HPC-TheCountOfNowhere

Crashy_Time

westernpromise wrote: »

HPC is pretty much the antithesis of MSE.

MSE is about making your money serve you and studying how to make it go as far as it can. HPC is about being angry about what your money buys and at other people for being older than you, or for living in the south east,

Really? Why don`t they like posts about falling house prices on the main board then? :rotfl:

caronoel

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Really? Why don`t they like posts about falling house prices on the main board then? :rotfl:

To keep wise old owls like you away from normal people

Jason74

anchovypizza wrote: »

Do you know this guy personally?, or are you just making yet another stupid generalisation at someone whose views you quite clearly do not like to a handful of MSE posters who seem to do the very same thing and pat your back for it.

This is now the second HPC vitriolic thread on the same page where appreciation of any post on that HPC siteis not tolerated, and there really are some good posts just that people like you are so filled with hate and anger that you cannot see them.

You do not know any of them personally Skeppi, so stop making out you do. There are serious issues in the housing market, and perfectly reasonable people are addressing the issues in debate whether you like it or not, so just grow up.

In one sense, I agree with much of this. The level of interest in what is posted on HPC is imho getting a bit silly now (and yes, I can see the irony of me saying that while posting on an HPC related thread). Yes they have collectively been consistently wrong in recent years, the facts speak for themselves on that score. But if people there want to hold onto that view, that's their perogative, and I think there is much more to why they have been wrong than the common view on here would suggest. I'm not sure what constantly raising issues about their posts adds to the debate.

Indeed, I would suggest that the increasing focus on HPC is part of a wider fall in standards of debate on here recently, driven in large part imho by one or two very bullish posters (not that there's anything wrong with being bullish, it's just a case of how you go about it) who, while long registered, appear to have become much more active on this board in the last couple of Months. If that trend continues, there is imho a real danger that this board becomes effectively just the "equal and opposite reaction" to HPC, which would imho be a real shame.

But for all that, the Count of nowhere comes across as a thoroughly hateful individual based on his HPC posts (like you say, I do not know him, so he could be completely different away from the keyboard), and appears a key factor in why HPC has in recent years declined from a lively debate site to effectively a "safe place" for the disaffected to rant unchallenged (something that probably does them no favours longer term imho). His outright abuse of anyone with a different line is way beyond the pale, and I suspect far beyond anything that would be tolerated on here.

Given the above, the Count is "fair game" for ridicule imho, especially as he appears to like coming on here for the odd potshot every now and then (although the posts are so ridiculous I'm not ruling out the idea that the poster of that name on here is in fact a spoof). At the end of the day, if you dish out the kind of abuse he does, you have to expect some back in return.

Jason74

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

If mortgage lending is restricted without appropriate levels of public sector housebuilding for all tenures property consolidates in the hands of the wealthy, new building falls to 100 year lows, rents soar, prices rise anyway, and an entire generation is forced to buy houses for other people rather than themselves.

As we have seen...;)

Edited for accuracy. The issue isn't (and only ever was for a period of a year or two at most) about insufficient lending. The problem is fundementally that in the post war period, we have only ever built enough houses when the public sector has got directly involved in doing so on a large scale. It's no coincidence that the Housing problem in this country started to really kick in shortly after the decision to move away from large scale public sector housebuilding was made , and has got progressively worse ever since.

Talking about lack of mortgages being the problem when credit is as easily available as it is now is a long way wide of the mark imho, especially as all adding more credit to a static supply does is increase prices (and that's something that we've certainly seen plenty of in the past couple of years). It's all about building enough houses. That's something "the free market" hasn't done at any point in the last 75 years, so it seems odd to expect it to start now.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Jason74 wrote: »

The issue isn't (and only ever was for a period of a year or two at most) about insufficient lending.

Talking about lack of mortgages being the problem when credit is as easily available as it is now is a long way wide of the mark imho,

Lending continues to be crippled and at volumes less than 2/3rds historical averages.... .



Given there is a lack of mortgage finance, new building has fallen off a cliff and the housing shortage continues to worsen.




Meanwhile rents, unsurprisingly, have also soared to new record highs....




So I'll repeat... if mortgage lending is restricted property consolidates in the hands of the wealthy, new building falls to 100 year lows, rents soar, prices rise anyway, and an entire generation is forced to buy houses for other people rather than themselves.

As we have seen...;)

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Jason74 wrote: »

large scale public sector housebuilding

Putting aside for a moment the undeniable fact we need significantly more housing of every type (including council and housing associations)... even within the private housing market we have very much thrown out the baby with the bathwater in terms of options for people.

The range of outcomes that are theoretically possible within the private housing market are broadly as follows and I'd suggest are ranked in order of desirability both for society and individuals:

1) Buying a house with a large deposit and a full repayment mortgage - ideal but not possible for everyone

2) Buying a house with a small or no deposit and a full repayment mortgage - Almost as good as option 1 and better than options 3-6

3) Buying a house with a large deposit and an interest only mortgage - not as good as options 1 or 2 but better than options 4-6

4) Buying a house with a small or no deposit and an interest only mortgage - it's certainly better than private renting for many

5) Buying part of a house via shared ownership - when none of the above 4 options are affordable/available

6) Private renting - the least desirable other than for those who want/need to move a lot or for short periods of their lives between houses or when young

Unfortunately we have virtually eliminated many of those options thanks to heavy handed regulation and society is now paying the price with a worsening housing shortage and soaring rents.

As I have noted many times, UK mortgage borrowers, borrowing with the types of loans and in the quantities they did prior to 2007, were not responsible for either the global financial crisis nor the failure of the UK banking system.

In fact had UK banks just stuck to lending to UK residential mortgage borrowers, their losses would have been 1/16th the size they were and they wouldn't have needed the bail-out at all.

Jason74

To be fair Hamish, I think you're taking a single piece of data, and drawing an at best dubious conclusion from it. Yes, lending volumes have fallen, but there are lots of possible reasons for that. Lack of availability of finance is of course one, but others include a lack of property coming to market (if there are less properties to buy, there are less opportunities to obtain a mortgage). Another is of course that high prices could be leaving people priced out of the market.

Of those possible outcomes, it is abundantly clear that lack of mortgage availability is currently by some distance the least likely cause of the reduced lending. To know this, we only have to look at lending criteria. Income multiples are high by historic terms, and even a 5% deposit allows access to funding at rates that are cheap by historical standards. The idea of lack of mortgages being the problem was true 5 years ago, but it's a simple stamement of fact that it isn't now. But then, I think you're intelligent enough to know that.


So the reduced lending is clearly caused by something other than a lack of mortgage availability. We know that instructions are lower in a number of areas (probably not helped by BTL choking off the supply churn at the bottom end of the market). And of course in some parts of the country, prices are the key limiter of transactions (and therefore lending). After all, if a 1 bed flat is 10x your salary (and in even cheaper parts of London, that's the reality for average earners), it really doesn't matter how much mortgage finance is available. You're priced out and wont be buying a property.

And of course you largely (edit. I had said completely previously but your second reply acknowledges it without really adressing it) ignored the key point of my post. Which is that the free market hasn't built enough houses to meet demand at any point in the post war period. Previously, this had been addressed by large scale public sector building, but with this route effectively closed off, we have had a progressively worsening housing problem for 30 years. Get the public sector building again, and the problem gets solved. If we don't it doesn't. To use one of your favourite quotes, it really is that simple.

cells

Jason74 wrote: »

To be fair Hamish, I think you're taking a single piece of data, and drawing an at best dubious conclusion from it. Yes, lending volumes have fallen, but there are lots of possible reasons for that. Lack of availability of finance is of course one, but others include a lack of property coming to market (if there are less properties to buy, there are less opportunities to obtain a mortgage). Another is of course that high prices could be leaving people priced out of the market.

Of those possible outcomes, it is abundantly clear that lack of mortgage availability is currently by some distance the least likely cause of the reduced lending. To know this, we only have to look at lending criteria. Income multiples are high by historic terms, and even a 5% deposit allows access to funding at rates that are cheap by historical standards. The idea of lack of mortgages being the problem was true 5 years ago, but it's a simple stamement of fact that it isn't now. But then, I think you're intelligent enough to know that.


So the reduced lending is clearly caused by something other than a lack of mortgage availability. We know that instructions are lower in a number of areas (probably not helped by BTL choking off the supply churn at the bottom end of the market). And of course in some parts of the country, prices are the key limiter of transactions (and therefore lending). After all, if a 1 bed flat is 10x your salary (and in even cheaper parts of London, that's the reality for average earners), it really doesn't matter how much mortgage finance is available. You're priced out and wont be buying a property.

And of course you largely (edit. I had said completely previously but your second reply acknowledges it without really adressing it) ignored the key point of my post. Which is that the free market hasn't built enough houses to meet demand at any point in the post war period. Previously, this had been addressed by large scale public sector building, but with this route effectively closed off, we have had a progressively worsening housing problem for 30 years. Get the public sector building again, and the problem gets solved. If we don't it doesn't. To use one of your favourite quotes, it really is that simple.

Arguably the UK had an excess of homes by the mid 1990s London definitely did so I am not sure you can claim the meerkat did not provide.

Also if you break stats down to the council you will find that the council that issue more building stamps get note building.

But anyway one of Hamish ideas was that mortgage borrowers should have the option to use rental income as a criteria. I thought it mad at the time but a couple of years on I think he was right about it. A borrower should be able to apply for a mortgage and if they put 20% down the bank just uses the rentable value as criteria in the same way a lot of BTL mortgages are underwritten.

That would do away with a lot of the problems of credit rationing

caronoel

I wonder how he is getting on in France?

mystic_trev

caronoel wrote: »

I wonder how he is getting on in France?

I've never been to Northampton's chic French quarter.