Looking back to 2007

macaque_2

I'm sure many will remember this headline from Feruary 2007.

80 buyers for every sale: welcome to the property bun fight

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/feb/10/business.property

At that time this forum was crawling with people gloating about windfall profits. Bears were denounced as bitter people who had missed the boat. Most of these bears however were just people on average incomes who could not afford a home for their families.

Today the housing market has slammed into a brick wall. The credit market has dried up, wages are stagnant, unemployment is set to rise rapidly and the flood of tax payers money going into housing benefit is about to be turned off.

Although the property market is still astronomically high, these prices are no more than fantasy numbers. By June 2008 the headlines of '80 buyers for every seller' had turned to '15 sellers for every buyer'. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2174990/Credit-crunch-15-sellers-to-every-buyer.html

Today, its anyones guess how many sellers there are for each serious buyer. It could be 50, 100 or possibly more. Of one thing you can be certain however, 'real world' prices are going to be very different from hereon.

Over the past two years, the more fleet footed of property investors saw the writing on the wall and used the opportunity of quantitative easing to offload their investment property. The rest have missed the boat...... spectacularly.

Since 2007 the tone of bulls has gone from gloating to indignant dissagreement and now bitter recrimination. It is not the bear's fault however that the market is collapsing. It is economic reality. Phrases like 'horrendous scaremongering' from bulls are missplaced. Fear is in the eye of beholder. Lower house prices are bad for some but good for the economy. Lower house prices will also improve the lives of millions of younger people.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

I always thought misplaced only had one s............



Its all too deep for me for a sunday morning.


Or any other time & date.

nollag2006

Round my way house prices are back above their peak level. I thought the 70% club were calling for 70% drops off peak by Christmas 2009, when house prices in many areas rose by double digits over the course of that year and have maintained these gains in 2010.

Never let the truth stand in the way of a good rant, as Jonny Davies might say

nollag2006

the_realist wrote: »

back to around 2005 prices around me

I honestly doubt that.

Not one single solitary region of the country is below 2005 levels.



Not one.

Graham_Devon

It's somewhat amusing that round the bears ways, houses are falling and people are gettign 35% off asking price.

Yet round the bulls way, houses are above peak levels, but if a bear mentions peak, the question is "whats so special about peak".

All our resident landlords have never had a time thats been any sweeter, regardless of all the stories printed in the papers, including comments from other landlords and void periods are simply unknown entities.

Bulls & Bears alike all seem to be speaking to estate agents, what seems, several times a day, yet. However, real bears aint buying as they wait for falls, and real bulls aint selling, as house prices will rise. So I don't know why they have a hotline to severel local estate agents.

But the weirdest thing of all, is that bull is obviously right and bear is obviously right. Round their way, everything is going swimingly.

So howcome everything turns into an argument about who's actually right and whats going to happen? Bulls and bears should both be happy as everything is going just dandy in their local areas, confirmed by their best chum, their merry band of local estate agents - who always seem to think exactly what the poster thinks.

nollag2006

Doctor_Gloom wrote: »

Yep, same here.

Really ? What part of the country do you live in? Because every single region has seen house price rises over the 2005 level, as I have already illustrated.

You are either extemely unlucky or stupid to live in such a depressed and downtrodden part of the country.

PhylPho

nollag2006 wrote: »

You are either extemely unlucky or stupid to live in such a depressed and downtrodden part of the country.

Hadn't realised until now that a home owner's IQ (note the words: 'home owner' -- surprising, how little they appear on MSE) was of at least as important a factor in the micro-economy as, say, the closure of a major local employer.

Nice to know that no matter where you live in the UK, the market value of your home will be insulated from the effects of national recession and local unemployment so long as everyone in your neighbourhood has qwualified for membership of MENSA.

nollag2006

PhylPho wrote: »

Hadn't realised until now that a home owner's IQ (note the words: 'home owner' -- surprising, how little they appear on MSE) was of at least as important a factor in the micro-economy as, say, the closure of a major local employer.

Nice to know that no matter where you live in the UK, the market value of your home will be insulated from the effects of national recession and local unemployment so long as everyone in your neighbourhood has qwualified for membership of MENSA.

I don't think there's any real correlation to be honest, but it does strike me just how unlucky some bears are to live in areas where house prices are below their 2005 levels.

I guess that some bears are just extremely unlucky

Particularly those that missed the bottom of the market in early 2009

:rotfl:

Cleaver

Graham_Devon wrote: »

It's somewhat amusing that round the bears ways, houses are falling and people are gettign 35% off asking price.

Yet round the bulls way, houses are above peak levels

Indeed. It's as of both groups of people have some sort of agenda, isn't it?

It's probably therefore sensible to conclude that both are lying and, as 99% of people don't really know what a 'bull' or 'bear' is when it comes to housing, that the actual situation is as the stats show - most houses are somewhere between 5% and 10% cheaper than they were in 2007. If you can somehow get a deposit and / or mortgage to buy one that is.

I'm sure that there are a significant minority of properties out there for 40% off their peak price and a similar amount selling for more than they were in 2007. Doesn't really mean a lot though.

AD9898_2

Hey up Cleaver, how ya doin' mate .

I'd just like to chime in on nollags chart, what would be interesting is what kind of levels are approvals at compared to peak ?
My guess is they are pretty low. With many FTBrs locked out it reasonable to assume that a lot of these houses are the more expensive type, thus skewing up the price.

Prices are likely only to fall marginally as long as approvals are stagnant or falling. All this with record low rates. Unless wages rise significantly, IR rises, whenever they come will crucify the market. Food for thought if youre about to take on a 25 year debt that you can just manage to pay.

neverdespairgirl

nollag2006 wrote: »

Round my way house prices are back above their peak level.

Where is your way, nollag?