HPC thread of the week

westernpromise

irrationalactor wrote: »

I find all this sneering at HPC rather offensive.

There are a lot of posters over there (like me) to whom the housing market is not a game. Housing is not optional - everyone needs one.

In the 90s people bought decent houses at sensible salary multiples. By the time I left Uni in the early 2000s it was becoming impossible, and by the time I had a bit of a deposit the average salary multiple had gone from 3.5x to more like 7x. In London, now, it's something like 12x.

Even if I eventually manage it, how on earth are people just starting out now going to be able to pay those prices?

Ridiculing posters on another forum because people 'got it wrong' and/or 'missed the boat' and you didn't leaves a bad taste in the mouth when the reason many people missed that boat is because they were born after it had left.

If prices remain crazy and there is no crash, then I will be ending up significantly poorer than my parents, despite having a much more stable and higher-earning career than both of them put together. My entire working life I have been saving towards a house but at the end of every year I end up farther away than when I started.

I don't find anything to celebrate in that.

The sneering at HPC is I think justified. First, the tone of the place is unpleasant. There is a 159-page thread called "Btl Scum Regrouping", for example. If you start calling people scum, you lose any right to be treated politely.

Second, the detachment from reality invites mockery. There is a thread called "Is Prime London Crashing?" which runs to 695 pages. This started in January 2014 and two years later it's still running, the general flavour being "I hope others lose so I can gain". Needless to say, evidence that prime London is crashing is not there. Similarly, there is a 60-page thread from over two years ago also still running entitled "This Weeks Housing Market Propaganda". The "propaganda" in fact consists of HPC propaganda and a bunch of nodding dogs agreeing.

HPC is to prudent financial choices what David Icke is to, well, anything really. It is a site by and for vicious nutters.

TheeMaskedTurnip

Any website that wishes to see good honest hard working families thrown to the wolves in the street just so that they can pick up a dream house on the cheap deserves all the derision in the world. Count is one of the worst and is a real cuont.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

westernpromise wrote: »

HPC is to prudent financial choices what David Icke is to, well, anything really.

Ouch.... I can feel the burn from here.:rotfl:

mwpt

westernpromise wrote: »

the general flavour being "I hope others lose so I can gain".

So as always the narrative is that home owners are the hard workers and deserve their gains, crash must be avoided to protect these salt of the earth. While the renters are just "losers" (this boards term) and no problem with HPI increasing the wealth inequality and pricing out these losers.

I see this same mentality everywhere and not a hint of irony.

TheCountofNowhere

Keep the abuse coming

Stay classy

mystic_trev

TheCountofNowhere wrote: »

Keep the abuse coming

Stay classy

Like this you mean?

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/206992-im-going-to-buy/?p=1102817984

7clubs

TheCountofNowhere wrote: »

Keep the abuse coming

Stay classy

Relax, enjoy the southern French lifestyle, Walter (Mitty).

ukcarper

mwpt wrote: »

So as always the narrative is that home owners are the hard workers and deserve their gains, crash must be avoided to protect these salt of the earth. While the renters are just "losers" (this boards term) and no problem with HPI increasing the wealth inequality and pricing out these losers.

I see this same mentality everywhere and not a hint of irony.

That's how you see it I don't and I don't think I'm alone. People who make a conscious decision not to buy in the hope of a crash are not the same as the vast majority of people who buy when they need and can afford. I would rather see people speculating on crash lose not the people who just get on with their life. That doesn't mean I have no sympathy for people who genuinely can't afford to buy and that I think the amount of HPI we have had is a good thing. Also I don't see all people who rent as losers, it's only the ones who rent hoping and expecting a crash and have been trying to convince other to do the same.

westernpromise

mwpt wrote: »

So as always the narrative is that home owners are the hard workers and deserve their gains, crash must be avoided to protect these salt of the earth. While the renters are just "losers"

No. As far as I know, nobody's saying that.

The critique here of HPC is that it is a site for grossly selfish and entitled individuals to dress up malice as virtue, envy as altruism, and speculation as some sort of principled moral stance, as long as it's their own speculation on prices falling rather than other people's on their rising.

I have sympathy with those who entered the housing market too late, but not unlimited sympathy, for three reasons.

One, as a 20-something I was able to buy, but only utter dumps. Not till I was 35 did I own a place I was proud of, and it's not yet paid for.

Second, I went through the era of negative equity and 15% interest rates, at which level you would pay off just £2,700 of a £100k loan over the first five years. Today, at a rate of say 2.5%, you would pay off £15.5k in the same time - six times as much. This, I would point out, makes an enormous difference to how scared anyone should now be of negative equity. Then, you couldn't repay your way out of it; now you can.

Third, the property squeeze of today is largely the consequence of unfettered immigration and emergency interest rates. I didn't vote for either and nor did my age demographic, who lose out notably from poor returns on savings. But the sub-35 demographic that is worst affected by mass immigration and cheap finance repeatedly and decisively voted Labour, who brought it all about.

The main cause of the under 35s' inability to own property is not "boomers" or landlords but, I'm afraid, other sub-35-year-olds.

I get my personal allowance withdrawn, I'm taxed at 45%, I've been excluded from having any of this new tax free savings interest perk and yet there are people on HPC who feel I'm milking them. Get real.

westernpromise

TheCountofNowhere wrote: »

Keep the abuse coming

Stay classy

Who is abusing you?

You are not being abused. You are being called out for being envious, offensive, entitled and - worst of all - persistently wrong.

You should reflect on the critique offered here and ask yourself why you are so much happier in your HPC cesspit, and if that is healthy.