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cardboardbox?Youwerelucky
Niiiiii..!!
Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 1918
Location: lincolnshire
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nlag
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 Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:23 am Post subject: |
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| Thank goodness I am not a kid trying to get on the ladder, and thank goodness I have no intention of moving any time soon, so the market does not worry me.
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cardboardbox?Youwerelucky
Niiiiii..!!
Joined: 16 May 2007
Posts: 1918
Location: lincolnshire
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| Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:24 am Post subject: |
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| nlag wrote: | | Thank goodness I am not a kid trying to get on the ladder, and thank goodness I have no intention of moving any time soon, so the market does not worry me. |
^^^ what you said ^^^_________________ 
BOXYS BAR - LIQUER UP FRONT AND POKER IN THE REAR |
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nlag
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cardboardbox?Youwerelucky
Niiiiii..!!
Joined: 16 May 2007
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Location: lincolnshire
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| Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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TBH Nlag the UK market was always going to slow however my personal opinion is that a sudden "crash" is unlikely as there is still a shortage of housing and whilst that is the case I would be surprised to see a crash - immigration has had a much bigger impact on house prices than people think and has actually helped to keep the house prices relatively stable as investors have realised that they have a strong chance of letting properties out quickly to the eastern europeans and have therefore continued to buy and expand their property portfolios - the worry for me is that at some point most of these people intend to return to their native land (as 5 years of UK earnings can equal 15 years or more of earnings in their own countries) and once they have earned enough they will be up and off - if this happens as a mass exodus it will lead to panic selling by the landlords as they will want to get shut of the properties as soon as possible IF there is no one to replace their tenants and this could lead to a flood of properties coming in to the market which could drastically alter the current supply and demand situation that has kept prices high.
As for the other countries - quite a few of the countries have now seen falls as investors have stopped buying and people are struggling to make a "quick buck" - I know of several people who have been caught out in Spain and are now desperate to sell their apartments with no buyers in sight - I also know several who have bought in Bulgaria and are finding the same problem.
Ireland is a strange one as my understanding is that Northern Ireland prices went through the roof over the last 12 months - whether this has had a direct effect on the ROI prices I am not sure ut its not exactly a huge country and maybe investors (and people close to the border) have piled into cheap property in NI. I seem to have a faint recollection that prices in ROI have always been viewed as high and maybe that is why the downturn has happened (from what I know not many people "emigrate" to ROI and it is not exactly a densely populated island)_________________
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raveydavey
Lucas Radebe
Joined: 12 May 2007
Posts: 2227
Location: Leeds Yorkshire England
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| Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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We might not be having a crash, but by goodness are the new housebuilders worried.
Have a look in the property sections of most papers - if you're in the market for a new house or executive apartment they can't wait to do you a deal.
Two developments near us have variations on "move in and pay nowt for a year" - they cover all your moving costs, your mortgage, your council tax, your water rates and your insurance for the first 12 months, plus contributions towards your utility bills.
There are many many other offers on the table now and it's not difficult to imagine that many planned new developments aren't going to happen now, at least not in the short term.
If you're in the market for a new build you can't go wrong it would seem. |
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cardboardbox?Youwerelucky
Niiiiii..!!
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| Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Yesterday, one of the phrases that was most popular was the one that said, ”It’s time to stop the pretence – the US is in recession.” Today, it is tempting to say something similar about the UK housing market. You know, of course, that property market bulls will somehow find reason to talk up prices, but the latest piece of news from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) really does seem to be dire. Is it curtains for the UK property market?
You will recall we have always been fond of the RICS index. Every month it asks surveyors if prices are up or down in their region. It takes the percentage number who say up, subtracts the percentage number who say down, and the balance forms the RICS headline index. It also asks a number of other key questions, which together form the monthly RICS survey.
The headline index is down again – this time to -64.1. It’s been lower than that before – but only just. The all-time low recorded by RICS for this index was -64.5, seen in June 1990. And we all know what happened to house prices in 1990 and the following year.
The RICS index has now been in negative territory for 7 months, actually it suffered 15 months of negative scores between the summer of 2004 and autumn 2005 – and yet the housing market slowdown proved something of a trivial breeze, with house price falls revealed by the likes of Nationwide, Halifax and Hometrack never proving to be significant. So, it could be argued it is too early to tell what the ramifications are for the recent slide in the RICS index.
But there are a number of crucial differences. For one thing, of course, is the severity of the fall in the RICS index. But look at little deeper at its report, and then woe seems even worse.
But first, squint, and view the data from a certain angle, and you can detect some good news. The RICS index for expected prices did actually rise slightly from last month – but then again only by a smidgen, and last month this index fell to its all-time low.
More significantly, sales expectations turned positive for the first time since last June, so surveyors expect sales to rise.
What matters though is whether sales are greater than the number of new properties coming on the market. This brings us to the really damning piece of news.
The stock of unsold property on surveyors’ books jumped by 8.5 per cent on the month, and by 48.6 per cent on the year, the highest annual growth rate since December 1989. Average stocks on surveyors’ books were 92.0 in February (the highest since October 1998), compared to 84.7 in January.
Even more tellingly, the ratio of completed sales (over the last three months) compared to stock of unsold property on the market fell to 26.5 per cent in February, from 28.7 per cent in January. Market conditions are now the loosest since September 1996, and the sales to stock ratio is more than 10 percentage points below the survey’s long-run average.
Actually, we do find this a tad confusing. Because last week, the Halifax suggested that stock to sales ratios in the UK were actually quite good – especially in comparison to the US, where the stock of existing homes is now sufficient to meet 10.3 months of demand. It seems to us that a ratio of 26.5 percent for properties sold over the last three months, to total stock – is actually not dissimilar to the US stock levels – in fact it is the equivalent of over 11 months of supply, so we are not sure where that optimism came from.
Bear in mind that while the figures announced by RICS yesterday seem bad, the credit crunch has not really hit home yet. There are still over 1 million people to come off fixed rate mortgages this year, and the effect of the recent changes in the size of deposits required by lenders will not have shown up in the figures yet.
For some time we have felt 2009 will be the nasty year for the UK – so watch the unfolding story of the RICS index. It will be a telling tale. |
Hmm - pretty grim reading  _________________
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raveydavey
Lucas Radebe
Joined: 12 May 2007
Posts: 2227
Location: Leeds Yorkshire England
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| To sum all that up, a friend of a friend is in property. On the residential side they are of the opinion that very little is moving. |
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raveydavey
Lucas Radebe
Joined: 12 May 2007
Posts: 2227
Location: Leeds Yorkshire England
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halfaperson
Allan Clarke
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
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raveydavey
Lucas Radebe
Joined: 12 May 2007
Posts: 2227
Location: Leeds Yorkshire England
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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More news on the property scene.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/new...cks-they-are-made-of-20080408856/
A "must read" for anyone with a mortgage, or a sense of relief that they are still renting.
On a related note, is anyone watching Sarah Beeney on The Property Ladder? Each of her breasts really are bigger than her head, aren't they?  |
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i think the daily mash is going to replace the Gaurdian as my daily news felch from now on 