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!

Another problem that I hadn't thought of until a news item last night, is that as household bills have been rising along with mortgages. People have loaded up the credit card even more to pay the mortgage, it doesn't sound like the banks are in any mood to be flexable when these people get into trouble.

I think that America may just get away with a mild recession, having pumped money into the system and reduced interest rates.( Storing up a bigger problem a few years down the line. Can the UK ride on there coat tails ? I'm not to sure..........

i can assure you that banks aint backing down over credit card debt as i know people in banking sector. in fact, they wont even reduce the high interest rates on the cards.........could be 100,000ssss of them bankrupt soon

and yet the banks want bailed out as they need money......boo hoo

The whole of HBoS board should be sacked with immediate effect.....they have destroyed the great work from more than 100 years of great bank of scotland.
hornby aint a banker and has destroyed the share price.....and doing little to improve things.

Home repossesions hitting near 1990's peak...

Home repossession orders are nearing the level last seen in the recession of the early 1990s after rising by 16 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

According to the Ministry of Justice, 38,688 mortgage possession claims were issued from January to March this year, compared with 33,715 for the first quarter of 2007.

The last time mortgage repossession claims reached this level was in the third quarter of 1990, when actions hit 37,498, and the housing market was slipping into one of the worse downturns in its history.

At the peak of the downturn in 1991, home repossession orders hit 186,649 for the year, reaching a quarterly high of 51,037 from July to September. The actual number of houses taken back into possession by lenders climbed to a record 75,500 in 1991, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML).

The number of people who are losing their homes because they cannot meet rising mortgage bills is set to double this year, experts said yesterday.

Dearer mortgage costs in the log-jammed home loans market were blamed for a rise of almost 20 per cent over the past year in court orders allowing lenders to seize properties.

The number of repossession orders granted in England and Wales in the first three months of the year climbed to levels not seen since the early 1990s, reaching 27,530. That was up by 17 per cent on a year earlier, and by 9 per cent since the final quarter of last year alone.

In a further sign of the growing financial distress, the number of new court actions started by lenders seeking repossession also leapt sharply. It rose to 38,688 in the first three months of the year, up by 16 per cent on a year ago, and by 7 per cent on the previous quarter.

The news will spark fears that a new wave of repossessions this year will aggravate rapidly worsening conditions in the housing market at a time when prices have already begun to tumble.

The latest survey from Halifax, the biggest mortgage lender, showed that average house prices dropped by 1.3 per cent in April, and are down by 0.9 per cent on levels a year ago.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of all repossesions are buy to let properties?

In 1996 Leeds had a mere handful of city centre apartments. In the six years to 2002, a further 1,035 flats were built and the five years from 2002 to 2007 brought an additional 5,900. The city centre now has 7,070 flats, with a further 2,096 under construction, 8,514 with planning consent and 1,362 awaiting planning permission. If all the proposed developments go ahead, Leeds will have more than 19,000, mainly one or two-bedroom flats in which to house the young workforce of its burgeoning concrete metropolis.

And yet it is estimated that more than 1,000 of the city centres existing flats are lying vacant. Property prices in some apartment blocks have plunged, rental fees are static and mortgage costs have leapt.

High-quality developments in the best locations continue to flourish, but cautionary tales from elsewhere suggest, in the words of one estate agent, that some so-called luxury apartments are in danger of becoming inner-city slums of the future.

The consensus among the citys property professionals is that Leeds is learning a harsh lesson. Flats should be built for the people who are going to live in them, not for investors seeking to make a quick buck.

An estimated 80 per cent of the city centre flats in Leeds were bought as buy-to-let investments, many by members of investment clubs. More than 1,000 were purchased by members of one such club, Instant Access Properties, whose sister company, Inside Track Seminars, went into administration recently. Many buy-to-let investors bought flats off plan without even visiting Leeds.

Members of one property club bought a significant chunk of the 235 flats built by Bryant Homes in a huge complex that opened in 2003 under the name of Aspect 14. Of the 11 flats in the block that have been sold most recently, the average price fetched was 129,000. A few years earlier their average purchase price was 166,000. Aspect 14 is on the northeast fringe of the city centre, next to a busy dual carriageway and on the edge of Little London, one of the most deprived housing estates in Leeds.

At another isolated but even newer development of 400 flats, City Island, completed in 2005, properties are selling for 50,000 less than their purchase price. It has already gained the unhappy nickname of S****y Island.

George Wimpey set further alarm bells ringing when it announced in November that it was mothballing its plans to build 800 city-centre apartments as part of a 100 million, mixed-use development called Green Bank. It blamed its decision on the current uncertain market conditions for high-rise apartments in central Leeds.

A recent riverside development of 50 flats each with an agreed buyer who had paid a 10 per cent deposit of 20,000 is empty because every purchaser has pulled out. The 20,000 they have all lost is far less than the fall in the value of each flat since they signed their off-plan deals.

LONDON (Reuters) - House prices suffered their most widespread decline across Britain for 30 years and retail sales fell for a second consecutive month in April, surveys showed on Tuesday, in a sign the economic slowdown is worsening.

The weak figures are likely to worry both Bank of England policymakers and out-of-favour Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the economy loses momentum but inflation intensifies as the impact of the global credit crunch deepens.

Manufacturers ramped up prices at the sharpest pace in at least 22 years last month, battling the fastest rise in costs on record, and economists expect headline consumer price inflation to remain well above the Bank's 2 percent target for some time.

"If you thought housing was weak in March ... it pales in comparison to the latest survey," said George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank who expects house prices to fall about 10 percent this year.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its house price balance fell to -95.1 in the three months to April from -79.4 in March -- the weakest since the series began in January 1978 and well below forecasts for a reading of -80.0.

The balance fell in every region compared with March.

Bank arch-dove policymaker David Blanchflower warned last month that house prices could slump by almost a third unless aggressive remedial action was taken.

Two housebuilders warned on Tuesday their performance had been hit by a sharp downturn in the housing market and retail sales values fell for a second straight month in April, according to the British Retail Consortium.

That was the first time sales have fallen in consecutive months since 2005 and suggests tighter credit and rising household bills are forcing consumers to tighten their belts.

Hope you managed to short all those companies when you started the thread. Would have made some serious money if so.

Barratt sales hit by market deterioration - MoneyAM


Barratt Developments said total housebuilding revenues in the 19-week period to May 11th fell 7.6%.

The company said market conditions have deterioriated significantly since the end of March.

The group added it has short-term financing in place, ruling out a rumoured rights issue, after agreeing to convert 400m of a facility into a new two-year facility 'which, combined with the expected fall in land spend over the next financial year, effectively deals with the group's short term re-financing requirements'.

Total housebuilding revenues for the 19-week period was 825m compared to 893m in the prior year, while completions were down 5.5%.

The forward order book currently stands at 1.56bn compared to 2.1bn a year ago, reflecting the lower sales rates currently being delivered.

Wolseley slips as market toughens - MoneyAM

Plumbing and building materials distributor Wolseley announced trading profits down 23% in the nine months to April 30th and said it expected challenging trading conditions to continue in many of its markets, as it had anticipated.

While not giving any figures, Wolseley said group trading profit in the period fell 23% against the same period last year and pretax profit before amortisation and impairment of intangibles was 30% lower, against a 2% rise in revenue.

Taylor Wimpey's ratings has been placed on negative watch on UK housing weakness - Fitch
Fitch, therefore, expects TW's full-year sales and EBITDAR to be sharply down year-on-year in 2008, and, as such, EBITDAR-based credit metrics will likely materially decline.

SELL Taylor Wimpey at 100p imo

Investors Chronicle has also recommended a SELL on Taylor Wimpey this week.

Taylor Wimpey is 86p now

oh dear.....2.5% drop in house prices this month.....thats average 5k of everyone house.

oil price booming.....food prices rocketing.......real inflation has been calcalated to be 14.5%, not gordon brown made up fantasy figure.

unemployment rising.....even the poles r starting to leave.

also, rampant violence under the the anger ridden people of uk with the soft approach taken by blair in past who couldnt even deal with his own children.

public finances r screwed too........gov must increase taxation and keep hoping oil goes up so that petrol is at least 1.50 quid or even 2 to raise revenue. also northern rock to pay and extra 50 billion to banks plus iraq to fund......oh and to double its amount given to europe for next SIX YEARS! LOL

THE COUNTRY IS SCREWED

Things are not looking that rosy Scot but stagflation is a global phenomenon and there are plenty of far worse places to live than the UK. The UK presss seem to make out it's only happening here. May be we should be looking for a new planet!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1YourView&xml=/money/2008/05/26/ccom126.xml

Taylor Wimpey is the biggest casualty - 75p now.

yes, things maybe worse in places like korea, iraq, zimbaBwe etc but this is uk! we used to rule quarter of the world....we used to be caring, well educated, well mannered people, well dressed too........i cant say any of these things anymore. people in this country r apathetic and dont want to work but expect to be wealthy and have 2 holidays a year, modern gadgetry, designer clothes etc, lol.

just read that 350 aussie bankers left uk as they r fed up looking at impoverished people in uk......lol, hilarious.....aye, you dont see poverty in oz like you do in britain. thats from a country thats REDUCED taxation by 15% in last decade, not increasing it with stealth taxes like capitalist labour

Barratt Developments (BDEV.L: Quote, Profile, Research), Britain's second largest house builder by volume, said on Wednesday reservations in 2008 were down a third year-on-year as buyers struggle to get mortgages in the global credit crunch.

"Since the end of March, market conditions have deteriorated significantly as a result of an unprecedented reduction in mortgage availability and tightening lending criteria, combined with a decline in consumer confidence," Barratt said.

The comment chimes with recent statements from rivals and the timing ties in with a report early in April from Halifax, the country's biggest mortgage lender, that house prices fell 2.5 percent in March, as competition in the mortgage market all but disappeared and availability dried up.

house prices still rising in scotland!!!