John Doe

Hi GF. Looks like there has rarely been a better good time to sell the silver and buy a house!

Instead, the banks are now targeting future BTL'ers with better deals and more coming into the market. Apparently, they see lending to a "professional" landlord a better bet than mr and mrs average FTB. Northern Rock back in the game and Santander now moving in too. Make no mistake, BTL is most definitely back.

Well there you go, buying is now officially cheaper than renting in 10 out of 12 UK counties. (As long as rates stay super low ) http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/Buy-House-Rather-Than-Rent-skynews-1708070863.html?x=0

Yep, a land/property tax change would do it, but that's not going to happen with a Tory gov. I guess they see the danger of Eire default (me too), plus traditionally London has a leading world centre reputation (in the west it was New York, Paris, London that everyone knew), whereas only 20-30 odd years ago Dublin was seen as a fairly poor, even backward place.

The long term rates are currently dropping in UK (and US) http://www.yieldcurve.com/marketyieldcurve.asp Again, we have a different debt structure (mainly long dated) and credible deficit reduction (and jobs growth, even here in Glasgow!). I don't think it's comparable (as yet, things could always change down the road, then the government response would be important). I guess the HK buyer of London property could just be some of those holding the record amounts of cash generated by 4 years of printing. There are a lot of vey rich people about nowadays, looking for somewhere to park their ill-gotten gains. London might actually look like a safe bet to some of them at the moment.

I would say that is quite unlikely (at the moment and for near term). UK has no peg UK Gov want a devalued currency UK has long dated debt UK deficit reduction is liked by the markets.

Actually Bubb, upon refreshing my memory (with a bit of help from google) you are quite right, I stand corrected. It appears it was more to do with the Asian financial crises of 97 and a controlled small ownership. However, wouldn't this be more akin to the massive rise in Northern Ireland (for example) where prices are now a good 50% down from peak? Yes there were big rises in the UK, but nowhere near as big as this (in such a short time scale)? Also, there is no chance of our government releasing s**t loads of new property. I see prices are back at their 1997 level in HK now.

I take your point on higher LTV's, but to be fair, that heartbreaking 69% dropin HK was a direct result of the territory being handed over to a totalitarian regime that had recently run tanks over its own people. I dont think the UK has to be prepared for such an event as these circumstances were, essentially, unique. I really like the idea of the banks being responsible for the percentage of loans greater than 80%. That could really work.

One Hyde Park, remember that? Well guess what, one of the flats has just sold for a record breaking £136m, yes, £136,000,000!! And, the owners going to spend another £60,000,000 doing it up Looks like many of the others have now sold and a good number of the rest are under offer. http://www.metro.co.uk/news/861069-london-flat-breaks-record-by-selling-for-136m Wonders never cease. In other news, house asking prices up, but so is level of stock (record increase) and a bearish veiw by Miles http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/april-2011

The next several years could be an opportunity. Perhaps they could release land when prices start to stabilise / go up with inflation. Let the land out at a measured pace to keep the rises slow.

Yes I think it does. (I know you understand the point, but perhaps I didn't put it very well). Those that used to buy with a 100% mortgage are having to rent (as they do not want to (or can not) live with parents etc) and are having to save for a few years to get their 10% deposit. Once that period is over, those coming behind will continue the cycle. So we have a 3 to 5 year gap where the first start saving for their deposit. But once that has worked through the system, the demand for rent levels back (and if mortgages become more available, the demand for rentals will drop. That is one of the reasons why I think there is a rise in rents (and demand for rented property) at present. ie 3-5 years of new renters that normally would have been new buyers. True, hence the increase in rental demand now, while in a few years the demand for rental should drop back as the demand to buy returns.

Not sure, but I see immigration averaging ~180,000 per annum for the last several years (was even high in 2009!), so that can't help. Also more and more people renting that could "afford" an equivalent-to-rent mortgage, but who haven't got the necessary deposit. Assuming it takes ~ 5 or so years to build up a 10% deposit, I guess these people will end up buying about 2012-2014. As they work through this 5 year gap (where they cant get a mortgage), the demand for rent should decrease as these people become buyers. Won’t do the BTL brigade much good, wonder if they have thought about this?

It's actually a bit worse. Another thing the statistician mentioned was that the 2.3% average earnings rise reported was an underestimate as there was a large increase in part time workers over the last year. This brings the average wage figure down. I got a big fat 0.5% rise (yes, a 5% real drop) this year. Woopee doo.

After reading the rates you posted earlier, I guess you know the answer to that already. Assume the position! To be honest, I'm really depressed by your earlier post. It really has made me consider selling up again to buy back later or even go for my dream of a full self build (as opposed to increasingly involved renovations - rebuilds over the years) which would also be better for VAT too. Ever get that sinking feeling?

Well that's easy, the US is in just as much s**t (if not more) than us! (see Euro ~90p, just before my first foreign holiday (Italy), in 3 years! ).

OK, but, that's an average, and if it's a fixed rate and if you actually earn less than 44K (like the vast majority) there is NOT a tax increase (yes, VAT up, but tax allowance UP, and council tax essentially frozen). Manufacturing ~4 to 5% (except one month (Feb) anomaly) Finance ~ 5% Servicers ~4.5% All on radio 5 Live today. Like it or not, a lot of people (not including me by the way) are having good wage rises.

Haha yes. They were actually trying to spin this as deflationary i.e. inflation will have to fall because people have stopped spending because prices have gone up too much!

Yes, but if your debt is fixed, that's still an erosion of the debt. Minimum wage is going up 2.5% Actual average wage rise ~2.3% http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=10

No misconception, with wage rises in UK ~2.5% as we speak, the debt is being eroded.

And they also then mention the erosion of your big mortgage (some more on Lloyds Halifax data method thread). So inflation falls back (a little) and now unemployment down also. Happy days (falls may only be 10% after all this year )

Yep, know what you mean, although apparently it was falling food prices from supermarket competition that was responsible for the "slightly less" bad figure.

What? There was a 10% fall in the MOM inflation figure reported this morning! (Well, CPI 4.4% to 4% = ~10% less )

Yep, we have a huge seasonal variation up in the nice bits of Glasgow. So, we have always sold spring/summer and bought late Oct, renting in between, sometimes ~6 months, most recently ~ 18 months. That was up until autumn 2009 when we spotted a bargain, with several other factors making it a go just outside our normal timing range, although things had been grim here at that time, (the old 5 or 6 month lag behind the rest of the UK). The swings were even pronounced during the good times! I guess the cold and dark really means the potential buyers dry up by Oct. (Didn't know about the cash purchase bridging etc)

That's pretty much my thinking. I had the actual figure earlier on this thread for the number of properties owned outright, I was shocked when I first read it (Thought was actually nearer 70%). Of course, only those buying and selling dictate the market, but it seems as Financial planner rightly pointed out on SKY the other day, certain areas and certain types of property have already crashed massively (indeed, everywhere has when valued in gold/euros etc). Also shows what a really small sample Halifax and Nationwide have for their indices, when nearly half of all sales are cash. There are still a lot of very comfortably well off people in the country, way more than in the last crash. These are the ones holding up demand and prices in the nice areas. Without a major shock, or a massive increase of nice houses in nice areas, the only real falls we are likely to see in these places are of the slow inflationary type. As for elsewhere, I wouldn’t suggest “getting on the ladder” just yet.

Wow, I read recently that 40% of all house purchases are now cash sales! Does anyone know the percentage of cash sales previously (boom years, crash years etc)?