Ooh buyers are coming back

ruggedtoast

firsttimetom wrote: »

Very true.

I guess my opinion is biased anyway. Being debt free with large savings and the intention of buying a house, I would much prefer inflation was kept under control with the state of the housing market and debtors pushed to one side, BUT i know it will go the other way and of course, more people fall into the debt laden category than don't.

I guess thats the price i'll have to pay for Gordons Miracle

Its remarkable the speed with which the commonly received wisdom of saving money and "neither a borrower nor a lender being" especially amongst the working class, has been replaced with a total and unquestioning acceptance of the normality of taking on vast amounts of debt.

Due to money being created in the form of debt, in order to pay back the interest accrued from the previous round of credit growth an exponentially larger amount of money has to be taken out in the form of new loans.

Think of the enormous percentage of the worlds global debt that is now accounted for by the relative titchiness of the UK. Is it reasonable to assume that we have any chance of growing our economy out of this strait jacket we've created? Is enough of our GDP actually made up of viable industry and not notional debt based house price inflation to take up the slack? Not really - inflating our way out of the debt is the only avenue Gordon has left to pursue.

Yet with a rapidly devaluing currency and an Alice in Wonderland assessment of the CPI how is he going to sell gilts to raise capital, and who to?

If interest rates continue to decline and the value of the pound continues to drop I will be moving all my capital into a Euro account without hesitation.

Melissa177

SquatNow wrote: »

Inflation is skyrocketing at the moment.

The 0.25% drop in interest rates and the promise of 2 more was just to get people to go out and spend over christmas.

Interest rates will go back up again by 0.25% in February.

Then up again in March to 6%.

Inflation wont get us out of this mess, it will just make imports more expensive, and we rely on imports for everything.

RPI ( a fairer measure of inflation than the fiddled CPI figures) is at 4.1%
Hand's up if your wages rose by 4.1% or more last year. Anyone without their hand up effectively took a wage cut.

I think inflation is currently more like 10%. Fuel, food, housing is all up way more than 4.1%...

useless

Nenen wrote: »

With all due respect, (and I love hearing all the debate on both sides of the fence on this issue) there may be an alternative explanation to the assumptions made about what the sudden reappearance of buyers might mean and I'll give a counter anecdote to illustrate....

We've been house hunting for almost a year now. Until recently EAs couldn't be bothered to contact us (or even return our phone call sometimes) as they had plenty of buyers and no doubt lots of property speculators who would hand them a 'bung' for good leads. If an EA had to show us round a property then they would offer us one appointment time and if that wasn't convenient for us then 'tough luck' it was their time or no time!

Suddenly I've had phone calls from EAs asking me if we are still looking for a property and one even asking me if I'd like to make an appointment to go and view a property they were just taking onto their books... it isn't even on the website yet (I asked if I could see some photos) and she is going to measure up this SUNDAY!!!! In our area EAs haven't been willing to work on a Sunday for years... they haven't needed to. She was really doing a good sales pitch to try and get me to make an appointment.

I'm left wondering if the sudden 'rush' of buyers coming back is due to a sudden rush of drumming up business by EAs desparate not to lose their jobs! I would guess in the current climate (see previous links re EAs being made redundant) the only EAs who will keep their jobs are the ones working their ****s off to get buyers through the door!

If we are anything to go by (and I'm not sure how stereotypical as buyers we are), we are still looking at houses but with much less fervour and much greater discrimination than before. We would only consider something we absolutely loved and could easily afford or thought was a real bargain.

It may be that the OP's daughter's house is now being seen as a potential bargain as it has been on the market for some time and I wouldn't be surprised if viewers put in low offers. Of course that still means that her dd will be in a good position assuming she is 'trading up' as her next house is likely to be more of a bargain too!

Good luck to your dd Kittie... where is her house btw... it sounds lovely?

this sounds quite familiar. last year it seemed that the only thing an estate agent was interested in was getting us to speak to their mortgage advisor, so they could make a quick bit of commission.

They seem to have been paying more attention to us in recent months, perhaps because it was around Christmas but that remains to be seen.

motch

dolce_vita wrote: »

Shock horror: estate agents optimistic about the housing market.


This time next year, houses will be cheaper than they are now, not more expensive.

This is 100% correct. Mark my words.

dolce was right and in no need of any crystal balls from the bulls

500Triumph650

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain wrote: »

Can you let me know where you got your crystal ball?

Land Registry at last data to end of nov say prices are still going up... fact.

What happened in December nobody knows yet. Last figures released this week say last years house index is stillon for 8% or so i think it was.

I'm not saying we wont have a bit of a drop, no doubt we will, but a 40-50% crash?? you guys are dreaming.

The crystal ball was working fine.

The dreams are coming true too:p