My perspective as a "bear"...

shupufski_2

I have read lots of posts on here from people who oppose the views of so called “bears”.

The implied definition of a “bear” in many of these posts is some combination of the following

· someone who is obsessed with “crashing” house prices

· the desire to see misery imposed on large swathes of the population

· a belief that they will be able to buy their “dream” house for peanuts

· having a pile of cash to spend on a house

· a bleak view on life in general

Intellectually it is easier to put forward an argument if you define your antagonist as an extremist or caricature. Many of the posts directed against “bears” are sadly as ridiculous as the people they seek to oppose. And as has been stated before by many, the pantomime nature of many threads is tedious and does nothing to advance proper debate.

The “bear” is obviously derived from investing parlance but is misplaced in that a “bear” is an investor who bets money on prices dropping rather than someone who wants prices to drop. I accept that there are some people who have bet in this way by perhaps selling and renting in anticipation of being able to buy back into the market when prices drop. But even this view is distorted by assuming that the traits listed above automatically apply.

In my view, and if I am in any way representative of those defined as “bears” is that the idea of what we want is completely misunderstood. What I want is to be able to buy a reasonable house- a house that is historically commensurate with my earnings – and nothing more.

My biggest problem is that I don’t like debt.

I especially don’t like very large debt. Or worse, very, very large debt.

That is why I want house prices to fall. Not because I want something for nothing but because I don’t want a massive debt to get it.

I believe that the dismay of “bears” over the last house price boom was that rising house prices simply meant rising levels of debt.

Those celebrating house price rises, even over the last 18 months, surely must understand that society’s ability to fund these rises can only come from debt (accepting a bit of increase in foreign funds).

Debt is not productive and debt must be paid for. And all high prices have succeeded in doing is increasing the amount of debt people are forced to take on to buy a house.

It seems that those that celebrate ever increasing house prices and sneer at those of us who don’t may have just a smidgen of irritation that we have chosen not to take on large debts like they have. Rising prices are seen as punishment for those of us who are debt averse with the implicit message that if you don’t take on a very large debt now you will be forced to take on an even larger debt later.

I believe that society would be better off if we all had lower amounts of debt. Falling house prices would inevitably cause distress and hardship to a lot of people but there are an awful lot of people who been faced with the same as a result of rising house prices.

wherediditallgothen

What's your choice of reading material on your visits to the woods?

spadoosh

Is this you in the background?!

spadoosh

note to animal welfare people. No bears were harmed during the shooting of this photo.



The bison however...... gone!!!

Blacklight

Nicely worded but you still come across as wanting something for nothing. Historically most people have had to take out mortgages to own their own home. Why should you be any different or be excused from this at the expense of everyone else?

You want prices to come down because you're adverse to borrowing and you'd rather have the money to spend on other luxuries. To me that smacks of greed.

The people who really are getting ahead now are your peers who learned to stand on their own two feet, bought because they want a place to call their own and decided life was too short to crap your pants over taking out a loan. They're the ones who've been paying it down while interest rates are low rather than waiting for reverse price inflation to do the job for them.

wherediditallgothen

Blacklight wrote: »

Nicely worded but you still come across as wanting something for nothing. Historically most people have had to take out mortgages to own their own home. Why should you be any different or be excused from this at the expense of everyone else?

You want prices to come down because you're adverse to borrowing and you'd rather have the money to spend on other luxuries. To me that smacks of greed.

The people who really are getting ahead now are your peers who learned to stand on their own two feet, bought because they want a place to call their own and decided life was too short to crap your pants over taking out a loan. They're the ones who've been paying it down while interest rates are low rather than waiting for reverse price inflation to do the job for them.

You seem to view anyone who disagrees with you as wanting something for nothing.

System

Being a bull or a bear has nothing to do with what you want to happen.

RenovationMan

Debt is great as long as (A) the borrowed money is invested and as long as (B) you can service the debt. I think this is the divider on this board, rather than this silly 'bear' and 'bull' nonsense.

According to my observations, there are those people on here who are willing to use debt to further their finances (such as the BTL crowd and people who invest in the stockmarket while servicing a mortgage) and those who refuse to use debt to further their finances such as those building up large housing deposits and those doggedly paying down their mortgages to the exclusion of any other investments.

It's clear from my signature which camp I fit into. I'm neither a bear or a bull as far as housing is concerned, but I am happy to borrow money and invest it to get higher returns than I'm paying in interest on that loan. I've been doing this for 15 years and I'm doing very well out of it. However, I have a secure job which brings us back to point (B) I made earlier.

Looking back over the last 15 years I have accrued over £300k in investments by borrowing money at low rates and getting investment returns at higher rates. There is absolutely no way that I could have accrued this sort of wealth by merely saving cash. I might have had a more comfortable time of it, because I have had periods of poverty and worry but my view is that I'm happy to worry about money when I'm young because I then wont have to worry about money when I'm old.

Blacklight

wherediditallgothen wrote: »

You seem to view anyone who disagrees with you as wanting something for nothing.

No, not for nothing. At the expense of hardworking families. There is a cost there.

doire_2

Blacklight wrote: »

You want prices to come down because you're adverse to borrowing and you'd rather have the money to spend on other luxuries. To me that smacks of greed.

.

You want prices to rise and that smacks of greed

Blacklight wrote: »

No, not for nothing. At the expense of hardworking families. There is a cost there.

The same hardworking families who are so much in debt that if IR rates rise by 1% they are in big trouble? These poor barstewards took on mountains of debt just to own a home so get off your high horse.

quantic

doire wrote: »

The same hardworking families who are so much in debt that if IR rates rise by 1% they are in big trouble? These poor barstewards took on mountains of debt just to own a home so get off your high horse.

Its not like they took on a massive mortgage to buy a mansion or to spend it on hookers. A lot of families just borrowed what they could, so that they could put a house over their kids heads. No shame in this. Its just unfortunate that the banks did not do anything to save people from themselves.