With the US subprime crisis spreading to Europe, shockwaves in Northern Rock which would spread to other banks, UK economy growth not looking healthy, increasing trade deficits, sharply rising mortgage costs, falling corporate profits and job cuts especially in the City, and as market turmoils escalates, housing price which shows a first drop of 2.6% (from Rightmove last month), this are the signs of the beginning of a housing crash. PROPERTY SHARES ARE A SELL!

an economist last year said int. rates had to go at least 8% to tackle housing prices rocketing.....and probably 10%.....but even then it was getting late as should have been done about 2 years earlier.

has anyone ever thought why houses are up about 180% in 10 years.....as in previous 30 or 40 years say, housing is up about 3 per cent on average.

my guess is that Mrs. T revolutionised way people treat shares in that many buy shares since her day.....but also their pensions rely on stock market.....in other words, most people r reliant on shares.......this was not the case in 1970s under crappy labour.
now, the labour cabinet aint allowed to buy shares and its been about 20 years since they in power......so they think.....hmmm, how can i make money but no shares......i know, lets ramp up houses

has anyone noticed john reid has lots of property.....but its under his non-dom wife from south america.....he has cheek to call himself a socialist. he looks like a mafia wee gangster. it was just when the newspapers were getting hold off this story, that reid stepped down from government......strange that. eh!

now, he's away to ireland to help celtic.....oops, i meant glasgow!

As predicted widely, rates were cut today.
Manufacturing looks strong and inflationary pressures are very real.
The only solid reason why rates have been cut is to try to stem the credit crisis.
Is this done because the credit crisis will bring a sting in its tail by way of a slump, or is it for political reasons and the fallout a severe property downturn may bring?
Decide for yourselves, but I know which I think to be true.

Heard on the news that Nationwide has put some mortgage rates up.

Interest rates affect SVRs, LIBOR affects the rest is the basic story.

aye hewitt...its for political reasons. the interest cut will not be passed on to people in UK Mainly.

whenever, brown goes to country for election now, whether its next year or 2010.....the country is going to be screwed and most people no better than stagnating and probably much worse off

Interestingly, while awaiting remortgage offer from the Woolwich, on a sale property i have, i enquired as to what the Barclays Bank Base Rate actually was? and was quite surprised to find it is still identical to the BoE base rate, the broker expects the rate to drop on Monday to 5% in line with todays decision, so even though the product i am awaiting the offer for is no longer available, there are still some good deals out there albeit max 95% LTV...
As has been highlighted by many here, anyone who took a large mortgage fixed 2 years ago at around 3.75% and couldn't foresee a large jump in repayments when the deal ended deserves to be in a pickle...

Big Ted,
Its not people not foresseing that I get the hump about.
You will know as you are remortgageing that you will have had at least one Key Features Illustration, and you will get at least 2 more, that shows not only the current payment, but the payment at SVR and the effective rise in /S/D for every 1% increase in rates. This is followed by a paragraph challenging you to ask yourself if you could afford these higher payments and a further one warning your home may be repossessed etc.
You have to ask how on earth anyone could possibly, ever, in any circumstances, bleat that they were unaware of what could happen, and that it was all someone elses fault???? But they surely will.
You would have to be a totally illiterate moron to not understand all that lot!!!

Funnily enough, just had an offer on the property half hour ago, trouble is i dont trust anyone at the moment and this is a buy-to-let purchaser supposedly with cash, got my PI checking them out as i type...!

Did he/she give you the asking price?

Nope, but i'm ahead of the game somewhat, as it is already probably the cheapest property of its type in the area, so have demanded completion within 28 days and will continue marketing, although they are buying it at a fantastic price, i would rather it goes now whereas this price may seem expensive in 6 months time...

Housing gloom 'worst in 30 years'


Confidence in the UK housing market fell in March to its lowest point in 30 years, according to a closely watched survey of property surveyors.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' (Rics) said that 78.5% more surveyors reported a fall than a rise in house prices in March.

Housing market certainly looks a bleak prospect in the UK, house builders were hoping as recently as March that Lenders would keep lending. We now know the answer to that one, it gives me no pleasure to say that this bubble is in the process of bursting now.

I haven't any shorts running in this sector, but I will keep an eye on BDEV, and conversly will try and judge an entry point in the future. Too early to pick out which company yet, but PSN seems financially stronger that some.

Just driven from Paignton back to Torquay and must have seen around 40 for sale boards, out of these, just two Sold signs... says it all really, i can remember 12 months ago it would be the complete opposite.
To be fair, i looked through the local Homeseeker at the weekend and i had to laugh at the prices everyone is marketing their properties at - 600k up, ok i dont expect to see any declines, but from 350k down and in particular the 150-180k bracket, they are dreaming. I fear people are being too slow to catch on and dont stand a chance in hell of finding a naive buyer...

I agree with you, I have noticed similar with vendors prices still in cloud cuckoo land. I live in mid Kent and my daughter is looking to buy for the first time. Fortunately, she has a good deposit and can bide her time over the next year or so, to let prices deflate. Like many others I thought this was on the cards 2 or 3 years back but, prices just kept rising. Therefore, the fall may well be steeper.

Completely agree , the amount of people that see the world in noddyvision is unbelievable, and there are still a few that think (even though the credit crunch, banks tightening their lending criteria ,and the overall price of living on the up, to name but a few ) that house prices are still going to go up.
These folk are astonishing , and really do have magic in their head.
I am sick of hearing this supply and demand crap . Demand is disappearing , fast!.
This downturn has the potential to be really bad.

as i said before about uk banks thread...........most people haven't a clue what goes on in uk......they dont know about taxes going up....more cctv watching us....they dont read quality newspapers or main headlines even on news.

these are probably the morons that are selling houses at 3 trillion pounds or wotever it is in england.....maybe some of tony blair russian mafia friends like abromavich etc that own london now can buy all the available houses.

i said last year that oil would go to 120$....people in my office were shocked, one guy said it would go to $55.....lol, oil is getting harder to find new stuff....and if in uk hugely more expensive with 20% tax on profits and highly regulated.

oil in future is going to at least 150$ so expect petrol to go much higher in years to come

as i said before about uk banks thread...........most people haven't a clue what goes on in uk......they dont know about taxes going up....more cctv watching us....they dont read quality newspapers or main headlines even on news.

these are probably the morons that are selling houses at 3 trillion pounds or wotever it is in england.....maybe some of tony blair russian mafia friends like abromavich etc that own london now can buy all the available houses.

i said last year that oil would go to 120$....people in my office were shocked, one guy said it would go to $55.....lol, oil is getting harder to find new stuff....and if in uk hugely more expensive with 20% tax on profits and highly regulated.

oil in future is going to at least 150$ so expect petrol to go much higher in years to come

I did a bit of research last night, and compared the top four US house builders shares compared to ours. I expected to find the share prices loss much higher than our house builders, but hat wasn't really the case. I was hoping that with the American housing market fall starting 16 month's before ours it may give me some clues to future price moves.

The top four US builders had an average price decline of 77.5% over a 28 month time period starting in September 2005.

The top four UK builders had an average price decline of 63% over a 14 month time period starting in January 2007.

As you can see the UK prices have fallen much steeper over a shorter period, unfortunately it doesn't give me much guidance to future price movement, as we have nearly caught up with the US. It may indicate that our housing market could be in much more fragile state than in America.

It should be noted that BDEV fall = 74%, RDW = 65%, PSN = 58%, BVS = 56%

With the American companies the falls were all very close to the 77.5% average, and all companies are now upto 10% above the lows in January 2008. So we may have seen the low point in the US already.

There could be another outcome, (not my opinion, however) - what if the credit crisis unravels in the next two quarters and from then lending rates start improving... problem solved, house prices resume upwards and it was all just a correction... with 20% downside from peak last spring...???

Reports in the industry suggest pent up demand. If the credit crisis is unwound quickly (extremely unlikely IMO), and banks go back to old ways of lending (even more unlikely) then there is a suggestion that prices would rise dramatically.
Personally, I expect stagnation, with a small downside for most areas, with the south dropping a bit further than elsewhere.