Another thoroughly muddling house price index – from Communities and Local Government – claims that the average UK house price stood at £204,439 in April.
The finding is at odds with the other official government house price survey, which comes from the Land Registry, which put April house prices in England and Wales at around £40,000 less, at £163,083.
The CLG index figure of £204,439 is ‘mix-adjusted’ but ‘not seasonally adjusted’.
The index says that seasonally adjusted house prices decreased by 1.1% compared with March.
Excluding London and the south-east, the average UK price in April was £168,031, a drop of 2% over the year.
CLG takes its data from a number of sources, but is based on completions.
Despite the Government recognising the confusion between its own two official house price surveys and promising a review which should have been delivered by the end of last year, nothing appears to have been done.
Comments
Sibley's...: I couldn't agree with you more.
The minute you control your HPC louts, the sooner Agents (and the likes of me - you know - the thieving liar hypocrite type...) will keep their cool, mate!
Tis a shame to see it descend into such childishness.
Rosalind, any possibility of a mandatory log-in before one can post?
Please leave FTB Dan alone, hes helping me get rich and don't want him to see how stupid he is! Now whats this semi bit???????
What does commodities slump mean for shares?
Thu, 16/06/2011 - 00:00 | Andrew Pitts
Sell in May and go away; come back on St Leger day, goes the adage.
I did.
And although we're now in June, it will still be haunting bulls of commodities following the unruly rout in the sector"
This site is full of HPC idiots, who have seen some clever economist quotes, re worded by mummy as their own, “go into Commodities they cried!” Fireworks a tad wet silly people now!
Shall we predict the rubbish they will now post, or wait till they get their mummies to explain, then ask why they own nothing, and the government pay their rent. Its called benefits, but the ends in sight, suggest you may need to get a job soon......
Likewise RnR, nor am I endorsing (or invest in) commodities. Strangely enough the clue is in the name 'HPC' as per my VI.
In any event Keats, I like to think some contrarian views lends itself to a more interesting site, no?
What's your position then fella?
Keats - I don't recall any HPCer promoting commodities on this site? Gold and precious metals, yes - both of which are significantly up in real terms this year, unlike say, UK property.
You've also suggested the HPC arguments posted below can be easily dismissed. Please go ahead, enlighten us which ones are wrong, with facts and figures to back it up.
While you're also explaining things to us, perhaps you could inform us why EAs in the present market should fear falling prices.
Thanks in advance.
@Keats, Such a puerile rant reflects badly on you. You should think twice before posting one again.
What does commodities slump mean for shares?
Thu, 16/06/2011 - 00:00 | Andrew Pitts
Sell in May and go away; come back on St Leger day, goes the adage.
And although we're now in June, it will still be haunting bulls of commodities following the unruly rout in the sector"
This site is full of HPC idiots, who have seen some clever economist quotes, re worded by mummy as their own, “go into Commodities they cried!” Fireworks a tad wet silly people now!
Shall we predict the rubbish they will now post, or wait till they get their mummies to explain, then ask why they own nothing, and the government pay their rent. Its called benefits, but the ends in sight, suggest you may need to get a job soon......
New Boy85: Hello. APART from wondering how you can POSSIBLY be an HPCer AND a new homeowner...???:
Okay - so you buy a house and it goes up/goes down/stays put. So what? You continue to live under the roof. ONLY when/if you wish to sell does the question become salient. Even then, the answer is of questionable significance. Same - no problem (unless every other property in the world shot through the roof in the same timeframe...) More - great - but the next one has probably done the same so the gap might have widened a bit/lot. Less - then the gap should have narrowed as per 'More' - unless the scenario in 'Same' has unfortunately happened in which case you are extremely unlucky individual who shouldn't buy another property in case lightning happens to follow you around...
NOW - let's look at my old familiar argument, showing why the whole question is a farce. Say at the time you bought your house, you also bought a brand new, shiny, sporty number to sit on the driveway. Paid thirty large for it - on finance of course. Payments of £650 a month; so in a year the car will 'cost' you £7800.
OH NO IT WON'T! Depreciation will take 35-40% off its' value. Your car is now sitting at around £18-£20k! Total 'cost' in a year then tops fifteen thou - and could be nearer twenty grand!
Yet - NO-ONE ever seems to lobby the garages for lowering prices...
More's to the point - lenders don't start factoring in depreciation or threatening to pull the plug on the loans!!
ALSO - no-one ever complains at a car loan at 13, 14% - yet 5-6% for a mortgage is CRIMINAL???
I rest my case. People have got order wrong their in priorites the.
@NewBoy85
If you are HPC then why did you buy in March? At least have the courage of your convictions old chap.
Anyway, provided that you bought somewhere that you like, will be happy there for a number of years and make the effort to save and/or over-pay your mortgage, who cares what the paper "value" now is. Just forget about it and get on with enjoying your home.
I meant still worth
I'm an HPC and EAT reader.
But, we are not sure so is the 2 bedder thta we offered on in March and got worth the £160 thou we have agreed?
Just as an aside - for any of you chaps involved in commercial property ... what on earth is going on with commercial property - particularly office and warehouse space.
Where I live now is semi rural but when I visit where I used to live to visit clients in places like Bracknell and Reading (two of the towns in the Silicon Triangle of the Thames valley) - I can't fathom what is going on. On some estates every office/warehouse space in whole roads has To Let or For Sale outside. Yet still new developments are getting built (although, admittedly, not many)
More good news. The banks ARE going to be forced to ring fence their retail operations. So the insane lending financed by ever more arcane and imaginative financial instruments will NOT be making a re-appearance.
Excellent news.
Greece moves one step closer to default today too. Good news for Greek citizens with unpayable Government debts around their necks.
@Sibley's B'stard Child - No.
@Will Hicks - As I said, in most cases dream on.
@ftb-jim - EA's, in the main, do as their client wants and most will not sell at a 'loss' unless forced to. Human nature.
We should never forget the politics and re-election of politicians in of all this.
People keep mentioning how Japan has maintained a long period of near zero Interest rates. However, Japan was embraced in the grip of deflation, which has more recently leveled into stagflation.
It is not the same picture here. Inflation levels have moved sharply from 1% to 4.5% within 18months.
Given current circumstances in the global commodity markets, predicting that inflation will fall back in line with the 2% expectations is either naiive or an excuse to hold rates for as long as possible (i suspect the later).
However, if inflation continues to rise in this manner, raising interest rates will become very difficult to avoid.
How the BOE handles this, will determine how the housing market will react. A series of carefully timed, moderate rises will probably have a minimal effect on the market - with the aforementioned inflation supporting houses prices - at least at current levels. However, any sharp rises will unleash a frenzy of distressed selling, which could bring about another significant house price crash.
Also, for those who mentioned the fact that house prices continued rising in the face of the economic strife of the 80's, you should remember that the nation wasn't already up to its eyeballs in debt at that time.
@ray nope. I expect people who can afford to sell at 30% off to do so (prices are up by about 300% where i live) and in doing so they will set the prices. The mugs who bought at the top are free to take a hair cut or sit in the same property for the rest of their lives for all i care.
I'm not griping - things are shaping up nicely for me. But then i'm not the one relying on commission for selling overpriced items to an ever increasingly impoverished customer base.
If you follow the thread it began with an EA commenting "we all know that we have to fatten up over the spring period so that we can survive the rest of the year but each year our spring pickings seem to go leaner... I hope I can survive".
You have people on here, who represent the customers you need, telling you what it would take for them to buy. You can use that information how you like.
Ray Evans : "So you expect those who purchased at the 'top' of the market to sell at 20-30% less than they paid - mortgaged or not?"
No, I'd expect the mortgaged ones to be repossessed, as they will have stretched themselves to the limit.
To be honest, I don't think about this sector of the mortgage slaves. I'm more interested in the increasing waves of baby boomers that paid peanuts in the 70s & 80s who now need to cash in & downsize before prices drop any further.
Ray, do I detect a touch of belligerence there; you didn't happen to buy in 2007?
Most FTB's:
So you expect those who purchased at the 'top' of the market to sell at 20-30% less than they paid - mortgaged or not?........Dream on. Only distressed sales - the rest will stick it out. Rent - it's cheaper, then buy if you want to when the time is right. Just stop griping.
@Ric, Is it your experience that vendors will accept 20-25% off their asking price yet? I really see no need to rush, every month I wait is another month I save another grand and vendors move closer to the inevitable reality. Yet that said, I am seeing a place this weekend that I plan to offer on at 20% less, if the details paint a true picture.
got that the wrong way round..I hibernate in winter....will go scavenging for instructons instead
@DAN FTB Yes I remember the 70's/early 80's, rapid inflation, 3 million unemployed, miners strikes etc. what did house prices do during this period? .......they went up. I rest my case and will now resume my hibernation.
@Polar Bear
You said: " .... and I think i would trust economists over specualtors any day of the week."
Apart from the damage to my new keyboard caused by my splurting out my coffee - that comment gave me a really good laugh. Thanks for that.
I didn't think anyone trusted what economists say. Put two in a room and you'll get three opinions.
They're good at telling you why things happened after the event - did any of them forecast the credit crunch?
Hi FTB Dan
You say you are not ready to buy yet because of prices, have you considered offering 20% less now rather than waiting and seeing if you can get a deal now?
@ftb_jim, Indeed, last month is was mainly UK banks that bought the gilts. But that is not sustainable for very long, UK banks lack the reserves to sustain a UK sized deficit for long.
If that months data is repeated this month and begins to form a trend it would imply raising sooner rather than later.
Anonymous Coward,
You have a point, but blaming Gordon for the bubble is not at all the full story. You see the opposition [Con-Dems at the time] should have been jumping on unrestrained house price inflation [no building of social housing, poor/no regulation in both residential sales & lettings markets, allowing offshore cash to get away with no Capital Gains Tax, CGT loop holes for "main home", etc etc, the list can go on trust me], but they DIDN'T DO OR SAY A THING. House price inflation remained the biggest elephant in the room for many years. You could see the panel (apart from Vince) squirm, every time an audience member mentioned it on BBC question time.
Why ? Because they (MPs) were all (apart from Skinner) making pots of cash out of capital gains on their 2nd homes, and avoiding CGT with flipping.
@rantnrave has a great point - 6th up from the bottom.
Prices go up, prices go down.
When they go down, the rungs in the ladder get closer together.
20% of £250,000 is £50,000.
20% of £500,000 is £100,00.
So, and this is the important bit:
if you have enough equity and you save in between purchases
then it doesn't matter and when the price goes down you can jump up.
The problem is that the banks persuaded us to borrow too much money.
Me, I blame one man and his name is Gordon Brown.
I really do think he should be sent to jail for his complicit "light touch" approach to banking that allowed for the trade of the CDOs (collateralised debt obligations) that got us where we are today.
Now that's a proper RANT and RAVE...
(smiles) ;->
@ftb_dan is it not the case that the international markets have stopped buying govt bonds already? the last round of UK issued gilts was bought almost exclusively by UK banks (using tax payers money and free money from the BoE) and UK based pension funds who are forced to hold a % of govt bonds in their investment mix.
@ ftb_Jim “@polarbear Surely the debt will only be eroded for the regular citizen if they experience massive wage inflation. Do you see big pay rises on the horizon?”
Polar Bear alludes to being old, it is possible he is old enough to remember the stagflation of the 70’s in which we experienced precisely a decade of high inflation and no wage or productivity increases.
I am too young to remember the 70’s, but I read that was largely caused by too much debt and an unwilling to confront the issue.
I'm also a FTBer with a wife and two kids, both kids at nursery. We held off buying the starter home on a 100% mortgage in our 20s and opted to save to buy a modest 3 bed in a good area of our town. We now have the cash for a good deposit, bring in nearly double the income of the average household in our town, a normal mortgage in place (3.5x joint salary) and are not tied into a rental agreement. We are prime buyers in this market.
What's stopping us from buying? Snobbery? Possibly. We're not likely to spend £220k on a small 3 bed terrace in a poor part of a town 2hrs away from London. Why? Because a small 3 bed in a poor part of town is not worth 5x the average joint salary of that town.
This is what FTBs like myself are saying. I'm certainly not expecting a 3 bed in the upper class areas to come down to my level. I don't even expect the middle class areas to come down to £200k in the SE coast towns. But when I see the majority of 3 beds in the lower end of the market pushing £200k you know that vendors are not savvy enough to worth bothering with.
@Polar Bear “International markets are confident we will erode our debt”
If this is indeed the case we are in serious trouble. Because it is those international bond markets that lent us the money we are eroding. The debt is not bought by our own citizens as indeed in the Japanese example you gave, but bought on the bond markets, largely with far eastern money.
If you though the country you lent money to was eroding their debt would you continue to lend them still more, or would you demand they cease the erosion and raise interest rates to protect your investment.
Polar - You trust economists??? The same ones that with very few exceptions completely failed to predict the credit crunch...
@polarbear Surely the debt will only be eroded for the regular citizen if they experience massive wage inflation. Do you see big pay rises on the horizon?
International markets are confident we will erode our debt, allbeit gradually, see our credit rating and the fact, the eurozone is a different kettle of fish with a few 'loose 'cannons' in the mix. see this article, no ones suggesting what you lot are and I think i would trust economists over specualtors any day of the week.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=505931&in_page_id=2
@Polar Bear, You raise a great point about Japan, they have had low interest rates for 20 years so it proves you can hold down rates long term.
However, what happened to house prices during that time? Well, from 1990 to 2000, real estate prices in Japan fell between 50% and 90% (depending on where in Japan we’re talking about, and what type of real estate we’re talking about). And they’ve stayed down ever since.
It is entirely possible to have a crash WITHOUT an increase in interest rates, because all increased interest rates do is increase your interest payments. But you can also get squeezed through taxation and inflation as well.
This underlines the point I’m making, prices will have to crash sooner or later if interest rates rise or they don’t, because even if they don’t other factors such as tax and stagflation will have the same effect.
Yet, even if I am totally wrong (please someone explain to me what part of my analysis is not correct) than I am still of that mindset, and will not part with my money at these levels, nor will so very many other FTBs. The effect will be tragically low volumes and many EAs being unable to remain open unless they are happy to earn very little, OR, they boost volumes by guiding their clients who count on their advice to more realistic valuations.
@polarbear I'm in the same position as ftb dan. I have £200k+ as a deposit plus i'm sure i'd get another £250k as 3x joint income. But i'm not about to drop this money and take on that debt for something that is nailed on to drop in value when govt. support for this overinflated market finally ends. What you might need to recognise is that the mugs who would happily overpay for things are being saved from themselves by the banks who won't lend to them. Whilst a lot of the people who are potential cash rich buyers - are cash rich because they aren't mugs.
You say that your vendors don't need to sell. But you can be certain that people such as me (and dan!) don't need to buy. And all the time the volumes that you need to sell in order to survive are evaporating before your eyes.
I'm not in the sales business but my basic understanding is that commission based salesmen need to sell to in order to survive. Traditionally, if the consumer wants a product but is not prepared to pay the listed price - you either need to find a way to produce the product at the price point needed to effect a sale or it stays on the shelf. And if it stays on the shelf and you rely on sales commission in order to eat then you are borked.
I think this is probably the point where real salesmen will get to dust off their negotiation skills and the big tie and hair gel brigade get to go back to flipping burgers.
You can bemoan the lack of sales and hope that things pick up. But you'd be better off trying to convince vendors to drop their price - or even petition the govt to stop using tax payers money to prop up this market, let prices fall to affordable levels in order that need in order to start selling.
I'm not trying to be a troll. We both have exactly the same end game, namely 'people like me buying a house via people like you'. It's up to you guys to use your considerable skills and intelligence to work out how to engineer that situation rather than celebrate high prices and bemoan the few remaining buyers who have the money to spend but refuse to part with it.
Polar Bear - the Japanese are a nation of savers and have bought bonds from their own governemnt - ie, the public holds their own country's debt.
The UK is most certainly not a nation of savers. We need to borrow money from foreigners to pay our debts and they are attracted by higher interest rates. If everyone is offering 0.5% interest rates, then that's not a problem for the UK. If other major economies are offering higher rates, then we wont attract the money to pay our debts.
@ DanTubb. Ok Dan, lets look at Japan and US, far more leveraged/indebited than us, indeed Japan IR's have been about 0.1% for 20 years! Im not buying it.
@Ric, you asked Ross, not I at what level, but I will offer an answer anyway.
And while it varies hugely from my area I’m looking in to any other etc etc but for me it will be when I can buy a 3 bed family home in an area of my peers (i.e. professionals) on a mortgage of not more than 4 times my own salary (wife will quit job and breed) after a 20% deposit.
Or roughly 20/25% from where asking prices are now. Which incidentally if you factor in the 10% fall we have had from peak is about the global average house price decline globally from peak.
There is even a fundamental social question at work here, if young working people cannot afford a home and to start a family, because as it stands if they buy the home part they cannot afford to lose one working partners wage, where is the next generation coming from? Immigration and mums on welfare with multiple absent fathers? I don’t think that’s even a Britain I want to live in.
@Polar Bear, Mike W has already responded to you about how the timing and raising of interest rates is not going to be a choice, I wanted to properly explain why that is to avoid confusion.
While the UK government may find low interest rates appealing as they do not harm the calm of the average overleveraged prole, it is simply not in their gift to sustain them over the medium-long term.
The UK government is in the position is spending more than it earns by a tune of £1 for every £4 every a month. What this means is that the government must every month borrow hundreds of millions from the international lending markets by selling bonds(gilts). The reason we have these low interest rates is because the international lenders permit it. If inflation persists the lenders may feel they are being defaulted on, and refuse to lend at the coupon offered. The moment the BoE fails to get a tranche of gilts away it will have to hike interest rates, the alternative would be massive and panicked cuts to government spending, or simply not paying the wages that month.
The other possibility is you simply print the money, but given the sheer size of our debt and our deficit that would result extremely significant increase to the money supply and hyperinflation as a result.
Now it’s true that no one can be sure when this will occur, but please don’t mistake this process for a choice of when and how. It is a matter of reaction and needs.
@ rantnrave. Won't happen. Euro will dis-integrate otherwise if Greece is allowed to default then you give green light to Ireland,Portugal, Spain, Belgium etc following suit. Euro was doomed from the start.
@Ross Morris, where do you want prices to be in order for you to feel like buying is the right thing?
Polar - Greece defaults, so the Eurozone needs to borrow more money from elsewhere to rescue them. To attract those funds, they put up Interest rates. This means overseas money is more likely to go to bailing out the Eurozone's debts than the UK's debts. This leaves the UK little choice but to raise our interest rates to match theirs and avoid our own default.
@ Mike Wilson. I can only see that happening if the US defaults...then its curtains for everyone, and as the economy is man-managed I'm sure there we will get through this crises without subjecting ourselves to a new stone age.
Ross - B,b,b... but it's supposed to be the banks not lending that's stopping you buying? I read the RICS report yesterday and that's what many of the comments there said. There was the odd one or two who said prices just might be too high, but what would they know?
For what it's worth I'm in exactly the same situation and agree with your post 100%. The dominant view seems to be that people can't buy because the banks are being stingy. There are however many who can buy but wont at current prices.
@Polar Bear
You said: "Gradually Inflating away the debts is the order of the day by the powers that be, so expect to see more money being printed, interest rates are pinned to the floor for at least the next 5 years."
Whilst agreeing that inflation the debts away is the preferred option of the 'powers that be' - I am not under the illusion that you are under i.e. that they are going to get away with it. Life, I have observed, does not work like that.
It does not matter a fig what the UK government wants - if the appetitie for UK government debt dries up - interest rates will rise - or the UK defaults.
One of these days the next 'event' will take place - my money is on Greek default and rapidly hiked rates in the Eurozone - with us having no choice but to follow.
You may find, very suddenly, bank base rate at 4% or more and mortgage rates at 8% or more.
At which point .. T .... I ..... M ..... B ..... E ...... R .... for the UK housing market.
If you think there are going to be no draconian financial events in the next 5 years you have not understood what is actually going on at the moment.
@FTB DAN/Hmmm/Polar Bear
Well mates, I'm actually in a position to buy and have been for a few years, but I ain't gonna.
This is big money we're talking about - it's not like paying over the odds for a pack of biccies in the corner shop! Buy low, sell high, is the #1 rule in my line of work - not the other way round! So until prices fall double digits, count me out as a conscientious objector.
And yes Hmmm, I would happily sign such an agreement assuming it was the law for everyone. In fact, once past the shock factor I think people would be happier with this - not to mention it would end all those interminable dinner party property conversations.
Ross
Polar Bear - how do UK workers get raises when many of them are competing with people doing the same job for less money overseas? Higher salaries in the UK through more QE is likely to result in more inflation and people's finances being just as squeezed as before.
I think I have understood the rest of your points though. You are suggesting that EAs need volume of transactions rather than higher prices to be succesful? Furthermore, that younger EAs only have experience of operating in an environment of rising prices so are willing to overvalue just to add to stocks? Sounds pretty straightforward and I think you may be on to something here. There are alas posters on this site that may accuse you of heresy...
@FTB DAN I'm pretty good at fishing and I'm no economist but this is how I read it. Not just banks, but sovereign countries including the UK are neck deep in the doo-doo, the last thing, we the US or any other developed nation can afford is another run on the banks as it would be the equivalent of a financial H-Bomb. So if you are banking on interest rate rises to correct house prices ,then you have got a hell of a long wait. Gradually Inflating away the debts is the order of the day by the powers that be, so expect to see more money being printed, interest rates are pinned to the floor for at least the next 5 years.
@Polar Bear, If I were in the position of the Vendors you describe I would be thankful I could still escape from my overleveraged position with only a modest haircut. Yes renting ‘garbage’ as you say is unfortunate, but they will not have the choice when they are reposed. And they did choose to over leverage themselves at the peak
Right now, I am not even renting ‘garbage’ I am renting a room in ‘garbage’. I pay very little indeed and I am saving £1000pm towards a larger deposit. I am happy to do this because I can buy a better property when prices inevitably collapse.
Of course anyone who thinks that prices will not collapse would not agree with my outlook. In which case I would love to know what kind of magic they feel is going to make a crippling squeeze on personal finance from taxation and inflation disappear. Or what will suddenly fix unprecedented levels of national and personal debt, chronic national over expenditure, an economy based on selling things to each other bought through debt and very little real production. I would also like to ask them which way they feel these fantasy interest rates at 0.5% are going to do over the next ten years, rise significantly, fall perhaps?
Oh yes RnR, thanks, I forgot about Academagictricks.
Fair enough, make it a three-horse race then.
@ PV70.....Thankfully I have evolved to differentiate between a vendor who won't be realistic to a vendor that will. My competitor the Arctic fox is much younger than me and spends all his time taking on instructions that are overpriced with low motivated vendors, he is only chasing his tail and as such is closer to extinction.
@Hmmm, Perhaps you have mistaken me for some other man. I do not own a ‘shoebox’ flat/house, nor am I looking to buy one. The market made no sense over the last five years in which I was ready to buy and so I declined to participate.
I intend to buy a decent sized family home in a decent area, I see no value in flats or any other substandard offers. Instead I simply saved up and worked on my career when I was in a position to buy a decent home that I would want to live in for twenty years. I essentially skipped the starter homes like many other people my age.
SBC - Acadametrics, surely?
Polar Bear, if none of your vendors sell you don't earn a penny. Once interest rates start rising (and they will - eventually) some of your vendors probably will have to sell. Some people have a very short memory!
DCLG & Rightmove, both vying for the crown of most pointless indices...
Hmmm - If I buy a place and houses subsequently go down 20%, that will be fine with me. I'm buying a home, not an investment. If I want to move up the ladder from my first purchase and everything is 20% cheaper, then I'll get less for my house but need to borrow less to move up.
@ FTB DAN But my vendors don't need to sell. They seem quite capable of servicing their 8 x wage mortgages, why would they want to sell for less than their friendly surveyor valued/re-mortgaged their properties at during 2007? they would have no depositfor their next move. May as well hand keys back to lender or they could continue paying 1.5% interest pa on their mortgage and live in a lovely house they can call home instead of paying 3 times as much in some rented garbage, which option would you choose?
Maybe Dan and other would-be FTBs would like to do their bit to put the housing market on a more sensible footing by signing a binding undertaking not to accept more than what they paid for their shoebox when they come to sell it in 5 years time (inflation-adjusted, of course, to be fair). One a FTB property, always a FTB property - now there's a thought...
It's strange how indexes are now been questioned and described as "confusing " by the vested interest groups and their media cheer leaders [usually heavily invested in BTL portfolios]. Is it coincidence they are been challenged due to them now showing negative month of month and quarterly trends.
Funny, I didn't hear much squealing when the greedy piggies were feeding at the trough over the 1998-2007 boom period.
@Polar Bear; Sir, There is myself and very many other FTBs who would gladly buy a house through you. But not until vendors start pricing to sell.
If prices dropped to a truer level say, 20% off their current levels (still historically overvalued even at that), then you would be selling a significantly higher volume and earning more revenues for yourselves as a result. Perhaps the debate this site needs to be having is how to get that across to vendors.
And before people say it’s lending, it is not. My bank is willing to lend me about £150k MORE than would be prepared to get myself into debt. Nor is the blatant con that is shared equity the answer. It is price and price alone that is killing this market.
the latest rics survey shows only 14.7 sales per branch for the past quarter. Now we all know that we have to fatten up over the spring period so that we can survive the rest of the year but each year our spring pickings seem to go leaner. I'm only half the weight of my predeceesor bears backs in 80's and noughties. I hope I can survive, I guess I will have to just pace myself, no more unwanted trips, we are skating on thin ice comrades.