London's property boom over?

chucknorris

shortchanged wrote: »

And rising apparantly.

Nearly a quarter of the workforce unemployed. No wonder the housing market is tanking there.

Good opportunity for some of the property bulls on here to invest in Spanish property. :think:

I would love to buy a villa with a pool for use during the winter. The problems are though:

I don't like the idea of leaving that property empty during our summer or having the hassle of being a remote holiday let landlord.

Leaving our UK home empty during the winter.

If I remember correctly when I did look into it last year they were just about to raise the taxes and make foreign ownership of property even more expensive.

The good thing is though that long winter lets are quite cheap, still leaves the problem of leaving our UK home empty for a few months though, but it won't be insurmountable.

Jimmy_31

ess0two wrote: »

Knocked off early today?

Always do when im on a price.

I predict i will be finishing work around about 2 o clock from next tuesday, add an hour an half on to get home and i should be here by about half 3.

As long as the extra scaffolders turn up monday that is.

wotsthat

chucknorris wrote: »

I would love to buy a villa with a pool for use during the winter. The problems are though:

I don't like the idea of leaving that property empty during our summer or having the hassle of being a remote holiday let landlord.

Leaving our UK home empty during the winter.

If I remember correctly when I did look into it last year they were just about to raise the taxes and make foreign ownership of property even more expensive.

The good thing is though that long winter lets are quite cheap, still leaves the problem of leaving our UK home empty for a few months though, but it won't be insurmountable.

If you want a winter pool I'd ignore Northen Spain unless you take a wetsuit! Dog's would love it though.

Long lets are a good idea especially if you are worried about prices moving. You could just try it for a winter and see how you get on. The biggest risk with buying somewhere is finding out you really don't like the drive or that it's more dead in winter than you thought

shortchanged_2

wotsthat wrote: »

Thought so - any reason but a massive oversupply in Spain.

Big falls in USA - you can hand your keys back.

UK - SMI, etc. etc.

Nothing to do with supply and demand in any country whatsoever.

I don't think you'll find anyone that doesn't argue about supply and demand.

The point is though are the factors that affect supply and demand.

Why did we have high demand/high transactions back in the previous decade? Answer, because the banks were ever willing to lend more and more creatively. Result massive increases in prices.

Where are we now. The banks have turned the taps off. Transactions are at a very low level and we now have a stagnating/slowly declining housing market propped up by a few governement and BoE measures.

Compared to Spain though our economic position is stronger that's why I don't expect and never have said there will be a property crash in the UK. Just a slow decline which is being eased by the policy makers.

chucknorris

wotsthat wrote: »

If you want a winter pool I'd ignore Northen Spain unless you take a wetsuit! Dog's would love it though.

Long lets are a good idea especially if you are worried about prices moving. You could just try it for a winter and see how you get on. The biggest risk with buying somewhere is finding out you really don't like the drive or that it's more dead in winter than you thought

I know, we went down to Nerja last winter, ferry to Santander then about a 650 mile drive which wasn't that bad.

But Nerja itself wasn't very cycle friendly though for my wife I mean. I actually like the challenge of a good hill, but also now that my dog is coming up to 11 he likes a flat course too. It's a shame to now see that he can't keep up with me when I take him out on my bike, so I have recently stopped doing that, just when we both go out as my wife is quite slow (I do it for exercise).

We are going to try out Cadiz next time.

DervProf

shortchanged wrote: »

The point is though are the factors that affect supply and demand.

Exactly.

It's too simplistic to say that a house will cost £xK, due to supply and demand. There are a lot of factors involved in how much someone will pay for a property. Even if there were more properties available than there were buyers, if you told the population there was a shortage, and you made a lot of cheap easy credit available, you would increase demand to some degree, and you would no doubt see a sharp rise in prices, even if demand wasn't outstripping supply. How is an individual to know that there is a real shortage of property ? There is no queue forming at estate agents offices (at the moment), and there do seem to be a reasonable number of properties for sale. You give 'em the money, and tell 'em there's a shortage, they'll create the demand, but in this scenario what is the biggest factor in the prices paid ? I'd say it was the availability of money.

I'm not saying that prices aren't related to supply and demand, and I'n not saying that there is or isn't a shortgage of supply (although I am led to believe that there is). What I am saying is that it's easy to say "supply and demand, I win the argument". It is much more subtle than that.

wotsthat

shortchanged wrote: »

Where are we now. The banks have turned the taps off. Transactions are at a very low level and we now have a stagnating/slowly declining housing market propped up by a few governement and BoE measures.

This is sort of the point I'm making. The more bearish types will say they understand supply and demand but then say the housing market is held up by a few goverment and BoE props.

It's almost as if a chronic shortage of supply is less of a factor than mortgage rates averaging 3% instead of a 'normal' 5%.

I almost want some of these props to be taken away to see what happens.

chucknorris

wotsthat wrote: »

It's almost as if a chronic shortage of supply is less of a factor than mortgage rates averaging 3% instead of a 'normal' 5%.

I almost want some of these props to be taken away to see what happens.

Don't get carried away, things are perfect as they are now with the base rate stuck at 0.5%, it doesn't get any better than this.

DervProf

wotsthat wrote: »

It's almost as if a chronic shortage of supply is less of a factor than mortgage rates averaging 3% instead of a 'normal' 5%.

What chronic shortage of supply ?

There is only a chronic shortage of supply if there are lots of people able to create the demand, and I don't think there are at the moment.

There may be a chronic shortage of properties if we wish to be able to supply 1 property for every 2 adults in the country, but do every 2 adults have the means to buy a property ?

I'm sure a majority of the adult population would "demand" to be able to buy a house, but can they actually create real demand ?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Emy1501 wrote: »

Hamish predicted in 2008 on HPC that prices would fall 30% in 2008-2009 and take off again in 2010 using his housing shortgage argument. He then said in 2010 than prices would take off again 2011 which they did not and now he is saying it will happen in 2014.

Hang on a minute there....

Lets take a look at what I actually predicted, rather than what you think I predicted.

• -In the 2010 predictions thread, I expected the indices to end the year a few percent up, and they ended broadly flat in England, and up in Scotland.
  
• -In Cleaver's midyear 12 month predictions thread, I predicted +4% 12 months later and it was +3.9% on the index.
  
• -In the 2011 predictions thread I expected the indices to end the year with a slight bias towards falling prices, in a range from -3% to +2%, and they were all well within that range. Halifax -1%, Nationwide +1%, and LR -2%.
  
• -In the 2012 predictions thread I expect the indices to end the year flat, with a slight bias towards rising pries, in a range from -2% to +3%.

He is in reality just the opposite of the 70% club

How on earth is any of that being the opposite of the 70% club???

These prediction threads are full of the Sibley's and Nollags of the world predicting +10%, and the crowds of bears predicting -10% to -25% down, which is a pretty spectacular fail.

Whilst I've been directionally right and within a very, very small margin of error on every prediction thread on this forum.

He is no better than anyone on here at predicting the path of future house prices. .

I have been significantly better than anyone else on here at getting it right in the annual prediction threads.

In fact Emy, I challenge you to find any other poster that has been as consistently close as I have with house price predictions in the annual prediction threads on this board for the last 3 years.

I'm even willing to put a wager on it.

Lets agree an amount to the charity of your choice if you can find one, or you to the charity of my choice if you can't....