MSE News: Halifax: House prices up again in August (+0.8%)

System

Afriend wrote: »

That's not an argument, that's contradiction.
I paid good money for an argument too.

No you didn't.

Afriend_2

Joeskeppi wrote: »

No you didn't.

I did, not 15 seconds ago.

System

Afriend wrote: »

I did, not 15 seconds ago.

No you didn't.

IveSeenTheLight

mewbie wrote: »

So .5% rates and 0% yoy.

I think we have just borrowed a bit of time.

Where can I get a new or re-mortgage with 0.5% rates?

julieq

Graham_Devon wrote: »

So you thank that stuff about going round in circles Hamish, and then try to seperate the UK and US market, based on a banks which operate all over the world?!

Are you having a giraffe!??!

You'll note I never said high UK house prices, just high prices.

Blame the US....Totally ignore our banks are interconnected. Yep, brilliant.

Ignorance is bliss.

Graham love, are you including high UK prices as a trigger for the global crisis or aren't you? If you are then your note above is irrelevant. If not then you're agreeing with Hamish.

I don't think you can claim that Hamish is ignoring that banks are interconnected when that was his whole point. A US problem caused our banks problems which stopped lending to anyone. Without that the UK situation would have played out differently, the consensus expectation was of rising inflation coupled with housing stagnation. It was precisely the interconnectedness which allowed an essentially US structural problem to affect the banks here.

House prices in the US, or at least the prices of the houses that triggered the problems in the world banking system, were not particularly high anyway, not by UK standards. But they were used as security for loans to people who were dreadful credit risks when they were effectively valueless. You really have to see the US to appreciate how much land there is here.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

So you thank that stuff about going round in circles Hamish, and then try to seperate the UK and US market, based on a banks which operate all over the world?!

Are you having a giraffe!??!

You'll note I never said high UK house prices, just high prices.

Blame the US....Totally ignore our banks are interconnected. Yep, brilliant.

Ignorance is bliss.

Oh look, a shiny thing....:rolleyes:

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

julieq wrote: »

Graham love, are you including high UK prices as a trigger for the global crisis or aren't you? If you are then your note above is irrelevant. If not then you're agreeing with Hamish.

I don't think you can claim that Hamish is ignoring that banks are interconnected when that was his whole point. A US problem caused our banks problems which stopped lending to anyone. Without that the UK situation would have played out differently, the consensus expectation was of rising inflation coupled with housing stagnation. It was precisely the interconnectedness which allowed an essentially US structural problem to affect the banks here.

House prices in the US, or at least the prices of the houses that triggered the problems in the world banking system, were not particularly high anyway, not by UK standards. But they were used as security for loans to people who were dreadful credit risks when they were effectively valueless. You really have to see the US to appreciate how much land there is here.

Julie, you hit the nail on the head as always.

I lived in the US for years, and I am fully aware of how much land they have, how cheap that land is, and how liberal their planning and zoning laws are compared to ours.

Anyone comparing the two systems without understanding how different the fundamentals are is dreaming.

baileysbattlebus

julieq wrote: »

Graham love, are you including high UK prices as a trigger for the global crisis or aren't you? If you are then your note above is irrelevant. If not then you're agreeing with Hamish.

I don't think you can claim that Hamish is ignoring that banks are interconnected when that was his whole point. A US problem caused our banks problems which stopped lending to anyone. Without that the UK situation would have played out differently, the consensus expectation was of rising inflation coupled with housing stagnation. It was precisely the interconnectedness which allowed an essentially US structural problem to affect the banks here.

House prices in the US, or at least the prices of the houses that triggered the problems in the world banking system, were not particularly high anyway, not by UK standards. But they were used as security for loans to people who were dreadful credit risks when they were effectively valueless. You really have to see the US to appreciate how much land there is here.

The US does have a lot of land - but some states such as California and Florida have restrictive Land Use Regulation. In these states you will see building moratoria, large areas made off limits to development, urban growth boundaries, they call it "smart growth" or "compact city" or "urban consolidation". These were the states that were at the leading edge of the bubble, the leading edge of the crash and the leading edge of the toxic loans.

The US really has (or had) 2 housing markets - those with restrictive planning that saw massive price increases and those without, who didn't. Texas, Georgia, most of the midwest and the south saw low increases. And demand in the less regulated areas was higher - but because they were able to build to meet demand, prices stayed within the realms of normal.

It's interesting that although "easy" credit was available to everyone - why did some areas explode in price and others didn't.

I suppose I'm coming back to Hamish's argument about not building enough houses - if you restrict building - you restrict supply and push up prices.

I've not lived in the US, but have worked there and still visit about twice a year, one of those times is tomorrow - yipeeeee. We're going to California to visit friends and then to Florida - it'll be interesting being in California and see our friends take on it all first hand, as we haven't visited them for a couple of years.

Edit: I thought I'd add this table - it shows the states planning type (1 not restrictive - 2 restrictive) and the increase in value in terms of median income + the percentage of subprime mortgages - though not defaults. This is from 2000 to 2006 - about peak. This is quite interestng as the US has both types of planning and we only have restrictive.

http://www.demographia.com/db-subpstate.pdf

ruggedtoast

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Julie, you hit the nail on the head as always.

I lived in the US for years, and I am fully aware of how much land they have, how cheap that land is, and how liberal their planning and zoning laws are compared to ours.

Anyone comparing the two systems without understanding how different the fundamentals are is dreaming.

I lived in Japan and I can offer you an alternative model to the future of hpi here - if you'd prefer one based around limited supply, almost zero interest rates from a zombie banking system propped up by the tax payer, and very restrictive planning.

Unfortunately I dont think its goint to be what you want to hear Hamish.

Graham_Devon

julieq wrote: »

Graham love, are you including high UK prices as a trigger for the global crisis or aren't you? If you are then your note above is irrelevant. If not then you're agreeing with Hamish.

Julie petal, yes, I am. As of course it was a trigger. If we didnt have high house prices, we wouldn't have had problems here regardless of the US.

The US had problems with tent cities. We didn't because we have the welfare state. If we hadn't have had high house prices, I doubt we would have shared the US problems.