Gordon Brown: We "must get the mortgage market moving"

hethmar

londonlady - woo hoo, youre back - Im SURE Gordy doesnt want prices to rise. Lets just pray for them to stabilise.

londonlandlady

Conrad wrote: »

Landlady, Ive been tooing and froing about investing, but have today put in some offers on repossessed new built flats 50% less than original sale prices.

Maybe further falls, but it's impossible to time, so there comes a point where you accept the discounts currently on offer, and then hope for the best.

!!!!!! Conrad, you are making me feel guilty. Wasn't it clear from the other thread that my posts are wind-ups? I have been assuming that nobody's investment decisions would actually be influenced by my posts and I hope yours haven't been. 50% off sounds reasonably sensible but it all depends on how absurd the original asking price was.

luvpump

hethmar wrote: »

londonlady - woo hoo, youre back - Im SURE Gordy doesnt want prices to rise. Lets just pray for them to stabilise.

Very high Property Prices have been a consequence of the Credit binge of the last decade !!... That has been in the process or unraveling for the last 14 months, the only time they will "Stabilise" is when they sink to sensible levels in relation to peoples salaries !!! .... Banks will never again lend to the levels required to sustain even current prices !!, let alone thoes of 12 months ago

formulaonefan

londonlandlady wrote: »

Clearly the Prime Minister is on the side of the homeowner and wants prices to start rising again. Is it so implausible to suggest that he will succeed?

If he is successful and the market does bounce back (as I expect it to), let's hope the advice of those posters with a vested interest in house prices continuing to fall won't have prevented any first-time buyers from missing the boat.

oh my! He's back! or should I say she's back! or what should I say!!!

The posts seems to be similar to 'horseinhatman'. Is that you horseinhatman? in form of londonlandlady????

skap7309

formulaonefan wrote: »

The posts seems to be similar to 'horseinhatman'. Is that you horseinhatman? in form of londonlandlady????

Yes it is. Discussed this on another thread.

brit1234

Lets get a few things straight. This whole mess was created by far too low interest rates, dangerous lending and an international bubble in house prices (not just the US).

This is now very common knowledge now to all the masses. The government knows their house price growth experiment has failed in a history breaking way and can not continue it.

Even though we have had a 0.5% cut in interest rates it won't stop house prices from falling. The US has had massive cuts over the last couple of years and they are still falling (well below our interest rate levels). Even in this country in previous crashes rate cuts have not stopped corrections.

We are going to see a more responsible mortgage criteria and house prices are going to fall and stabalise to meet that.

I think the majority on this site will advise first time buyers not to buy at this time. They need to wait and save a deposit to match the lending criteria.

Anyone encouraging ftb to buy now clearly has a self interest and most likely a property portfollio to protect.

Conrad

going2die_rich wrote: »

When you say "hope" I hope you mean make a business decision after waying up the risks and factoring in contigencies for likely scenarios if things do get worse. To ensure you dont go under and can ride out any future storms.

Cash to buy 1 flat, or 2 flats but with 25% mortgage.

Nothing is risk free.

Conrad

brit1234 wrote: »

We are going to see a more responsible mortgage criteria and house prices are going to fall and stabalise to meet that.

Before self cert the masses still obtained mortgages by fiddling. They used to get thier boss (or thier freind at work on the chair next to them) to provide an inflated income reference.

With or without self cert, people always find a way.

As for your assertion more responsible criteria is on the way, I would say thats a logical stance by you, but, the plain truth is almost every lender currenlty offers either self cert or fast track (self cert by another name but from applicants view point leads to the same thing). C & G for example, that cautious bastion of prudence, offers 90% fast track - almost every case Ive ever put thier way is automatically fast tracked with no income proof.

teabelly

The US housing market collapsed because they built too many for a start. That hasn't happened here and the shortage of appropriate and reasonable quality housing remains. There are loads of empty homes but in places where there are no jobs or the neighbours are all druggies/gangsters/squatters or both.

A generation may have to face that the link between house prices and average salary has been broken altogether so some just won't be able to afford their own home regardless of much some wish that the return to old fashioned multiples returns. It may not. Until the baby boomers die off I think HPI is here to stay unless there is an outbreak of bird flu to wipe out a good chunk of the population. NIMBY's will put a stop to most of the proposed 2 million homes HMG wants to be built over the next few years. Older homes will get demolished to comply with EU energy saving so that a greater proportion of homes are more energy efficient to meet some daft arbitrary target.

What many seem to forget is that the banks and the wealthy couldn't give a rats !!! if the plebs ie us can afford their own home. The fact that there is a break between average house price and average wage matters not one iota. As long as the well off can still buy and there are enough of them everyone else will have to make do with renting.

Max_Headroom_3

Conrad wrote: »

Landlady, Ive been tooing and froing about investing, but have today put in some offers on repossessed new built flats 50% less than original sale prices.

Maybe further falls, but it's impossible to time, so there comes a point where you accept the discounts currently on offer, and then hope for the best.

If the properties were twice as much as they should be in the first place then you have no discount whatsoever, you've simply paid todays market value in a falling market.

If the properties were three times as much as they should be then in fact you've paid more than market value.

It is simply no good looking at "discounts" in relation to the original sale price when, in the vast majority of cases, these new build plats were simply kite flying with their asking prices.

"Hope for the best" is a somewhat brave investment strategy too.