Most impressive spin ever!

morg_monster

Apologies if this has already been posted... couldn't see it

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/property_and_mortgages/article4615403.ece

Gist: Times journalist finds that
22,369 house purchase mortgages approved in June
+22,448 approved in July
= "hopes that the worst of the drought in the home-loans market may have passed"

Sorry? 79 houses? Over all of Britain? a 0.35% month on month rise?!! I don't even need to load up stata to tell you that is not significant! I cannot believe someone actually spent time spinning this into a positive news story!

Best bit - as some bright spark noted in the comments - there were 21 working days in June, and 23 in July... so on a per day basis, 1065 approved in June and 976 in July, so actually it is a 8.4% drop in approvals ... :rotfl:

Chris2685

How many were approved in July '07, or '06?

morg_monster

Good question. One I can't find exact answers to in the time it takes me to drink my tea, BUT in the most recent press release which presumably informed this piece of high quality journalism there is a useful graph on page 1 which basically shows that July '07 approvals for house purchases probably numbered about 64,000 and in '06 closer to 70,000.

http://www.bba.org.uk/content/1/c6/01/44/49/stats260808.pdf

Also this graph shows (i think) the interesting story of remortgages; the peak in January as (presumably) everyone scrambled to get a decent rate, and now the tailing off as I guess people are hanging on to SVRs, waiting to see what will happen to mortgage interest rates.

PasturesNew

Also, schools finish in July, so many parents will have been wanting to move after their little darlings finished the term ... and not in the middle of a term or exams.

WTF?_2

Not to worry - it's just a matter of waiting for the 'spring bounce' I'm sure.

I'm sure the by-then deepening recession won't put anyone off. After all there's apparently a shortage of property and we live on an island you know.....

mewbie_2

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Not to worry - it's just a matter of waiting for the 'spring bounce' I'm sure.

I'm sure the by-then deepening recession won't put anyone off. After all there's apparently a shortage of property and we live on an island you know.....

You can't build land...

neverdespairgirl

!!!!!!? wrote: »

we live on an island you know.....

Blimey, do we?

<looks round, sees no sea. Concludes !!!!!! is wrong>

neverdespairgirl

mewbie wrote: »

You can't build land...

Everytime I see that, I think of the Dutch, and that new Far East airport built on invented land.

planemad

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Not to worry - it's just a matter of waiting for the 'spring bounce' I'm sure.

I'm sure the by-then deepening recession won't put anyone off. After all there's apparently a shortage of property and we live on an island you know.....

So is Japan - except their population is a lot higher than ours and their property prices have fallen for the last ten years.

turbobob

planemad wrote: »

So is Japan - except their population is a lot higher than ours and their property prices have fallen for the last ten years.

And they have had zero or near zero interest rates for years as well IIRC

obsessed_saver

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

mewbie wrote:

You can't build land...

Everytime I see that, I think of the Dutch, and that new Far East airport built on invented land.

Yes, that's true! Just go take a look how much "land" Singapore has reclaimed (built) from the sea.