Van

Mortgage rates creeping up: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2145665/Mortgage-rates-set-rise-euro-crisis-pushes-banks-borrowing-costs.html?ito=feeds-newsxml Experts said cheap deals are being replaced every day by more expensive options. Last Friday, Yorkshire Building Society raised its two-year fixed rate loan from 3.24 per cent to 3.54 per cent. Tomorrow ING Direct will raise its two-year fixed from 3.29 per cent to 3.49 per cent.

'Tis quite possible. In 1980 who would have thought that bonds would embark on a 30 year+ bull market. In there are no limits on the the amount of paper money they can print there is no limit to what the price of gold can go to.

In terms of CPI-deflated real prices, houses are at a new low of 68.26% of their peak: Month SA Price Annual avg inflation SA Inflation Adjusted Aug-07 199,612 100.00% Sep-07 198,533 4.7 99.08% Oct-07 197,698 4.7 98.29% Nov-07 195,092 4.7 96.62% Dec-07 197,074 4.7 97.23% Jan-08 196,244 4.7 96.45% Feb-08 194,953 4.7 95.45% Mar-08 190,900 4.7 93.11% Apr-08 187,980 4.7 91.33% May-08 183,694 4.7 88.91% Jun-08 180,320 4.7 86.94% Jul-08 177,164 4.7 85.10% Aug-08 174,241 4.7 83.37% Sep-08 171,857 1.6 82.12% Oct-08 168,112 1.6 80.23% Nov-08 164,646 1.6 78.47% Dec-08 160,070 1.6 76.19% Jan-09 163,945 1.6 77.93% Feb-09 160,104 1.6 76.00% Mar-09 157,622 1.6 74.72% Apr-09 154,663 1.6 73.22% May-09 159,111 1.6 75.23% Jun-09 158,445 1.6 74.82% Jul-09 159,749 1.6 75.33% Aug-09 160,947 1.6 75.80% Sep-09 163,294 3.1 76.71% Oct-09 164,990 3.1 77.31% Nov-09 167,032 3.1 78.07% Dec-09 168,176 3.1 78.40% Jan-10 168,390 3.1 78.30% Feb-10 166,928 3.1 77.42% Mar-10 168,435 3.1 77.92% Apr-10 168,593 3.1 77.80% May-10 167,207 3.1 76.96% Jun-10 165,686 3.1 76.07% Jul-10 167,497 3.1 76.71% Aug-10 168,388 3.1 76.92% Sep-10 162,307 4.5 73.87% Oct-10 164,320 4.5 74.51% Nov-10 164,269 4.5 74.21% Dec-10 163,665 4.5 73.67% Jan-11 163,609 4.5 73.38% Feb-11 162,715 4.5 72.71% Mar-11 162,712 4.5 72.44% Apr-11 160,393 4.5 71.15% May-11 161,039 4.5 71.17% Jun-11 163,430 4.5 71.96% Jul-11 163,765 4.5 71.85% Aug-11 161,926 4.5 70.78% Sep-11 161,368 3.6 70.33% Oct-11 163,227 3.6 70.93% Nov-11 161,556 3.6 70.00% Dec-11 159,888 3.6 69.07% Jan-12 160,925 3.6 69.31% Feb-12 160,118 3.6 68.76% Mar-12 163,796 3.6 70.14% Apr-12 159,883 3.6 68.26%

It's is very obvious that the end of the stamp duty holiday had a big positive effect on the previous month that has been unwound this month.

This is painful, no doubt about it. I swapped some of my gold for silver, but everything is getting sold off today. HUI could test 400 today.

Gold looks like it's making a break above resistance: http://postimage.org/image/dz9dsyphh/

All EAs have stepped up their letting business. It is no coincidence that they are trying to encourage a faster turnover in the letting market. Many renting friends I know have had to move out in recent years. The new letting process is all part of the gravy chain for them. I'm very glad I don't have to put up with that sh1t any longer.

Over the last several days volatility in the gold market has collapsed forming what is known as a coil. http://smartmoneytracker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/b-wave-bottom.html

Because there are very few "motivated sellers" thanks to ZIRP. This has led to a pattern of sellers kite-flying in the hope they can bag top dollar, and if they can't sell then they just withdraw from the market and try again 6 months later. Also from what I am seeing rents are still grinding upwards in most London areas - probably 3-5% higher than 12 months ago.

Er, well yes.. unless I misunderstand, all you're saying is that the market in Berks was already inflated in 2003-05 and then went even higher up to '07. What we see now is a market where the dross and the less salubrious areas have fallen considerably, but where the large houses and "desireable" areas have held up pretty well. That's a sign that there is still plenty of air left in the bubble. Current policy is just about a best-case scenario for most homeowners as ZIRP has kept their biggest cost of living down.

There, fixed it for you.

Gold still has further to run: http://seekingalpha.com/article/396211-dow-gold-ratio-too-early-to-buy-equities With the current dow/gold ratio at 8, we are nowhere near a bottom yet. Gold could still quadruple from here. The rise of the last decade has been nowhere near as explosive as the rise preceeding the 1980 top.

Do you ever stop? The bubble was not as inflated back in 03-04, so the market and indeed the economy was not as geared and dependent on low rates as it become only a few years later. Pinning the cause or the collapse on credit supply or any other single factor is to misunderstand or oversimplify the nature of a financial asset bubble where many things happen simultaneously which causes the rise to be unsustainable and therefore must ultimately be corrected.

As I said last month, other lenders will follow Halifax and RBS and raise their SVRs too: http://www.telegraph...rest-rates.html The Co-op Bank said it will lift its standard variable mortgage rate by 0.5% to 4.74% from May 1, meaning payments will typically go up by around £15 a month, or £180 a year. ... And the Bank of Ireland also announced that it is increasing its SVR, affecting 100,000 UK customers. It will raise the SVR on its mortgages to 4.49% from 2.99% in two stages.

Looks like the spring bounce was rolled up into 1 month this time around.

You *have* noticed the date, haven't you?

Or maybe not, if you care to just look at the figures: Jan-12 £162,228 Feb-12: £162,712 March-12: £163,327 Fall = ALL seasonal adjustment.

I've always said this. Most importantly it will give you a cushion of a smaller mortgage and more equity when interest rates go back up.

That's a bit of a narrow-minded biew. What happens when these families' children want to buy their own homes and start their own families? They won't be able to afford a home, or if they do it'll likely be a 1br shoebox that they'll be tied to for years. High house prices prevents all sorts of social mobility. The NINJAs become trapped and stay at home into their 30s and beyond. It's a crap state of affairs that impoverishes the young.

"That's consistent with the idea that rising house prices caused bigger mortgages - not the other way around. According to Broadbent, there isn't even much evidence that "mortgage withdrawal" - loans taken out on the basis of rising property values, were used to fund extra consumption." Sorry, I can't take this article seriously with stupid statements like that. Broadbent obviously lives in a macro-economic Keynesian model and rather than in the real world.

The answer why the "recovery" is slow is simple yet unpleasant because nobody wants to hear it: As in 1992 and 2001, the recession of 2008-09 was not allowed to run its full course. Therefore the massive and unsustainable imbalances in the economy are still present, still being propped up, and they are preventing efficient allocation of resources. The global economy will continue along a path of long term wealth destruction as long as the short term pain is continually avoided by monetary and fiscal policies.

Sometimes links from postimage stop working for some reason. http://postimage.org/image/tl8xxmgnb/

I think I may be the longest HPC-follower here - my interest in the topic started back in 2002 when HPC didn't yet exist and it was still a forum on the FT.com website. In hindsight I would not have STR but would have found some other way to hedge myself; shorting housebuilders using strict TA would have been one of the trades of the decade when the broke long trend support. Unfortunately HPC as it is now serves no useful purpose and resembles a bad advfn board. IMO we are 2/3 of the way through the UK housing crash in terms of real falls, however no more than 1/2 way through it in terms of time. The last 1/3 of the falls will be a long and drawn out affair as the economy is kept on ZIRP life support for many years yet. Lost decade? You betcha.

from my journal thread: This indicator has provided an excellent entry point for long gold trades over the last 3 years, and further back too. The indicator currently says "BUY LIKE A M**F***".

I would say that it's endemic throughout the UK's whole political and financial system, top to bottom, not just at the top. At the bottom you have an overly generous benefits system that subsidizes lazy scroungers In the middle you have the hopelessly overborrowed middle classes who continue to benefit from ZIRP and QE, and if they are still in trouble then they can just declare themselves bankrupt and have their record purged after a few years. At the top you have the million-pound bonus City boys whose employer was saved by the government bailouts Financial wreckleness and immorality knows no class or income divide. In all cases the ones who pay will be the current and the unborn generations of this country. What a future our children have to look forward to.