IMHO they are responsible for people feeling glum.
House prices ? Its the end of the world according to ITV and the BBC, on average they have gone down 2.5%
1) Pretty good news for 1st time buyers.
2) If your selling to move the house your after will have fallen 2.5% (status quo)
3) Negative equity ? Don't sell there is only one way long term house prices will go.
Whats the most depressing thing in the UK ? The media.
Very true john, yet it makes a feedback loop. The 2.5% drop is due to media hysteria. Ive said it before, global media will kill us all.
Then they always end with, "contact us and tell us your horror storeys" How many million people live in this country ? They then come up
with a few isolated cases/storeys of whatever and try to get everyone running scared.
Very sad lives they must lead, think I would be suicidal if I worked for them.
Rant over.
It could be so easy to solve! I've not bought a paper in 7 years - I don't sit and watch the news - I get what I want from news sites and
ignore the crap and everyone who starts a conversation with me along the lines of, "...in the paper they were saying..." get's cut off
with a, " I don't give a crap..."
Stop listening to the bastards and they'll have to change...
I keep saying it to people, and it's hard to come to terms with when you're 'losing' thousands, but if you're trying to move UP the housing ladder then you should want prices to fall - after all, assuming all properties move by the same %age then the place you move into will have got cheaper by more than the amount you've lost on your place
And if you look at the housing prices over the past 12 months they're somewhere between static and +5%, depending on which paper you read.
Jan to March are always slow months for house selling in any year - people are usually suffering from the grim realities of Christmas debt!
[Edited on 8/4/08 by David Jenkins]
Most of any fall in house prices is down to over supply of recently built two bedroom flats.
The buy to let market has collapsed and lot of landlords have caught a major cold, flats either get repossed or are sold off at a low price for a
quick sale. Then add the factor that a lot of new build flats are still in the pipeline getting built and first time buyers are suddenly having
trouble getting mortagages, and it spells falling prices at the bottom end of the market.
people also forget cheap houses have another benefit. when you do move your mortgage increase won't be as high!
I keep wondering if i should sell now, rent for a year and then buy - except where would i put the toy car i'm building?
quote:
Originally posted by NeilP
It could be so easy to solve! I've not bought a paper in 7 years - I don't sit and watch the news - I get what I want from news sites and ignore the crap and everyone who starts a conversation with me along the lines of, "...in the paper they were saying..." get's cut off with a, " I don't give a crap..."
Stop listening to the bastards and they'll have to change...
I'm rather proud of the fact that I brought both of my kids up to adulthood with a questioning attitude to everything that's said in
newspapers and on TV. When some pundit makes some statement on TV they'll say "what's in it for him?" or "why is he saying
that? It's clearly a pack of lies".
It's also fun listening to them when the adverts are on - my son's a chemist (industrial, not pharmacy!) and he gets quite irate at the
cosmetic companies and their pseudo-science.
I'm chemist sometimes too but thats purely fro my own research. Hic.
Anyway doesn't matter about house prices but what does matter is the mortgage rate and availability of some debt. At the moment there are no
cheap mortgages, what I mean is the mortgages that are out there have horrendous arrangement fees.
So, for the first time buyer the deposit they have saved hard for is gobbled up in fees making the drop in house prices neglegable.
It's a bloody good job if house prices are falling! I still live at home way out in rural Cumbria on the farm where I grew up, I'm an agric
engineer at a place just 4 miles up the road. I want my own place in the area where I have always lived & now work too but the almost total
refusal to allow any new builds & folk with far more money from out of the area buying anything that comes up I stand little chance.
If the backside falls out of the market mabye I could get somewhere, the likely intrest rates will make the motgage a killer for a while but after a
year or two they'll steady up & I'll have got somewhere at the right money.
I have to agree with your comments on the media, these days they almost seem to make the storys happen themselves, if there'd been no reports on
Northern Rock there'd have been no panick & it'd likely have been sorted out much easier.
If there was no bad news, what would the papers talk about? "Hey, this just in: Mr. Jones in Kent has reported feeling very good about his recent
doctor's visit: he's been given a clean bill of health!" Fascinating!
The media tend to go with what's easiest. Who wants to go to the library for facts before you send it off to the editor? That takes effort!
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
It's also fun listening to them when the adverts are on - my son's a chemist (industrial, not pharmacy!) and he gets quite irate at the cosmetic companies and their pseudo-science.
The real trick is not to teach the kids that everything on TV or in the papers is rubbish, nor to think that everything said there is true. The ideal
state is that they look at/read what's said and question it.
I often turn the sound off during TV ad breaks - it's an interesting exercise. Without the words telling you how wonderful their product is, you
notice all the disclaimers and crude imagery used behind the spoken words.
I hate blatant manipulation (you might have worked that out by now!)
[Edited on 9/4/08 by David Jenkins]
Yes Jon - the media is scare mongering.
I dont see it as the prices have fallen. Only that they are settling to a more realistic level. We are probs just reaching the plateau of 7 years ago
or so where the prices didnt rise much over the previous 3 or 4 years.
Currently houses are too expensive relative to peoples incomes. It will take a few years for wages and houses prices to match up again and then they
will go up.
Maybe banks are to blame too - taking too many risks and fuelling the price rises by making money easier to get. Now they are tightening up people
feel they are being unfair - which means they cant buy the houses they want, try and negotiate cheaper prices which forces the levelling out.
What really bugs me is that 8 years ago houses were maybe 50% cheaper. Estate agents charged the same % then as they do now - but now they get far
more cash for same work. How does that work out???????
Also why do i get penalised via credit rating for doing houses up and making some money / clearing loans etc just cos ive been moving house every 9
months or so (payments always made and never late, credit deals cleared early etc etc). I know the answer - its cos the scum move house to try and get
lost and default on loans - however i dont and get tarred with same brush - just trying to do right by my family. Net effect is banks change lending
policies and credit rating takes dive = double whammy on getting new mortgage.
Rant over.
[Edited on 9/4/08 by DarrenW]