TestIcicle

"What would a 'Yes' mean to you?"

Hatred is a very low vibration but that mortgage advertising sure brings out the heebee jeebies in me man. Like the devil offering something in exchange for your soul (excuse the hyperbole).

That message goes straight for the Nesting instinct, which drives much of the home buying.

Assisted by, ooh, just three examples of the horridness of UK renting:

1. Terrible UK renting rules for tenants - damn the assured shorthold tenancy! 6 months minimum term! a mere 2 month landlord notice period and don't be surprised to hear a "get out of my house!"

2. Insecurity of UK rental tenure for tenants. What happens if when the landlord defaults on a loan secured on the property or even the mortgage itself? See ya later tenant scum, out yer go on yer bum!

3. Loads of cynical add-on admin fees by unregulated letting agencies who "forget" to mention an original contract can just be left to roll on indefinitely on a monthly basis, and insist, pester and nag both tenant and landlord to sign up to another year's tenancy, only to charge them BOTH an admin fee. Go capitalism!

Housing in this country has become the new religion/politics. It's the new topic of taboo at dinner parties. Speak up either way and be damned, for in the same social groupings I'm noting the disparity and silent resentment from those traditional HPC-ers (a flavour of whom may reside here) versus the loadsamoney MSE-ers who "loaded up" and pity those too "unfortunate" not to "achieve" as much as they have somehow (er, so far??) gotten away with.

I love the Daily Mail. Masochistically. It's there to whip you up into a frenzy like George Orwell's 2-minute hate.

A guilty pleasure of mine is to go to a particularly controversial ignorant news item in the Mail and check out the "best rated" and "worst rated" comments...

And the top rated comment is to bin this art if your kid brought it home from school. Such pity I have for that guy's kid.

BEST COMMENTS

\ said:

If your child brought it home from school you would bin it!

Gulp' date=' someone has too much money!!

There must be some 'tax fiddles' with all this sort of money being spent on trash .

Picasso's work is vastly overrated - very much the Damien Hirst of his day.

Picasso was a great and very talented artist but he soon realised that the gullible art market would buy anything he produced. Lucky he didn't sell his used toilet paper!

I'm no art critic but that's s..t

 

EMPERORS NEW CLOTHES SPRINGS TO MIND!

this just goes to prove that people will buy rubbish because they think others want it . it represents the insane part of human nature

I am not an artist, but I GUARANTEE you if I spent some time on this, I'd reproduce that painting down to the last detail![/quote']

WORST COMMENTS

\ said:

It is such a pity that most people just don't get it.

At least the money wasnt used to further destroy the housing market.

To pay this sort of money for what looks like a childs attempt at a picture is utter madness' date=' the buyer is most cirtainly suffering from a touch of the "Emporers new clothe syndrome".

That's what DRUGS do !

Shouda gone to Specsavers.

You can give 'em money, but you can't give 'em taste!

 

"Hmmmm. Should I purchase this, or a skyscraper in the city of my choice? It's a tough call. I guess..., well, ... I guess this doodling makes the nut. And I can brag to my friends that I have this and they don't!"

You think this is crazy. Have you seen Jackson Pollock's No 5 ($140 million). Google it? Talk about the emperors new clothes!!!

It would be interesting to know how many people out there could successfully reproduce this picture at a very small cost. Don't think it would be that difficult.

Impressionist? Really? Yes indeed, this picture would look perfect paired with a Renoir's "Claude Monet reading."...[/quote']

Funny how emeperor's new clothes and the idea of "reproduction" comes into play. Talk about missing the point! Plus the predictable criticism of Hirst. These idiots would have preferred for all artistic expression to stop at Rembrandt with his "perfect" portraits.

What, you mean it didn't happen?

Have I missed something? I idly read something about the entire landmass disappearing altogether as part of the 2012 shenanigans. I was under the impression the geographical country of Japan did still exist at this exact juncture of time/space. But what do I know? Anything could happen in the next 24 hours.

If the price of their homes is anything like the price of their sushi, you can count me out.

I thought Japan was set to be swallowed by the sea sometime soon anyway*? The advantage being that if your home, being a physical asset, is smaller, you practically lost much less in this scenario, if you survive that particular apocalypse.

--

*That's what some soothsayers are proclaiming anyway... on "another" thread...

Yo Home / see previous, or: http://yo.co.uk

Hmm. Seems great, so long as:

 

+ You do not need a change of clothes

+ You don't have a suitcase

+ You don't own a book, or want to store 1-2 weeks of different foods

+ The counter-weight systems never break down or require maintenance

 

 

It looks enormously impractical to me [...] No one can actually LIVE in one of those

I think it looks quite attractive if you had a legitimate need for a (whisper it) "city crash pad". I have colleagues who have 2 bedroom flats in London where they live in the week, alone, whilst the family homes are in places like Cambridge and Manchester.

Is it not perhaps more economical and ethical for these 2nd homers to have these smaller and flexible apartment spaces, and leaving the 1 and 2 bed flats to the young singles and couples to have as first time buyers, just as they start out in life.

It's just a case of understanding the market. If these little homes aren't overpriced (ha ha) they could fill a handy niche.

But absolutely agree it would be hellish for a couple with pets, kids and who dared to use their own bikes instead of Boris's!

he [they] simply over-reacted IMHO

I love this site. I don't contribute too much, but lurk avidly.

Losing G0ldfinger is a massive downer.

I thought GEI was above this. I suppose we're all human... apart from the aliens amongst us...

Fair play.

 

As an (adopted) North Londoner I'm not familiar with this "leafy South" you speak of. Is it street slang or gang code of some kind? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to writing my screenplay...

 

Hehe. That's right. It's all concrete and gangs and drugs and slums. All of South London is like that. And it's best we remember it as that as it's waaaay cheaper than the unattainable yet oddly fashionable Stokey <prayer>Dear God, please let me get a £400k bedshit in guncrimetastic Hackney) </prayer>. ;-)

I said NICE zone2 place. Last time I went to Canada Water was to go to the Decathlon outdoor store in the retail park over there. I had a good walk around to check out the state of the housing.

LOL. Not to LIVE in Canada Water. Please re-read my (admittedly hastily-scribbled) post. Canada Water is basically Evilbankerville NOT where my mate is considering to buy, but instead it is its employees to whom he is looking to LET, due to its connection to the ELLX (London Overground) in southern suburbs, e.g. Brockley, Crystal Palace... Becoming increasingly gentrified and visibly more wealthy, even amidst TEOTWAWKI.

And LOL again that only "nice" zone 2 places are in North London... oh, THAT old myth! ;-)

North London is profoundly unaffordable to mere normals either to rent or buy and therefore hugely overrated. Lived in Crouch End for just under a year before I got fed up with all the wannabe actors, luvvies and landed gentry. Hampstead, Primrose Hill, St Johns Wood, Camden, Belsize Park can all f**k right off according to Joe Mortal.

What a grim, gray depressing non-place it was, replete with pokey little executive apartments that I forecast will be populated by DSS tenants in 10 years time. A true BTLers paradise and the exact type of London property that I think is vulnerable to a real fall. By citing Canada Water I think you've just illustrated the exact point I was trying to make. A nice 1-bed flat in Primose Hill will do just fine, but one of those shitbox serviced apartments in a horrible area isn't going to cut it in my view.

And yet further LOLz. Please understand I don't at all disagree with your analysis, but it (deliberately?) misses the point. Those types of slaveboxes are clearly unwise investments, ugly and shoddily built. I share your belief they can easily end up as the new social housing.

However, there are definitely nice converted flats in zone 2-3 heading to the leafy south on the London Overground which has a direct link (<20minutes) to Evilbankerville.

EDIT (a clarification of my previous post):

...he's looking at places like New Cross and Brockley and beyond, focusing on the East London Line extension (London Overground) to Canada Water (rats' paradise!) - he explained to me he wants to pitch these places to graduate bankers, who are building their career before they earn enough to buy their own places outright (lol - how this country disturbs me).

You see. I even slag off Canada Water myself!

Thanks for the responses to my friend's uncommon scenario everybody. Very much appreciated. As someone renting and saving (still considering a first home purchase though) TestIcicle finds it hard to imagine the thoughts/feelings of somebody who has a sudden £200k to do something meaningful... and responsible!

Interesting to see that some say in the circumstances it's not totally insane.

I chatted to him on the phone on my way home from work this evening to relay some of your comments.

Borassic's suggestion to split it up into things like PMs, blue chip companies and stuff like Personal Assets Trust (ticker PNL), which was "up 10% this year", was met with a blunt response:

Gambling on the stock market? Why don't I just set fire to the money?!

The background here is that his uncle has traded privately for yonks, and trading is/was his prime source of income I believe. My mate tells me of the time he went round their house when he was 11, and was overawed by what he saw in the study room: he counted no less than 13 CRT monitors. His uncle has been very successful in the past, but also experienced some major "bad luck" in the late 90s (not sure what/how - Asian crisis??) led the family to downsize their house and move to a rather less spectacular part of town. They survived, but their nephew (my mate) is not attracted to the level of intellectual application to the discipline, and even then dealing with the seemingly wild risks involved.

Contrary 50sQuiff's assertion that zone 2 is out of reach pricewise, the £200K will definitely get a 1 or 2 bed flat in the zone 2 and 3 areas he's been looking at. Perhaps not prime in the traditional sense, but he's looking at places like New Cross and Brockley and beyond, focusing on the East London Line extension (London Overground) to Canada Water (rats' paradise!) - he explained to me he wants to pitch these places to graduate bankers, who are building their career before they earn enough to buy their own places outright (lol - how this country disturbs me).

He's less than chuffed about the practical stuff of being a landlord, and says he has already been looking at various insurances, but hasn't yet looked into the detail of agency fees etc. He's got a full time job so he is basically keen just to grow the capital with minimal risk and effort (don't we all!!).

Trouble is though I'm doing the worrying about this for him. He's one of my best mates, was the best man at my wedding. I'm just trying to watch out for him without wanting to give him any dumb advice. For where I am on the investing front, I have put a modest amount into PMs but am worried if gold is at a sort of peak (yes, I'm familiar with the arguments). I remember thinking this way in 2003 re: property - how well did that thinking play out for me, eh?! I'll give you a clue: I continue to rent and save and try not to have too many more moves forced upon me by incompetent dumbarse landlords.

Perhaps it's the dumbarse landlords that cause me to be biased against my mates becoming another "flea" even if he IS aiming at bankers' money.

Anyway, thanks again. I might be still very early on in my own investment education, but I don't think I'd be being as gung-ho as my mate if I was in his situation!

Property owned outright and property you've got a BTL mortgage on are different animals though. One will hold some value in the long term, the other could bankrupt you. You're making the assumption that everything will go smoothly with your three houses for the entire duration of the mortgage term. I think this is wishful thinking at best and to quote Chris Martenson, "the next 20 years will be nothing like the previous 20 years". Could the leverage involved see a problem with one property turn into a problem with your entire portfolio?

 

And 'executive' apartments in city centres based on old economic paradigms may not hold their value in the way land and property values have been traditionally considered to do so.

So what about, say, if you had a £200K lump sum from, say, inheritance?

A good friend of mine is in that situation and they are keen to buy a property outright to rent out. They're looking at a nice low-maintenance flat aimed at young professionals in London, say zone 2-3.

In supersimplistic terms they think believe they can rent out such a place for £1000 a month, so if buying for £200K they figure that's a 6% yield. I verify this having rented these kinds of places myself, for that kind of rent, in the particular area my friend is looking at. I think my friend is seeing me as a potential customer!!

They've not had or needed the £200K before, so its liquidity is not of huge necessity to them. In fact the opposite would be true, as they've been asking me how secure the banks are. Yeah, asking me!! LOL, as if I know anything - but they know of my economy/politics nerdiness. But of course I've told them about the max £85K savings protection limit per institution and warned them about multiple brands belonging to one Group e.g. Marks and Spencer being HSBC.

I've suggested investing in other stuff but they're just not interested: not only are they saying they wouldn't know where to start, but there's a genuine (sensible!!) fear that they would lose money and potentially swiftly. A fool and their money, and all that...

They are super-keen to protect their newly-gotten wealth, and whilst it might seem paradoxical to chuck the money into what can be seen currently to be a depreciating asset, the sheer "realness" of a property.

My friend has slight ethical concerns (but only slight!) about the idea of landlords pushing out FTBs, but reasons this is London and there will always be a market for young professionals who don't plan to be in London forever. My friend also rented for a few years so kind of has a "what goes around comes around" sort of philosphy. Relatively unconcerned about the plight of the youth.....

Because of an outright purchase, voids periods are not really a concern.

So my friend is in a interestingly fortuitous situation to have this much capital to invest. I am genuinely at a loss as to how to challenge the apparent straightforwardness of their proposition. So here I am asking a (usually pretty friendly) bunch of strangers on the internet! ;-)

Seriously I would be interested to see what people think, seeing as you're (presumably??!) more experienced in handling larger lumps of capital than Joe Average like me.

Thanks

In the olden days I might've posted this on HPC, but I too was banned.

It might be somewhat quiet on the old housing front, but it doesn't stop some agents' utterly futile efforts:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31522936.html?premiumA=true

(via property bee)

History

date event

Mon Nov 28 21:44:07 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house, within minutes of Purley Town Centre. All bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 28th November 5th December

 

Tue Nov 22 20:16:55 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house, within minutes of Purley Town Centre. All bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 21st 28th November

 

Mon Nov 14 22:16:16 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house house, within minutes of Purley Town Centre. Viewings will be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all All bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 7th November 21st November

 

Mon Nov 14 22:14:12 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house, house within minutes of Purley Town Centre. All Viewings will be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 14th November 7th November

 

Mon Nov 7 20:37:07 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house, within minutes of Purley Town Centre. Viewings will be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all All bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 7th November 14th November

 

Mon Oct 31 10:33:15 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house house, within minutes of Purley Town Centre. Viewings will be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all bids to be placed by 12pm Monday 7th November

 

Thu Oct 27 18:59:52 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Set back of Godstone Road and Place your bid on this three fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house just waiting within 1/2 mile minutes of Purley Town Centre you Centre. Viewings will find be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all bids to be discovered. placed by 12pm Monday 7th November

 

Wed Oct 26 10:09:04 2011

 

Brief Description changed: Place your bid on WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Set back of Godstone Road and within minutes 1/2 mile of Purley town centre. Viewings Town Centre you will be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all bids find this fantastic 3 three bedroom terrace house just waiting to be placed by 12pm Monday 7th November. discovered.

Status changed: from 'Available' to 'Best Bid'

 

Tue Oct 25 19:18:59 2011

 

Brief Description changed: WE FOUND IT - BELIEVE IT Set back of Godstone Road and Place your bid on this fantastic 3 bedroom terrace house just waiting within 1/2 mile minutes of Purley Town Centre you town centre. Viewings will find be between 12 & 1pm on the 5th November with all bids to be discovered. placed by 12pm Monday 7th November.

Price changed: £239,950 Offers in Excess of £220,000

 

Sun Oct 9 09:54:13 2011

 

Price changed: from '£244,950' to '£239,950'

 

Tue Sep 20 10:47:10 2011

 

Initial entry found.

That's right, keep changing the date of the deadline of the mythical bidding auction! Really, this sort of LYING behaviour ought to be banned.

The governments needs to massively ramp up its housebuilding programme. The cost of housing is too high (both renting and buying) compared to other countries.

So what? They'll keep squeezing till the pips squeak. I'm waiting for another "you've never had it so good" moment. Followed by more riots.

Planning restrictions need to be lifted - if that means changing laws and building on greenbelt land then so be it.

Won't happen without a fight.

...the UK desperately needs more houses to be built. There is a very real shortage of housing, as our housing stock is not keeping pace with our population growth. The UK economy is in the doldrums, yet the free market is not allowed to operate to build houses where there is an obvious demand for them. Why not lift the restrictions, let the market do its work - reallocation of resources to will provide an economic boost and lower the cost price of housing, which will be good for everyone in the long run.

Despite my cynicism above, this is enlightening (once you get over the paranoid headline): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14916238

"[had there been no green belt] you might have ended up with an entirely urbanised south-east of England. Our cities could have sprawled out like Los Angeles, and because there would have been no incentive to develop brownfield land the inner cities might have decayed like in Detroit."

 

Others are less convinced. Critics of the system point out that 9.8% of land in England is developed compared with 13.2% in Germany, a country without a green belt equivalent.

And even more of surprise to my cynical self was this:

The question of what the UK countryside would look like without it may be answered in the years ahead by Northern Ireland, which in 2010 replaced its green belt with a new set of planning instruments.

If they did it, what are the odds of it happening here despite the Tegraph NIMBY efforts?

Here's another nicely rational take on "the rather juvenile" argument of OH NOES THEY'S CONCRETING OVER THE COUNTRYSIDE WTF: http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/going-bananas-over-the-countryside/6517759.blog

Despite our supposed affluence, most young people cannot afford to live comfortably by themselves - instead, house sharing has become the norm. Yet in other countries this is not the case, and people can afford to live comfortably by themselves on much more modest incomes. As long as we allow the current situation to persist then the social unrest will continue to grow.

You'd've thought so, wouldn't you?

[edited to include the Inside Housing article reference)

Ha! not heard this acronym before: are you a BANANA?

*Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone

Back to the smaller houses stuff

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14907914

 

Smallest in Europe (which are apparently smaller than US)

Did you mean http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14909066 ?

About time someone started speaking up about this sort of thing!

I did also see the Telegraph's "Hands of our Land" campaign:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8761056/Planning-reforms-green-belt-will-have-no-protection-despite-promises-of-ministers.html

That HPC income estimate Sounds high to me.

Perhaps we do not have enough "nutters" posting here

I recall in a thread seeing that someone reckoned it earned £3k a month. Have not since been successful in re-locating that statement. I could have dreamt it and/or it could have been wrong. Hope that helps!

EDIT:

Separately it is "allegedly" worth >$300K (from http://www.evaluateanywebsite.com/)...

Valuation Report for:

 

http://housepricecrash.co.uk

Your Site is worth:

$303' date='624

 

We use publicly available information to estimate the value of websites. We are confident of our estimate, but understand that it is an automated estimate. This is the website estimate ... not the whole business!

Some Data:

 

Alexa Traffic Ranking: 21796

Google Page Rank: 7

Backlinks found: 16674

Value Ranking : 37555[/quote']

The poll tax was each person regardless of value of property.

Indeed. It was a fundamentally regressive flat-rate tax on individuals only, ignoring the properties altogether.

Very unpopular!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Charge

I like the idea of old-style rates if implemented fairly. That was apparently based on property valuations... imagine if that had been the case during the noughties boom!

Perhaps it can be said that BOTH the Poll Tax and Council Tax have paved the way for mega-HPI.

1. i dig at you cos you call people vampires. you are more like a vampire than any benefit claimant. look in the mirror and see if you reflect light like the rest me us. 2. it doesnt matter who you do the job for you are still more like a vampire than me. 3 you have no idea how well i perform at my job and no basis to assume i am ripping anyone off. 4. feeding your self is better than being a murder too and you forgot to say you are better than rapists because you are a 'trader'. 5. i admitted that i live off others in another post AND i do a job that YOU benefit from. your still more like a vampire than me. 6 i'm glad you a brave enough to admit you havent got a proper job. now admit you are more like a vampire than any benefit claimant and we can all move along.

Are traders vampires? I don't think so. I think they're just like any other buyer/seller of general "stuff", the stuff just happening to be shares/stocks/bonds/gilts... which are issued in the first place by an organisation to generate capital, which in turn drives growth by way of investment.

More growth = more jobs = higher employment = more spending - more stuff needed to be made = more growth = virtuous circle...

The trader just plays the part of "price discoverer" of said shares/stocks/bonds/gilts etc. If they're good, they'll make a profit doing so. Another comparison is a newsagent buying a crate of 24 Special Brews from the wholesaler for £12, then selling them to winos at £1 a can, representing a 100% markup. Is this vampiric?!

You could argue an employer is vampiric because they earn money off the back of their employees. The CEO of McDonalds creaming off the dosh from all those minimum wage burger flippers, and all the middle management in between.

I'm not saying ANY of this is moral, just my take on capitalism, economics and the markets and whatnot.

On t'other hand, I think it IS fair to say BTL landlords are vampiric because the property assets they hold seem to impose price distortions which causes (i) a money-for-nothing "wealth effect" via excessive HPI (only realised through MEW), and (ii) the existence of grotty, shoddy rental abodes which are not fit for purpose but legally "OK", and (iii) ignorant, unprofessional landlords who don't recognise the responsibilities of their roles and don't do stuff they're meant to do.

Thinking further, if you say a trader is vampiric, you may as well say they same about a professional poker player... as far as I see they're both staking their own dough and making carefully calculated (to be successful) judgements of probability. That said, the difference between a trader and poker player is that the former deals with largescale interconnected worldly affairs (which is why this forum is so interesting) whereas the latter is just dealing with numbers.

DrB might not have a "job" but to be successful he has to work hard and this website, again, is part of that. Successful people always divide opinion and attract detractors... that's the way the cookie crumbles!

Of course the REAL vampires are those who work at BANKS (and their political allies) who trade financial instruments to create wealth alchemically. They thought/think they were/are geniuses, whereas they actuallly need their heads to be severed from their bodies and put onto pointy sticks.

Link fail. :-)

HPC originating link: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...howtopic=147307

Link referenced: http://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/mortgages/...1015197.article

Errhm why? At least in the past, the BoE has been very comfortable with real interest rates below MINUS 10%.

Errr... Please do excuse me. I am still learning. Seemed like a big deal since Gordon Brown's removal of mortgage interest costs in 2003 is often cited as a stoking of HPI, as it caused base interest rates* to remain artifically low, according to the "other" site.

*appreciate these are not the same as the "real" rates you cite above. Still learning.

Housing costs must be included in inflation target, says Osborne.

 

Osborne signals u-turn on Brown move to exclude housing costs from inflation targets.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/news/...3&ea=255507

So... higher CPI = pressure to put up interest rates? Could this signal the turn?

Nothing to do with being poetic - just more practical.

I'd say practical and poetic. You can't say that a measurement named after a bodily part it roughly matches (and deliberately so) isn't poetic. I'm thinking those L-shaped doodahs at the end of your legs...

The lower end.

The metric system is not rational - it was dreamed up by French intellectuals who had no grounding in the real world. The imperial system gradually evolved over time to best suit the purposes of ordinary people. The metric system is an IMPOSED SYSTEM in much the same way as fiat is imposed money.

The imperial system is more poetic, I'll give it that. But I think the argument is that metric is based on reason.

...and it does seem that many folk in this country have a passionate distaste for rational discourse, ESPECIALLY regarding home ownership, which of course plays beautifully to the tune of the purveyors of property pornography, estate agents, The Times and The Express and so on, who all wish/believe property shall increase forever and ever amen.

People don't prefer rational things here in the UK. Just take the metric system.

Don't completely agree with this. My generation (born late 1970s onwards) were schooled in metric and use it as standard. Of course we can adapt to miles, feet and inches when necessary, but it really is only a legacy requirement.

On the other hand, of course, you might be right. Just wonder how long it'll be before the road signs and speedometers, etc., are rated in kilometres. There'd be an outrage in the tabloids! And the tabloids are the shepherd of the people... OK, perhaps you win after all. We're proud Britons wot won the Second World War, who needs reason?

With inflation picking up prices will go down. I still think that the only reason that prices have gone up is due buyers being offered a better house for their money. I wish that UK houses were sold on sq ft rather than just flat, terrace, semi, det, etc

With the pokey nature of new-builds it's hard to disagree with this, but it seems to represent a revolutionary mode of thinking: the shift to selling property by sq ft would probably only be acceptable to the masses after a substantial correction. But then we do keep hearing of a second shock to the system, double dip recession etc.