The Four Horseman of the BTL Apocalypse.

StevieJ

ad9898 wrote: »

I know the pyramid collapsed. .

No, the market fundamentals have readjusted

Anyway here is one to cheer you up.

A disastrous energy crunch is looming because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading economist warned Monday.

http://news.ph.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3507115

ad9898_3

StevieJ wrote: »

Anyway here is one to cheer you up.

A disastrous energy crunch is looming because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading economist warned Monday.

http://news.ph.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3507115

I don't understand, why would this cheer me up ?, the consequences of this are biblical in proportions, all I have been saying is lets look at the problem head on, instead of burying our heads in the sand and saying nonsense like 'technology will save us.' When in the given timespan, it will clearly not.

StevieJ

ad9898 wrote: »

I don't understand, why would this cheer me up ?, the consequences of this are biblical in proportions, all I have been saying is lets look at the problem head on, instead of burying our heads in the sand and saying nonsense like 'technology will save us.' When in the given timespan, it will clearly not.

Come on, you always perk up when this is in the spotlight

Your comment has a very Malthusian ring to it, what happened to his predictions

ad9898_3

StevieJ wrote: »

Come on, you always perk up when this is in the spotlight

It's nice to be 'proved right', or 'seen to be right' on a particular subject, but this is far too serious to be self congratulating about, I really really wished I was wrong on this subject, I would be as happy as anyone else if this problem was fixed tomorrow, it just seems that the Mad Max scenario is just over the horizon though and time is short. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that somehow/someway it can be averted.

System

ad9898 wrote: »

it just seems that the Mad Max scenario is just over the horizon though and time is short

Awesome, loved the outfits in that film.

ad9898_3

Joeskeppi wrote: »

Awesome, loved the outfits in that film.

The police outfits were all plastic due to budget restraints, only Mel Gibson's was leather.

IveSeenTheLight

julieq wrote: »

It's a laughable article really

just read the quote and your words above were exactly my thoughts.

there's a lot of unsubstantial scaremongering being posted as regards to BTL.

of course, as you said, some btl will fail, as other businesses do. If you look at the percentages though, its minimal.

IveSeenTheLight

ad9898 wrote: »

I know the pyramid collapsed. The pyramid grew in between 2000-07, before this time '96-2000 we had HPI but it was sustainable HPI, which grew in line with salaries and the economy, hence not a pyramid.

you start at 96 which was the bottom ad prices had undershot the longterm trend.

if you want sustainability you need stability and that means not selecting the lowest point of themarket where it is likely to recover and overshoot as see, but selecting the long term average.

we arethere now.

would you be happy with staility in the housing market from now or do you subscribe to more bust with a boom to follow?

ad9898_3

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

you start at 96 which was the bottom ad prices had undershot the longterm trend.

Not a bad argument, but I would argue that if you take out the 2000-07 boom, '96 would not have been far off the trendline, in fact it would be probably bang on it.

Just to edit, to put some meat on the bones of what I said, in '96 when I bought, I could buy the same kind of house my sisters bought (in 1977, 79 and 83) for similar wage multiples and salary, in the boom times (late 80's and 2000-07), this was impossible and still is.

julieq

The 30 year trend line projections are on the basis of 2.9% annualised growth, compounded. That's surely not unsustainable over that period?

I know it's bordering on the heretical to suggest that housing is not a pyramid scheme, but really either you believe in capitalism or you don't. In terms of the income bearing potential against asset value, houses are priced just about right. You may argue that we pay too much for accomodation, I'd have some sympathy with that view, but you can't just wish a situation away. If we were seeing 20 or 50% rental corrections there'd be some basis for a corresponding fall in asset values, but we're not. People pay what they have to pay to live somewhere they like, whether they rent or buy.

The fact is that the price crash wasn't really specifically to do with here, it was to do with suicidally lunatic lending in the US which our banks indulged in indirectly. In the US there is plenty of land, inflated property prices have no real basis in supply and demand terms. There's precious little security in asset values, particularly if an entire neighbourhood goes down the tube.

There's no real basis for worrying about energy cost increases based on declining supply either. Worst case is we are cold in the winters and drive less, which is as things have been for about 1800 of the last 2000 years. There will be opportunities to fix the problem using different technologies which are more trouble than they're worth when there is cheap oil about.