Any HPCers on here?

julieq

To be honest very few of the "bulls" on this board were ever actually bulls, and not many of us are looking to become wealthy via HPI. I don't recall reading anything from a "bull" expecting anything other than stagnation in the short term.

What happens is you turn up and post detailed analysis and arguments, and then some halfwit from HPC and his less clued in mates turn up en masse and tell you you're wrong wrong and thrice wrong in the most patronising and dismissive language possible, then have a cackle between themselves about whatever timebomb du jour is about to send prices down on the basis of a headline about something "soaring" (whatever happened to option arm, by the way?)

This is going to create a bit of antipathy.

As a matter of fact, the "bulls" have called every aspect of this directionally right, and with the exception of Mewbie's classic post predicting EXACTLY what happened last year when he was attempting to be sarcastic and predicting the polar opposite of what he thought, the bears have been wrong. When they're wrong, instead of trying to figure out whether their base assumptions might be flawed, what they do is tell the world that the figures are wrong, the real crash is just around the corner anyway, things are different down my way, and so on.

It's the logic of a cult now.

DervProf

I still don`t like the attitude of some of the bulls.

And I get ever more cyncial about "facts" and statistics about the property market. I`m not saying that when we see reports of price rises, they are wrong, or that every report of a price fall is correct. I just don`t like the way the media seem to (more than seem to, they do !) tend to put a more positive spin on HPI. I honestly believe that this helps HPI to continue, or increase.

In fact, I`ve just have an experience which makes me distrust figures from large organisations even more......

Very "off topic", but here goes.

The NHS claim that waiting times for treatment is less than 18 weeks in most cases. They also claim that the average waiting time is a fair bit less than 18 weeks. They publish these statistics, and we are all supposed to feel good about them (and I honestly did think that things were improving).

I was put on a waiting list back in May. I waited, and waited. No news. So, I recently enquired about where I was on the waiting list. I wasn`t. I had been removed from the list because I didn`t attend an appointment. The hospital told me that they had sent me an appointment letter back in July. As far as I know, I didn`t receive a letter. I was told to get my local GP to write a letter, requesting that I be put back on the waiting list (why couldn`t the hospital do that, they were the ones that prescribed the treatment ?). So I contacted my GP, they said that it was odd that they hadn`t had notification from the hospital that I missed an appointment. This suggested that I hadn`t received an appointment letter myself (I`m sure I wouldn`t have missed it, as I was expecting it).

So, in a few days time, I will have been waiting over 18 weeks for treatment. Will my case show up in the statistics as a "fail", or will I not be included because I didn`t attend an appointment ? I`m guessing the latter. And why didn`t they contact me or my GP to find out why I didn`t attend ? Nah, far better to take me off the waiting list, as they have targets to meet. I wonder if this is a one-off case ? I doubt it.

OK, that is nothing to do with the property market, but it goes to show that statistics can be very misleading. As I get older, the smell of b******t gets ever stronger.

andykn

chucky wrote: »

they sold out quite a while ago in 2006 - i wouldn't have thought that they would still be fighting the HPC corner anymore but drinking a few mojitos by a pool somewhere. good on them!!

my favourate posters there are Bruce Spanner and Pete - proper mugs

Bruce Banner was one of the most intellectually challenged posters I've ever come across.

He thought I was both a Vested Interest (VI) (with no evidence or explanation) and a sock puppet for a poster who'd drifted off but only ever posted political posts in support of New Labour (i.e. clearly not a property VI)

His reasoning seemed to be that, as we disagreed with him we must be the same person as two separate people couldn't possibly disagree with his words of wisdom. Which were mostly that anyone who disagreed with him must be a VI.

andykn

RenovationMan wrote: »

I dont know about anyone else but I'd rather visit a site where everyone disagreed with me than agreed with me.

That's the main reason I joined. Sadly they don't seem to allow it.

julieq

How on earth can you claim there's a positive spin on economic reporting when you have moneyweek, lovemoney, any national newspaper, Robert Peston etc etc relentlessly hyping up any report with something bad "soaring" to "record levels". The curse of the media isn't positive spin or negative spin for that matter, it's about shoddy reporting, overegging non-issues, and not including information about absolute numbers. The classic example was the one about "mortgage fraud soaring" which turned out to be something like from 12 cases to 22. The bears grab hold of that sort of thing, froth merrily for a few pages, and then someone has the bad grace to point out that it's not as bad as they think. You can run through the entire list of bear obsessions from repossessions, liar loans, BTL rates, rent variations, mortgage rate predictions, etc etc and find the roots of all of them in some overhyped piece of journalism.

Hamish, who's arguably the arch bull, posts accurate numbers with commentary and draws accurate conclusions - he did win the 12 months pricing competition very comprehensively. He's hated because he debunks gleefully, not because he debunks inaccurately. If you listen to him and follow his reasoning you're likely to make better judgements more consistently than if you listen to any of the bears.

The NHS example you give has nothing to do with house price statistics. NHS measurements are provided from the public sector to show adherence to government targets. And yes, they've been fiddled by exploiting the way the measures are generated. There is a perfectly clear political reason why that has been done, to make the government policies appear more effective than they actually are. Incidentally the fact the NHS was abusing, for example, 48 hour appointment targets by preventing people from making long term appointments and obliging them to make appointments only on the day was something the NHS invented for itself. Tony Blair was staggered about it when he found out, which was when someone on a panel programme told him just prior to his last election victory.

Where are the government targets for house prices, and which of the measures do they control? You can see the methodologies used to interpret data, and the data is a matter of public record, so a conspiracy could be exposed in a matter of hours. What would be the benefit of a wide conspiracy anyway? It is simply not credible. Just because one set of statistics is unreliable it doesn't follow that all statistics are unreliable.

But as a matter of religious faith, which is what we're talking about when we discuss HPC, if reality is at odds with what faith dictates should be happening, it's reality which is broken, and therefore there's a conspiracy, QED. That's the fundamental problem with HPC, their view of reality is rigid and faith based.

andykn

DervProf wrote: »

OK, that is nothing to do with the property market, but it goes to show that statistics can be very misleading. As I get older, the smell of b******t gets ever stronger.

You are quite right to be sceptical of statistics.

However, the bears on HPC weren't frightened to use them when prices were going down.

And look around you, can you see prices in your area dropping? Do you know personally significant numbers of people losing jobs?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

julieq wrote: »

Hamish, who's arguably the arch bull, posts accurate numbers with commentary and draws accurate conclusions - he did win the 12 months pricing competition very comprehensively.

He's hated because he debunks gleefully, not because he debunks inaccurately.

If you listen to him and follow his reasoning you're likely to make better judgements more consistently than if you listen to any of the bears.
.

I should make that my signature.....:D

DaddyBear

Sibley wrote: »

Love it. If only they would come over to mine for the evening. :mad:

Why? So you can brag that your house is worth about £10k more than when you bought it 3 years ago. Score!
What I find amusing Sibley is that you have exactly the same attitude as the HPC loons, just that you have the opposite VI. What is sad, is that you don't seem to realise it.

Exocet

I used to like HPC, several years ago. It provided an alternative to the property can only go up mantra that seemed to be indicative of a bubble. There were some people worth reading on there who talked about credit defaults and other such stuff long before I had seen it mentioned elsewhere. Of course I didn't understand it, but it was interesting.

But a forum that consists of only one point of view is not so good. The opposite of Singing Pig for example, equally one sided and misrepresentative of the 'facts'.

Thank Heavens for MSE where we have a mix of views, and despite all the 'facts' views are what we are talking about, because no one not even Hamish or Mewbie* actually knows what is going to happen.

So we have views and opinions and can spout them and be knocked down or backed up. Forum life.

* who would have thought they could both be gurus, perhaps two cheeks of the same @ss?

Valerius

I used to post "over there" before being banned, and very occasionally post here. Back in Feb 09, I remember mentioning about good housing stock in good areas will not be much impacted by what the HPC gang wishfull thinking of 50% crash...move forward two years, and this is still the case.

No one can predict the future, sure, but given actual facts such as limited (good) housing stock and an ever growing population, the above case is likely to remain for some time yet..

In actual fact, Jan-May-09 was one the best buying opportunity there was, and loonies like Bruce Banner and his ilks put me in his signature for trying to make them recognized this point. What a pr!ck! Oh well. Their loss not mine!