drbubb

(Perhaps because people do not read this thread and others carefully enough, I get some comments telling me that I was "wrong" and I don't agree. Usually, it is because someone did not read or remember my comments carefully enough. The result is that I am forced to go through the material carefully for a second time - Like this from the GPC thread on Main): Okay. I see your point. But that is exactly why I watch the Builder bellwether - I never got a sell signal from the BB's last summer, so my initial early-summer thought that prices would turn down in late summer 2009 was never confirmed. This is how I put it as the summer came on last year (2009) , as I worried about a quick downturn in the DC bounce: So I "wobbled", but never confirm that we would see an early end to the DC bounce, because I never got a signal from the BB's. If you could read the old HPC posts, you would see that many of the old HPC "antibodies" tried very hard to trap me into making a statement that the DC bounce had fizzled out. But I was careful, and never said that, since we never got a clear break in the BB's. Eventually, the Builder shares peaked in October 2009, and they generally turn 3-6 months ahead of the price indicies. That is why I thought we might see a peak around year-end, with a downturn in Q1-2010, and that is more or less what happened. If one was even more careful, you would have waited for the major Builder shares to drop below their 252d. MA's. Barratt/ BDEV did that (unconvincingly) in Feb.2010, and then with conviction in April/May 2010. And here's an update: Now Barratt is well below the 76d and 252d MA's, and even thought there was a brief blip up from the Rightmove figures (being misinterpreted IMHO), the rally has no volume behind it. This is why I am (currently) expecting further downside, and I think that the October 5% jump in GL asking prices, is nothing more than a seasonal blip, driven by delusional ideas by Vendors. The rug will be pulled on them soon, as little demand emerges, even at lower prices.

Yes, 143% is the highest on the board since Spring 2009 : http://tinyurl.com/UKtrap

Do you want it back on Main? No problem - you can move it. But can you run it here for a day or two first?

Fair point. But this may be measuring "delusional" pricing ideas of vendors, who haven't woken up yet.. I have added the delusion index above. And here's Greater London: Sep 2009 £390,768 / 164,854 - 237.0% Sep 2010 £399,019 / 165,430 - 241.2% =2.1% YoY Oct 2009 £416,157 / 163,639 - 254.3% Oct 2010 £418,778 / 163,639e- 255.9%est =0.6% YoY Greater London looks set to turn Negative YoY !

It's not meaningful ! Analysis: from my Property Diary : http://tinyurl.com/Gpc-Diary

A 5% Shocker, or just a normal seasonal "cheeky trying it out"? This year's 4.95% jump in Great London asking prices seems a shocker, until you see that last year's rise was 6.5% For some odd reason, Rightmove doesn't refer to prior year JUMPS in October asking prices, which have always been huge: Comparison: Mon.: Rt'move : London : Hometrack / Na'wide H.old.SA Hali.SA Hali.nsa: H&Nindex : mom :DelusIdx 2009 S : : 223,996 : 390,768 : 156,118 +0.2% / 161,816 163,533 163,487 164,854 : £163,335 :+1.40% :137.1% O : : 230,184 : 416,157 : 156,430 +0.2% / 162,038 165,528 165,349 165,430 : £163,734 :+2.44% :140.6% : RM '09 Hi ================== chg: + 6,188 : + 25,389 (+6.50%) 2010 S. : : 229,767 : 399,019 : 157,600* -0.4% / 166,757 = n/a = 162,096 163,639 : £165,198 :- 1.49% :139.1% O : : 236,849 : 418,778 : est.DI: 143.4% ================== chg: + 7,089 : + 19,759 (+4.95%) mom:+3.08% :+4.95% Of that Pds. 25k gain last year, over Pds. 17k was given back in two months. I reckon the give back will be even greater this year.

Look at the appalling lack of any analytic rigor on HPC: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...howtopic=152995 Compared with this from my Diary:

A 5% Shocker, or just a normal seasonal "cheeky trying it out"? For some odd reason, Rightmove doesn't refer to prior year JUMPS in October asking prices, which have always been huge: Comparison: Mon.: Rt'move : London : Hometrack / Na'wide H.old.SA Hali.SA Hali.nsa: H&Nindex : mom :DelusIdx 2009 S : : 223,996 : 390,768 : 156,118 +0.2% / 161,816 163,533 163,487 164,854 : £163,335 :+1.40% :137.1% O : : 230,184 : 416,157 : 156,430 +0.2% / 162,038 165,528 165,349 165,430 : £163,734 :+2.44% :140.6% : RM '09 Hi ================== chg: + 6,188 : + 25,389 (+6.50%) 2010 S. : : 229,767 : 399,019 : 157,600* -0.4% / 166,757 = n/a = 162,096 163,639 : £165,198 :- 1.49% :139.1% O : : 236,849 : 418,778 : est.DI: 143.4% ================== chg: + 7,089 : + 19,759 (+4.95%) mom:+3.08% :+4.95% This year's 4.95% jump in Great London asking prices seems a shocker, until you see that last year's rise was 6.5%. And if you review last year's jump on: http://tinyurl.com/UKtrap , you will see that most of those higher offering prices did not hold. Within two months, Pds.17,731 of the Oct.2009 rise melted away. Rightmove's own press release prepared sellers for disappointment: Market fundamentals remain poor as property per branch rises from 69 in October last year to 78 now and mortgage availability continues to deteriorate However, 105,769 new October sellers asked £7,082 more for their homes than last month’s sellers Why would new sellers test the market at asking prices 3.1% higher than a month ago?... - Bullish pricing is a normal characteristic of the autumn selling season with average asking prices increasing in every October for the past decade - Vendors struggle to react to the increasing stock as most are unwilling or unable to adjust to new market conditions - Post-HIP speculative sellers can now test the market at minimal cost Disappointment is the likely outcome for many sellers as evidence shows high launch price damages chances of securing a later sale /see: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-pric...ex/october-2010

Have you any constructive point to make, LP? Here are EXCERPTS from the article: Given the challenges of the current market, the behavior of sellers in raising their average asking prices by over 7,000 pounds takes some explaining,” Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said in the statement, referring to prices across Britain. “It’s not likely to be a successful tactic.” While the U.K. economy grew at the fastest pace in nine years in the second quarter, recent data indicates the recovery is weakening. Manufacturing growth slowed in September, jobless claims rose and Nationwide Building Society’s consumer- confidence gauge fell to an 18-month low as Britons braced for the government’s spending cuts to reduce the budget deficit. Slow Recovery Rightmove said the weekly rate of new properties on the market rose 11 percent in October from a year earlier. With banks still rationing credit, sellers may have to accept lower offers amid “greater competition” for buyers, it said. The “fundamentals remain unsupportive” for the housing market, Ernst & Young said in a report published today. It expects prices to decline into 2011 and said the recovery “will be slow.” They make any points that I would want to make for me. == == == I think the LP posting shows exactly what is wrong with HPC: + Many HPC "antibodies" want to post either nitpicks, or gotchas! against someone else's forecast, + On GEI, we are "all in it together", trying to develop better are more accurate forecasting techniques

...this post from a thread on Main contains an update... Which Force wins? What represents "a win" for you? Prices will not rise or fall forever. They move in cycles. My view is that prices have clearly signaled that prices are headed lower - the cycle is rolling over. The -3.7% fall in Halifax, shows up as a -1.49% fall in the H&N Index in Sept. / see: http://tinyurl.com/UKtrap ...which I take as a clear indicator that prices are rolling over, following the Builder Bellwethers lower, as I have forecast: Barratt / BDEV ... update Persimmon / PSN ... update (I take BDEV as an indicator mainly for London, and PSN for the rest of the UK. But neither are perfect bellwethers.) It is possible that the drop which has been signaled can be reversed. But I presently count that as unlikely. What evidence do you see? To me, it is more a question of following Cycles (and indicators that have worked in the past) than worrying about Conundrums. But if you have a different point of view, and want to argue for it, please do. (Don't just say that: "your statements of 'certainty' don't really leave very little or no space for anyone to discuss/debate." May you argument. I presented my view, as my view, not as a "certainty.") I think that an argument in favor of a continued upswing can be made, and it might be made by pointing at Rents, which may or may not still be rising. I would be curious to see what arguments could be made now for the Bull case. Here on a GPC thread, you will see a bet that I made with an Estate Agent selling London property in HK. When we got down to discussing specifics, he quickly gave up.

EXCERPT from another post- giving more detail in how I use Builder share prices as a bellwether: RESPONDING TO A NITPICKER I like Spline's work also, and on his site he certainly rates my Builders Bellwethers which tends to give an early turn signal, ahead of most of the other indicators he looks at. My Builders Bellwether appears on his site. Here's a chart from Spline's site showing it: Note my markings, showing how much earlier the turn warning came before the Turns in the various Housing indices. Given the historical lags, and the potential for brief false signals, I recommend awaiting a "confirmation" signal. This would come when several of the Builders Bellwethers, such as Barratt (BDEV) moving through their 252d/1year moving average, to the upside or downside - suggesting a trend change is coming in house price indicies. Look here, and you will see that the 252d MA was broken to the upside in early April 2009 .. update That upside break gave me the confidence to predict a Dead Cat Bounce in a (once very popular) HPC thread I started on 4 April 2009. As you have mentioned above, I saw signs of a peak in the UK Builders in October 2009, and that led me to suggest we could see a turn in the index by year-end, or at least within 6-9 months. Had I been more cautious, I would have said in my original October post, that one should await a confirmation of the signal, by seeing the BDEV price drop below the 252d MA. (I mentioned this requirement in various other posts on the same thread in October and November. But the nitpickers have chosen to ignore the need for a confirmation.) While I would recommend that people treat these Builder Bellwether signals as "useful but not perfect" indicators - In fact, they have worked very well in this latest cycle. As the chart above shows, the 252d MA was broken to the downside in March 2010, and the 21d and 76d MA's did not fully rollover and turn significantly lower until May 2010. These subtleties should be carefully observed by those who want to use the BB's in their own forecasting. They should also pay attention to trading volumes in the shares, which should provide another important confirming indicator. For instance, the recent breakdown to new lows in BDEV with high trading volume, increases my confidence that we are headed into a period of falling home prices - "Crash Cruise speed" with falls averaging 0.5 - 1.0% per month (or more) seems likely.

"This is the lowest August total since 2000 (£11.1 billion)." August 2000 was going the low before great 7 year cycle up began. My very worst case forecast, is that UK house prices may go back there: H&N Index: ========= Aug. 2000 : £ 83,073 Aug. 2007 : £192,490 : Peak Feb. 2009 : £153,477 : - 20.3% off peak Aug. 2010 : £167,698 : - 12.9% off peak Sep 2010 : £165,198 : - 14.2% off peak A 56.8% drop may seem impossible, but Hong Kong had a 69% drop from 1997-2003.

Sure, a small bounce is likely. But if this price report has broken the bullish psychology, then the old "crash cruise mentality" may take over, where people will insist on a "discount to market" as a reason to buy. Remember how we discussed this a few years ago: UK House Prices to fall up to 50% / CWR pt.3 "People are reading about price falls... the only real reason that people will buy is if they think they are getting a bit of bargain. Today's bargain is tomorrow's market price... And the first round of price cuts, induces another... (and so forth.)" The only thing that broke that downwards biased psychology was the huge cut in rates, to near zero. But that option is now "off the table" since interbank rates, and rates paid to savers are already near zero. If the BofE tries to go any lower, people will just take their money out of the banks, and stuff it into a mattress, or buy gold - and that makes capital totally unproductive. And the economy less efficient, and less able to grow. Some level of rates need to be paid to savers, or the economy will go ex-growth, like Japan.

As incredible as it may seem, the Mods at HPC are now deleting any favorable reference to "DrBubb", and maybe "crash cruise speed" too. I saw 3-4 positive references when the Halifax figures came out, and 1 hour or so later, they were gone !

Halifax Hpi September 2010 -3.6%!? : see a HPC page My comment : This report looks like a game changer. It is going to be tough to restore the Bullish consensus after such a large fall. Buyer are going to want discounts to buy, and that should help keep the falls coming month-by-month, the psychology which is needed for "Crash Cruise Speed"* to be maintained over months, even years. (BTW, if you want to quote me on HPC, I recommend that you say: "The guy on the Property Cycles website says..." / any reference to "DrBubb" is now getting deleted there, unless it is unfavorable - what a bunch of absolute bankers the Mods there are !) == == == *Falls averaging 0.5-1.0% per month, perhaps more. The September fall made up for 3-6 months of possible misreporting

Perhaps they need a campaign like this at "the other place" ?

So what did I post in reaction to LP's "friendly and balanced" words?: Dr Bubb, when are you finally going to admit your bullcrap about having some special super secret techincal system to determine future house prices by posting loads of random charts copied and pasted from Yahoo Finance was just a load of balls? Still waiting.

"I believe now that UK property should peak before year end, and within the first quarter of 2010, you will once again see a sliding market." How accurate was that statement?: Here's the actual data from http://tinyurl.com/UKtrap DATA BANK: / WHAT HAS HAPPENED since 2009: Mon.: Rt'move : London : Hometrack / Na'wide H.old.SA Hali.SA Hali.nsa: H&Nindex : mom :DelusIdx When?: 18th? - 18-20th : - 25 - 30th chg / -28th ? : Next mo.on 8th? 2009 J. : : 213,570 : 386,653 : 158,200 - 1.0% / 150,501 159,818 163,945 163,966 : £155,159 : = n / a : 137.6% F : : 216,163 : 387,988 : 157,000 - 0.8% / 147,746 160,327 160,104 159,208 : £153,477 :- 1.08% :140.8% : LOW M : : 218,081 : 398,867 : 156,100* -0.6% / 150,946 157,326 157,622 157,066 : £154,066 :+0.38% :141.6% A : : 222,077 : 387,161 : 155,600* -0.3% / 151,861 154,716 154,663 157,156 : £154,508 :+0.29% :143.7% M : : 227,441 : 397,646 : 155,600*+0.0% / 154,016 158,565 159,111 160,869 : £157,442 :+1.90% :144.5% J. : : 226,436 : 397,140 : 155,650 +X.X% / 156,442 157,713 158,445 158,807 : £157,624 :+0.12% :143.7% Jl : : 227,864 : 402,761 : 155,650 +X.X% / 158,871 159,623 159,749 160,686 : £159,778 :+1.37% :142.6% A : : 222,762 : 387,265 : 155,806 +0.1% / 160,224 160,973 160,947 161,930 : £161,077 :+0.81% :138.3% S : : 223,996 : 390,768 : 156,118 +0.2% / 161,816 163,533 163,487 164,854 : £163,335 :+1.40% :137.1% O : : 230,184 : 416,157 : 156,430 +0.2% / 162,038 165,528 165,349 165,430 : £163,734 :+2.44% :140.6% : RM '09 HIGH N : : 226,440 : 403,069 : 156,743 +0.2% / 162,764 167,664 167,451 165,617 : £164,191 :+0.28% :137.9% D : : 221,463 : 398,426 : 156,900*+0.1% / 162,103 169,042 168,763 167,260 : £164,681 :+0.30% :134.5% Mon.: Rt'move : London : Hometrack / Na'wide H.old.SA Hali.SA Hali.nsa: H&Nindex : mom :DelusIdx 2010 J. : : 222,261 : 407,731 : 156,116 - 0.5% / 163,481 169,777 169,484 165,514 : £164,497 :- 0.11% :135.1% : HFsa HIGH F : : 229,398 : 427,987 : 156,584 +0.3% / 161,320 166,857 166,703 165,997 : £163,659 :- 0.51% :140.2% M : : 229,614 : 417,461 : 157,054 +0.3% / 164,519 168,521 168,433 167,808 : £166,164 :+1.53% :138.2% A : : 235,512 : 421,822 : 157,368 +0.2% / 167,802 168,202 168,212 170,772 : £169,287 :+1.88% :139.1% : H&N HIGH M : : 237,134 : 420,203 : 157,682 +0.2% / 169,162 167,570 167,287 169,204 : £169,183 :- 0.06% :140.2% J. : : 237,767 : 429,597 : 158,700*+0.1% / 170,111 166,203 166,351 166,395 : £168,253 :- 0.55% :140.5% Jl : : 236,332 : 422,248 : 158,500 - 0.1% / 169,347 167,425 167,536 168,331 : £168,839 :+0.35% :140.0% A. : : 232,241 : 405,058 : 158,200 - 0.3% / 166,507 = n/a = 167,953 168,889 : £167,698 :- 0.68% :138.5% == == == For those confused by all those figures, they show: + Oct. 2009 : Rightmove high for 2009 + Jan. 2010 : Halifax, seasonally adjusted high + Feb. 2010 - virtual double-top with RM's June 2010 high (only about 0.5% higher than Feb). + April 2010 : H&N Index high Some have called my Oct. 2009 forecast "spot on", and I think I can make an argument for that (Halifax SA) but all I have said since then was: it was not too bad, the H&N index peaked in April 2010 (so far) I never claimed any "special super secret techincal system" (the words that LP used.) I merely based my forecast on the notion that Homebuilder shares looked like they were peaking in October (spot on!) and that a peak in the Housing price indices might follow in about 3 months, and almost certainly within 6-9 months. IS IT CLEAR NOW: why I regard those LP postings as annoying, abusive, and not worthy of posting on a serious chatboard? The misrepresentation of reality, is "disingenuous" and he hasn't looked closely at all the data. Is it clear why I get upset when posters like LP pop up, and ask; "When are you going to admit you were wrong?" (This rhetorical technique is the same as asking: "When are you going to stop beating your wife?")

What were the "last straw" postings? - Here they are: Readers, let me ask you this: If you had spent HOURS collecting data, producing charts and analysis, and then seen half-arsed comments like those above, what would your reaction have been? And observe: these were comments #1683, #1685, and #1690 (that's nearly 2,000 posts on a single thread!), and the thread was entitled "It's nearly over, the Dead Cat Bounce Property should peak by year end ", and following is original post starting the thread: People had been repeatedly asking me what would get me to call the end of the Dead Cat bounce, and I had been waiting for a clear signal from the Builder shares, when I got one, I posted this:

About the banning & deletions on another website Thousands of posts (& charts) lost forever? ================================= Many here or on HPC may have heard about an incident wherein I asked that HPC chose whether it would "ban" myself, or another poster, with a habit of posting wind-ups and other "nasty" comments on my threads. If you go to HPC, you will find his explanations of what happened but not mine. This thread is to set the record straight, and was inspired when someone registered on GEI, and began making wind-ups here on another site. (as posted on a thread in the Members' Section of GEI): I don't know if this is the same "Little Professor" from HPC or not. But maybe that doesn't matter. There's a thread with my name on it on HPC, which I am not allowed to post upon. The following comment was posted there by Little Professor: First a comment from another poster, XX, (who someone said was me, I can assure you it was not): I do not really care either way. But banning someone is not a nice thing to do unless there is clearly a breach of forum rules. QUOTE = = = = = = = = = = = = = Ltttle Professor says: I would agree entirely. Dr Bubb made an ultimatum to the mods to ban me or ban him. I had not breached the forum rules, my only 'crime' was to dare to disagree with Bubb and point out that his prediction of "crash cruise speed" resuming by the end of 2009 had turned out to be bunkum. To accede to Bubb's demands, the mods would have to either ban me for no good reason, or ban him at his own request. They chose to do the latter. He subsequently spat out his dummy and made legal threats demanding all 'his' content be deleted from HPC. Technically they could have just ignored his threats, as the terms and conditions of this forum clearly state that all content posted here becomes the property of housepricecrash.co.uk, but presumably it just wasn't worth the hassle trying to deal with his legal wrangling. For the record, I never asked nor wanted Dr Bubb to be banned, nor for his posts to be deleted. That was all entirely his own doing. He did actually post some interesting stuff, even though most of his posts were simply rather tragic attempts to make himself look like an uber-leet techinical analyst, with lots of random graphs copied and pasted from Yahoo Finance accompanied by some meaningless cryptic comments which could go either way. His trading diary is a classic example - he never actually says what trades he is making, or even any actual explanation of the technical data he is posting. The one time he did make an actual concrete prediction, in the housebuilders thread, he got it wrong and couldn't handle this being pointed out. Accusations of censorship are ridiculous, anyone who wants to read his work knows where to find him - he certainly promoted his forum enough times on here, and it is the number one link on google for 'dr bubb'. Meanwhile over in his own house, dissent will not be tolerated, as per this rather ludicrous example in the moderation rules. (he then quotes rules that were proposed by another Moderator, as if they were mine.) UNQUOTE = = = = = = = = = = = = = I shall now respond HERE, as I am not allowed to defend myself on HPC: 1/ LP's 1-2 posts on that page did not seem outrageously offensive on their own. But there were dozens of such posts by him and others on the same thread. The last two were merely the last straw of a widespread pattern of nasty postings from about 6-8 posters on HPC, who have been dubbed the "antibodies" by a poster here (Member100). They seemed to think they were serving HPC by ganging up on me on a regular basis, whenever they think they have spotted a tiny error in one of my forecasts, no matter how trivial the apparent "error" may be. (Anyone who has experienced this sort of drip-drip of nasty postings will know how it feels. If you have not, then maybe you should try sticking your neck out, and make a series of serious and well-thought out forecasts on HPC, and see how long it takes to acquire your own "antibodies" posting against you. There is no pleasure in it, I can tell you.) 2/ I was fed up by the inaccuracy and inherent nastiness of such postings and, frankly, have been ready to quit HPC for some time. What kept me posting was that many folks there would regularly thank me for my forecasts, and/or send me PM's telling me to ignore the abuse - But one gets fed up eventually. One of the reasons I was thinking to leave HPC has been mentioned in other posts. That is, the Mods have now taken to deleting links back to GEI. This is unfair, and can be considered a form of theft. When I post material which is an excerpt from another site, I normally post a link back to the origin of the material. For some months now, all of my longer and more thoughtful posts on HPC were first posted on GEI. And they may be part of a larger thread on GEI with more material on my own website. To publish and excerpt on HPC without a link back, is unfair to the original source of material. What I was finding was I would post a long excerpt from GEI, with a link back, and then find a few hours ago that the link was missing. In effect, the material that was contributed with a link was being taken over as HPC material, with its source deleted. I wrote a long post complaining about this practice, and never got around to sending it. That post has been shown elsewhere on GEI, and I may show it here too, depending on how this discussion goes. In addition, I have previously asked HPC Mods to explain why they were deleting my links, and never got a satisfactory explanation. To say that I am "recruiting for GEI", would mean that I am recruiting for HPC when I publish an excerpt from an HPC post here, with a link back to the source thread on HPC. And I have done that hundreds, if not thousands of times. By LP's reasoning, I was therefore recruiting for HPC on my website. That's not how I see. I was merely following standrad "fair practice" on the web. 3/ By asking HPC to ban me, or ban LP, I was asking HPC Moderators to choose whether or not they wanted me to go on offering my content there. I would often spend hours collecting data, which would then be used for charts or for analysis on on thread here (and for its similar excerpt on HPC.) If my serious content was not to be taken seriously, why should I go on posting it there? I was ready to stop, by the time I read LP's last two posts. When I posted the ultimatum, my intention was: If they wanted my content, they would have to offer some sort of protection from the "antibody" posters. (To show how seriously I take this matter, we have introduced a new moderation policy giving just that protection on GEI.) If the Mods allowed LP (and others) to go on disrupting my threads, and distorting my content, I was ready to depart the website. My post intentionally carried this issue to a decision point, and the HPC Mods made their choice. 4/ An alternative action might have been to: move the thread containing the ultimatum, to suspend both LP and myself for maybe 12-24 hours , and ask me to explain why I was so upset. I would have done so (as I have above), and then HPC mods could have had more time to make a rational choice rather than reacting so quickly and emotionally. They should have known this was coming from the previous 2-3 incidents, when I had voluntarily requested a one week's suspension, while complaining about the "antibodies" posters attacking my threads. But HPC mods have never been known for their wisdom. 5/ I never made any request to HPC Moderators that all my threads their be deleted there. What I did do, was mention HERE ON GEI ONLY (!), that I was considering making such a request - and I "may" give such a request to HPC sometime in the future. Speculating about the possibility of making a request on a totally different website, is miles away from making the request on HPC, or to their Moderators, or owner. Obviously, that statement was picked up FROM HERE by HPC Mods. I think it was a very reckless and damaging decision, since HPC readers will now be unable to see those old post. They were a treasure trove of cyclical analysis, with many right and wrong forecasts as anyone would expect. An entire pattern of analysis was laid out, with historical results that all could see. Now much of that is lost to history and those with an interest in property cycles, and that is a pity. 6/ Where do I go from here? I am convinced that there is a readership, and maybe a big one, for serious thinking about property cycles, and how bellwethers (like builder share prices and so forth) might be used to forecast property prices. HPC has struck a mighty blow against those who think that serious analysis has a place on their website. They have kept their site totally open to those who want to disrupt serious posters. Wind-ups, sarcasm, abuse, and misrepresentation will go on reigning supreme. It is ridiculous, and a great insult to those HPC readers who want to see some serious analysis take place there. The time has come to offer those interested in Property prices and the workings of the market a serious place to post. GEI has been doing that for four years, and we have developed a great stable of posters and readers of serious analysis of markets in general. Many of these people were chased off HPC and other sites like them, by the antics of "antibodies." I invite those with an interest in something better to type: GlobalPropertyCycles.com into their browsers and have a look. If you like what you see, please join us in a new adventure.

Let's get through this week before betting heavily on that I ma lighten up on more gold & gold shares tomorrow BTW, GDXJ is underperforming

Rocket are associated with ... TURNS?

When anything is "so obviously a buy" - it may be time to sell. Do be careful, and take a look at the seasonal factors, suggesting a high around this week

US PROPERTY And a Comparison with the UK (& Ireland) UK property prices were still rising after the market turned, but the UK eventually joined in the Global property downturn, about a year to 15 months after the US. It was behind other markets in its big correction when the 2008 financial crisis hit. Less damage had been done in the UK to lenders balance sheets by late 2008. So the big cut in rates engineer by Gordon Brown and the BofE "saved" the market (temporarily) from realising the full force of a property downturn. Because less damage had been done, it was easier to "repair" sentiment. But this prop-job may just be setting the UK market up for a bigger and more damaging crash in the second leg down, which I believe started in 2010. In 2-3 years the UK may be in the midst of a severe property depression, while the US and Ireland are beginning to form bottoms, and move into a healthier situation. The coming late bust in UK housing may be thought of as "Brown's Revenge." UPDATED - From post #24, below: (more coming later)

(PANEL SAVED - for discussion on Hong Kong property prices)