The 2016 HAMISH_MCTAVISH Predictions Thread

BobQ

purch wrote: »

There will not be an EU referendum on UK membership in 2016

Neither Jezza Corbyn or Nigel Farage will still be Party Leaders by December 2016

.

Care to explain why you think the first and how the second will come about?

purch

BobQ wrote: »

Care to explain why you think the first and how the second will come about?

I'm not sure you "get" this prediction lark Bobby.

chewmylegoff

BobQ wrote: »

Care to explain why you think the first and how the second will come about?

Not sure about the first but re: the second, my guess is that Corbyn and Farage will be exposed as lovers.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chewmylegoff wrote: »

my guess is that Corbyn and Farage will be exposed as lovers.

Or possibly aliens....

kinger101

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Or possibly aliens....

Does that mean we can expel Farage and return him to the planet Zog.

michaels

Every year I sit and think...this needs a decent amount of thought...and then never get round to entering. So this time I will go with gut rather than logic.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Broadly a year of continued economic growth.

In most ways the effects of the 2008 recession and financial crisis are now behind us and the recovery is complete.

The big exception is that new house building and mortgage lending remain constrained but more on that later.

As for the predictions...

1. House prices will rise. Indices will range from +4 to +9%. This is a similar rate of growth to last year.

Jeez - I don't know, there are all the btl shenanigans, uncertainty on base rates and Europe and of course it isn't one UK housing market btu very much a North - South divide. 8-10%

2. FTB numbers will increase, potentially aided by new schemes or the expansion of existing ones as the government continue to try and restore normal functioning to the still dysfunctional mortgage and house building markets.

Not convinced - in the south FTBs don't have the funds, in the north there isn't the demand and rental yields remain competitive even for more highly taxed BTL.

3. Inflation will remain in a range between 0% and 1% for most of the year.

-1% and +1% unless oil prices reverse (are we not predicting these?)

4. Unemployment will fall to below 5% - wages will continue to rise in real terms at a similar rate to last year.

Real wages increase have slowed down from nearly 3% to closer to 2% already, not sure why given the unemployment rate. I suspect surplus EU labour will keep wages down even if unemployment appears to continue to fall.

5. Interest rates will end the year at or below 1% - but we will see the first rise this year.

Agree, probably one rise but more likely to surprise on the downside if International and EU growth stagnating spreads to the UK.

6. House building will not increase at anywhere near the rates the government has promised or the country needs to alleviate the housing crisis. Given the discouragement to BTL investment it may even fall.

Sadly all too true

7. Rents will continue to increase and reach another new record high.

Goes without saying although there may b further attempts to restrict HB.

8. The north will see increasing HPI as the gap to London/SE starts to close

Don't think so, the north does not have the same demand supply imbalance as the S and BTL, the other driver, has been discouraged.

9. Aberdeen house prices will continue to soften a bit as they have done over the last year.

Another implicit call on oil prices.

10. Economic growth will continue with GDP +2.0% for the year

2% or less given the international headwinds and slow real wage growth

Politics:

11. The SNP will win the Scottish elections with a landslide vote at constituency level.

The Tories will be the official opposition

12. If there is a referendum this year on Europe the UK will vote to stay in.

Sadly very true despite the best Cameron's renegotiation will achieve is a minor concession fudge and the EU will then try to press rapidly for further integration to manage the immigration crisis. The Greek crisis will continue to be hidden. Referendum more likely this year than next.

13. The Scottish Labour party will end the year with a different leader.

Who cares?

14. DAESH will get pushed out of most/all of the ground they hold in Iraq and some of the ground they hold in Syria - they will compensate by becoming more active elsewhere - both with additional terror attacks in the West and in conflict areas such as Afghanistan

Yep - Afghanistan and North and Central Africa, and you would have to guess that odds are on at least one more successful European attack, I would have thought a gun attack on a train between stations would be a great spectacular.

Feel free to add your own predictions here, and we'll review once again in 12 months.

US - I wouldn't bet against Trump getting the Republican nomination and then Clinton could implode on the email scandal or her health leaving the world in a very dangerous place. (See the UK parallel with Corbyn and a Tory breakup over Europe)

Oil - Who knows what game the Saudi's are playing but I think ruling out a rebound completely would be foolish.

Cyber attacks, ebola, super 'flu, antibiotic resistant super bug, dirty bomb, climate disaster, industrial disaster, earthquake, tusnami, hurricane - almost certainly one of these that will turn out not to be as world changing as first thought.

Outside chance: Sense will prevail and the HS2 budget will be spent on self driving cars and infrastructure.

mystic_trev

I want to see Crashy Time's prediction before commiting myself

cells

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I think a theme of 2016 will be continued mass immigration into the EU bloc from the Middle East and North Africa. The EU will completely fail to agree a common approach to deal with the situation leading to a serious political crisis. I am not sure what the result will be but the numbers of migrants are not going to fall and I can't see how Germany can just soak them all up.

they have over 40 million homes, if they took in 10 million people and built no additional homes the germans would still live less dense (people per home) than we do in the UK

Dan83

I'd like house prices to stay low, interest to stay at an affordable rate.

System

mystic_trev wrote: »

I want to see Crashy Time's prediction before commiting myself

He will never make a prediction with a time scale.

Every single person in the world knows there will be another crash one day. He thinks he's special, bless.