The 70% club

dopester

Conrad wrote: »

C'mon dpester you will wring every last penny out when it comes to your selling - remember these words:D

Honestly Conrad. I don't get it. Even if there was massive HPI, what benefit is it to anyone... unless you are trading down or moving into different, less desirable area, where houses might be cheaper, so you get to keep some of your capital appreciation back to cash.

Otherwise the HPI just matches other similar houses in an area, and pushes more desirable houses, maybe with a 3rd or 4th bedroom, ever more expensive still.

House prices remaining at a constant would be perfect for me.

Conrad

dopester wrote: »

and scouring ebay for bargains (such as new brake discs and brakes pads I refused to pay the car dealer £270 for and got for £90 delivered on ebay last week.)

Do you agree with health and safety at work?
Do you want a society where maternity and sick pay feature?
Do want the dealer insured for you injuring yourself on his premises?
Do want people to earn a decent living wage (the dealers secretary and cleaners for example)?

Nothing wrong with doing your own jobs, I replaced a brake bulb recently at zero cost, but I really dont like the way some people expect everyone apart from themselves to work for peanuts. Im not saying you are one, its just your comment above got me thinking

dopester

wintersunshine wrote: »

You can't criticise home owners for HPI unless you're are prepared not to own one yourself.

That is a bit ridiculous. If your average hatchback cars was priced at £50,000 and second hand values remained similarly high, I would refuse to buy a car, and catch the bus or train or cycle or walk. Does it make me some sort of monster to buy a car if they fell in price back to £8,000

There is nothing wrong with me buying a house when they come back to affordable levels. If you haven't noticed, house prices have risen near a spectacular 300% in 11 years in many areas. Near trebling in price, and wages haven't nearly kept up.

To me the comparison with cars and house prices is not far wrong. House prices are the problem and people's view of reality - which is now being forced to change because that reality isn't supported by the math.

Conrad

dopester wrote: »

Honestly Conrad. I don't get it. Even if there was massive HPI, what benefit is it to anyone... unless you are trading down or moving into different, less desirable area, where houses might be cheaper, so you get to keep some of your capital appreciation back to cash.

Otherwise the HPI just matches other similar houses in an area, and pushes more desirable houses, maybe with a 3rd or 4th bedroom, ever more expensive still.

House prices remaining at a constant would be perfect for me.

I get your point, but it does tickle me a little, as you will no doubt expect your own buyers to pay you top dollar, so its kind of ironic

Dame Shirley Williams lives near me, and on Friday I parked outside the mansion she has given her kids. Shortly beofre Id seen her on Quesion Time as ever peddling the wealth redistribution mantra - just think about the irony there, and to really rub it in she will get away with these total hypochrasy (sp - I'm not even going there). How can you give the outward impression you are a sharing caring socialist yet at the same time greedily hoarde excessive wealth on the quiet! I'm mad as heck:eek:

dopester

Conrad wrote: »

Do you agree with health and safety at work?
Do you want a society where maternity and sick pay feature?
Do want the dealer insured for you injuring yourself on his premises?
Do want people to earn a decent living wage (the dealers secretary and cleaners for example)?

Nothing wrong with doing your own jobs, I replaced a brake bulb recently at zero cost, but I really dont like the way some people expect everyone apart from themselves to work for peanuts. Im not saying you are one, its just your comment above got me thinking

I see where you are going with that. Rather than attack some car-dealers and some of the underhand tactics that many people have experienced - as that is in no way true for all mechanics - I will think more deeply about it, as you make some good points.

dopester

Part of the problem Conrad, is what has happened over the last 100 years.

We've shifted from thousands, tens of thousands of people working for one company, into many smaller businesses which compete with each other.

Back in the "old-days", union power was very strong, because a big steel mill's workers could demand higher wages or strike, crippling the business for costs. So workers often got more than their actual market rate in wages. Simply blackmail really. And because of improved technology, the same steel mill can be run by just a hundred people today, instead of employing thousands of people.

The real shift has been in to smaller businesses and smaller teams, often leading to much by way of improvement and advances in many fields. It also devolves jobs. Also such companies are less prone to union power over wages, as if you strike... there are many more competitor companies, in the UK and abroad, willing to take customers and the business fails.

Yes.. I see where you are going. It is choice though. The car dealer charges £110 per hour for their labour rate time. The independent car specialist, with a smaller place and less frills, charges £52 per hour for their labour rate.

It is a choice. Competition, improved technologies and improved efficiencies can drive down jobs as well. In fact that is partly what I think is the problem in some job fields.

wintersunshine

dopester wrote: »

That is a bit ridiculous. If your average hatchback cars was priced at £50,000 and second hand values remained similarly high, I would refuse to buy a car, and catch the bus or train or cycle or walk. Does it make me some sort of monster to buy a car if they fell in price back to £8,000

There is nothing wrong with me buying a house when they come back to affordable levels. If you haven't noticed, house prices have risen near a spectacular 300% in 11 years in many areas. Near trebling in price, and wages haven't nearly kept up.

To me the comparison with cars and house prices is not far wrong. House prices are the problem and people's view of reality - which is now being forced to change because that reality isn't supported by the math.

You do indeed have the right to buy a house, at any price you want. As does anyone else - so what's your beef with those who are already homeowners? Why do you spend your spare time ranting on a website against home owners?

stephen163

Reading the previous few posts it seems to me that this discussion strikes right to the heart of the fundamental principles of modern economics. Studying welfare economics has a tendency to turn people away from the socialist/marxist ideology more towards the principle that the free market is the best way of allocating resources. I don't want to subsidise British steel workers inefficiency so I buy cheaper foreign spoons - the welfare is transferred away from the british worker to 1) The consumer 2) The foreign worker, but crucially, overall welfare is increased.

Margaret Thatcher's argument was that we should care less about the inefficient and globally uncompetitive British industries than we should about the benefits ALL consumers can reap through availability of cheaper goods.

dopester

wintersunshine wrote: »

You do indeed have the right to buy a house, at any price you want. As does anyone else - so what's your beef with those who are already homeowners? Why do you spend your spare time ranting on a website against home owners?

My fury is usually reserved for BTL-ers, although I've calmed that now.

It is true I don't have much sympathy for those FTBs who bought in the last few years, nor those who had a home near fully paid off in the last few years, and then sold it to put it down as a 15 or 25% deposit on some much bigger house at these price levels... taking out a whacking big mortgage to do so.

Unfortunately that is what crashes do. They educate people in some realities of life, if they weren't smart to know or research themselves. How house prices don't always continue to go up, how there have been many crashes in the past.

Winners and losers. Markets, research and education. Markets; they don't always carry on going up forever and ever.

dopester

stephen163 wrote: »

Margaret Thatcher's argument was that we should care less about the inefficient and globally uncompetitive British industries than we should about the benefits ALL consumers can reap through availability of cheaper goods.

Good post. I'd argue though it isn't just about cheaper goods. Competitiveness can often bring about many technical improvements as well.

If we were closed off, shut down, and unexposed to such competition from abroad for the last 50 years.... big 100 meter walls around the boundary of the UK... we might have craftsman and people earning and getting fair pay.. and even less HPI

- but we might be stuck with maybe an electric typewriter, or perhaps a near standard Pentium 1 computer, but probably not much of the latest gear which the outside world may have - which has undeniably, enhanced and improved living standards.

Perhaps that is a bad example. OK we might have push button telephones at home but no mobile phones.

Ultimately, with a few more technological breakthroughs - and I know it is difficult to imagine (but look back over the last 50 years to see how far we have come technology wise)... we could see the near end of work and yet still have people enjoying high living standards, if we can reach a certain technological level where there is less pressure on wages to supply and consumption.

I'm thinking improvements in robotics and similar - and a shift in how we live our lives - with more time to do what we want to do... read, paint, travel, whatever.

However that is a long way off seeing as it looks likely first we'll have economic depression and a lot of suffering in one way and another.