A PROPERTY market 'rollercoaster' will see house prices in some areas plummet by £21,000 over the next three years, experts warned yesterday.


http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/mortgages/hou...page_id=57&ct=5

The more articles we see like this the greater the falls going to be.

Met an old friend on New Year's day. She is a highly qualified academic involved in setting up research fellowships etc. She asked if the housing market had turned. Groan !!!

Can we set up a hit team and whack these buggers with oiled canes.

These predicted falls aren't much, I'm hoping for a lot more.

Simon99,

Although I would like to see greater falls, I don't think we will.
Do remember all that inflation is going up so the falls in real terms is not just 6% but nearer 10%. 2 years of that a 160K house will become 150K in the first year and 141K after the second. And your wages should of increased at the same pace of inflation.
So if you earn 25K now, you should be on 26K next year, and 27.04K the year after. Note: with inflation at 4%.

Does anybody follow.

I would be over the moon with a 6% decrease in house prices!

Did this article actually make the paper copy of the Daily Mail, or is it just an on-line article?

Nick,

That is true, as long as it happens.

Bottom line is though that more jobs are shifting to temporary/short term contract/part time, many jobs are simply uncompetitive in a world market and will either be offshored or removed fromt he system and taxes are rising and will continue to rise. The real rate of inflation in necessary goods is far higher than the DVD player and plastic junk distorted CPI and energy prices and service cost rises are rampant.

Even that 4% rise may not be enough to keep parity let alone make headway on the last decade's HPI.

At a negligible rate.




Yeah, right. How many people on here are seeing 4% wage inflation.

I should be getting a 3% increase in jan. *great*

This is actually a VERY BEARISH report. OK, so the falls they predict are a bit lower than most of us HPC bears are predicting/hoping for, but note how long they project it will take for HPs to get back to their peak- 2010 for London, for instance. There will be some nice buying opportunities out there before the market turns bullish again. Patience is the key.

And a lot more of this to come.
The massive debt will be a key factor in house price falls.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/credit-and-lo...5&in_page_id=62

I got 16% last July and my wife got 12% from Jan 1 this year. We have never got less than double the inflation rate, and neither have the friends of mine who are professionals. TO be frank if I was offered 3% I would laugh and hand in my notice as it is basically a pay cut in real terms!

Your very lucky, better keep it quite the Magician may be watching.

What line of work are you/your friends in GLFTB?

I'm in IT. My friends are in IT, Law & Accounting. We are all on performance based pay increases and unless you are under performing it is normal to get well above inflation increases.

Nothing to do with luck, we just work hard that's all.

It's also normal for big chunks of the workforce in those sectors (IT and accountancy especially) to be culled every few years, which would tend to then depress the earnings of those surplus to requirements. If one of those culls happened again soon it could become a real bear market in London!

This is true, but once again it tends to be poor performers who are made redundant. And in the cases where it happens to good people they will usually have little problem finding work.

Its everything to do with luck. Millions of people work bloody hard and don't get rises like that because the industry they are in won't wear them. I know plenty of people in IT that have not had decent rises for years - in fact, the fall out from the dotcom thing is only really beginning to end now in some segments of the market.

It just depends on which sector of a market you are in and whether that sector is booming. Its luck, not judgement.

Anyway, in terms of how debt will affect house prices etc - its all to do with the majority of people - and most people (apart from bloody public servants) are lucky to get rises that match inflation. Many people have seen no real wage inflation for 20 years - I am talking about people like bus drivers, warehouse workers, lorry drivers, general admin staff. Admin jobs in offices have been paying 14k for donkey's years and they still are.

These people in IT you are talking of are poor performers then. Nobody who is good at what they do and keeps their skills up to date is in this category - in my experience anyway. However, there are a lot of really crap people in IT and suppose this is who you are talking about.

Gtr London FTB

There are an awful lot of bad managers around too - but I bet their jobs won't be the first on the cull list when the outsourcing contract gets signed. It's the sort of axe that chops off the heads of the good, bad and the ugly, with maybe a few project guys left behind. The trigger point for such action seems to be largley dependant on what competitors do - look at the banks, once one does it they all get on the bandwagon. Same might be the case for legal and accountancy functions, a few leaders then the rest follow.

If you have the increases you are claiming you are bucking the official IT figures that can be found on sites like www.cw360.com, www.namesfacesplaces.com, www.siliconvalley.com, www.contractoruk.com, wwwjobstats.com, etc, etc.

Offically, IT workers have been seeing a DECREASE in year on year wages since 2001.

This is all true. The trick is to be supporting a vital system to the business where it would be very unlikely that they would make cuts.

Luck is always the loosers refuge.

We are all born to shit, f***, eat and earn. The decisions you make in life are in your hands. Some eat, some earn and some f*** more.

I find most IT people have an in - built over - confidence thinking they have special skills because they help set up each of thier mates home computers. Most however, are nothing special. Many are totaly thick and forget the real world when it comes to programme design (think CSA and Passports systems).

Stop winging and become self - employed in something useful. Example - home solar energy panel supplier.

In 10 years time at 16% PA you'll be earning more than 440% of your current salary, unless you’re currently earning 25K then that’s possible but at 50-60K I'd say you were hav'in a laugh expecting it to last.

Better start practicing writing notices.

I expect to see 6/7 years of consistent sustained price falls. There is no reason to only expect a short sharp downturn. The 'cash value' of losseswilldwarf anything seen before. I 'lost' £ 20k between 1989 & 1994. I expect average declines 2x, 3x that in the future

Well that`s one side.

And here`s the other. Never give up the interest rate cut boys do they. I bet they`re all mortgaged to the hilt.

I bet they are Charlie. We're cycling towards the cliff edge with absolutely no brakes or rocket boosters. Result = -40%.

Sorry, you truly are a tit! "set up each of thier mates home computers" - how does an 85000 person, global, email and authentication system (under budget)sound? It was bloody difficult, and as others have alluded on here, I.T. is incredibly stressfull. I'm not blowing my own trumpet - I worked as part of a project team and we did a good job. Despite this, we still got 2% or less for payrises.

Btw, when you talk about programme design, realise this. 99% of the time the customer (who's paying for the job) dictates what they want to see and how it is to work. We simply make their specifications work - believe me, quite often they haven't got a clue how feasible it is to make their "fantasy world ideal of what a system should do" meet reality. When you try to scale them back to what's realistically achievable they think you're trying to pull a fast one, even though they have absolutely no idea of what's involved. End of rant.

Quick poll - some people on here are obviously in IT (Oracle, The Masked Tulip, Myself, Dave_The_Vinyl_Junkie). In addition I know several other friends in IT and none of us have got above about 2% in the last few years. How are other people finding it? My bet is that most are getting little or no wage rises.

Yes, no wage rises - but at least we can make up for short falls by relaxed borrowing

very close dgp.Not in IT but I do work in electronics.

Yes customers very rarely know exactly what they need and constantly move the goalpoasts,making all the design work we have to do a complete headache...once we have designed something to spec it has to get changed!....and they wonder why so much is over budget or late!!!

My firm is in the middle of an outsourcing binge.The factory I work at is probably closing soon and I 've been asked to relocate...oh and my pay rise last year was 2.75%(pay cut in real terms but at least I am one of the lucky sods who gets to keep their job!)

Gtr London FTB,

In a flat market good individuals salaries usually rise after graduation until they hit a plateau, this is not unusual. But you will hit a plateau sometime before you overtake Bill Gates. But almost every industry is cyclical, you will have a downturn and you will be vunerable.

You are being a little naieve believing that good performers will survive a downturn. I've survived through a couple of near-complete industry collapses but watched everyone else go. The underlying reasons for an individual being layed off are usually based on politics, location (particularly regional offices), age, rather than actual performance. I've seen stars go on the same day idiots are promoted.

There`s lot of extra cash for you IT guys if you want it.
How about 150 quid for three hours work, mainly sitting there and drinking their coffee while the machine and your specialist software you purchased after years of searching does the work.
In the past two months I have got a new cooker, hoover, £120 washing machine repair, and my accountants fee for next year, and I am only a self taught computer buff, started just as a hobby 10 years ago.

Im in IT. I had joined a Company as a graduate trainee in May 2003, starting salary 20k. I had a 1.5k pay rise after 6 months, then, wait for it, £500 as my annual pay rise (6 months later). I started looking for another job the minute I got home.

Within one month, I found another job which I absolutely love, as a Consultant. My pay rise from that job to this one was 81%