Even Merryn gets it..... (at last)

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Engineering price stability enables the conversion of need and desire into effective demand.

And I'll ask you again, since when have you ever seen me deny that the availability of finance, interest rates, etc are not components of demand?

LOL.

These are none of those things

satchmeister

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Engineering price stability enables the conversion of need and desire into effective demand.



And I'll ask you again, since when have you ever seen me deny that the availability of finance, interest rates, etc are not components of demand?

House prices will never fall due to the shortage of land, supply and demand, increasing population. More available finance and low interest rates will make prices rise quicker. All these factors mean tha prices can never ever fall, and the government will not allow prices to fall.

Graham_Devon

Or, "the only way to have lower house prices is to build more".

Which seems isn't the case really.

Could just engineer lower prices it seems. Or indeed, stop engineering higher prices.

Anyway, I digress.

What's more alarming is that house prices are falling, or, if you don't agree, at best, bobbing around the 0% level.

This is WITH engineering the prices. Is engineering going to go on forever? It can't really can it, as we run out of bottom rung entrants. So what happens when the engineering party stops if all engineering can currently do is give falling, or at best, stagnant prices?

Thanks for the article Hamish

System

Graham_Devon wrote: »

LOL.

These are none of those things

Availability of finance is not a factor in demand?

Seriously?

Cleaver

Graham and Hamish: just think about all the fruitless hours you both spend churning out thousands of posts that argue back and forth with each other about the most trivial of points, just like this thread. If you could somehow harness the determination, perserverance, consistancy, dedication, resoluteness and single-mindedness you show on here for some positive common purpose you'd probably both frighten yourselves with what you could come up with.

Why don't you have a quick chat on the phone and agree to do something? The next Live Aid? See if you can find a cure for cancer? Open up a needle exchange? A mega-shelter for the homeless perhaps?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

satchmeister wrote: »

House prices will never fall due to the shortage of land, supply and demand, increasing population.

House prices will inevitably rise over the medium to long term, because of those factors.

House prices can and do fluctuate both up and down in the short term.

More available finance and low interest rates will make prices rise quicker.

True.

All these factors mean tha prices can never ever fall, and the government will not allow prices to fall.

Prices can obviously fall given a severe enough disruption to the system. Removing 70% of mortgage finance, for example, was obviously enough of a disruption to make them fall.

But the damage to the wider economy means that governments are reluctant to allow them to fall, and so will try their best to prevent the fallout from such disruption causing a crash and recession.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Or, "the only way to have lower house prices is to build more".

No Graham.

The only way to sustainably lower house prices for the long term is to build more houses.

Cleaver

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

The only way to sustainably lower house prices for the long term is to build more houses.

Or have a generation of people who can't really be bothered with this high-house price malarkey and decide not to buy. A societal tipping point or something.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Anybody else reading the original post & thinking it goes completely against Hamishs' 2 year mantra?

Either that or he doesn't understand it.........

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

Anybody else reading the original post & thinking it goes completely against Hamishs' 2 year mantra?

Either that or he doesn't understand it.........

If you want to go there, I'd suggest you show me where I've ever posted that government and the BoE want to see house prices fall.

It's the bears that have wrongly been suggesting the Tories want to crash the market.

As I recall, the bulls have rightly noted that a further crash would destabilise the economy again, so further actions would be taken by the BoE and government to prevent it.