels are coming off.

Nationwide Steve Coogan told R4 that 95% mortgages are soon to vapourise.

Buyers without huge deposits or equity can no longer raise funds to buy.
 
271% increase in house prices in Northern Ireland for the last 10 years. :eek:

Now there's a contender for the biggest drop.



Mum and Dad bought their house in N.I. for £34,000 - last valuation was £270,000.
My house was £55,000 - last valuation was £198,000.
 
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Prices are driven by sentiment, and as much as they shot up when money was easy and people would buy 'before it was too late and they went up' then by the same token if people know they have started going down, they are more likely to sit on their hands for another month, and another month, or to keep bartering prices down.

Chased up with an abundance of credit (money), then chased down helped by a lack of money.
 
clv101 said:
Is there anyone left not expecting a house price crash now? It must be ovbious to all by now?
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What do you define as a crash?

And even if there is one, my prediction about it not happening without an outside influence (the credit crunch caused by mistrading of debts by banks) is still true ;)
 
markyp23 said:
Look when the boom started. Are Labour really responsible for this ridiculous increase in house prices or is it an unhappy coincidence?
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They opened the immigration floodgates, exacerbating an already dire shortage of housing supply. No coincidence I fear.
 
Dolph said:
What do you define as a crash?

And even if there is one, my prediction about it not happening without an outside influence (the credit crunch caused by mistrading of debts by banks) is still true ;)
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Sounds like you've got your excuses already lined up ;)
 
dirtydog said:
Sounds like you've got your excuses already lined up ;)
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What, for being unable to predict the credit crunch? Damn my lack of foresight.

I've still been more accurate than the doomsayers who have been predicting a significant crash every year for at least the last five :)
 
Worth noting that average house prices are still higher than they were a year ago.

I guess the question is, what level of resolution/granularity should we be looking at in terms of price trends? The fact is, Halifax's figures show that 2008Q1 prices are only 1.0% lower than 2007Q4 prices. To me, that suggests that looking at month-on-month figures is a little unreliable and is susceptible to short term data fluctuations. By definition it also must mean that in some point prior to March, we had house price rises (if March was -2.5% yet Jan-Mar inclusive only -1%).

Furthermore, many regions had RISING house prices last month, such as London, the North, Scotland, East Anglia, East Midlands etc. IMO, a true house price "CRASH!!!:eek:!ZOMG!" means large medium term falls in prices across the board, or as near as damnit.
 
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Im surprised people look at the credit crunch as being some kind of 'outside bet' that came in unexpected.

Credit BOOMS are generally followed by credit contractions .... it was always going to be on the cards at one point.
 
markyp23 said:
It's amazing how you will completely discount government figures on issues where it doesn't suit you but when it does suit you, you pre-emptively criticise anyone who will discount them.
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i dont see how you can not see where he is coming from. i am thinking the exact same thing.

its all figures this figures that. people are nieve in beliving everything they read thats the problem with this country!
 
HangTime said:
Worth noting that average house prices are still higher than they were a year ago.

I guess the question is, what level of resolution/granularity should we be looking at in terms of price trends? The fact is, Halifax's figures show that 2008Q1 prices are only 1.0% lower than 2007Q4 prices. To me, that suggests that looking at month-on-month figures is a little unreliable and is susceptible to short term data fluctuations. By definition it also must mean that in some point prior to March, we had house price rises (if March was -2.5% yet Jan-Mar inclusive only -1%).
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What it shows is that annual data is laggy... of course. Not that MoM figures are unreliable. The shift has occurred in just the last few months. Annual data still includes Q2 and Q3 of '07.
 
nucastle said:
Im surprised people look at the credit crunch as being some kind of 'outside bet' that came in unexpected.

Credit BOOMS are generally followed by credit contractions .... it was always going to be on the cards at one point.
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This particular credit crunch wasn't predicable because it was caused by mispackaging of risk. Because high risk debt was packaged as low risk debt, banks that thought they had little exposure to the high risk suddenly found that wasn't the case, and subsequently everyone's stopped lending until they understand the scale of their exposure and the potential costs.

It could only have been predicted if it was known to be happening, and if it was known to be happening, it wouldn't have occured.
 
nucastle said:
Im surprised people look at the credit crunch as being some kind of 'outside bet' that came in unexpected.
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Indeed, people who just pin this on the external influence of the credit crunch sound as daft as Gordon Brown. The US originated credit crunch is just symptom of a far greater and longer regime of cheap money that in my opinion traces its source back to the post-911 interest rate cuts.
 
clv101 said:
Indeed, people who just pin this on the external influence of the credit crunch sound as daft as Gordon Brown. The US originated credit crunch is just symptom of a for greater and longer regime of cheap money that in my opinion traces its route back to the post-911 interest rate cuts.
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How many years have you been wrong about a 'price crash' (which isn't necessarily happening now, it all depends on how long and deep this goes on) happening each year now?

It doesn't bode well for your predictions to be that wrong that often.
 
clv101 said:
What it shows is that annual data is laggy... of course. Not that MoM figures are unreliable. The shift has occurred in just the last few months. Annual data still includes Q2 and Q3 of '07.
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Agreed - I was only mentioning annual figures to illustrate that the current sitation was far from a crash just yet (unless we consider crashes as a short term phenomena, which I don't think is wise considering the length of time people own a house and the length of time it takes from putting a house on the market to completion). Or in other words, personally I don't consider a short term boom followed by a short term rapid decline down toward the original level to be a genuine crash.

What I'm getting at is that I think quarterly data is maybe a better indicator for anything other than the short term. Yes, like annualised data it of course has a time lag, which some might argue "disguises" large fluctuations in the very recent past. But for me monthly data needs to be considered in context.
 
what gets me is everyone that comes in my office, sits down in front of me and tells me that the housing market is shocking at the moment, and how prices are crashing, and nothing is selling, and no one wants to put there house on the market anymore .... bla bla bla

and they really do seem shocked when i tell them that we have sold more houses in the last month than anytime this year, and we have more on the market that me have had this year, and again the prices arent moving at all.

they reply always seems to be "But all the news and media are saying......"

Grrrr!!
 
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