ONS: House prices rise 2.3%

shortchanged_2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jul/17/may-house-prices-london-south-east?newsfeed=true

"May house prices propped up by London"

This is the bit that made me chuckle. "Miserable weather added to the challenge of selling homes, exacerbated by stubborn buyers,"

What about stubborn sellers!

Graham_Devon

Stubborn buyers....LOL.

joe_blotts

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

A good solid year on year rise in house prices.

Excellent news for both homeowners and the wider economy.

:beer:

Not sure how that is good for the wider economy. I'd have thought that was bad as the more people have to pay on mortgages the less disposable income there is. Good for bankers and mortgage brokers maybe. How do you figure that?

DervProf

Hamish has stated many times that one of the main factors in HPI is population growth. The recent census results have shown that the UK population is rising at a record rate. Hamish is therefore ":beer:" population growth. Personally, I'm not sure that further population growth is such a good thing.

marathonic

It's Northern Ireland that interests me having had an offer accepted last month (awaiting mortgage through).

The Northern Ireland statistics for the first 3 months of this year showed a 7% drop so, if the year-on-year drop is 10.3%, it must mean that either the pace is slowing or there were rises in the second half of last year - my bet is on the slowing pace.

These drops are scary for a FTB but my thoughts are that it'll be next to impossible to time the bottom exactly and, when the market turns, there are probably a lot of people on the sidelines waiting to buy so I don't really see double-dip type price action like you would in the stock market.

Then again, I know people who bought last year under the impression that the prices wouldn't fall any further (someone will get the timing right sooner or later).

For what it's worth, the house I'm buying has been rented since built (the developer is selling it now) and was on the market at exactly double as a new build in 2006.

ruggedtoast

This news is unreported over in hpc.co.uk.

They are ignoring it!

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Is it materially more than wage inflation?

Is it materially less than CPI? Given CPI is 2.4%.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

DervProf wrote: »

Hamish is therefore ":beer:" population growth. .

Actually, population growth gets a double :beer::beer:.

We badly need immigration to rebalance our aging population problem.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

We badly need immigration to rebalance our aging population problem.

You mean to sort YOURSELF out in this problem?

Adding more people to the country just add's more pension liabilities a bit further down the line. As said so many times to you, but you simply gloss over and run off to another thread to say the same thing.

RenovationMan

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Actually, population growth gets a double :beer::beer:.

We badly need immigration to rebalance our aging population problem.

This is the problem we have with a state penson system that is funded from future tax receipts instead of being funded by investment, like the Norwegian Sovereign fund for example. Until this changes, then we will always need an ever increasing population.

A partial solution would be to use a form of the German 'Guest Worker' system where people work here but have no citizenship rights and obviously pay less NI to compensate for them not qualifying for a state pension of their own.