I have never seen such a load of cr@p as I have done on this site.

I am a first-time buyer, and I am struggling to get on the property ladder. So it is very much in my interests for the housing market to 'crash'. But the truth is that no-one knows what the housing market is going to do. Yes, it may go down a little bit in the short term, yes it may go down a lot in the medium term, yes it might continue to go up.

Nobody knows. That's the point. What I do know however is that this site is (in my opinion) targeted at one thing, and one thing only - predicting a major house price crash. So much so that indications to suggest that the housing market is not going to crash are largely dismissed, or not even mentioned in the first place.

Any decent site would be balanced, and would offer material in a manner that weighs out the pros, and the cons, of any particular argument or point of view. Any site which starts off with the objective of proving one thing alone (a house price crash in this instance) is off to a false start.

In my view, the contents and purpose of this site is nothing but to inflict doom and gloom on those who are already on the housing ladder, and to mislead and give false hopes to those who aren't. And those who regularly post on this site with the same targeted views are just as naive and blinkered as the editors.

Get a life people - stop feeling sorry for yourselves, find something to be optimistic about, and stop inflicting your armageddon doom and gloom on the rest of us.

(And I bet my views above are vetted and not even posted on the site in the first place)

Yes, indeedy.

And so it should be.

Buy a flat ..... Don't buy a flat .....

There you go.

Hi Kirsty!

Firstly, we are not out to 'prove' a HPC, merely examine the factors currently in place which could lead to one - and will, in my view.

Secondly, all points of view are welcome and I for one mourn the absence of bulls these days.

Thirdly - AWOOOOOOOOOOOGA

Edit: forgot to say, good luck with your house purchase if that is what you decide to do. This is just a website, I am sure you will do your own research and make up your own mind. All the best

When you walk down the street and a gang of hoodies waving knifes about are stood in your path do you carry on walking?

You don’t know what’s going to happen but you’ve got a bloody good idea its not going to be pretty

Welcome and please feel free to offer a more balanced view.

Yes, where have all the bulls gone? Most mysterious...

PS OP, you might want to ponder on this graph.

To buy property what else. Now is the perfect time to buy!

I used see a lot posts like yours on the Singing Pig website before I was banned (for being too convincing in my bear case I think). Two points to make here:

Firstly, You are right, no one knows exactly what is going to happen, but we can get a good idea of the rough trends. How? Through a science called “macro-economics”.

The second point is that there are no bullish arguments at the present time which might stand up to anything other than a cursory scrutiny. (If you have any, I’d love to hear them). The majority o f “bulls” out there aren’t really “bullish” in its proper sense as they haven’t studied the market from a valuation perspective or the outlook for house prices (I do know this as I have spent a long time in “bullish” websites) – they are just hoping that prices go up because that is a) what would suit decisions they have already taken and mean that they don’t have to admit they were wrong to make the decision in the way they did in the first place.

I hate to tell you this. But if you want a balanced opionion, could I suggest a forum calls HOUSE PRICE CRASH isn't the place for you.

so its a crime to have an opinion- well, this must be Gordon Browns first post- now frack off

There are a few rather extreme doom mongers here however perhaps you should read the mainstream press now which is also becoming more and more bearish.

There are good reasons to think the UK economy is in deep trouble due to high levels of public and private debt during a credit crisis. If you can't see how this affects the housing market then there is little anyone can do to help you. It is perfectly rational to look at these factors and to get pretty concerned about our future prospects.

manabouttobuyaflat

Gordy, not a good name, but this is better?

MANIWANTABUTTNOTATWAT

if you have checked you grocery bill lately, or your petrol receipts etc, you will notice that prices for just about everything are a lot higher these days.

I think food alone went up 10-15 percent this year.

that means your money is worth 10-15 percent less, and your house that has "plateaued" is already worth 10-15 percent less.

that's ALREADY a crash.

at this point, imo, this site isn't exactly about IF there is going to be a crash, that's pretty obvious by now, but more about how bad it will ultimately turn out to be.

Vetted. You don't read this site much obviously. Do they vet anything ?

As for Naive and blinkered some of us have a bit of experiencein this and economics generally. I started seriousyl studying then housing market and the economy in general in 1993. Got so good at it they even gave me a degree in Economics in the end. I woudl hazrd a guess there are otheres with much more experience at this than me. IF you find this gloomy then you have not grasped the simple reason we need a crash. There needs to be a realignment in values and expectations. there will always be time slike this. However, in a few years time (OK in 10 years time) when you have your house and you go from owning 10% of it to 50% without having done anything... you'll be back on this website likea shot. Trust me.

Oh come now, don't get paranoid. Your views are hardly ground breaking or original are they? They simply reflect the vast, sheep like sentiments of the majority of the population. I don't think you quite realise that a fair number of posters on this site don't just think there will be a crash, they actually want it to happen. Why? Because the only people who might suffer from it have ALREADY made, by and large, a huge profit out of housing and expect to continue to do so. A drop in house prices would stop this happening, but would also open up a lot of opportunities for those, including yourself, who are shut out of the market. Moreover a substantial decrease in house prices would end the cycle of property for profit which has ruined the entire market except for those greedy few who have already gained handsomely from it.

A reduction in property prices will not hurt many unless they over-stretched themselves, got greedy or took part in idiotic fantasy schemes which could only work in an obscenely rising market. For those already owning a home and not expecting, as of right, a further profit, they would be unaffected since any new property they might wish to move to will have a commensurate reduction in price too. One exception is some first time buyers who were silly enough to buy expensively when any degree of independent research would have told them they entered the market at a critical and risky time. But this number of "sufferers" would be enormously outweighed by literally millions of others who at last would be able to buy a modest home without crippling themselves.

I think if you took a bit more care to read the many threads here with some discernment, you'll see that there is a huge variety of abilities, views, opinions and a great deal of interesting knowledge recorded by some quite clever people. I think what you object to is that you are perhaps keyed in entirely to the conventional wisdom about housing and perhaps have become, like many, so brain-washed that you cannot accept there might be a different way of thinking.

But even if that wasn't the case, there are now sufficient numbers of conventional investors, "experts", economists and intelligent voices throughout the UK and the Europe, who are actually coming round to the way of thinking this site, which has been a loan voice for too long, is promoting. But you won't find them on the BBC or everyday press cuttings, though step by step the conventional media is slowly waking up.

VP

How old are you? Wake up and get with it dude! Go to Youtube and listen to Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber and George Soros - learn about cycles, inflation and the behaviour of crowds - do it now.

You want balance then go to the BBC (well sort of) or some other media channel - what were you expecting on this site? (clue: look at the URL).

Go ahead by a flat. Perhaps you should ask these questions to the vendor/solicitor...

How much are the service charges
What is the service charge estimate for year 07/08
Is there or will there be a sinking fund
What are the neighbours like? (it can be noisy in flats)
Reserved parking?
How much is the ground rent?

I work for managing agents - we are very busy sending out arrears notices to the BTL brigade.

Be careful.

Buying a house in a few short years may be a much better decision.

Interesting......

If nobody know what's going to happen, then how can we be giving false hope?

:-) There are some with pretty extreme viewpoints, granted... I question some of the more unlikely aspects of their predictions where the evidence suggests flawed analysis.

I am optimistic. I do expect a sharp decline in house prices over the next year or so... maybe not a big move to the average price reported by the major indices, but I expect houses I'd consider living in to come on the market priced such that I can make a serious offer within 12 to 18 months. The vendors will likely not make a loss - but I won't be stitched up with a trebling of prices since 1997.

I'm encouraged that Sterling seems to be weakening - at least - as this will likely improve Britain as a competitor - maybe even encouraging on-shore spending in a reversal of wildly inefficient outsourcing which has been rampant in recent years.

I am looking forward to higher food and fuel costs... I hope that these will encourage a slower pace of life... Maybe even 'respect' and 'accountability' when debts can't be forever put-off.

I realise that many people will be caught out by the recession which we face - though I'm reassured that, while I've no trust whatsoever in government, at least we have a level of competence in setting our fiscal policy - not that it's a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Lastly, and this bit makes me most optimistic, I've noticed that "opportunity" has vastly diminished over the last 10 years - an end to this economic cycle... no matter how painful... provides the essential opportunity to wipe stupidity from the slate and start to work to build our futures productively.

Value of money has not gone down 15%. Yes food is more expensive (i shop at lidls for my basicsactually and everything seems to be the same or cheaper :-))

Other things have got cheaper. Technology prices have come down, telecoms services have been reduced.

I don't know how much cash you spend on food, but as a percentage of my income it's not a lot.

Perfect counter-balance to the lazy-boy media, reporting drivel day after day.

If you've ever had first hand experience of a "news story", i'd bet you wouldn't recognise it from the resulting media version.

Just look at the Merv King statement yesterday, basically warning that the economy will be p@@ next year. Most of the papers then ran unsupported stories saying, 3 interest rate cuts next year, guaranteed, yippee!

The purpose of this site is to debate whether the current housing bubble is going to burst. There are those that insist that property will lose more than 50% of it's real value, whilst most of us know that the chances of this happening are very slim they are entitled to there opinion.

The fact is property is a hot subject and many economic factors determine its value. We've just seen probably the biggest credit crisis since the 1940s, yet the property market is still very solid. Big falls are marginal and on the whole relate to new build inner city living developments. Family homes are still rising in price and still selling fast.

The BOE England is going for a half a percent cut in interest rates in the coming weeks and with interest rates still very low, this is likely to reduce the amount of debt problems and restore some confidence in the housing market and the greater economy.

Based on the economy improving rather than getting worse, it's very likely that we'll see a rise in average property prices come Feb 08.

Over a 12mth period, how much do you spend on food?

Now compare with how much you spend on technology, in the same period.

'us'?

and how do you know?

Your right this site is not balanced. When I create threads which can be considered even slightly bullish such as "How long will you wait until you buy" They are moved to the troll board.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=59323

How is that thread a troll thread.

Basically the site admins do not want a balanced view on this site. Thats why most of the bulls left and your left with a bunch of bears slapping each others back!!!

IMO this site needs new administration so we can have a sensible discussion.

Market says no- BoE no longer control interest rates, the Banks do.

Inflation does the economy like a kipper and low cost items are inflating at around 14%, money supply is inflating about the same, high cost items are falling in price, yes its the start of the bust cycle.

My advice to you is to pay down debt cos when you lose your job, those benefit payments are awfully low and the credit card companies are awfully insistent.

Good luck.

unfortunately things like technology are almost always imports, so they arent really a part of inflation.

while it IS usually cheaper to buy many of those things abroad, it also means that someone in the UK usually got put out of a job. very similar to outsourcing.

to guage inflation you have to look at domestically produced goods and services.

Medicine is way up, even if the gvt is paying most, they fund it with citizens taxes, education is up, energy, food, taxes, housing, almost everything.

I would find it pretty hard to believe that your bills haven't gone up in the last year, usually at a pretty healthy clip.

Good response!!

If a tree falls in a wood and nobodys there ddoes it make a sound?

Say for example. like the good old BBC have done for the past 10 years, with their unchallenged, unbalanced, reporting of house prices?

How did a chump from the Nationwide sitting there on BBC Breakfast, blatantly ramping, ever constitute balance?

Wake up, EVERYONE has an agenda.

manabouttobuyaflat – you should have called yourself manabouttomakeonelamepostandthendoarunner

This site isn't totally balanced, but it's not the biggest offender.

Ever been on DigitalSpy?

If you want the other view you have:

The BBC
Every newspaper
Every television channel
Most of the people in the country

The arguments for and against a house price crash have been done to death on here for years.

Yet it is still compulsive reading - and there are a few switched on financial types on here who are worth listening to.

If you don't like this site ... off you go and shut the door behind you.

I think that the OP has been very harsh in his assessment, but this post sums up why he feels as he does. The value of money certainly hasn't declined by 15% (or anything like it) this year for anyone for whom buying a home is a serious consideration. Yes certain basics have increased by that amount, but they will make up a relatively small portion of the expenditure of homeowners (or realistic potential homeowners). That is why inflation is measured as a basket of goods, and while the 2.1% CPI figure is almost certainly an underestimate, nor is the overall figure anything like 15%.

As for the point that it is now obvious there will be a crash, well without wanting to resort to "Punch and Judy" tactis, no it isn't. Prices have fallen a bit in some areas, and are holding up in others. This may be the start of a crash, but it may simply be another 2004/5 style pause in the market. Certainly we have been here before, without a crash taking hold, and with HPI picking up again relatively quickly. There is no guarantee at all that this time will be any different (although my suspicion is it probably will be).

The post is basically a rant, based on misinterpretation of various facts, and speaking as if possibilities are in fact cast iron certainties. Exactly what the OP was talking about to be fair.

I think it is actually
manstaringoutthewindowunabletosellanyflats.

Hmmmm... strangely I think you have a very good point. Anyone coming to this website at this point in time would see very little discussion on a HPC. At the beginning of the year there were still some bulls around and there was alot more relevant discussion. Now all the bulls have gone and most bears think that the HPC is already here. So, most of the discussion seems to have moved on to the stability of the financial system, economies, currencies i.e. the causes of the current HPC

manabouttobuyaflat - Best troll ever!

Food 160 a month.

Gives you over 12 months = 1920 quid.

Technololgy so fat this year.

Gaming PC : 400
PS2 : 450
46 LCD TV : 1200
New HD DVD Recorder : 300
Washing Machine : 350
Miscallenous peripherals+junk :300
Ipod Upgrade : 250

3250....


Yup...


Ok... aliitle more this year thatn usual.... not not a totally outrangeous.

Adn of course was going to buy that new onkyo 605 for myslef as my wifes Xmas persent to me :-)

The only debt I have is £100.00 on a mastercard, which I've just paid and £85,000 on a £140,000 home.

If we buy it in this country with our money then it impacts inflation. Shit if we only measured inflation on domestically produced goods the basket would contain two loaves of bread, a dyson and soem BAE produced weapons.

My food costs are a tad more than yours....but my technology costs are WAYYYYYY lower.

Essentials versus luxury.

You've clearly not read much of it.



Thanks for that. Very helpful. Why don't we just wind the site up and do something else now we have you on board to show us the error of our ways.



Yawn.



You sound like you know plenty, name some.



They don't have to come here, they can deny there's a problem if they like.



I'm sure most of us have given we're not up to the eyeballs is debt.



And yet you've said that you're a bear... Or was that the mods?

Keep the posts coming. You're hysterical.

but thats the whole point, we HAVEN't been here before.

in 2005 they were pushing as many mortgages onto as many under qualified people as they could.

Those days are done. If nothing else, just restoring the bank lending standards to pre-boom levels in itself guarantees a crash, as it was only lax lending that allowed prices to get so high in the first place.

I have one loan, no credit card and a 200,000 mortgage (on a 450,000 pound house..... or should that now be a 400,000 house).

But I am also sitting on 6 month's mortgage repayments.

I am also the only person in my compnay that can do my job and it's core to the business.

So not panicing quite yet.

OP, the funny thing is there are lots of posters on HPC that dont believe the crash is here yet... just see one of dogboxs latest threads. I have two questions:

why have you only noticing negative posts, when there is balance from bulls? (you seem blinkered and your only seeing negative/crash posts)
how have you found this website, you should be uber positive about buying a house, how come you typed 'house price crash' into google?

OP...

Yes, you're absolutely right, this place is full of deluded nutters. The economy's doing brilliantly, and to suggest otherwise is pure folly*. Similarly, I can find absolutely no evidence to suggest the endless decades during which house prices were within reach of the average punter were anything other than a blip (quite a long blip, but a blip nonetheless) induced by exceptionally high interest rates. In fact, our economy has only ever been "normal" for a few very brief periods - specifically, those periods where the BoE interest rates were below 4%. Frankly, any interest rate higher than 4% is an anomally and destined not to last. Okay, there are a few nutters on here who believe that all those decades of higher interest rates were, in fact, normal.. but they're just idiots.

I must also thank you for seeing through the horrendous propaganda of historic house price data. As anyone with an ounce of sense will recognise, only punters on much higher than incomes have been able to scrape into a 1-bed flat, and these so-called "graphs" produced by the terrible vested interest parties (building societies, banks, estate agents) to demonstrate that they used to push an affordable product are, in fact, merely fiction. Despite all these supposed changes in *spit* price, anyone with their eyes open will know that the *value* of property only ever goes up, has always been extremely high, and never will be too high.

* Yeah, there's a lot of talk about a "Credit Crunch" at the moment, all of it total rubbish. The correct definition of a Credit Crunch (which are now experiencing) is a period during which lenders get all their lending contracts and squeeze them up to the back of the filing cabinets in order to make room for lots more. The additional cheap space created allows for the creation of loads more easy credit which is, as any rational person would agree, a surefire way to push house prices higher. If anyone tells you it's got anything to do with a reluctance to lend caused by rapid depreciation of risky debt assets (or similar), leading to a considerable reduction in demand in markets for which credit is essential, (housing, for example) I suggest you laugh in their face, call them a n00b, goad them about the amazing increase in the value of your flat.

PS. My carbon monoxide alarm's been sounding for the last hour. Is this a good thing?

exactly, thats the main problem.

I'm definitely not saying that they don't base the cpi numbers on many imported goods, but it's illusory.



you will notice that all of things that you are so happy to get cheaply AREN'T made in the UK.

Unless the job making those items was replaced with a similar or higher paying job in the UK, then you have replaced production with debt.

The financial world of London, and housing have been fueling a lot of the economy of the UK lately, and both of those are on the skids.

What good is a cheap playstation 3 if nobody can afford it?

and in the meantime, all of the prices of basic necessities have gone through the roof?

[quote name='manabouttobuyaflat' date='Nov 15 2007, 03:05 PM' post='850101']
I have never seen such a load of cr@p as I have done on this site.

In my view, the contents and purpose of this site is nothing but to inflict doom and gloom on those who are already on the housing ladder, and to mislead and give false hopes to those who aren't. And those who regularly post on this site with the same targeted views are just as naive and blinkered as the editors.

Someone with a similar name Newhomebuyer made a 2nd post today around 10.30. It was the sickest post I have ever read on this site (60% off house price). I was pleased to see the only one that had bothered to answer said the poster should be on the sex offenders register, before the mods deleted the thread. I suspect you are in cahoots with the other or the same person. Now p*ss off.
Get a life people - stop feeling sorry for yourselves, find something to be optimistic about, and stop inflicting your armageddon doom and gloom on the rest of us.

What goods a playstation ? Poor Poor Man.

Most of these are produced in china by people working for peanuts.

What am I emant to to do 'Buy British'. Sod that.

There reason people don't produce things in this country is because wages are to high. They can't get people to work for the wages that are needed to make thses things profitable.

Thats why Dyson no longer build in this country.

The only thing we seem to be able to build profitably in this country are cars. We produce more of those than we ever had.