house prices rising efficianados gone very quiet?

Squeak this:

There seemed to be more people predicting falling prices than rising ones on this group. They seem to have buggered off as well. Where's Crowley? He used to post a "house price crash" article every week.

I think people are starting to come to their senses wrt property prices - the excellent "Truth about Property" which was on a few weeks ago did a survey which showed more people wanted house prices to fall than rise. (It also took the piss out of all the other property programmes which are mostly based on the premise than property is a no brainer good investment. It was refreshing to see a property programme presented by proper financial journalists who do actually have a clue about financial matters, rather than the usual brain dead "property journalists").

I don't.

They are still saying things like "they'll drop by about 20% by the end of next year and then start to rise again"

Oh no they won't. After the last bubble burst and the bottom was reached prices were static for about 6 years. There is no reason at all why the same thing won't happen this time.

And on "A place in the sun" yesterday (which wasn't billed as a repeat), the stupid bint presenter was saying "prices in this location (Malta) have risen by 16% in the past year so you can expect the value in two years time to be X (plus 30%). Where do they get these people?

tim

The mood at housepricecash.co.uk seems to be one of umremitting glee.

Which canals did you navigate? Something I've always meant to do and never seem to get around to.

The concept of navigating a canal seems a tad oxymoronic, if I may be permitted to interpret "navigate" in the usual sense of making the right "steering" decisions to ensure your craft ends up where you want it to.

Canals just go in a straight line. Not a lot of decisions to make. Such an easy life!

I was wondering that myself.

There was a smug BTL know-it-all on the BBC a few months back, going on about how easy it had been for him to compile his £11m property portfolio, implying anyone who hadn't made £11m by their 25th birthday was a wuss.

Only right at the end of the piece did he let slip that this £11m fortune was offset by £8m of mortgages.

Here's a tip for him:

"You have an £7m portfolio on which you owe £8m - simply by going bancrupt you can make £1m !"

Who, real people or "property journalists"?

And I think there's a growing desire for that to happen. The ridiculously high peak reached in house prices in the UK has opened peoples' eyes to the fact that high house prices have more negative than positive consequences in general for most people.

Stable house prices would be very much a good thing, then you don't get the market distorted by speculators, by people who think they have to buy now or they'll never be able to afford a place, and in a falling market with people refusing to sell because they can't accept the fact their house has gone down in price (or they're in negative equity and their lender won't let them), and buyers hanging on to see how much prices will drop.

Where's this "no more bust and boom" we were promised?

From the school for brain dead property journalists.

...or you could hang on for a few months and make *double* that - these profits are tax free!

...they can't accept the fact their house has gone down in

In the past the banks swould have lent their own money and by repossessing a house in negative equity would suffer a loss.

Nowadays they lend other people's money so there is no loss to measure, just a cash flow to maintain before they themselves are "repossessed".

I know real people who think that "rent is dead money" and that now is an opportunity to get on the housing ladder to start making money.

But, of course, I was referring to people who put their opinion in the public domain, some of which are journalists.

And there are people who think it would be a bad thing who are doing their damnest to make sure that it doesn't: Politicians who want to be re-elected on the back of the"best Chancellor we've ever had" (sic) and Estate agents who want to remain in business etc.

I think that he genuinely thought that the bust wasn't caused by the boom and could be avoided by stable politics.

tim

So do I, but it seems they are in the minority now, whereas a few years ago they were in the majority.

Depends which breed of journalist - proper financial/business journalists have usually said sensible things about house prices & property investment, however the separate breed of "property journalist", as typified on your typical property programme on TV or in the property pages of your newspaper, are generally clueless financially.

The goverment do seem desparate to prop up house prices with stupid shemes like "shared equity" and buying unsold properties. But this is probably more to do with government finances being dependant on high house prices - after all they make a fortune from stamp duty, IHT, and forcing people to sell their homes to pay care home fees.

Turnover's more key to them, they'd probably welcome a sharp correction and stable prices, rather than boom and bust.

And people think he's bright!

I find it really difficult to explain to them that mortgage interest is also dead money. When mortgage interest is about 7.5%, compared with rent (after landlords expenses) which is about 4.5%, then rent is clearly the better option.

This year is was the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals from Scholar Green (the hire base) to Busworth Basin at one end and near Hyde at the other (but not too near!).... absolutely stunning scenery all the way... the highlight being a trip down the Marple lock flight to the Marple aqueduct.... as I said stunning. It is the only holiday I have ever had in my 58 years that truely winds me down, and I have been on a canalling holiday for 7 days every year for as long as I can remember. Costly yes, at £1300 for a 6 berth boat with 3 of us on (me, my daughter and her boyfriend), but such a different lifestyle as long as you are not too big or overweight. This is a saying about the lifestyle...from the source identified which says it exactly.... that you would only be able to empathise with if you had been on a canal cruise for more than 3 days which is;

Quote Of The Day "The waterways are charged with magic, but nothing about them is more magical than the difference made by the few feet of water which separate the boat from the land. Those few feet instantly set the boatman in a world of his own, and his vision of the outer world though which he glides, becomes magically calmer and clearer. Again, this may sound whimsical and improbable: the degree to which it is true can be confirmed only by experience" From Know Your Waterways by Robert Aickman (1950s) If you need any advice about which hire base to use and which canal to cruise as a first timer give me an email to clive dot lister at tiscali dot co dot uk.

Don't leave the experience too late.... you do require at least 2 of you and no experience is necessary since the hire base will provide that, although you can book a cruise on a hotel boat if you are too old and frail (my intention as I get older)

Only the Shropshire Union Canal goes in a straightish line...but then the same could be said of train drivers!

...or you could hang on for a few months and make *double* that - these profits are tax free!

Good un Troy!

"Jonathan Bryce" wrote

"Clearly" that's true *only* with house price inflation below 3%.

Obviously there may be specific periods when that's true, and if you can time the market and get out of property & start renting at the point when it drops below 3%, and then stop renting and get back into property at the point when it goes back over 3%, then you might be better off (depending on costs of selling/buying).

But if you're going to stay put (either buying -or- renting) long-term, then it's likely that the better option would be to *buy*. That's because average long-term house appreciation generally exceeds the difference (3% in your example) between mortgage interest (7.5% in your example) and rent (4.5% in your example).

Especially, as we have discussed before on this newsgroup, as average long-term house appreciation and average long-term mortgage interest rates tend to be within 1-2%pa of each other...