Spread betting against Halifax house prices

Every good LL (non-speculative) should be hedging. In fact, anyone who is highly geared and can use a calculator could insulate themselves quite nicely. But then, if you're a bull that would just be a waste of guaranteed profit. On the other hand, real bears could see their deposits covered by the fall in house prices.

I was toying with the idea of going long on house prices with IG Index. The reasoning behind this was that if the prices continued rising I'd make some money from it to compensate me for being further priced-out, and if prices fell I'd lose but not as much as I'd gain in terms of the increased affordability of housing. However, when I looked at the contracts thay ran for such a short time, and the spreads were so wide, that you'd be lucky not to make a loss whatever happened.