House Price Crash draws closer

"Tim" wrote

Activity seems to have died at current price levels so I'm not sure where the demand would come from to drive prices up another 200%.

What else should he have done? MEW happened because previous governments had relaxed lending rules and interest rates went down - something basically oustide this government's control.

KotF

Maybe it's worth getting one of the few remaining credit cards with 0% and no charges for balance transfers and putting it in savings for a few months?

Can't you pay for expensive items (plane tickets, etc) on your credit cards?

cd

Yes he did. See the bottom of

cd

"He recently sold his home, banked the profit and is renting a property while he builds a housing war chest!"

Doesn't that say he sold his house?

cd

>>

Yes, but the "he" in question ain't FoFP, but Cliff the article's author.

In the context where Tumbleweed wrote "Seems that FoFP didnt", and you replied "Yes he did", it looks as though you could have meant FoFP sold his house.

Ah, we all confused each other then.

cd

He's supposed to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Is he or is he not responsible for economic performance?

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

What does FoFP stand for?

If you mean whom, it's M Holmes. If you mean what, it's not my place to say, you'll have to ask him.

"Friend of Fernando Poo"

FoFP

Building Societies don't do much else.

How will they be able to accept deposits and pay interest on them if the don't lend it out?

DG

Oddly enough, I am none the wiser.

My grandad finally bought one of those large houses behind Welcome labs in London in the mid-50s. He paid 5K for it. My dad suggested he buy other properties as the values would only go up. My grandad harked on about the hpc we've talked about as a reason not to get lumbered with bricks 'n' mortar. So as someone mentioned, he obviously knew more about shares than housing.

(that was me :-) FWIW, had a look at the real house prices near where i live (Reading) on the Land Reg site ...still rising here as of the last published figs for Oct-Dec, around 20% up on the year previously. (between

25 and 50% on 3 years). So a 'price crashing' 20% fall as per the doomsters would put it back a mere one year, and even a 40-50% fall only 3 or so years. So for people who bought more than a year ago *in this area at least* the screams of doom seem a little overplayed...and for people who bought recently, well unless they were FTB's the fall is mitigated (their other house would have fallen in value anyway), and if they can pay their mortgage they are still OK in any event unless they want to sell. Also, FWIW, if houses being sold are any indication prices are not falling, lots of new houses&flats still being built *and sold* around here.

It's the island now known as Bioko, and the location of the proposed Dogs of War coup that ran Mark Thatcher into trouble.

That's mere coincidence though. Way back when I started out on usenet, I wanted a nom de plume. I was reading the humourous SF trilogy Illuminatus at the time. In those novels, the Illuminati, who are aliens, planned to destroy the world in a cataclysmic war, starting in Fernando Poo. Hence, Friends of Fernando Poo.

Inasmuch as more people now probably know me as "FoFP" than by my real name, I just stuck with it.

Another coincidence is that Fernando Poo was discovered by a Portugese explorer called Fernando Poo.

FoFP

Clearly that could be a problem. Look what happened to the Savings and Loan (US Building Societies) in the last property cycle there. The taxpayer was left with billions in bad loans and the whole mortgage market moved towards CDO's and thus the stage was set for Fannie and Freddie.

Isn't it true though that the Brit Building Societies now have access to the capital markets? They don't still rely only on money from depositors?

FoFP

IIRC, access to Capital markets has been available to Building Societies for over 10 (?) years - but I cannot remember the precise conditions.