Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Ot but interesting and open access paper - specially for @Flatlander perhaps - on road problems in Lincs thanks to climate change and its effect on the soft local geology. Impressive attempt to assess the problem by the Geological Survey and the council.
Take home message - road maintenance is going to become a worse issue in the UK.
Thanks for that, I'll have a read later.
It is certainly a problem. There's quite a few roads round here across peat that are terrible to drive on due to soil drying and shrinkage. Any more than 40 and you risk going airborne from all the bumps and they definitely aren't recommended if you've got a dodgy back.
I'm sure DuraAce would enjoy them although any low-clearance car would probably be a bad idea. Also, the wipe-outs are into deep ditches.
The peat drainage has been going on for a long time though, so I'm not sure it is entirely climate change. There's vague plans afoot to do something about that (a change to Paludiculture) but by the time we get anywhere the sea will be reclaiming it all anyway.
See https://www.greatfen.org.uk/ for the kind of thing we are trying to get going. The fens 'proper' are a very similar landscape to here.
There are some long, straight Fenland roads that I've walked and run along, where the road is just a series of humps, and the telegraph posts alongside are all at a load of varying angles. You also don't see too many two-storey houses; many are single-storey bungalows.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
I get what you are saying, but is there even the tiniest shred of evidence that the EU would allow us to have free movement in principle but not in practice? They have always said no to proposals to limit free movement even marginally. If the EU was willing to show such flexibility we would never have had a referendum in the first place.
Of course it's a no-brainer to rip their hands off if the EU offers us Single Market access on terms we'd like, but it has never been offered.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
Most of that American money was spent anyway. It's not like they hurriedly built some ships and press-ganged some new sailors.
Also probably seen as a bit of a training exercise.
Yes, in the same way American college football games sometimes have USAF fly pasts. The pilots need the hours anyway so coordinating with the half-time show is trivial.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Once a bedsore develops, it can take days, months, or even years to heal. It can also become infected, causing fever and chills. An infected bedsore can take a long time to clear up. As the infection spreads through your body, it can also cause mental confusion, a fast heartbeat, and generalized weakness.
As, sadly, Christopher Reeve could attest...
Not just him, by a long chalk. Lots of the very old die limbless because bedsores have got into the bone:
I am increasingly of the view that when I pass age X, I will book a place in Dignitas for, say, 3-5 years out, and just try to be as productive as I can in the time remaining. The last 3-5 years of life seems to be an increasingly large pile of pain and utter indignities and to be frank I just don't want it.
I agree with the principle, but not the age X. It varies depending upon the individual.
My eldest grandad is 92 and still [for his age] reasonably fit and healthy. Still mobile, still living in his own home. Rather hard of hearing and definitely slowing down, but that's to be expected, but still able to get out and about and do things he wants to do, still cracking jokes etc.
Whereas my late Nan at a younger age died in a care home after being unable to leave her own bed, not being able to recognise anyone and thanks to Covid restrictions not being able to have visitors except her direct children and my other grandad.
For me, my line is simpler. If the time comes I need to go to a Care Home, I'd rather go to Dignitas instead.
Its horrendous we still don't have death with dignity in this country. Hopefully its something the next Government addresses.
For me, I think it would depend upon the nature of the care home.
My work often takes me to care homes. Some are fine, others, well, I'd rather go before a firing squad.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
I've seen a few people making the rest place remark, but resting places are also places people go to visit, and not out of just morbid curiosity.
When I was last in Washington I went to Arlington National Cemetery, it was very sombre and moving. I don't think it was disrespectful to go there.
How many people here have been to a cemetery, or places like Auschwitz, or the Somme etc?
Peering out of a tiny 7” thick porthole while inhaling your own and others’ farts is certainly not a traditional form of respect, but chacun à son goût.
Surely the only respectful thing to do is raise the wreck, bring it on land and build a theme park around it?
Leave it where it is and film the ending of the next James Bond film down there. Or at least a Dr Who two-parter.
Or a supernatural comedy where the ghost of Jack has to help the crew of the titan’s ghosts fit in with the titanic ghosts who aren’t too happy with their new neighbours.
The first class ghosts are more accepting as the new ghosts are billionaires but the Irish ghosts are put out until jack explains that the new ghosts are all related to his beloved Rose and came to deliver him a message that neither of them would have survived if they had both got onto the wood panel and everyone “lives” happily ever after until the sequel when the Chinese steel scavengers arrive…
...but an obnoxious 8 year old ghost accidentally left on the ship over the Christmas break foils their plans.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I'm fairly confident that based upon past experience of housing booms and busts that no lessons will be learnt.
Lessons Will Be Learned*
*Officially stated, this indicates that nothing will change.
It has always amazed me how short peoples memories are, how people see houses as an investment rather than somewhere to live and why people massively stretch themselves to buy as big a house as possible so they can have rooms they don't go in.
The CEO didn't want 50-year old white guys. So it's a woke tragedy as well as a people have too much money tragedy.
Everything about it sounds horrific. The comparisons with NASA and Apollo 1 are well made. NASA's first question on everything is "and how does it fail?"
That's nothing about wokery - that's about the "tech disruptor" mindset; "we don't need specialists or experts to build a submarine, we're going to be pioneers and do it ourselves"
Also, like, it's a good way to make sure your labour is cheap
This is another sad example of something I've mentioned before: that far too many people come up with new schemes that replace the old, yet put 'safety' into the magic category.
As an example of how things should be done: railways. Railways have large, often redundant, safety systems, which has led to an unprecedented safety record on our railway network. These systems are *very* expensive, and have been developed because of hard lessons taught in blood.
So someone comes up with a new system. They realise safety is expensive, but of course, their system is safer. Therefore safety gets, at best, a hand-wave.
We saw this with the German Maglev system, where the operators claimed collisions were impossible because of the way the system was designed. That was right before the Lathen collision that killed 23 people (1).
We see this with (say) Hyperloop, a brain-dead scheme that gave f-all thought to safety, and would have been a human jam-maker. We see this with this submarine, where safety was very much not at the forefront of the operator's mind, and lessons from previous experience ignored (there are apparently safer deep submersibles out there). We see it with autonomous driving, where beta-testing is put on the roads with the public. etc, etc.
Once a bedsore develops, it can take days, months, or even years to heal. It can also become infected, causing fever and chills. An infected bedsore can take a long time to clear up. As the infection spreads through your body, it can also cause mental confusion, a fast heartbeat, and generalized weakness.
As, sadly, Christopher Reeve could attest...
Not just him, by a long chalk. Lots of the very old die limbless because bedsores have got into the bone:
I am increasingly of the view that when I pass age X, I will book a place in Dignitas for, say, 3-5 years out, and just try to be as productive as I can in the time remaining. The last 3-5 years of life seems to be an increasingly large pile of pain and utter indignities and to be frank I just don't want it.
I agree with the principle, but not the age X. It varies depending upon the individual.
My eldest grandad is 92 and still [for his age] reasonably fit and healthy. Still mobile, still living in his own home. Rather hard of hearing and definitely slowing down, but that's to be expected, but still able to get out and about and do things he wants to do, still cracking jokes etc.
Whereas my late Nan at a younger age died in a care home after being unable to leave her own bed, not being able to recognise anyone and thanks to Covid restrictions not being able to have visitors except her direct children and my other grandad.
For me, my line is simpler. If the time comes I need to go to a Care Home, I'd rather go to Dignitas instead.
Its horrendous we still don't have death with dignity in this country. Hopefully its something the next Government addresses.
I would happily swap our priorities round: abortion to be safe, legal and rare, and end of life assistance to be safe, legal and less rare.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I'm fairly confident that based upon past experience of housing booms and busts that no lessons will be learnt.
Lessons Will Be Learned*
*Officially stated, this indicates that nothing will change.
It has always amazed me how short peoples memories are, how people see houses as an investment rather than somewhere to live and why people massively stretch themselves to buy as big a house as possible so they can have rooms they don't go in.
You have to be 50 to remember the last housing downturn and about 150 to go back to a time when filling your boots with leveraged property was not a winning strategy.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
It was certainly about 10 years from start to finish and it is like yesterday in my memory
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
I'm sure DuraAce would enjoy them although any low-clearance car would probably be a bad idea. Also, the wipe-outs are into deep ditches.
As long as it's in somebody else's car, sure. I got massive air in a (borrowed from 2 RTR) LR Defender 110 off a berm in Iraq. At least 3m vertical and 20m horizontal doing 70mph. It snapped both front coil perches and my mate disappeared out the side when the passenger door flew off and his seat frame broke. I was troubled with neck issues for the following 5 years until a Russian dominatrix/chiropractrix put me right.
At the subsequent drumhead trial I just adopted a vacant stare into the far distance and whispered, "IED".
Yes it will be a re-run. Biden just needs to maintain his physical and mental state for another year, and Trump just needs to avoid being in prison, which with legal delays and appeals should be simple enough.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
It was certainly about 10 years from start to finish and it is like yesterday in my memory
Yes and its not as bad as what we're living through.
The horror of the last 20 years of uncontrolled rampant cost rises was 20 years from start to finish and it is like its yesterday for millions of people today, because it was.
Millions of people today live unable to afford homes at an 8x multiple, face the risk or actuality of losing their homes and getting court orders or Section 21s or similar and you just seem obsessed with a few losing their home in the past rather than those who lose their home today under our present, broken, system. Why?
Are the people who struggle in our overheated housing market, who lose their homes and get told to move out if they report damp or a broken boiler etc, who pay extortionate rents to cover someone else's mortgage but can't get their own etc somehow less deserving of sympathy in your eyes?
Yes it will be a re-run. Biden just needs to maintain his physical and mental state for another year, and Trump just needs to avoid being in prison, which with legal delays and appeals should be simple enough.
Biden looks completely, physically and mentally, fucked but he has done for at lease the last fifteen years. He only seems slightly more frail and gaga than he did in 2020.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
I get what you are saying, but is there even the tiniest shred of evidence that the EU would allow us to have free movement in principle but not in practice? They have always said no to proposals to limit free movement even marginally. If the EU was willing to show such flexibility we would never have had a referendum in the first place.
Of course it's a no-brainer to rip their hands off if the EU offers us Single Market access on terms we'd like, but it has never been offered.
Indeed, but the logic of the EU doing so is very similar to the Euro opt out. The Euro opt out absolutely flies in the face of conventional EU logic.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Wasn't that (very roughly) what May wanted and how the backstop would have played out in practice? Frictionless (not just tariffless, but frictionless) movement of goods across the borders, but control of the movement of people?
OK, the downsides of that were many and varied. The UK wouldn't have had much freedom of action in external trade and would have reduced its input into rules it had to follow. But if we don't want to be involved in The Politics, what do we expect?
My take on that staircase diagram is that plenty of Something For Something deals are possible with the EU. The problem the UK has is in working out what it wants (what it really really wants) and what it's prepared to give up to get it.
Yes it will be a re-run. Biden just needs to maintain his physical and mental state for another year, and Trump just needs to avoid being in prison, which with legal delays and appeals should be simple enough.
Biden looks completely, physically and mentally, fucked but he has done for at lease the last fifteen years. He only seems slightly more frail and gaga than he did in 2020.
Quite so. If he was acceptable then, he's acceptable now.
In any case whilst Trump has a lot more energy he's pretty incoherent and gaga, not seeming to have a clue what is going on sometimes, so someonefor whom mental capacity is their primary concern (not politics) might as well choose on another basis.
Yes it will be a re-run. Biden just needs to maintain his physical and mental state for another year, and Trump just needs to avoid being in prison, which with legal delays and appeals should be simple enough.
Trump also needs to maintain his physical and mental state. His mortality risk is probably higher than Biden’s.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
Fair point, but other views exist. If you are looking for accountability perhaps look away from those who voted Brexit in their own interest, and have a look at the pathetic Remain campaign; and the political approach over 40 years of denial about the EU's nature and objectives and the presentation of the EU as a necessary nuisance.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
There was a young name called Farage Who once got locked inside his garage He campaigned so hard But let down his guard And fell to an electoral barrage
Yes it will be a re-run. Biden just needs to maintain his physical and mental state for another year, and Trump just needs to avoid being in prison, which with legal delays and appeals should be simple enough.
Trump also needs to maintain his physical and mental state. His mortality risk is probably higher than Biden’s.
I feel Trump's sheer stubborn self confidence means he will outlive us all by simply refusing to die. Mentally he seems quite fragile at times, incoherent, confused, believing anything he looks at from moment to moment, wild emotional fluctuations even for him.
But that was always the case, and we have proof that the worse he gets the more the base love him, so he could probably lose it even more and be fine.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Wasn't that (very roughly) what May wanted and how the backstop would have played out in practice? Frictionless (not just tariffless, but frictionless) movement of goods across the borders, but control of the movement of people?
OK, the downsides of that were many and varied. The UK wouldn't have had much freedom of action in external trade and would have reduced its input into rules it had to follow. But if we don't want to be involved in The Politics, what do we expect?
My take on that staircase diagram is that plenty of Something For Something deals are possible with the EU. The problem the UK has is in working out what it wants (what it really really wants) and what it's prepared to give up to get it.
The UK would not have been able to join CPTPP with the back stop, nor a US deal. As things stand, we will have expansive trade deals with Asia, the US and the EU.
WRT Obama, he's definitely wrong. The Ukrainian national identity is at least a century old, and some historians would say, a good deal older than that.
My understanding is that Ukrainian or at least a Kievian identity predates Russian. Kiev is considerably older than Moscow. The Putin version of history (nationalists always have a fake version of their national story) is that they are all part of the same thing, i.e. a Russian identity irrespective of fake Tsars and all that. If you extend his theory then all of the Mongolian Empire is also Russian together with a large part of Eastern Europe, which he would of course Vlad The Destructor would agree with
Ot but interesting and open access paper - specially for @Flatlander perhaps - on road problems in Lincs thanks to climate change and its effect on the soft local geology. Impressive attempt to assess the problem by the Geological Survey and the council.
Take home message - road maintenance is going to become a worse issue in the UK.
Thanks for that, I'll have a read later.
It is certainly a problem. There's quite a few roads round here across peat that are terrible to drive on due to soil drying and shrinkage. Any more than 40 and you risk going airborne from all the bumps and they definitely aren't recommended if you've got a dodgy back.
I'm sure DuraAce would enjoy them although any low-clearance car would probably be a bad idea. Also, the wipe-outs are into deep ditches.
The peat drainage has been going on for a long time though, so I'm not sure it is entirely climate change. There's vague plans afoot to do something about that (a change to Paludiculture) but by the time we get anywhere the sea will be reclaiming it all anyway.
See https://www.greatfen.org.uk/ for the kind of thing we are trying to get going. The fens 'proper' are a very similar landscape to here.
There are some long, straight Fenland roads that I've walked and run along, where the road is just a series of humps, and the telegraph posts alongside are all at a load of varying angles. You also don't see too many two-storey houses; many are single-storey bungalows.
The Somerset Levels can be like that too, if not quite so marked - the area to the west of Glastonbury for instance. I have a friend who is involved in the fen ecosystem recreation project there.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
It was certainly about 10 years from start to finish and it is like yesterday in my memory
Yes and its not as bad as what we're living through.
The horror of the last 20 years of uncontrolled rampant cost rises was 20 years from start to finish and it is like its yesterday for millions of people today, because it was.
Millions of people today live unable to afford homes at an 8x multiple, face the risk or actuality of losing their homes and getting court orders or Section 21s or similar and you just seem obsessed with a few losing their home in the past rather than those who lose their home today under our present, broken, system. Why?
Are the people who struggle in our overheated housing market, who lose their homes and get told to move out if they report damp or a broken boiler etc, who pay extortionate rents to cover someone else's mortgage but can't get their own etc somehow less deserving of sympathy in your eyes?
I have a great deal of sympathy for all those caught up in this crisis, mortgage borrowers or renters
A market correction may well be on its way and if we take 1991 - 2001 as the example what happened in 1997?
Mind you, Blair took office later in that crisis, Starmer will be taking office in 2024 probably just when it is only beginning to manifest itself
Prigozhin released today a new interview going over the current state of affairs as well as looking back at the events preceding the start of the "SMO". In this first bit, he explains that the Donbas was plundered by Russians since 2014 and the 2022 war began for reasons very different from those advertised to the public.
He'presumably being allowed (or even authorised) to say things others would get arrested for, but there is an interesting element in there about the reasons for the war. Whilst part of their ongoing spat, it seems odd to allege that the Defense Minister in particular was behind it, when the Tsar has been keen to emphasise his own justifications very prominently.
In continuation of his interview, Prigozhin lists two reasons for the start of the SMO: a) personal ambitions of Shoygu and b) the desire of Russia's ruling clan, who were not satisfied with the Donbas, to appoint Medvedchuk as the president of Ukraine and divide its assets between each other for plundering. According to Prigozhin, denazification and demilitarisation make no sense since Azov wouldn't be exchanged for Medvedchuk otherwise.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
People need to leave the Titanic well alone. That wonderful documentary they made about its sinking with Kate Winslet and Leonardo De Caprio really tells you everything you need to know about it anyway.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
There was a young name called Farage Who once got locked inside his garage He campaigned so hard But let down his guard And fell to an electoral barrage
There was an old man called Farage Who’s efforts caused infinite damage His anti-Europe vim Disguised that he was dim And he will always be a bit of a c**t
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
For me, European citizenship was an imposition I never wanted, and I'm glad to do without it.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
People need to leave the Titanic well alone. That wonderful documentary they made about its sinking with Kate Winslet and Leonardo De Caprio really tells you everything you need to know about it anyway.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
I voted Brexit based on the logic of underlying arguments on immigration quality, trade and lawmaking. And I respect calm debate for those who voted Remain with different rational arguments.
But I do get a little buzz of happiness when I see the rantings of the really ugly inside Remainers. The ones with the Twitter mindset of just spewing hatred and bigotry to the other side, accusing them of racism and being gammons and the like. Especially when they trot out horseshit about wanting some return to the past or wanting imperial glory, which just shows they have never sat down with a single Leave supporter and had a calm discussion. It shows their inherent intolerance and lack of willingness to even consider any view they don't already hold. It was why they lost in the first place and they deserve everything they get, the nasty little twerps.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Actually if you've read any of my posts you'd know its the polar opposite. I have my own home, I have bought right at the peak. Having bought in December 2022, I'll be one of the first to end up in negative equity.
However I think its for the best for everyone if I face negative equity. I'm prepared to lose equity in my home, for the better of my fellow men and women. Rampant house prices have fucked the young, and I care more about those of them who don't have a home, than those like me who may face a paper loss.
You seem to care more that your collection of houses may lose some value, than I care that my only home that I've only just bought will. Funny that.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
It was terrible for many young families
I witnessed several evictions of young families with their belongings thrown out onto the road and their children in great distress
The images live with me today, and there can be no joy in any of this even, as is likely, negative equity appears and house prices fall
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Joining EEA/EFTA (the Norway option) thus retaining Brexit and doing most of what most people now want looks a bit of a no-brainer. Very interesting that the possibility is being ignored on all sides. Is Labour keeping it for after the election?
It's not a no-brainer, because when asked about Freedom of Movement even most Remainers didn't want that. The UK public wants to access the single market without complying with the laws of the single market. The only no-brainer is the EU saying "no" to any such deal.
Of course. But to support 'Rejoin' is of course to support FOM. The old dilemma remains - in the UK we want the trade but not the politics, and FOM counts as trade not politics for the EU, and politics not trade for most in the UK.
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
Admittedly the chances of me voting Tory were pretty slim anyway, but I will never, ever forgive them for robbing me of my European citizenship and FOM to appease a load of embittered, ignorant and racist pensioners. Pensioners who are largely insulated from the penury they are inflicting on their children and grandchildren in pursuit of returning to some imagined golden age of 1958 or some such horseshit.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
There was a young name called Farage Who once got locked inside his garage He campaigned so hard But let down his guard And fell to an electoral barrage
There was an old man called Farage Who’s efforts caused infinite damage His anti-Europe vim Disguised that he was dim And he will always be a bit of a c**t
There was a prejudiced git called Farage Whose "ego" he furiously massaged He rubbed it in public one day To porn that was gay And now he has a new entourage
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
It was terrible for many young families
I witnessed several evictions of young families with their belongings thrown out onto the road and their children in great distress
The images live with me today, and there can be no joy in any of this even, as is likely, negative equity appears and house prices fall
How many evictions of young families have you witnessed in recent years?
Or have you turned a blind eye to them? Do you not realise they're still happening today?
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
If you're in negative equity you'll head to your lender's SVR (As you'll be unable to remortgage to a new fix or tracker) that's about 8.5% and probably heading higher I think now.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
It was terrible for many young families
I witnessed several evictions of young families with their belongings thrown out onto the road and their children in great distress
The images live with me today, and there can be no joy in any of this even, as is likely, negative equity appears and house prices fall
How many evictions of young families have you witnessed in recent years?
Or have you turned a blind eye to them? Do you not realise they're still happening today?
I retired 14 years ago, but that does not takeawy the ones I did witness in the 1990s, and by the way I was not the bailiffs or police or representing the ones repossession the homes
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Is it not always better to pay less for something rather than more? The worship of the false god of high house prices is perhaps even more of a national religion than the NHS.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Actually if you've read any of my posts you'd know its the polar opposite. I have my own home, I have bought right at the peak. Having bought in December 2022, I'll be one of the first to end up in negative equity.
However I think its for the best for everyone if I face negative equity. I'm prepared to lose equity in my home, for the better of my fellow men and women. Rampant house prices have fucked the young, and I care more about those of them who don't have a home, than those like me who may face a paper loss.
You seem to care more that your collection of houses may lose some value, than I care that my only home that I've only just bought will. Funny that.
I am really quite unconcerned about "my collection of houses" as you put it. I have no need to sell and the fact that prices will rise again is a market certainty unless we have nuclear Armageddon. I remember the misery that negative equity caused last time and the knock on effect to the broader economy. My own view is that the ideal situation would be for house prices to flatline for a good while to allow salaries to catch up. Whether that is achievable I do not know.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
If you're in negative equity you'll head to your lender's SVR (As you'll be unable to remortgage to a new fix or tracker) that's about 8.5% and probably heading higher I think now.
Yes and thankfully my rate is fixed for the next few years but even at 8.5% interest it would still be about the same as the rent I was paying my landlord until a few months ago. But I'll still have my own home. I would still consider myself more fortunate, than those who in the same shoes as myself would through no fault of their own face being made homeless, with no recourse or alternative.
Having a home of your own is the greatest security, but its one rampant house prices have denied to too many. And too many have sought to exploit that by buying a collection of homes to let that they then seek to inflate the value of by supporting NIMBY policies and decrying negative equity because it might make homes affordable for others.
Facing the risk of homelessness through no fault of our own because of reporting a broken boiler is not something anyone should have to go through, but too many do all the time. People need to be able to afford a home of their own. If that means I go into negative equity, I'm putting my principles ahead of my own finances.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Actually if you've read any of my posts you'd know its the polar opposite. I have my own home, I have bought right at the peak. Having bought in December 2022, I'll be one of the first to end up in negative equity.
However I think its for the best for everyone if I face negative equity. I'm prepared to lose equity in my home, for the better of my fellow men and women. Rampant house prices have fucked the young, and I care more about those of them who don't have a home, than those like me who may face a paper loss.
You seem to care more that your collection of houses may lose some value, than I care that my only home that I've only just bought will. Funny that.
I am really quite unconcerned about "my collection of houses" as you put it. I have no need to sell and the fact that prices will rise again is a market certainty unless we have nuclear Armageddon. I remember the misery that negative equity caused last time and the knock on effect to the broader economy. My own view is that the ideal situation would be for house prices to flatline for a good while to allow salaries to catch up. Whether that is achievable I do not know.
The knock on effect to the broader economy of the negative equity of the early 90s was it was followed large numbers now being able to get onto the property ladder and a period of sustained growth until 2008.
That's a good thing.
If you think misery only existed in the early 90s and today's broken housing market is not causing misery today and in recent years, then you're betraying a callous ignorance and disregard for your fellow man.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
It was terrible for many young families
I witnessed several evictions of young families with their belongings thrown out onto the road and their children in great distress
The images live with me today, and there can be no joy in any of this even, as is likely, negative equity appears and house prices fall
How many evictions of young families have you witnessed in recent years?
Or have you turned a blind eye to them? Do you not realise they're still happening today?
I retired 14 years ago, but that does not takeawy the ones I did witness in the 1990s, and by the way I was not the bailiffs or police or representing the ones repossession the homes
If you'd not retired 14 years ago, you'd have been aware of the repossessions of homes and evictions that occur every day in this country today in our broken housing market.
Although many, like my own last year, don't involve the courts and instead things like Section 21. Still plenty of misery involved, whether you've noticed it or not.
Somehow, the laws in this country seem to have been formulated to make renting as miserable a process as possible for both tenants and landlords. On the one hand, you have the absurdly short notice period of 2 months for no-fault evictions, which is incredibly stressful for tenants. And on the other hand, you have the byzantine rules that landlords have to follow in order to be able to evict tenants who don't pay their rent or cause damage.
The upshot of this is that renting becomes expensive (because letting is unattractive for landlords) as well as stressful, so people become desperate to buy their own place, which further inflates demand and house prices.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Your final point is very true, and it's why for all the problems caused by market cycles, allowing a natural correction is far better than trying to keep the bubble inflated.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
It would be fairly simple to increase house building in the problem areas, until the rise in house prices falls below wage inflation.
Simple as in a technical matter. To actually get it done means dealing with a raft of interests - the Green/NIMBY lobby is a broad, powerful church.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
Have any other countries used fiscal measures to tackle inflation? Tough sell for a government. "Prices are going up, this is a bad thing, we're going to tackle this by making things even more expensive."
I'm sure DuraAce would enjoy them although any low-clearance car would probably be a bad idea. Also, the wipe-outs are into deep ditches.
As long as it's in somebody else's car, sure. I got massive air in a (borrowed from 2 RTR) LR Defender 110 off a berm in Iraq. At least 3m vertical and 20m horizontal doing 70mph. It snapped both front coil perches and my mate disappeared out the side when the passenger door flew off and his seat frame broke. I was troubled with neck issues for the following 5 years until a Russian dominatrix/chiropractrix put me right.
At the subsequent drumhead trial I just adopted a vacant stare into the far distance and whispered, "IED".
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Any required commodity is an investment opportunity as well as performing its primary function. Suggesting housing is just for living in is so naïve it is off the scale . How do you think we get investment in house building? From the magic money tree?
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Actually if you've read any of my posts you'd know its the polar opposite. I have my own home, I have bought right at the peak. Having bought in December 2022, I'll be one of the first to end up in negative equity.
However I think its for the best for everyone if I face negative equity. I'm prepared to lose equity in my home, for the better of my fellow men and women. Rampant house prices have fucked the young, and I care more about those of them who don't have a home, than those like me who may face a paper loss.
You seem to care more that your collection of houses may lose some value, than I care that my only home that I've only just bought will. Funny that.
I am really quite unconcerned about "my collection of houses" as you put it. I have no need to sell and the fact that prices will rise again is a market certainty unless we have nuclear Armageddon. I remember the misery that negative equity caused last time and the knock on effect to the broader economy. My own view is that the ideal situation would be for house prices to flatline for a good while to allow salaries to catch up. Whether that is achievable I do not know.
The knock on effect to the broader economy of the negative equity of the early 90s was it was followed large numbers now being able to get onto the property ladder and a period of sustained growth until 2008.
That's a good thing.
If you think misery only existed in the early 90s and today's broken housing market is not causing misery today and in recent years, then you're betraying a callous ignorance and disregard for your fellow man.
"Period of sustained growth" = House prices doubling in about 8 years. What makes that a good thing?
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
You really shouldn't use phrases like "boomer scum".
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Any required commodity is an investment opportunity as well as performing its primary function. Suggesting housing is just for living in is so naïve it is off the scale . How do you think we get investment in house building? From the magic money tree?
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
SNP have had a different view. They started building council housing again, in Scotland, despite getting stick from the usual suspects. I and IIRC DavidL rather like the new houses we have seen.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
You really shouldn't use phrases like "boomer scum".
It was used as an example of a 'silly thing' to say.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Aren't contracts typically fixed term for one year, then they become periodic?
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
Have any other countries used fiscal measures to tackle inflation? Tough sell for a government. "Prices are going up, this is a bad thing, we're going to tackle this by making things even more expensive."
That's precisely what interest rate rises do for mortgage holders though I was thinking more along the lines of a rise in income tax.
You'd probably want to leave VAT where it is as decreasing it would create stimulus, you could perhaps introduce some negative VAT on household essentials though - aggregate demand isn't going to be fuelled by cheap bread & butter.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
Agree with you on this. Notice periods need to be substantially longer and there is a good moral case for there to be more security for those that have met their side of the contract, ie paid on time and kept the place in good order. The difficulty with this, and an unintended consequence is that any increase in security for the tenant is a decrease in the ability of an owner to flex with their own circumstances, thereby causing less people to want to rent out homes and more (in appropriate areas) moving to Air B&B. There are no easy solutions, though Labour will no doubt tell us there are.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Aren't contracts typically fixed term for one year, then they become periodic?
Indeed, typically with an initial fixed period of six months or one year. You can't be required to leave during that fixed period, s.21 notice or not.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Any required commodity is an investment opportunity as well as performing its primary function. Suggesting housing is just for living in is so naïve it is off the scale . How do you think we get investment in house building? From the magic money tree?
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
SNP have had a different view. They started building council housing again, in Scotland, despite getting stick from the usual suspects. I and IIRC DavidL rather like the new houses we have seen.
Yes I had heard this, and credit to them for doing it.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
Have any other countries used fiscal measures to tackle inflation? Tough sell for a government. "Prices are going up, this is a bad thing, we're going to tackle this by making things even more expensive."
That's precisely what interest rate rises do for mortgage holders though I was thinking more along the lines of a rise in income tax.
You'd probably want to leave VAT where it is as decreasing it would create stimulus, you could perhaps introduce some negative VAT on household essentials though - aggregate demand isn't going to be fuelled by cheap bread & butter.
Your mortgage costs are going up, let's reduce your pay too.
I guess the optimum policy would be raise income taxes for non-mortgage holders. I certainly wouldn't vote for a government doing that to me.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
Agree with you on this. Notice periods need to be substantially longer and there is a good moral case for there to be more security for those that have met their side of the contract, ie paid on time and kept the place in good order. The difficulty with this, and an unintended consequence is that any increase in security for the tenant is a decrease in the ability of an owner to flex with their own circumstances, thereby causing less people to want to rent out homes and more (in appropriate areas) moving to Air B&B. There are no easy solutions, though Labour will no doubt tell us there are.
The abolition of s.21 is in the current housing bill.
During COVID, the period was extended to 6 months (then 4 months) and I am unclear why it ever went back to 2.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Aren't contracts typically fixed term for one year, then they become periodic?
Indeed, typically with an initial fixed period of six months or one year. You can't be required to leave during that fixed period, s.21 notice or not.
But they were beyond that period...
Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid
I'm sure DuraAce would enjoy them although any low-clearance car would probably be a bad idea. Also, the wipe-outs are into deep ditches.
As long as it's in somebody else's car, sure. I got massive air in a (borrowed from 2 RTR) LR Defender 110 off a berm in Iraq. At least 3m vertical and 20m horizontal doing 70mph. It snapped both front coil perches and my mate disappeared out the side when the passenger door flew off and his seat frame broke. I was troubled with neck issues for the following 5 years until a Russian dominatrix/chiropractrix put me right.
At the subsequent drumhead trial I just adopted a vacant stare into the far distance and whispered, "IED".
Did your mate survive the experience ?
Yeah, he ragdolled across the desert but was fine. He was a Royal Marine and therefore only had a very rudimentary nervous system like a nematode with little capacity to experience pain. This was the same guy who shit in a beer can in the departure lounge at Basra airport in order to make another bootie spew up.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Any required commodity is an investment opportunity as well as performing its primary function. Suggesting housing is just for living in is so naïve it is off the scale . How do you think we get investment in house building? From the magic money tree?
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
Of course house building is an investment from the perspective of a house builder.
And drilling in the North Sea is an investment from the perspective of oil and gas firms.
And farming is an investment from the perspective of a farmer. A farmer might class his stock as an asset.
But inflation is meant to be typically from the perspective of the household who are paying to purchase, not the business. So if the price of oil or eggs goes up then we don't say that the assets of the oil and gas firms or the farmer have gone up, we say it is inflation.
And the same from housing. Housing is the largest cost in the average household's budget, yet since Gordon Brown changed inflation the Bank of England has treated housing costs as "assets" not as "inflation". They are not assets from the perspective of those seeking to purchase them to have a roof over their heads, any more than oil or gas, or eggs, are assets from the perspective of those seeking to pay, which is what inflation is meant to measure.
Yes in an ideal world deflation would be bad, but we aren't in an ideal world. We need to get house price to income ratios back down to reasonable levels and the only two options for that are house price deflation, or rampant double-digit wage and other inflation being sustained for years while house prices are frozen. Neither of those two options are without pain.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Aren't contracts typically fixed term for one year, then they become periodic?
Indeed, typically with an initial fixed period of six months or one year. You can't be required to leave during that fixed period, s.21 notice or not.
But they were beyond that period...
Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid
I was responding to @BartholomewRoberts "Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me." not the OP.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
Have any other countries used fiscal measures to tackle inflation? Tough sell for a government. "Prices are going up, this is a bad thing, we're going to tackle this by making things even more expensive."
That's precisely what interest rate rises do for mortgage holders though I was thinking more along the lines of a rise in income tax.
You'd probably want to leave VAT where it is as decreasing it would create stimulus, you could perhaps introduce some negative VAT on household essentials though - aggregate demand isn't going to be fuelled by cheap bread & butter.
Your mortgage costs are going up, let's reduce your pay too.
*I guess the optimum policy would be raise income taxes for non-mortgage holders. I certainly wouldn't vote for a government doing that to me.
The BoE could take account of the Gov'ts fiscal measures when setting interest rates and raise them to lower than the counterfactual of the Gov't sitting on it's hands.
* That would be grossly unfair and I'm not advocating that. Mortgage holders would be better off under my proposals because the rise in rates would be smaller than the counterfactual and dwarf the tax change in most cases I think. It'd also create more broad based reduction in demand.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
That sounds incredibly stressful. Section 21 is just evil, and I'm glad that the government is (supposedly) scrapping it. However, I also support increased rights for landlords to evict tenants who fail to pay their rent or damage the property.
Absolutely. I didn't even know what Section 21 was until it happened to us. Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me.
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
You can't be served with a s.21 notice mid contract, so something else is going on there.
Aren't contracts typically fixed term for one year, then they become periodic?
Indeed, typically with an initial fixed period of six months or one year. You can't be required to leave during that fixed period, s.21 notice or not.
But they were beyond that period...
Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid
I was responding to @BartholomewRoberts "Couldn't believe it, as far as we knew we had a contract until May. Who knew that Section 21 over-rode a contract, not me." not the OP.
Perhaps it was buried in the small print of the contract, I don't know. The contract was a thick stack of pages so never read it all, just signed the relevant parts on the relevant lines and took our Estate Agents word for it.
All I know is we had renewed every May for three years, with a new 12 month contract each time, and when we were served the notice we were served the notice in October we were told by Reeds Rains that it terminated the contract, despite the contract having been renewed in May.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
Most of that American money was spent anyway. It's not like they hurriedly built some ships and press-ganged some new sailors.
In general terms, militaries usually love having a civilian emergency to deal with. For the men on the ground, it’s a chance to show off their capability, skills, and training; and for the brass hats, it’s a chance to show their value to the politicians who sign the cheques.
It’s a different equation when volunteer rescuers are involved though - ask the mountain rescue folks, what they think of the idiots who climb a mountain in shorts and flip-flops, when it’s almost freezing at the top and fog was forecast.
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
You really shouldn't use phrases like "boomer scum".
Indeed, most of them worked hard, paid into the system via NI and tax for years and themselves only bought a property they now own with a mortgage.
It isn't as if it is just over 65s who are NIMBYs either, even 53% of 25 to 49 year olds oppose allowing more housing to be built on greenbelt land, as do a plurality of 18 to 24s
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
I've been harping on about house price inflation for years.
The original reason for putting it outside inflation measures, was that the inflation measures were being used to set interest rates, so there would be an immediate feedback loop - put up interest rates to control inflation, mortgages get more expensive, more inflation.....
The huge hole in that excuse is that we have multiple inflation measures, already.
We have squeezed inflation into property....
A few of us have.
The worst argument is the fallacious one that houses are an "asset" and not a cost so shouldn't be included.
If you're buying to invest a home to let then houses may be an asset, but if you're paying so you have a roof over your head and aren't homeless they absolutely are an essential cost.
For anyone selling a home may be an asset, in the same way as stock of gas may be an asset to an oil and gas firm, but for anyone who is purchasing to have somewhere to live it is a cost just as much as anyone purchasing gas to keep their home warm it is a cost.
We need to stop treating homes as assets and instead think of them as costs.
The most suitable 'cost' for inflation measuring purposes is the annual rent equivalent (not the capital value). Don't know how it's done atm but that's the way imo.
I use cpi-h in my spreadsheet tracking housing movements.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
To add - interest rates did need to rise - mainly so GBP doesn't tank vs USD, but the Gov't seems incredibly averse to using any sort of fiscal measures to reduce demand in the economy.
Have any other countries used fiscal measures to tackle inflation? Tough sell for a government. "Prices are going up, this is a bad thing, we're going to tackle this by making things even more expensive."
That's precisely what interest rate rises do for mortgage holders though I was thinking more along the lines of a rise in income tax.
You'd probably want to leave VAT where it is as decreasing it would create stimulus, you could perhaps introduce some negative VAT on household essentials though - aggregate demand isn't going to be fuelled by cheap bread & butter.
Your mortgage costs are going up, let's reduce your pay too.
*I guess the optimum policy would be raise income taxes for non-mortgage holders. I certainly wouldn't vote for a government doing that to me.
The BoE could take account of the Gov'ts fiscal measures when setting interest rates and raise them to lower than the counterfactual of the Gov't sitting on it's hands.
* That would be grossly unfair and I'm not advocating that. Mortgage holders would be better off under my proposals because the rise in rates would be smaller than the counterfactual and dwarf the tax change in most cases I think. It'd also create more broad based reduction in demand.
Almost feels like rates and taxes need to be controlled by the same person...
I have been reading journalist articles with stories of pain today. It strikes me that many of these people were naive, stupid or both. Examples of people having been on interest-only mortgages for 20 years to pay for home improvements and whatever else they wanted to spend their money on (cars, holidays etc.). Buy-to-let landlords on interest-only mortgages were quite happy to profit from rising house prices at the expense of renters unable to get on the housing ladder. They now seem horrified that their good times are coming to an end.
I forget who on here has been repeatedly mentioning how inflation has been high for years through house prices (may of been @MaxPB ). If it had been included and the BoE had to target that too then we would never have seen such low interest rates for year after year. People would have been more cautious and house prices would have been more affordable.
I expect to see large numbers of people very soon to be unable to afford their mortgages and trying to sell. House prices will fall and then causing negative equity too. The government will get blamed for this but it has been a disaster 20 years in the making along with the BoE recently totally failing in their remit.
I hope that lessons are learned from this and that house prices are included in the rate of inflation that the BoE has to target.
It is the 1990's repeating all over again and it took 5 years for house prices to recover
So you are talking about the period from 1992 to 1997 where prices went from the lows to something approaching the high prices reached in 1989... (an aside but it took longer than that a neighbour in the old house we bought in Kent took until 2001 before his house reached the price he bought it at).
At the moment the market is still in the no-mans land where asking prices are sky high but surveyors are returning lower valuations. It's still probably a year minimum until reality hits the markets.
Google
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Fantastic news!
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
Oh dear, just when I was beginning to like some of your posts you have reverted to your "fuck everyone else this might suit me" attitudes. Negative equity mainly hits the relatively young who have recently stretched themselves to buy their first home. Those with families. Those that can least afford it.
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Arguing against house price deflation is like saying the young people who can't afford to buy should LITERALLY SELL THEIR BLOOD TO THE BOOMER SCUM WHO ARE ALREADY BLEEDING THEM DRY.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
Any required commodity is an investment opportunity as well as performing its primary function. Suggesting housing is just for living in is so naïve it is off the scale . How do you think we get investment in house building? From the magic money tree?
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
Of course house building is an investment from the perspective of a house builder.
And drilling in the North Sea is an investment from the perspective of oil and gas firms.
And farming is an investment from the perspective of a farmer. A farmer might class his stock as an asset.
But inflation is meant to be typically from the perspective of the household who are paying to purchase, not the business. So if the price of oil or eggs goes up then we don't say that the assets of the oil and gas firms or the farmer have gone up, we say it is inflation.
And the same from housing. Housing is the largest cost in the average household's budget, yet since Gordon Brown changed inflation the Bank of England has treated housing costs as "assets" not as "inflation". They are not assets from the perspective of those seeking to purchase them to have a roof over their heads, any more than oil or gas, or eggs, are assets from the perspective of those seeking to pay, which is what inflation is meant to measure.
Yes in an ideal world deflation would be bad, but we aren't in an ideal world. We need to get house price to income ratios back down to reasonable levels and the only two options for that are house price deflation, or rampant double-digit wage and other inflation being sustained for years while house prices are frozen. Neither of those two options are without pain.
Or the idea of fully "owning" a home in one's own lifetime is abandoned? There is no real need to have someone "pay of their mortgage" in their lifetime. If they do not own a house they would still have to pay rent. The Japanese I believe have very much longer mortgage terms. The problem, I guess is that as soon as this is introduced we will get more house price inflation. The fundamental problem is supply in some areas. If it were managed better with proper planning then it could be much more sustainable. Speaking of sustenance, I am off to get some lunch. Happy Friday everyone.
So Sunak's government now has a net satisfaction rating higher than Major's in 1997 and higher than Truss and May's, even if slightly worse than Boris'
"He admits, there is no good answer. He does not spell it out, but essentially going to the limits of new technology always holds a risk, human error cannot be eliminated."
It can never be fully eliminated, but by God, the people running that facility had not even put basic safeguards in place. They were almost *asking* for human errors to occur.
"The blame is quickly placed on the two dispatchers, both are arrested the day after the accident."
They were to blame, but the system they were working within was not fit for purpose. See my post earlier today.
The people running Transrapid told themselves accidents were impossible. Therefore they made an accident almost inevitable.
Right-wing idiots joining the left-wing idiots from yesterday, in tying to make political capital from a tragedy.
Can people no longer think before opening their mouths online?
The guy who built the sub was one of the victims, he wouldn’t have been there if he thought it was unsafe. That said, deep-sea exploration is unfathomably (sic) dangerous, and they all knew there was a chance of catastrophic failure.
I sympathise with the sentiment that these deaths should not be used to make cheap political points. I feel particularly awful about the University of Strathclyde student who went on the trip with his Dad as a Father's Day present and was apparently terrified.
Nevertheless, I think I don't think we can shy away from discussing the fact that this tragedy has resulted in eye watering amounts of public money (largely North American public money) being spent on rescue efforts and the diversion of military resources. To get on a ski slope in most places you have to take out insurance to cover the chances of something going wrong. Doing something this inherently dangerous (I read that the disclaimer mentioned 'death' three times on the first page) needs to have some sort of financial scheme to cover these eventualities. Isn't there a £10k fee for climbing Everest now?
Also, the Titanic is a resting place for about 1500 people. Can we not leave them in peace as we do Military Maritime Graves under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (although perhaps that doesn't stop tourism)?
Most of that American money was spent anyway. It's not like they hurriedly built some ships and press-ganged some new sailors.
In general terms, militaries usually love having a civilian emergency to deal with. For the men on the ground, it’s a chance to show off their capability, skills, and training; and for the brass hats, it’s a chance to show their value to the politicians who sign the cheques.
It’s a different equation when volunteer rescuers are involved though - ask the mountain rescue folks, what they think of the idiots who climb a mountain in shorts and flip-flops, when it’s almost freezing at the top and fog was forecast.
In USA, in mountain other similar rescue situations, public agencies are (mostly) the core of rescue efforts, aided by (plenty) of volunteers.
And generally agencies such as local sheriff's departments and the like, have the ability to charge those they rescue for costs incurred. Though reckon that 90% plus of the time, they don't.
So Sunak's government now has a net satisfaction rating higher than Major's in 1997 and higher than Truss and May's, even if slightly worse than Boris'
A result a bit better than than Major in 1997 is still a disaster for the Tories.
So Sunak's government now has a net satisfaction rating higher than Major's in 1997 and higher than Truss and May's, even if slightly worse than Boris'
A result a bit better than than Major in 1997 is still a disaster for the Tories.
A result a bit better than Major in 1997 may be more than the Tories deserve right now and leaves them a solid foundation to rebuild.
Comments
There would be away round this, if one thinks John Majorishly.
One upon a time we negotiated a 'permanent' opt out from the Euro. It is axiomatic that for pro EU types the Euro is part of the project and a good thing - that's why it exists. But we got an opt out. Silly old UK, but we can still sell them cars in exchange for Scottish lobsters.
FOM should be seen similarly within the pro EU world - it is axiomatically a good things or we would not do it. Anyone bilaterally out of it will suffer. So, just as with the Euro, if the UK wants to have a less good membership, so be it. No-one else will be so crazy, as FOM is a good thing for all the others. Silly old UK missing out on all the French bankers in London, and being able to teach physics in Bulgaria.
When was negative equity in the UK?
'The collapse of the British housing market since the late 1980s has led, to the widespread emergence of a new phenomenon, negative equity, which manifested itself on a mass scale for the first time in British housing history in 1991.
It lasted about four years, from the end of the 1980s to around 1994'
It was an intense and difficult period for very many and it took certainly to the 2000s for any form of house price recovery
I agree it is at least a year away for reality to hit the market, but with the prospect of interest rates rising to 6%, with little respite before 2025, it is a near repeat of the 1991 crisis
Of course it's a no-brainer to rip their hands off if the EU offers us Single Market access on terms we'd like, but it has never been offered.
My work often takes me to care homes. Some are fine, others, well, I'd rather go before a firing squad.
God I fucking hate what’s been done to this country. Berlin was mine, Paris was mine. The continent was mine. Gone, sacrificed on the alter of Faragism.
Of course lowering interest rates IMMEDIATELY lowers the cost of housing due to mortgages being linked to well the interest rate. Over time the PRICE of housing rises to fill the gap but that's more gradual. The opposite of course is true for rate rising.
Increased mortgage payments will ceteris paribus suck the life out of the economy (People can buy less of everything else) but with so many people either renting, owning outright or on fixes perhaps raising taxation, freezing the minimum wage & freezing pensions would be a better tool to reduce aggregate demand and so control inflation ?
Yes negative equity has its problems and had we had stable prices then we may have been able to avoid it's repeat, but we have had rampant uncontrolled housing inflation with successive governments of both parties and the Bank of England all saying either "isn't this good?" or "not my problem".
Now a correction may be upon us. Great. And yes a correction may be painful, but speak to families getting thrown out of their home at 2 months notice due to a Section 21 order or similar time and again without any recourse to get the stability of a home of their own, and the present and immediate past were painful too.
At the subsequent drumhead trial I just adopted a vacant stare into the far distance and whispered, "IED".
The horror of the last 20 years of uncontrolled rampant cost rises was 20 years from start to finish and it is like its yesterday for millions of people today, because it was.
Millions of people today live unable to afford homes at an 8x multiple, face the risk or actuality of losing their homes and getting court orders or Section 21s or similar and you just seem obsessed with a few losing their home in the past rather than those who lose their home today under our present, broken, system. Why?
Are the people who struggle in our overheated housing market, who lose their homes and get told to move out if they report damp or a broken boiler etc, who pay extortionate rents to cover someone else's mortgage but can't get their own etc somehow less deserving of sympathy in your eyes?
OK, the downsides of that were many and varied. The UK wouldn't have had much freedom of action in external trade and would have reduced its input into rules it had to follow. But if we don't want to be involved in The Politics, what do we expect?
My take on that staircase diagram is that plenty of Something For Something deals are possible with the EU. The problem the UK has is in working out what it wants (what it really really wants) and what it's prepared to give up to get it.
In any case whilst Trump has a lot more energy he's pretty incoherent and gaga, not seeming to have a clue what is going on sometimes, so someonefor whom mental capacity is their primary concern (not politics) might as well choose on another basis.
Who once got locked inside his garage
He campaigned so hard
But let down his guard
And fell to an electoral barrage
But that was always the case, and we have proof that the worse he gets the more the base love him, so he could probably lose it even more and be fine.
A market correction may well be on its way and if we take 1991 - 2001 as the example what happened in 1997?
Mind you, Blair took office later in that crisis, Starmer will be taking office in 2024 probably just when it is only beginning to manifest itself
In continuation of his interview, Prigozhin lists two reasons for the start of the SMO: a) personal ambitions of Shoygu and b) the desire of Russia's ruling clan, who were not satisfied with the Donbas, to appoint Medvedchuk as the president of Ukraine and divide its assets between each other for plundering. According to Prigozhin, denazification and demilitarisation make no sense since Azov wouldn't be exchanged for Medvedchuk otherwise.
Who’s efforts caused infinite damage
His anti-Europe vim
Disguised that he was dim
And he will always be a bit of a c**t
Stating that house price deflation is a good thing is like suggesting that the poor ought to get on and die to decrease the surplus population.
Either proposition requires the person proposing it to be that word that might cause one to get an immediate ban on PB.
Last year we were renting, we used to own but we sold and started to rent instead when we changed location for work reasons. Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid, declined any offers to delay or not pay rent, never missed a payment, never had any problems, model tenants. Had annual contracts renewed each May. Then October last year turned on the boiler in first cold and no heating. Reported it, within 24 hours was sent a Section 21 notice to vacate the property, the landlord had responded to the boiler report with that before the plumber was even called out. Date we were given to vacate the property was literally the week of Christmas. Called the Estate Agents and explained December was not a good time for us to move, couldn't get time off work, and we have small children and it was Christmas, and we had a contract until May - was told no, Section 21 means the contract is terminated and we had to leave. We literally faced being made homeless the week of Christmas.
Now luckily my family was fortunate. We had a deposit saved still from when we'd sold our last home. We viewed a property that was already completed in a new build and was still available coincidentally on Halloween, put in an offer that was accepted and were able to complete and move in the Friday before Christmas. Incredibly fast movement from our Solicitors who were really on the ball to get it wrapped up in such a quick time. Others in the same situation are not so lucky, not so fortunate. Many people today without our resources are in the same shoes, all the time, and have no options before them to get a home of their own because the system is broken and prices are far, far too high.
I think we've overpaid for our home. I think we've bought at the peak. I think we'll end up in negative equity. I don't give a shit. We have a roof of our own, we have security, we have no landlord and we're paying less on our mortgage than we were paying towards our landlord's before we reported the broken boiler. So we're fortunate even if we end up in negative equity. Those who have a rapacious rental market with no recourse and no ability to save for a deposit while paying a landlord's mortgage are far less lucky. I care about them more than myself. I wouldn't want my siblings, or children, or friends, or colleagues or anyone else to face that. There are fates worse than facing negative equity.
But I do get a little buzz of happiness when I see the rantings of the really ugly inside Remainers. The ones with the Twitter mindset of just spewing hatred and bigotry to the other side, accusing them of racism and being gammons and the like. Especially when they trot out horseshit about wanting some return to the past or wanting imperial glory, which just shows they have never sat down with a single Leave supporter and had a calm discussion. It shows their inherent intolerance and lack of willingness to even consider any view they don't already hold. It was why they lost in the first place and they deserve everything they get, the nasty little twerps.
However I think its for the best for everyone if I face negative equity. I'm prepared to lose equity in my home, for the better of my fellow men and women. Rampant house prices have fucked the young, and I care more about those of them who don't have a home, than those like me who may face a paper loss.
You seem to care more that your collection of houses may lose some value, than I care that my only home that I've only just bought will. Funny that.
I witnessed several evictions of young families with their belongings thrown out onto the road and their children in great distress
The images live with me today, and there can be no joy in any of this even, as is likely, negative equity appears and house prices fall
Whose "ego" he furiously massaged
He rubbed it in public one day
To porn that was gay
And now he has a new entourage
Or have you turned a blind eye to them? Do you not realise they're still happening today?
But I'm doing just fine and I'm not likely to vote for him ether, and he should worry plenty of other 'just fines' are similarly inclined.
Having a home of your own is the greatest security, but its one rampant house prices have denied to too many. And too many have sought to exploit that by buying a collection of homes to let that they then seek to inflate the value of by supporting NIMBY policies and decrying negative equity because it might make homes affordable for others.
Facing the risk of homelessness through no fault of our own because of reporting a broken boiler is not something anyone should have to go through, but too many do all the time. People need to be able to afford a home of their own. If that means I go into negative equity, I'm putting my principles ahead of my own finances.
See, we can all say silly things that don't really represent each other's views, but it doesn't get us anywhere, does it?
And as much as I've had fierce rows with BR in the past, I agree with him on this. A house is a place for living and it should be affordable to anyone. The excessive house price inflation is a policy choice that favours some groups over others. Nobody thinks reversing that will be entirely pain free, but the same applies to NOT reversing it.
That's a good thing.
If you think misery only existed in the early 90s and today's broken housing market is not causing misery today and in recent years, then you're betraying a callous ignorance and disregard for your fellow man.
Although many, like my own last year, don't involve the courts and instead things like Section 21. Still plenty of misery involved, whether you've noticed it or not.
The upshot of this is that renting becomes expensive (because letting is unattractive for landlords) as well as stressful, so people become desperate to buy their own place, which further inflates demand and house prices.
Simple as in a technical matter. To actually get it done means dealing with a raft of interests - the Green/NIMBY lobby is a broad, powerful church.
Customers can talk to their lender without impacting their credit score
Customers can change to interest only or extend their mortgage and go back to their original deal within 6 months
Minimum period of 12 months before a home is repossessed without consent
2 months for no-fault evictions is ridiculously short, especially mid-contract, 2 months is no time to overhaul your life.
Absolutely those who fail to pay rent, or damage the property, that should be dealt with properly and if its not that needs fixing, but screwing over those who are not at fault to get at those who will simply not leave until dragged out by bailiffs anyway is absurd.
Where I might agree with Bart is that the level of inflation has been very unhealthy. This has been a result of policy failures by successive governments to invest. Labour had the opportunity to focus on more social housing and failed. the Tories have been worse. Like with all things it is about trying to find balance.
Deflation in the property market will simply result in de-investment, followed by a period of more housing shortage and then a further boom and massive inflation as it takes off again. Hoping for house price deflation is economic stupidity equal to those who wish for large scale inflation. IMO it is such an important area that it should be managed to a degree like underlying inflation with appropriate stimulus rather than the laissez-faire approach that has been taken by governments of all stripes.
There you are, I have just written a policy for you to pass onto your LD friends. A nice middle way
You'd probably want to leave VAT where it is as decreasing it would create stimulus, you could perhaps introduce some negative VAT on household essentials though - aggregate demand isn't going to be fuelled by cheap bread & butter.
Labour 47% (+3 from May)
Conservatives 25% (-3)
Lib Dems 13% (-)
Greens 8% (+2)
Other 8% (-)
1,003 GB adults interviewed by telephone 14-20 June
Short 🧵
Satisfaction with govt running the country
- Satisfied 12% (-3 from May)
- Dissatisfied 80% (+4)
Net of -68 essentially the same as Truss govt score of -69 in Oct.
87% of mortgage holders dissatisfied (!) = pre rates hike
2/ Public becoming a bit more pessimistic about the economy again after a couple of months of improvement.
How will the economy do in the next 12 months?
Improve 21% (-3 from May)
Get worse 58% (+4)
No change 18% (-)
Net = -37 down from -30 last month. But was -56 in Nov.
3/ Sunak's personal poll ratings have dipped a little this month too.
Satisfaction with performance as PM
- Satisfied 28% (-2 from May_
- Dissatisfied 59% (+4)
Net = -31
4/ Satisfaction with Starmer as Labour leader is stable
Satisfied 31% (-)
Dissatisfied 49% (-1)
Net= -18
So underwater (Blair and Cameron were both net positive when they won from opposition).
But scores better than Sunak.
5/ To finish ... worst govt net satisfaction ratings by PM via @IpsosUK
Thatcher: -63 (Mar 90)
Major: -78 (Dec 94)
Blair: -47 (May / Nov 06)
Brown: -62 (June 09)
Cameron: -45 (Jul 16)
May: -77 (Jun 19)
Johnson: -67 (Sep 19)
Truss: -69 (Oct 22)
_______
Sunak: -68 (Jun 23)
I guess the optimum policy would be raise income taxes for non-mortgage holders. I certainly wouldn't vote for a government doing that to me.
During COVID, the period was extended to 6 months (then 4 months) and I am unclear why it ever went back to 2.
Lived in the same property for three years, including all through Covid
Max S"
https://mx-schroeder.medium.com/the-day-the-future-died-the-2006-lathen-transrapid-collision-144ca4a4ef23
And drilling in the North Sea is an investment from the perspective of oil and gas firms.
And farming is an investment from the perspective of a farmer. A farmer might class his stock as an asset.
But inflation is meant to be typically from the perspective of the household who are paying to purchase, not the business. So if the price of oil or eggs goes up then we don't say that the assets of the oil and gas firms or the farmer have gone up, we say it is inflation.
And the same from housing. Housing is the largest cost in the average household's budget, yet since Gordon Brown changed inflation the Bank of England has treated housing costs as "assets" not as "inflation". They are not assets from the perspective of those seeking to purchase them to have a roof over their heads, any more than oil or gas, or eggs, are assets from the perspective of those seeking to pay, which is what inflation is meant to measure.
Yes in an ideal world deflation would be bad, but we aren't in an ideal world. We need to get house price to income ratios back down to reasonable levels and the only two options for that are house price deflation, or rampant double-digit wage and other inflation being sustained for years while house prices are frozen. Neither of those two options are without pain.
* That would be grossly unfair and I'm not advocating that. Mortgage holders would be better off under my proposals because the rise in rates would be smaller than the counterfactual and dwarf the tax change in most cases I think.
It'd also create more broad based reduction in demand.
All I know is we had renewed every May for three years, with a new 12 month contract each time, and when we were served the notice we were served the notice in October we were told by Reeds Rains that it terminated the contract, despite the contract having been renewed in May.
It’s a different equation when volunteer rescuers are involved though - ask the mountain rescue folks, what they think of the idiots who climb a mountain in shorts and flip-flops, when it’s almost freezing at the top and fog was forecast.
It isn't as if it is just over 65s who are NIMBYs either, even 53% of 25 to 49 year olds oppose allowing more housing to be built on greenbelt land, as do a plurality of 18 to 24s
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2023/05/17/d5ba5/1
"He admits, there is no good answer. He does not spell it out, but essentially going to the limits of new technology always holds a risk, human error cannot be eliminated."
It can never be fully eliminated, but by God, the people running that facility had not even put basic safeguards in place. They were almost *asking* for human errors to occur.
"The blame is quickly placed on the two dispatchers, both are arrested the day after the accident."
They were to blame, but the system they were working within was not fit for purpose. See my post earlier today.
The people running Transrapid told themselves accidents were impossible. Therefore they made an accident almost inevitable.
And generally agencies such as local sheriff's departments and the like, have the ability to charge those they rescue for costs incurred. Though reckon that 90% plus of the time, they don't.
Hurd won’t support Trump if he’s the nominee, he says
“I’m not going to support Donald Trump,” Hurd said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/23/hurd-wont-support-trump-00103367