Van

It's not a toppy market - most of the UK regions have been depressed outside of London, and in under these conditions the most unique properties will be the hardest to value and to sell. I think you have had your head swayed by the headlines figures that try to present the UK market as being overall still resilient, but that is only because it has been able to hide behind the strength in London. DrB has posted some very good charts that show the UK markets if you take London out of the equation. But yes, I agree that you owe it to yourself to try to get the best price you can. The problem of course being that you are no different to every other seller in this respect, and if you aggregate this mindset across all sellers then the people who are worse off are those who are buying from you - your children and their generation are suffering the consequences of your decision. On a philosophical level, I'm convinced that the UK attitude to housing at every level - government policy, lending practices, the selling & buying process, our policy on social housing and benefits, and the typical mindset of buyers, sellers and homeowners and renters alike, is a very large part of the reason why Britain will continue to decline in comparison to other countries. When you direct so much of your resources to what is essentially an unproductive sector then you have no right to expect to be amongst the world's most prosperous economies.

It is easier said than done to trade around you position each time there is whipsaw action. You have to be right not just once but twice - on both the selling and the rebuying. CS, you are right, it has been a very up and down year. The markets are reflecting an almost Trapist faith in government policy despite the evidence before their eyes- and they call *us* goldbugs!

Well of course it will make a difference. lop a million off the asking price and then see the difference it makes. So it's just a question of "how much", really. Typical non-forced sellers' mindset in this market.

I traded around my position by lightening up at the top yesterday and then buying back today, but I would prefer not to have to do this and just to see a clear uptrend form!

Yesterday's move predictably retraced.

still needs to get above $1700 to signal a change in the short/medium term. Silver needs to close above its last pivot point of $32.50. Gold:Dow ratio is at a 18 month low. It really needs to make a move up here, otherwise the idea of a long term bull market falls into doubt.

NO EXIT STRATEGY: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bernanke-downplays-inflation-risk-of-qe3-2013-01-14?dist=beforebell

$1630. This is horrific. Now +1% YoY, Silver 0% YoY. So much for being an inflation hedge.

Gold set for 6th weekly drop - worst run since 2004 http://www.businessw...nd-of-purchases Gold tumbled, poised for the longest run of weekly losses since 2004, as Federal Reserve policy makers said that they’ll probably end asset purchases this year and investors cut holdings by the most since May. Silver slumped to the lowest since August while palladium and platinum dropped.

Down to $1645. Silver down to $29.40. I hate days like this.

Getting absolutely hammered again today, and continuing overnight. All of the gains of the last week have vanished. This is not a good sign!

The markets will eventually force reality upon the BoE and UK Government. There is no way we will be given the rope that Japan has been given. Our economy is fundamentally much weaker - we have no savings, and we consume more than we produce. I find it hilarious when anyone comes out and says "our policy is growth" as if this was not the overriding function of all economic systems. The BoE chairman can say what he damn well pleases, but we all know that excessive debt cripples future growth.

The early 90s crash and the current crash are vastly different because of the political will to protect homeowners at all costs, even if it means totally screwing up the rest of the economy. In the 90s, we essentially let the free market sort itself out as far as housing went. The central bank held that Sterling and the ERM membership were of far more political importance than the solvency of homeowners. Now the housing market is the #1 concern, and the extent to which government policies have redirected all the resources of the economy to keep property afloat is totally unprecedented. It is the single largest transfer of wealth - by stealth - that we have ever seen. The means that homeowners are OK, the rest are totally screwed. This is the unhappy state of Britain today - a country of haves and have nots, mainly because any incumbent government knows that to allow a large slide in house prices on their watch is tantamount to politcal suicide. It is the fault, too, of the nation's people - who still see high house prices as a good thing.

This last week has absolutely crushed the bulls and turned the medium trend down. Silver been relentlessly hammered since that QE3.5 announcement and reversal last Thursday. 6 heavy losing sessions in a row losing over 10%, quite possibly that it could be extended to a 7th session. Getting painful.

http://bullmarketthinking.com/technical-gold-trader-gary-savage-big-players-use-panic-selling-events-to-enter-billion-dollar-positions-in-gold-miners/ “Big players will drive the market below a technical level, and that will trigger stops with the technical traders, so you’ll get a big panic selling event, and the big players use that in order to get into large positions. “You have to do the opposite of what your emotions are telling you, and your emotions are telling you the miners are terrible stocks…but that’s when you have to buy. When nobody wants it.” ------------- I have little doubt that someone has been using this week to accumulate a big position.

Yet another hammering! Much like last December, this has been an absolutely disastrous month for Gold, even as the USD has tanked. It's really just panic selling now.

Hey Sledgehead, good to see you popping on here from time to time! Always value your input. Gold's current price action and lack of a strong reversal suggests to me that the bottom is not yet in. I always warn against second-guessing the market, but it could be that we are seeing a temporary move away from perceived safe-havens - USD, Yen, and PMs on higher general sentiment about the gobal economy - a deal on the fiscal cliff, Europe will muddle through yet another year, and China continuing to grow. However, current gold:dow oversold levels means that the current level could easily prove to be one of the best entry points in the whole bull market: http://postimage.org/image/hww26gg6t/

This is playing out so far as Marc Faber has forecast- A move down to 1650, followed by a resumption of the uptrend(?). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4jstQWMLKg

I find it is always a mistake to try to pin market movement on such obvious headline commentary. The are dozens of things that could influence sentiment to push the price higher or lower, and it is rarely the one that commentators use to explain the action.

Today's action should push that indicator firmly into the >70 BUY territory.

$INDU:$GOLD is getting very extended, and these often prove to be points at which Gold launches a big upmove. http://postimage.org/image/ozttrpj8f/

Some excellent debunking! One thing I will say is that the population growth has of course not been uniform. Many northern areas have actually seen populations falls, while the population has become much more dense in the S/E.

N Indeed, no one flies a kite in December. I fully expect the traditional rush of over optimistic house sellers to push the Rightmove Index back to near its highs by next spring. Latest RICS came in at -9. It has to be said that with the absurdly low mortgage rates on offer I would not be surprised to see some genuine improvements in the market over the next 6 months that show up in Halifax/NW/LR. I'm predicting a 1.5% GAIN in Halifax/NW for 2013... 5% rally in H1 followed by a 3.5% drop in H2 - on the condition that ZIRP is maintained. However if we get an inflationary spike and bonds begin to fall then all bets are off.

Long run wages are driven by productivity; the only justification for a "living wage" is to become productive enough that your output is deserving of higher wages. Unfortunately this truth has been long since lost in the culture of entitlement that has gone hand in hand with the growth of the State. It is not an equilibrium situation where we constantly run huge trade deficits importing goods from developing countries while there is such high domestic unemployment; the unemployed should be producing the goods that we are currently needing to import.

Won't happen, at least for the bottom 3/4 of the workforce, as most of their jobs can easily be outsourced, and unemployment will remain very high as the tax and benefit system punishes those trying to enter the workforce at the lowest rungs.