Daily Telegraph joins the 70% club

wolvoman

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

If that was the case, why did the media mainly report positive stories on house prices until just a few weeks ago? Surely if their aim was to sell papers through scaring people, they would have done so even in the 'good' times?

I think it's more that they realise their advertising budget is less dependent on housing and its associated products.

Why do so many of the house bears on here act as if everyone else is somehow 'in on it'?

House builders, media, TV, advertisers, owners, BTLers.

Face facts - most of you didn't have the balls to buy when you had the chance and now you expect other peoples' hard work and risks to be rewarded for you on a plate.

How sad.

mvengemvenge

dervish wrote: »

The HPC folks are NOT the idiots that some arrogant people here would have us all believe.

I read HPC quite a lot, and I'd certainly never say they're idiots, I was just referring to their previous 'worst estimate' of 35-40% and saying that even that (which others view as extreme) could be way off if it gets really serious. Not too long ago, people were ridiculing HPC for having 30% as their worst prediction.

whathavewedone

I don't think these articles are going to make people sell their properties for fear of negative equity. If anything it would make them more inclined to hang on for dear life. As for reducing prices, I don't think you're taking into account the nature of your typical Daily Mail reader.

My mum is a typical Daily Mail reader and had her house on the market at 2007 prices until recently (took it off as didn't get a single viewing). Her response to this article was much tut tutting about how labour had ruined the country and how much better things will be when the conservatives get in. It was not to reconsider her decision about putting her house on the market at a more reasonable price. She will stay there until she's carried out rather than reduce the price. There will come a time when a flat will be a more sensible option for her but as a very fit and healthy 72 year old that time might well be 20 years away. Our next door neighbours are 92 and 96 respectively and manage to live in their 4 bedroomed house perfectly well.

What the articles will do is to fill their readers with outrage and indignation about the state that this government has left the country in. That is their aim and it is also the aim of the Telegraph (which is a tory paper notwithstanding that it is not written by the same people as the Mail, thank you for clarifying that Generali).

My dad reads the Telegraph. I haven't spoken to him about it but I expect his reaction would be much the same as my mum's. He already lives in a flat so has no need to sell anyway. Neither of them have a mortgage which is typical of people in their age group. Consequently I don't get this oooh it's going to make the older generation sell up for a song business.

Ultimately those that have to sell have to accept whatever the market is prepared to pay at any given time. The only way anyone ever actually finds that out for certain in terms of their own house is when they try to sell it. I would have thought that getting no offers at all/a number of offers way below the asking price would have been a better indication to people of what their house is actually worth than an article written in a paper about the UK as a whole. You can still say "yeah but not my house" until you actually come to try to sell it.

dopester

whathavewedone wrote: »

I don't think these articles are going to make people sell their properties for fear of negative equity.

Probably not for many people, including the spritely 87 pensioner who came to our door collecting for charity, for some reason went in to some speech on how he bought the first house in the street in for 5-bob or something and proudly told me how it was worth £450,000 now.

In our street and close surrounding area, we've got a fair-few pensioners. I'd say 40% pensioners on this street. Perhaps most of them have no mortgage.

Those who sell at the margins set the values. Just because RBS shares were bid up to say £8... they didn't hold value because you decided not to sell. The people who were transacting at the margins decided effected the prices.

The dynamics of value expansion and contraction explain why a bear market can bankrupt millions of people.

The "million dollars" that a wealthy investor might have thought he had in his bond portfolio or at a stock's peak value can quite rapidly become $50,000 or $5000 or $50. The rest of it just disappears. You see, he never really had a million dollars; all he had was IOUs or stock certificates.

The idea that it had a certain financial value was in his head and the heads of others who agreed. When the point of agreement changed, so did the value. !!!!!!! Gone in a flash of aggregated neurons. This is exactly what happens to most investment assets in a period of deflation.

dopester

Really2 wrote: »

I have not seen a possitive story for ages even when the halifax said prices had gone up 1.9% they said it was a blip?

Anne Ashworth and her "Brick Chicks" run quite a few positive house price stories, in the Times.

Positive in the way they want them to go up and up and up in value.

StevieJ

dopester wrote: »

The dynamics of value expansion and contraction explain why a bear market can bankrupt millions of people.

Good job we can still live in that lill ole house whatever the value :j

Really2

dopester wrote: »

Anne Ashworth and her "Brick Chicks" run quite a few positive house price stories, in the Times.

Positive in the way they want them to go up and up and up in value.

I just read (skim) the local rag now.

This is my newspaper and the BBC business section

whathavewedone

Well I agree with pretty much everything you've said Dopester - my point is really that I don't think the articles themselves will have much impact either way on sellers capitulating.

That will happen when people come to sell - something which is down to individual circumstances rather than something they've read in a paper. At the end of the day if you're getting divorced and don't want to live under the same roof any more you have to take what you can get don't you? And what you get will be what your house is worth during the period of time that it's on the market not what it might be worth next year, in five year's time or what it used to be worth in 2007.

I wouldn't call those articles positive as such as they acknowledge that we are in a bear market. If we had articles in the press predicting imminent house price rises then I think it would have been fair to say that we have had weeks and weeks of positive reporting. Even the BBC aren't telling us that house prices are about to rise and they are certainly doing their level best to put a positive spin on things!

ukcarper

Not everybody who puts thier house on the market want to sell

cootambear

House prices will fall to an average of about £1,000 each - people cant get mortgages so the driving force will be cash ie what most people have got in the bank.