All of a sudden "HPI" seems to be a bad thing.

DervProf

How the media have changed their tune.

Not so long back, I remember the monthly interviews on BBC Breakfast News with Nationwide's "Fiona La La" (or whatever her name was), grinning like a Cheshire cat, as she told us that house prices had risen >1% again over the last month. There was sometimes a suggestion that it might, just possibly, be bad news, but the general theme was "this is great". Sometimes they'd wheel in someone from Halifax to deliver the same brilliant news.

purch

All those presenters who have been transferred to Salford are worried in case they ever get sent back to work in London

They sold their nice house in London, and bought a mansion in Cheshire with the proceeds, but at the rate it's going when they sell the mansion all they will be able to buy in London is a tent in the corner of Battersea Park :eek:

observingthedebate

Well because it mostly is a bad thing, particularly for young and middle/low income households.

TickersPlaysPop

That was back when mortgage credit was available to almost everybody so most people couldn't see a problem the time. Even over 100% loan to value existed. The financial experts responsible at the time ( in government and banking) were negligent and because they cannot be held to account they did nothing to stop the mess.

Credit crunch and high house price increase over wage increase for a while has lead to a big change in the situation.

Now many people cannot buy their home because prices are so high and credit is hard or not possible to get.

More house price increase will worsen an already bad situation.

CLAPTON

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

That was back when mortgage credit was available to almost everybody so most people couldn't see a problem the time. Even over 100% loan to value existed. The financial experts responsible at the time ( in government and banking) were negligent and because they cannot be held to account they did nothing to stop the mess.

Credit crunch and high house price increase over wage increase for a while has lead to a big change in the situation.

Now many people cannot buy their home because prices are so high and credit is hard or not possible to get.

More house price increase will worsen an already bad situation.

how did the credit crunch i.e. an inability to borrow, lead to high house prices?

wymondham

The tide does seem to have turned! lots of coffee being smelt me thinks!

Bantex_2

CLAPTON wrote: »

how did the credit crunch i.e. an inability to borrow, lead to high house prices?

Ultra low interest rates meant that enough people (including investors) could buy. It only takes two going for the same property to drive the price up.

There is a lot of cheap money sloshing around at the moment, it is just available to a relatively small minority.

Carl31

Its seen as good, as OO think house price goes up = richer, forgetting how much the cost of maintaining a property, and the fact that the market around them follows suit, errodes the value of any gain

The only ones that benefit really are investors, which most people are not

Generali

There does seem to have been a huge cultural shift from Yay HPI to Down with HPI. I see the same thing over here.

It has always been normal in France. There's a perennial story of an old woman who can no longer stay in the family home because HPI caused by incomers from Paris or overseas (they're the same thing to most in provincial France) has pushed the poor old dear who was in the Resistance into the arms of the wealth tax.

Bantex_2

Generali wrote: »

There does seem to have been a huge cultural shift from Yay HPI to Down with HPI. I see the same thing over here.

It has always been normal in France. There's a perennial story of an old woman who can no longer stay in the family home because HPI caused by incomers from Paris or overseas (they're the same thing to most in provincial France) has pushed the poor old dear who was in the Resistance into the arms of the wealth tax.

Could this shift be due to the fact that the balance between owners and non owners is getting closer to parity?

CLAPTON

Bantex wrote: »

Ultra low interest rates meant that enough people (including investors) could buy. It only takes two going for the same property to drive the price up.

There is a lot of cheap money sloshing around at the moment, it is just available to a relatively small minority.

so fewer people able to buy drives the prices higher than would otherwise be the case?

so just 2 buyers could to the cause of nationwide HPI: what about buying them a nice place abroad, so HPI could be stopped here immediately?