MSE News: House prices up 7.5% in 2013, Halifax says 8 January 2014 at 2:09PM in House Buying, Renting & Selling 3 replies 1.4K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"House prices rose by 7.5% annually in December, but fell month-on-month, says Halifax..."

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House prices up 7.5% in 2013, Halifax says




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movilogo

and how everyone is going to be benefited by this?

Turnbull2000

I should have went to bookies! Predicted near double digit growth this year, and actual double digit next year. Could have been a nice little earner.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

movilogo wrote: »

and how everyone is going to be benefited by this?

Rising house prices are good for......

-The millions of people who are in or approaching retirement, and who either plan to, or may unexpectedly need to, downsize.

-The millions more people who are in their final property now, but will find themselves in the position above at some point.

-The couple of million people who bought within the last 7 years, who may be in or close to negative equity.

-The owners of the 2 million investment properties.

-The millions of people who may need to re-mortgage as and when rates climb, and want the best possible LTV ratio to get the best rates.

-House builders, construction industry, suppliers, investors, pension funds holding mortgage securities, banks, and all housing related industries, all of their shareholders and employees, whether they own a house or not.

-The family members of anyone who will leave an inheritance, or release equity to help their kids onto the ladder when downsizing, etc.


Rising prices are bad for......

-A few hundred thousand potential FTB's at any given time...... But only until they get on the ladder, and become one of the groups above.


And as for upsizers......

It used to be commonly believed that falling prices were better for them.

However this crash has proved that to be wrong, in most cases, because the price of their FTB property has fallen by far more than the price of the 2TB properties.

So the gap between rungs on the ladder has widened, not narrowed, with falling prices.

In summary....

Rising prices are better by far for the vast majority of society, and falling prices only benefit a few, and then only temporarily.