People will adjust their spending habits in order to afford their mortgage

ukcarper

Cornucopia wrote: »

Is the issue that we don't know what changes (if any) took place in terms of the size and types of property within the averages?

This is what Bovis said.

"Bovis said it completed 963 homes in the first half, with the average sales price rising by 15pc to £188,500. The majority of this increase is down to the sales mix. As Bovis is focusing on more profitable family homes rather than flats or apartments"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10166005/Bovis-home-reservations-jump-40pc.html

OffGridLiving

ukcarper wrote: »

This is what Bovis said.

"Bovis said it completed 963 homes in the first half, with the average sales price rising by 15pc to £188,500. The majority of this increase is down to the sales mix. As Bovis is focusing on more profitable family homes rather than flats or apartments"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10166005/Bovis-home-reservations-jump-40pc.html

To be fair, the Bovis explanation is even simpler than my Apples and Oranges example. Clearly my first thoughts, confirmed by Hamish, are correct and Mr Devon was just muddling for the sheer crack of it.

Oh well, it passed a slow afternoon.

buglawton

OffGridLiving wrote: »

How about:

If an apple costs 10p and an orange costs 15p. In January I sell 10 apples for a profit of £1. Six months later, I sell 10 oranges for £1.50.

I had an increase of 50% in my fruit sales in the second half of the year. This doesn't mean that the price of my apples increased 50% in the second half of the year, it doesn't mean that my oranges in creased by 50% in the second half of the year. It means that I just sold a more expensive product and so my sales figures reflect that.

The apples price index has therefore not increased, because my apples are still priced at 10p each. The orange price index has therefore not increased, because my oranges are still priced at £15p each.

I honestly can't make it plainer.

Yup, this is similar to the way Standard & Poor's U.S. stock index movement is reported each day - they add up the price if each share in the index, come up with a total in USD then compare with the previous day's! They really do add apples & pears together.
So if certain shares that have a high unit price go up most in day, the S&P index looks especially good.
At least the FTSE uses a saner method.

Graham_Devon

GhIFA wrote: »

I think the issue is that Graham took an increase in average price per completion figure used by Bovis (which Bovis stated was down to the mix of houses sold) and tried to argue that this meant average house prices had gone up and therefore the "props" to the housing market would only get bigger.

Essentially, to summarise his argument appears to be that because Bovis have sold more family homes this year, the government will never remove its housing market props.

Don't ever become a summariser.

GhIFA

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Don't ever become a summariser.

Why? That seems to be quite a succint account of the approach you took.

undetterred

If brains were dynamite,would we be able to calculate if Grayham had enough to blow his cap off.

neverdespairgirl

There's absolutely no need for a lot of the more unpleasant and insulting comments that have crept into this thread.

OffGridLiving

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

There's absolutely no need for a lot of the more unpleasant and insulting comments that have crept into this thread.

True, but then the flip side is that people have been taken for a ride and been deliberately 'muddled' just for a laugh after tying to explain a simple concept to someone who knew what they meant all along.

As I showed earlier on this thread where I was getting nowhere in a discussion with Graham, you can't even just say "We'll have to agree to disagree, let's leave it there", because he then edits his previous posts and tries to goad you in continuing, just because he wants a row not a discussion.

OffGridLiving wrote: »

We've gone full circle.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, Graham.

Graham isn't an innocent party in all this NDG.

neverdespairgirl

OffGridLiving wrote: »

Graham isn't an innocent party in all this NDG.

I didn't actually mention any names.....

OffGridLiving

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I didn't actually mention any names.....

You didn't need to.