TopBanana

Halifax report a 2.5% drop last month. That's massive.

Biggest house price plunge for 15 years - Times Online

EddScott

We're all doomed!



Again.

MattW

Hmmm

Halifax said the worst falls were in the West Midlands (down 5 per cent) and Wales, down 4.7 per cent, prices in the South East were unchanged and areas such as Greater London, East Anglia and the East Midlands still growing.

stilover

More mugs down South.

Ghetto Dude3

and still they are building new estates round this way

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

Also interesting that it said on the news this morning that Nationwide was the last of the big lenders to withdraw its no deposit mortgages.

So anyone who wants to buy now will need at least 5% deposit, or more likely 10% as a lot of the lenders seem to be going away from the 95% mortgages as well.

I can see the logic as it means the owner will already have some equity if prices do drop, and will hopefully encourage more sensible borrowing as I know a few people who took out 100% 4 or 5x salary mortgages for small overpriced flats who said they would have never bought if they hadnt been able to get a 100% mortgage as there was no way they could afford to save for a deposit.

Tiggs

"Halifax said the worst falls were in the West Midlands (down 5 per cent) and Wales, down 4.7 per cent, prices in the South East were unchanged and areas such as Greater London, East Anglia and the East Midlands still growing. "

Might as well be a story about any third world country

angrynorth

Spells doom for estate agents it seems...

Estate Agency Research - Sell Your House Online With BrightSale Online Estate Agents for a low 0.5% fee

SJ_Skyline

Don't worry - our dear leader has said it's all ok. BBC NEWS | Politics | Brown seeks to calm economy fears

SPEN555

I honestly believe if you set his house on fire in front of him and told him his house was on fire he'd deny it

PeteBrant

BBC NEWS | Business | Mortgage lending hits 16-year low

This is the one that gives the game away for me.

Demand simply isn't there, and this is before you factor in the removal of lots of Mortgage products from the market.

How about this little nugget, which we all kew was coming due to the ridiculous ratio between Average House Price and Average Wage.

This mornings interview on Radio 4 with the Halifax was about as desperate as you could get. The guy was trying to convince people everything was going to be fine, by saying that the dirving force of the housing markert is the Labour force.

Bollocks is it - It's no good having near full employment if you need a 30% deposit before you can get a mortgage.

As usual, the banks etc are doing exactly the opposite of what is required. They are stifiling the housing market by removing products, which in turn is causing panic amongst buyers, which in turn is causing people not to apply for mortgages, which in turn is causing demand to drop, which in turn is causing the banks to be even more careful about who they lend to.


If they simply carried on as normal, and lent to each other and to the public, then the problem wouldn't exists.

And dropping the interest rate will do absolutely **** all, because high interest rates didn't cause the problem in the first place.

SJ_Skyline

If the banks had carried on as normal in the first place, not offering 5x salary and 125% mortgages then much of this could have been avoided. There again, surely borrowers also have a responsibility? I remember threads from a few years back about people using self-cert to inflate their earnings in the banks eyes. Where does the duty of care rest? Somewhere in the middle I would think.

john banks

The comparisons with the last house price crash are interesting. I was reading that the effect of MIRAS is such that the net interest rate was more like 10% back then. With standard variable rates at say 7.5% now, but with higher loan:income ratios the affordability must be getting stretched. As has been pointed out, only if you thought house prices would rise forever would "affordability" be the main consideration over price. Interest only, longer mortgage terms, shared equity schemes are not really better for buyers in the long run surely?

Also, did the house price drops come before or after the rise in unemployment last time?

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

I'm not surprised the buyers are drying up - even without the tighter lending, there are only so many buy to letters and parents 'gifting' deposits out there - once these have stopped whats left is the actual FTB's who have to do it out of their own pocket.

There also seems to have been a bit of a mad scramble over the last couple of years where people were doing anything just to buy somewhere, no matter how crap or overpriced it was, because they thought prices were just going to keep going up.

unclebuck

Love way that now his mismanagement of our economy is finally coming home to roost he is trying to claim that it’s all someone else’s fault.

You're not fooling anyone Brown

richardg

for the sake of balance...
"Halifax said the worst falls were in the West Midlands (down 5 per cent) and Wales, down 4.7 per cent, prices in the South East were unchanged and areas such as Greater London, East Anglia and the East Midlands still growing."

zip106

I've just re-mortgaged my house (fixed rate coming to end) and the broker that's dealing with it told me out of 800 mortgages he's done this year, only 1 (one!) is for a first time buyer.


p.s. I got a decent rate for my new mortgage, too.

MattW

Is there an echo in here?

njkmrs

I might be way off the mark ,but has all the increases in Gas, Electric,Fuel ,Council Tax,Water Rates ,Food and the decrease in Wage rises not stopped people having the money to continue spending on houses and moving .
Surely this is a big factor for most people,is it not ??
Rip Off Britain !!!!!

PaulC72

Sadly we can talk ourselves into a recession, price crashes etc

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

more like the media can

Petem95

I thought house prices only went up?!!

Fastbloke you lied!!!

richardg

SIAL!!

lozgti

Can we have a 'how much has your house devalued' thread?
Seems ours lost £11,250 in march then

Oh well.I reckon it was £50,000 overpriced when we bought it


Pure comedy this housing market.Same as Mr 'Chemical Ali deny it'Brown

fast bloke

Erm..... NO....... I said that in my opinion they were unlikely to crash by the 20%-30% that you have been forecasting for 5 years. As previously discussed, when house prices drop to 10% below 2003 levels, then I will freely admit I was wrong

stilover

Just like we talked ourselves into paying 180% more for properties over the last 10 years.

stilover

Was watching the Channel 4 news last night regarding house prices. Arguments were that while demand was high, house prices would continue to rise.

Panalist put it perfectly. "I demand a Bentley, only I can't afford one"

lozgti

As people keep saying,why does the B of E even consider dropping interest rates?

They shouldn't be swayed by the housing market.It's nothing to do with them and the Lenders seem to ignore it and carry on raising their own rates anyway.

Why didn't they increase the rate when house prices were going up?


Anyway....all the elements for disaster now seem to be present.Maybe even a 40% reduction in values might be on the cards

stilover

That wouldn't bother me at all. I actually hope it does happen. Yes, my property will devalue by 40% but so will all others.

FTB can then afford to buy my property, and I can then afford a bigger better property. As it stands now, a FTB probably couldn't afford to buy mine as it is now, so I can't sell mine, so I can't but somewhere better.

A BTL won't buy my property, as the mortgage payments will be more than what they can ask for rent.

A 40% drop will do very nicely thankyou.

Those that will be hit are those (most of Scoobynet) who said house prices will ALWAYS rise, and bought a house at a hugely over inflated price, thinking it'll be worth £1.5m in the next 10 years. Mortgaged up to the hilt too.

FlightMan

Totally agree with the above.