When do you think house prices will hit the bottom of the market?

skap7309

December 2009

chrisandanne wrote: »

Strange, how it's always newbies who go on the attack. Seems to me that some people don't have the bottle to attack in their former names.

I totally agree, alot of newbies are attacking bears and they all seem to lack the 'timidness' of a new user, coming on here and shouting at the regulars - it is just not done. They seem to think changing the font will give it uniqueness but it is so obvious it is laughable. horseinhatman tried it and got found out far to easily - bulls, no need to be as stupid as him.

Really2

December 2009

skap7309 wrote: »

I totally agree, alot of newbies are attacking bears and they all seem to lack the 'timidness' of a new user, coming on here and shouting at the regulars - it is just not done. They seem to think changing the font will give it uniqueness but it is so obvious it is laughable. horseinhatman tried it and got found out far to easily - bulls, no need to be as stupid as him.

What a load of old bulls. I think there many new bears go on the offensive also. Pherhaps you do not notice as you agree with them?

skap7309

December 2009

Really2 wrote: »

What a load of old bulls. I think there many new bears go on the offensive also. Pherhaps you do not notice as you agree with them?

Top marks for ingenuity :rotfl:

neverdespairgirl

June 2012

Talltree wrote: »

I would like to take the liberty of adding to the debate.

Living where I do in a fairly affluent area house prices are not falling as much as they are in other areas .. So point 1 , I think when the bottom of the market arrives the timing will depend upon where you happen to live.

Do you live in Reading?

Welcome to the board!

Talltree_2

December 2010

Yep, I,m afraid I do live in Reading .... Somebody must.

I believe that house prices have fallen but not by as much as expected, I think the majority of people who decide to sell get a shock at how much their house is really worth and rent it instead although a few are slowly getting real

Although there a problems and money's tight I don't think the area is really suffering, what I do wonder is if the big local companies, Microsoft, Oracle etc really hit the buffers then things might get bad.

It has been said that house prices in Windsor and Maidenhead are actually increasing .... No price cut for them..

WTF?_2

December 2009

mustrum_ridcully wrote: »

I don't know if someone has mentioned this or not but a lot of the bears were wrong about about 2003/4/5/6/7 being the year of the great HPC. I suspect quite a few bulls could be equally wrong.

The one thing I think some bears never took into consideration when predicting the crash (and some bulls seem to be doing the same) is momentum and public sentiment (the two go hand in hand).

If it hadn't been for the credit crunch I guess house prices might even still be going up very slowly or stagnating - higher inflation and hence high interest rates would have cooled the market. Prices might have started going down in 2009 as things like fuel would bite even more as they'd still be going up in price (a global downturn is one reason they've gone down in price).

It's a fair bet that 2009 will be a nasty year so any change in sentiment is likely to be slow particularly when people are very worried about their jobs. I've heard rumours about 1000 job losses to come at Honda's car plant, plus around 250 at a company that provides services to Honda. The domino effect when jobs are lost means we don't know what's around the corner. Things are grim, and low interest rates (~0%) didn't save Japan when things got grim.

Finally, it's actually quite funny reading the bullish posts as I now fully see why people with bearish tendancies looked a bit deranged 3 or 4 years ago

The thing about the credit bubble was that like any bubble it ended up becoming totally irrational, with credit availability stoking house prices which fuelled more cheap credit and so on.

You can't predict the timing of when something irrational is going to end, all you can do is point out how absurd and unsustainable it is and prepare yourself for the certainty that it will end. The way things are shaping up, before too long it will have worked out OK for you if you had STRed any time after 2003 on anticipation of a HPC. I believe we are already back to approx 2005 levels even now, with a further 10-15% fall accepted.


We've had central bank interventions since 2001 to keep the credit bubble growing, to be honest I think we could have easily had recessions and falling house prices in 2001, 2003 and 2005. The reason why 2008 is shaping up to have been the start of one of the nastiest economic recessions since the 1930s is because it lasted so long, beyond all sense of rationality.

Thermidor

December 2009

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Do you live in Reading?

Welcome to the board!

I thought he lived in New Cross or Blackheath. A bit nicer than Reading - just a bit.

Talltree_2

December 2010

Thermidor wrote: »

I thought he lived in New Cross or Blackheath. A bit nicer than Reading - just a bit.

Thats another question ... :j ..

I do think that house prices in general have further to unwind, last months decrease of .4% probably doest mean that price falls are slowing, measuring these amounts is not easy ... I think it's fair to say that there is a trend in place which has yet to be broken. .. So we can expect falling prices for a while yet. But for how long nobody can guess.

What will be interesting is if deflation does set in and interest rates fall to 0% or near enough .. what happens then.? Mortgage rates will not go that low ... once bank rates hit 2% thats about the limit. The only thing left becomes market forces and fiscal policy (tax cuts etc) .. House prices will drift rather than fall.

At some point lending will resume ... probably on a much tighter lead, house prices will stabilize, and then increase, I suspect that we are closer to that point than people realize.

I fear what we may do is stoke the seeds of the next boom .... For those with employment. for others things will be difficult.

John_Pierpoint

Talltree wrote: »

Yep, I,m afraid I do live in Reading .... Somebody must.

I believe that house prices have fallen but not by as much as expected, I think the majority of people who decide to sell get a shock at how much their house is really worth and rent it instead although a few are slowly getting real

Although there a problems and money's tight I don't think the area is really suffering, what I do wonder is if the big local companies, Microsoft, Oracle etc really hit the buffers then things might get bad.

It has been said that house prices in Windsor and Maidenhead are actually increasing .... No price cut for them..

In the 1980 downturn (When Maggie started doing her TINA act) I, just back from a course in Reading all about the wonders of something called a HP3000, told myself that the "computer" industry would sail through unscathed - but not so, it only proved as good as its customers. Since then we have seen the convergence of all things digital so "computers" are more of an industry in their own right.
However, that said, I don't think the high tech. sector can continue unscathed, it will just suffer less intensively, as many of its its customers go bust.
So if you have the ability in these forward looking sectors, please have the faith to kick off your "Grand Designs" project in (say) 2010 and help lead the rest of us out of this ghastly mess.

John

PS Just make sure you are proud of the effective carbon saving sustainable technology - real people are not impressed by the WAG/CHAV stuff - please no flood lighting left on all night.

enigmam

IMHO, 2009 is going to be worse than 2008! The recession hasn't even kicked in properly yet. Once the busy Christmas/New Year period for retail is over, I would imagine there would be loads of unemployment. This will mean the house price falls will continue, at the very least I would think 2009 will be totally flat in nominal terms but in real terms, more falls.