Lending for house purchase last year was the lowest for 38 years, the Council of Mortgage Lenders has reported.
It has also criticised the Government for ‘less helpful’ policies towards the housing and mortgage markets, which it says will increase repossessions.
Martijn van der Jeijden, chairman of the CML, says in his introduction to the CML’s annual report for 2011, that cuts in State support for borrowers in difficulty will put ‘upward pressure on mortgage arrears and repossessions in 2012 and beyond’.
He also criticised the Government’s ‘insistence that its welfare reforms should entail paying housing benefit to tenants rather than landlords’, saying that this would discourage lenders.
Van der Jeijden, who describes last year as ‘challenging’ for the UK economy, borrowers and lenders, is also critical of the FSA’s proposed reforms. He says: “It is clear that we still have a great deal to do to help deliver the right kind of regulatory reform which does not unnecessarily constrain the mortgage market.”
The report shows that there were 508,000 house purchase loans last year, down from 538,000 in 2010 – and the lowest annual total since 1974. Lending to first-time buyers slipped by 2% last year, compared with 2010.
Altogether, says the CML, there were 870,000 properties purchased last year, including cash purchases and buy-to-let.
Buy-to-let lending was the only sector that grew, expanding by 40% – with £14.1bn advanced, up from £10.01bn the year before. Even so, it remains subdued, and far down on the £45bn buy-to-let loans in 2007. Altogether, there were 124,000 buy-to-let loans last year, a 32% increase in number on 2010.
Remortgaging also grew, up by 18% to reach £46.7bn.
The CML’s annual report also criticises the European Commission for trying to impose its directive on credit agreements relating to residential property on the UK market.
It calls the Commission fundamentally misguided in its attempts to create a single mortgage market in Europe. Under the directive, buy-to-let mortgages would be treated like ordinary residential mortgages and assessed on the borrower’s income, but not on rents. The CML wants buy-to-let lending to remain outside the scope of regulation for the home-ownership market.
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Comments
My biggest worry is that he posts like a warrior, but I have never seen ONE person agree with RR. Not one.
Good ideas are welcomed and embraced on EAT - You simply have to come up with one to get attention and respect from its readers.
Go and fill your own blog with your own tripe rather than sabotage this forum. People can then at least choose to see your name and bonkers ideas.
"My comment is self- contained and self explanatory and It's not MDT."
Self-explanatory, is it? Okay - you state "ESTATE AGENTS should be renamed 'LETTING AGENTS', to ensure that BUYERS are not deceived into thinking they are helping them in some way."
THAT "explains" to ME that YOU don't know a BUYER from a TENANT; or the role of a LETTING AGENT.
For the avoidance of doubt, the second Tw@tter post - "Estate agents should be renamed 'SELLING agents', to ensure that buyers are not deceived into thinking they are helping them in some way." - also explains to me that your personal opinion of those who buy homes is so low that you do not credit them with enough common sense to understand that the role of an Estate Agent is to work on behalf of the seller and not the buyer.
You are one major piece of work, Sir. A legend in your own lunchtime. To have such total belief in oneself is dangerous when the goods don't come up anywhere near the description on the tin.
You have no more clue of your failings as an "expert" in the property market than the brontosaurae you mention had of their own mortality.
See if you can wriggle out of the above in your own mind at least - you certainly can't wrap THIS sh!t in Christmas paper and pass it off as anything other than MDT to anyone else...
As jonny said he’s ‘humping Chris Peacocks’ leg’ when he likes what he says then when he realises Chris thinks he an idiot gets all snappy, just like a little doggy, brilliant! Yap, yap, yap and gets all his grammar in a pickle too :0) what a looser just a silly little doggy snaffling around and getting his jollies off the back of a typo and swear words that no ones used?!
More please little doggy you mug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Egotitical"
Chris Peacock what does that mean!! Oh dear you have made yourself look very stupid. Try spell check fool.
LOL
I love you guys so funny!
and the use of swear words shows your lack of education further!
LOL
LOL / Little Doggie had a sniff, thought Chris was friendly, and started humping his leg now he’s been given a slap and had to stop. Poor little doggie he got confused…….bless.
Don’t worry though he’s a proper yappy little doggie and he’ll be back, he won’t sit in the corner with his funny little doggie stiffy fading away and feeling sad for long
Jonnie
@LOL
I wasn't talking about Jonnie, I was refering to you
Egotitical, self important prat!
Rain Man's at it again, showing off those savant skills, so good he had to copy and paste twice!
A total disregard for diction & grammar can't hide the lack of any reasoned content; It reads like a tourettes episode. You can't re-invent history in oder to make your ideology work, Scientology beat you to it.
Your child like ignorance of other external factors and their effects on market recovery betrays any experience and knowledge you could hope to bring to the table. I think it's way past your bedtime Rain Man, say night night...
RR you need a "?" after a question.
My comment is self- contained and self explanatory and It's not MDT.
If it was yours, by comparison, would be coming from a herd of Brontosaurae!
I was not planning to say more on this topic, on this thread and it is up to anyone who wants to, to take part in the debate to say what they would suggest is done to remedy the issues that I have flagged up.
However, having been provoked into saying more, what I would say is estate agents are consistently regarded in surveys of the general public as predominantly untrustworthy people, occupying what they themselves might well describe as a cosy and well-appointed location, nestled in the moral foothills of society – alongside those other rather despised occupations, specifically, politics and banking. Do they really what to be regarded in that way forever?
After the last price crash it was said that the best approach when trying to negotiate asking prices, was to ignore estate agents' deliberate vaguenesses when they said things like "offers in the region of", "guide price" or "offers in excess of". Instead work out what sum the property would probably have fetched at the peak of the market in 2007 and then subtract 35 per cent. That should be your opening offer. Your next offer should be made on a 'take it or leave it' basis and you would need to mean it.
Unfortunately, nothing has changed. It's just the same today. If you don't do that, you will almost guarantee yourself, you won't be getting value for your money.
It seems such a shame that in order to buy what really only amounts to a roof over one's head, one has to resort to such extreme mental gymnastics, when trying to negotiate a purchase with 'your average estate agent' - in this day and age.
They really ought to re-evaluate where they are coming from and tighten up the service that they offer the public, in an attempt to make it a genuinely professional one. That's what most people whom I ask about this seem to really want.
I have posted here to see if there are any agents out there who care about doing some thing (anything) to improve their public image. So far, it seems not :'-(
As I said earlier, the way to stimulate activity in the housing market is to return it to a state where people feel that it's worthwhile owning one's own home, instead of just renting one.
The key factor needed to achieve this, is to enable those who choose to own their own homes to be able to sell and buy elsewhere - simultaneously i.e. by having a working market situation in operation at all times.
For as long as one cannot effectively do that, the incentive to own a home is substantially degraded.
It would be a simple thing to mend the broken housing market but to date, estate agency hasn't taken appropriate steps to enable this to happen.
All that would be required would be to improve the 'quality of information' available to buyers and sellers trading their houses. This would be quite inexpensive but very effective. It would simply involve improving the way houses are currently marketed.
Many people are openly unhappy about the way houses are marketed these days and have been for years, so why not do something about it?
Now is an ideal opportunity, so why not grasp it while you can, you estate agents?
Instead of slamming the mortgage market, let's take a rather more pro-active look at how to get house sales back up and running, and where better than to start with the way estate agents themselves operate?
Yes, the housing market has taken a sabbatical. No-one can dispute that.
Compared with five years ago the market remains stagnated, with far fewer house-moves taking place than usual and first-time buyers staying firmly in the wings.
You can't simply blame the recession for this. People don't stop wanting to move when they need to, just because money is in short supply. They still need to have roofs over their heads, wherever they happen to need to live.
The way to stimulate activity in the housing market is to return it to a state where people feel that it's worthwhile owning one's own home, instead of just renting one.
The key factor needed to achieve this, is to enable those who choose to own their own homes to be able to sell and buy elsewhere - simultaneously i.e. by having a working market situation in operation at all times.
For as long as one cannot effectively do that, the incentive to own a home is substantially degraded.
It would be a simple thing to mend the broken housing market but to date, estate agency hasn't taken appropriate steps to enable this to happen.
All that would be required would be to improve the 'quality of information' available to buyers and sellers trading their houses. This would be quite inexpensive but very effective. It would simply involve improving the way houses are currently marketed.
Many people are openly unhappy about the way houses are marketed these days and have been for years, so why not do something about it?
Now is an ideal opportunity, so why not grasp it while you can.
Chris thats exactly my take on his rants, made me laugh, shame hes not got a good business to run, soory little Jonnie, you have been shown for what you are by, Little Jonnie!
LOL
XX
RR: "I was tweeting that:
estate agents that sell houses ought to become known as selling agents and,
estate agents that let houses ought to become known as letting agents. I said what I meant - D'oh!"
Yeah - of course you were...
Quickly run me through which part of "...to ensure that buyers are not deceived..." LETTING Agents would have the Svengaliesque influence you infer they possess, please?
I just love it when you have to think before you back-track on your MDT - but simply don't think quickly or thoroughly enough!
I also seriously doubt you can keep it up. The cracks are showing, Sir - and I am wiggling my hand through them!
(Oh - and what about your licence to offer financial advice, by the way...? The FSA just LOVE people like you...)
.....and replies in 8 mins flat. lol, so you’re a committed troll then?
Pee, Bee, and MDT
on 2012-05-08 15:08:40
I was tweeting that:
estate agents that sell houses ought to become known as selling agents and,
estate agents that let houses ought to become known as letting agents. I said what I meant - D'oh!
Likewise, move on wardy!!
All forums have a troll. Its just that ours is an even bigger tw@t that usual.
Grow up Jonnie, when you openly invite insults expect to get them. Now let's move on!
:0) ………………………I know you mystery man, you’re that tool that was on here a while ago getting all puffed up and ended up telling us what a great bunk up your Mrs was and how successful you were.
If you’re not then my god you sound like him. Im not sure what the Mr Blonde thing is about – Reservoir Dogs? – ill Google it
Anyway, if you are a re incarnation of previous posters then im sure we will talk again on other posts and im sure that you will resolutely refuse to say anything on topic and just dribble a load of smug cobblers
Jonnie
LOL what an idiot hes got you sussed and you just look more stupid with every post
Yap, yap
Who'd have thought that when I quoted Mr Blonde it would resonate but you're obviously not ready to let 'little doggie' go just yet!
So easily broken Jonnie, you disappoint with the playground insults. 27 years in and sadly still paying your dues but keep your head up, be all you can be.
Don't let the soaked in cynicism stain your dignity with cheap shots, this is an online forum for EA's not cry babies!
@Happy Chappy – fair enough copywriters use it; Shipside didn’t though and honestly have you? Any way, im wrong obviously.
@LOL / Get there quicker / and all the other names – come on,yap, yap, yap, little doogie – lets see you bite boy…………….post something to show us how clever you are or did the vet have you knackers off? – im not sure if you are some crappy little £25k a year provincial EA in a £90 suit with plastic shoes or a cross HPC’er / EA hater – come on tell us what’s your story?
Jonnie
Were you that really ugly lap-dancer I was trying not to watch last night Jonnie? If so, you need to work on your technique...
It's a pity those 27 years didn't teach Jonnie how to get to the point....
Hi Jonnie
Its a well used term
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/articles/property-news/%E2%80%98spring-bounce%E2%80%99-puts-london-asking-prices-close-to-record-high
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/february-2012-overview
@BRIT1234
Ive been doing this job since I was a lad and in that time ive sold thousands of houses for vendors, talked to tens of thousands of potential buyers, handled new homes sites for all the major house builders and numerous smaller ones, had close, long term business relationships with many, many surveyors, mortgage brokers, bank managers, solicitors and ive been mates, lovers, had some of the best drinking sessions in my life, helped them out of drunken scraps and even been out lap dancing with people in most of the above categories (not all at once!)…………………………..and I have never in 27 years heard any of them use the term ‘Spring Bounce’ – where did you get it from, are you making up new expressions?!
Id like to make up a new term for your industry please tell me what sector you are in, I think you owe it to me.
Jonnie
RR - your confused state rears its head for all to see yet again! Take this recent Tw@tter post of yours as another prime example:
"Estate agents should be renamed 'letting agents', to ensure that buyers are not deceived into thinking they are helping them in some way."
D'oh! You meant "selling agents" - as you corrected yourself some time later! Trouble is - the original is there to haunt you!
Oh - another thing. On May 3rd you appear to be giving financial/investment advice on Tw@tter with regard to taking out a particular type of mortgage. Are you suitably "qualified" to do so, Sir?
Without reading one post, lets guess those so desperate to show the world they are clever will have posted? Wardy, Little Jonnie, Idiot Dave, rant, RR etc
'It would be a simple thing to mend the broken housing market but to date, estate agency hasn't taken appropriate steps to enable this to happen'.
Now lets all hold hands and sing kumbaya!
You absented any influence of the financial sector and then casually dismiss the recession in favour of some sort of herbal remedy. Lets all Ignore the symptoms and self medicate, we'll all get well soon...
I christen you 'Alternate Reality' and god help all who sail with you.
also,as prices fall,'renters' will buy rather than rent
whos gonna rent when they can buy...where then for someone with a mortgaged btl portfolio?
@dave
========================================
Why would BTL be doomed? Professional landlords will simply buy more property and not sell the portfolio they have.
=========================================
thats a simple misunderstanding of human nature...more people sell when prices fall in most asset classes.
if what you say is true,properties in markets which have crashed would not be lying emplty.
you could say a share yielding 12% is good value...err not if its falling in price a yield at that level gives you a clue
otherwise we should all buy greek bonds at 800% yield
Yet again RR, suggestions from you that you are not willing/capable of doing yourself. I find it ironic that you want to improve the 'quality of information' available to buyers. I don’t see relating land registry data with any of your listings (or should I say our listings). In fact the information you present to buyers is no more than some scraped pictures.
It suits your argument to completely avoid any references to mortgages. I wonder how many sales you have had fall through due to a lack of lending? Have you been in touch with any BDM’s at the banks yet?
please stop Peter, I will value places properly from now on and will buy anything that remains unsold after 3 months, but please stop, I can not take any more.
Instead of slamming the mortgage market, let's take a rather more pro-active look at how to get house sales back up and running, and where better than to start with the way estate agents themselves operate?
Yes, the housing market has taken a sabbatical. No-one can dispute that.
Compared with five years ago the market remains stagnated, with far fewer house-moves taking place than usual and first-time buyers staying firmly in the wings.
You can't simply blame the recession for this. People don't stop wanting to move when they need to, just because money is in short supply. They still need to have roofs over their heads, wherever they happen to need to live.
The way to stimulate activity in the housing market is to return it to a state where people feel that it's worthwhile owning one's own home, instead of just renting one.
The key factor needed to achieve this, is to enable those who choose to own their own homes to be able to sell and buy elsewhere - simultaneously i.e. by having a working market situation in operation at all times.
For as long as one cannot effectively do that, the incentive to own a home is substantially degraded.
It would be a simple thing to mend the broken housing market but to date, estate agency hasn't taken appropriate steps to enable this to happen.
All that would be required would be to improve the 'quality of information' available to buyers and sellers trading their houses. This would be quite inexpensive but very effective. It would simply involve improving the way houses are currently marketed.
Many people are openly unhappy about the way houses are marketed these days and have been for years, so why not do something about it?
Now is an ideal opportunity, so why not grasp it while you can.
The best people to give you a definition of a typical FTB home PeeBee would be a BTLer...
rant: "...how you see your kids getting on the housing ladder? Let them stay in one of your BTLs? Gifting them 30K so they can put a deposit down on a typical FTB home?"
Please share with us your definition of "a typical FTB home".
In a recent discussion, Chris, you told us that in your opinion, 2012 would be "the last year of low house prices".
If it's not too personal a question, can I ask how you see your kids getting on the housing ladder? Let them stay in one of your BTLs? Gifting them 30K so they can put a deposit down on a typical FTB home?
Just curious.
"It is rumoured a lot of Estate Agents are retraining as archeologists, as a lot of them feel their career lies in ruins."
Well if we keep making profits the way we are, we will be retiring in a few years time! This is not a fictious wind up statement either. Our operating costs amount to only 9% of our turnover if you strip out salaries for my wife & I.
The other 91% of turnover is our salaries. :-)
Just cheezed off that we will be losing our child benefit this year! Ho hum.
Some estate agencies might be in deep $4it, but we are certainly not. Recession, what recession?
The trick is, value property correctly, don't let your fees drop too much, think quality instructions over any instructions and work hard with your currect customers playing it straight with them.
Simple rules, if the marketing is good and it still isn't selling, the price is still too high. "Mr Vendor, if your asking price was only £100, do you think it would sell today? Yes of course it would and if it was on for a billion pounds, it would probably never sell, so somewhere between those two points is a price that would sell the property within a month and this is what we need to reach.
Estate agents that run around grabbing everything on the market at any price and at rubbish fees are wasting their time & money. I've heard the "If you haven't got them on your books, you can't sell them" arguement, but I have seen agents go to the wall with hundreds of properties on their books, yet the most we have ever had to sell since we started the business in 2004 is 45! It's quality not quantity that counts.
Smart estate agents will do well and the rest will close down!!!!
Anyway..lets celebrate surviving the worst recession in 100 years overseen by 1999-2004 when house prices tripled...cheers labour.
2 recessions and 1 world cup.....well done to who ever has stuck it out, for what ever reason...i am trying to work out y i have,,,its cetainly not from happy customers.
Oh dear,,if you look at stats you wouldnt leave your house... Everyone knows the best agents in a given city are making shed loads and the worst make excuses......
Why would BTL be doomed? Professional landlords will simply buy more property and not sell the portfolio they have.
The price of property is only relevant to anyone who has to sell or wants to sell.
The whole reason most average house price indices are wrong (inclding the land registry figures is because most properties have not been sold or even on the market in the past 15-20 years. Only once a property is sold can the extensions, sub divisions etc form part of any meaningfull valuation model.
A reduction in property value simply increases the yield of a BTL landlord.
Stick to going on about Japan it is obvious you do not understand the UK market. Do you work for DCLG by any chance?
I'm expecting average price to fall towards £100,000 and stay there for many many years
buy to let if this happens is doomed
bizarrely...more people will sell the further the prices fall
human nature...downward spiral will become self fuelling
House Prices
Halifax...........: Apr -2.4% (MoM) -0.5%(YoY)
Nationwide....: Apr -0.2% (MoM) -0.9% (YoY)
Land Registry.: Apr -0.6% (MoM) -0.6% (YoY)
and this is the spring bounce. Just wait to the stamp duty changes and higher borrowing cost take hold in the next couple of months.
PeeBee,
You seem to be assuming because sales are low the banks are going to make less money. You are thinking short term.
We are in the final throws of them roping in the last mugs before interest rates rise. Why do you think they want large deposits or councils and government indemnity to remove lending risk from them? They know what's coming when rates rise.
Do you really believe the BBC when they say we are a safe haven? Don't you understand why our interest rates are low? We are printing money to buy our own debt to suppress them. I think you will find that cannot go on forever.
www.thepropertycon.co.uk
We were dressed and ready to go out for the New Year's Eve Party. We turned on a night light, turned the answering machine on, covered our pet parakeet and put the cat in the back garden.
We phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and we opened the front door to leave the house.
As we walked out the door, the cat we had put out in the back garden, scoots back into the house. We didn't want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the parakeet.
My wife goes on out to the taxi, while I went back inside to get the cat. The cat runs upstairs, with me in hot pursuit. Waiting in the cab, my wife doesn't want the driver to know that the house will be empty for the night. So, she explains to the taxi driver that I will be out soon, 'He's just going upstairs to say Goodbye to my mother.'
A few minutes later, I get into the cab. 'Sorry I took so long,' I said, as we drove away.
Puffing for breath I told the wife.
'That stupid bitch was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her arse with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked! I hauled her fat arse downstairs and threw her out into the back garden! She better not shit in our vegetable garden again!'
Shoulda seen the cabbies face.
Happy Funny Friday Everyone
It is rumoured a lot of Estate Agents are retraining as archeologists, as a lot of them feel their career lies in ruins.
Jonnie: Thanks for beating me to it on the key to my abbreviations! ;o)
I only wish that I was, as you suggest, "too much of a gent to utter profanity". I am embarrassed to admit that I could walk away with gold, silver and bronze at any Olympics if swearing were a sport - however saying it is one thing and typing it is another, so I water it down on here and other places I comment. Don't want to upset Country Lass, Marie et al and ruin my chances, do I?
SPEAKING OF WHICH, neither have been on for a while! Come on, ladies - you both bring a certain je ne sais quoi to the site and without you I may resort to being a foul-mouthed northern oik!
And we can't have that... can we? ;o)
Have a good weekend, matey!
Puzzled (...but not of Tonbridge Wells?):
Key to abbreviations as requested:
MDT = merde de taureau.
Mr RR = If you haven't come across "Realising Reality" or any of his other nom-de-claviers yet, then you will not understand or appreciate most of my references to MDT, methinks...
Hope this is of help ;o)
PeeBee
Well stone me,
Another master class in telling us all what we already know – 4 months into this year and we have a report on what happened last year – so news from as far back as 16 months – genius……………..although the BTL stat was something I hadn’t thought about much but an increase is a surprise, I thought BTL mortgages have been hard to get – like that sign you see in a pub ‘ credit is available to all customers over the age of 75 if accompanied by both grandparents’
@Puzzled – MTD is Peebees abbreviation of the French word for s**t he’s saying Property Con is talking s**t, I like Peebee but I don’t know why he doesn’t just say people are talking s**t when they are, probably too much of a gent to use profanity.
RR is that daft old duffer that reckons if we should make it law for people to sell their house at some multiply of salary or something but he’s short on detail and short on answering any direct question with anything but more s**t – be honest we think he gets a bit tanked up at lunchtime because as the day goes on the silly old goat dribbles all sorts of nonsense – he’ll be along soon, pops up every now and then, look out for him, he’s funny.
On the subject of talking s**t though Peebee is right, this Property Con fella has really got a stick up his arse about banks, I think he reckons the banks engineered it all just to piss EA’s off – truth is the banks had no idea what they were doing and didn’t pay EA’s or any one else a thought – I think he’s an HPC’er on heat, not sure
Jonnie
Ps. – where’s that ‘little doggie’ fella that was gobbing off all over the show here yesterday? – im still waiting for him to take up the challenge someone made to stop barking and bite.
Hello everyone, I've not been posting for a while, I've been hibernating through the drought.
Anyhow it seems same old same old on here, a load of doom and gloom stats, a load of doom and gloom HPC'ers, a load of 'all estate agents are parasites' and a load of ' there'll be no estate agents left by tea time'
Truth is the market is more or less the same as i has been for 24 months, a few properties selling when at the correct price, most agents promising the earth and cutting their fees and most of the selling public wanting to achieve 2007 values. Although encouragingly only today I valued a house which I sold for £250,000 in summer 2007, the vendor told me they knew the market had fallen, good i think to myself they aren't going to throw me out when I tell them £219,950 asking price, they then told me they'd enhanced the property since they'd owned it by doing some pointing, replacing the cat flap and putting out a new door mat! 'So we hope to at least be able to get back what we paid for it, can we ask £265,000?'
Heavens above, time to go back to hibernation
Sorry to appear stupid but what is MDT and who is Mr RR?
'The Property con':
Oh, dear. MDT of the smelliest and slimiest in my humble opinion...
Anyway... you intrigued me by sticking you www on the post - SO I checked it out.
More MDT than even Mr RR can muster. Congratulations for achieving that feat - and in only one page!
I found the usual raft of bastardised statistics vomited out in an attempt to make a worthwhile point. For example:
"At the long term average mortage rate of 6% over 25 years people pay 92p in interest for every £1 they borrow. For every £100,000 you borrow you pay back £192,000. Think about that in terms of how many mortgages there are in the country. Then you understand why banks want house prices to be higher � it�s more mortgage interest for them."
Erm... the first two sentences are correct - but that's where it stops following reality isn't it.
Sales are running at less than half of a "normal" market, supposedly. So - lower prices would simply mean more transactions taking place, with little or no additional 'spend', would it not?.
In other words, the banks would have to work harder, have more costs for administration, and therefore MAKE LESS PROFIT from the same income, n'est pas?
Not to mention that probably 80% or more of current mortgages were taken out BEFORE the property boom started, and are therefore at way below the £100k you quote...
Oh dear... don't you just hate it when someone pees on your little firework...? ;o)
Suggest you rename yourself "The Property con con..."
@ Anonymous Coward on 2012-05-04 10:51:53
"......They will remain static for the next 5 -10 years.
Which will be the equivalent of a 30% drop in value since March 2008. Caused by inflation...."
What would be your take on the costs of new building - caused by inflation. Also the cost of complying with all of the new 'green' legislation affecting new builds plus new employment laws?.
BTL is the enemy of estate agents yet they cannot seem to see it.
Owner occupier rates are now at an all time low at 65%. Yet estate agents speak of BTL saving the market.
What they don't understand is that once a house moves to BTL it could be stock lost to agents forever.
Builders have refused to build enough new houses until the government started running ponzi mortgage indemnity and council funded FTB deposits to protect their margins. The less people that can afford to buy is not good for estate agents who need volume of sales. A newbuild purchase becomes more stock to sell later.
For years stock that could be sold repeatedly is being removed from the market by BTL. The government is encouraging pension funds etc to go into BTL. In ten years time there won't be any of the usual high street agents left. There will just be a couple of internet sites. Time to start training for a new career methinks.
Estate agents don't realise just how much government policy is working against them. Yet the only change they ask for is easier lending which makes the problem better short term but worse long term as it puts houses out of reach of more buyers. They should campaign for no props for builders, lower prices and more building.
1% of 0 sales is dole.
1% of 10 sales at £200k is £20k
1% of 20 sales at £150k is £30k
www.thepropertycon.co.uk
Sorry Dave, I meant Gordon for the namesake.
Oooh, look at me, who's in a stroppy mood today.
To Dave
Property prices in the UK are categorically NOT going to fall off a cliff.
They will remain static for the next 5 -10 years.
Which will be the equivalent of a 30% drop in value since March 2008.
Caused by inflation.
You are welcome to review my previous posts to see that I have been saying this for well over a year.
Property values are falling, but slowly and calmly. Prices are static.
No cliffs involved at all and a very cogent strategy by the government to deal with the fallout from the idiot "light touch" regulation of your namesake.
To Gordon Brown
I assume that you are not The Gordon Brown, responsible for getting us in this mess in the first place?
If you are I'd have you hung, drawn & quartered. And I'd have your mate Tony sent to the Hague for War Crimes.
That said my definition of "normal" is average sales volume averaged between 2000 and 2006. By County, not UK wide.
Some years were good, some poor, and sales volume remained remarkably constant...
uk property is about to fall off a cliff for the next 20 years
anyone banking on price rises is likely to be hugely disappointed
its the next uk financial disaster that will amaze people then as reality hits,they will look bad and see all the signs were there
anyone with a buy to let portfolio(mortgaged) faces financial ruin
"Martijn van der Jeijden, chairman of the CML, says in his introduction to the CML’s annual report for 2011, that cuts in State support for borrowers in difficulty will put ‘upward pressure on mortgage arrears and repossessions in 2012 and beyond’."
New data out today from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research calculates the current number of UK mortgages subject to some form of lender forbearance at 800,000.
Anonymous Coward - could you tell me what "normal" is these days?
Copy and paste this link into your browser- -
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/Documents/li/2012/mar/Lending%20to%20individuals.pdf
Am I just "statistics blind", or am I right in thinking that the numbers of mortgage approved for house purchasers in year to March 2012 was probably slightly UP on the figures for the preceding twelve months, which would mean that if any period was "the lowest since 1974" it would be the preceding year?
I think you are citing relative figures (rate of growth) as the basis for a comparison of absolute performance. I am not surprised that the "rate of growth" of lending has slumped, and that is good news, not bad - but it seems clear that the numbers of mortgages approved are relatively stable and on a sensible upward slope after a seasonal adjustment.
Why do you have to put such a negative spin on everything - what's in it for you? It certainly doesn't enhance your reputation as a respected commentator on the housing markets
Properly off topic, but what can you do?
In the meantime, Happy Star Wars Day!
May the Fourth be with you.
Slightly more on topic, I can see that transaction levels in Surrey bear this out.
Prices have remained steady, transactions are somewhere between 25% and 33% of normal depending on area.
London is buoying up the overall transaction figures.
There is a fee war going on which is just MENTAL!
Oh and every sales agent is now a letting agent.
I cry DOOM, but only because this will probably continue for another 5 years...
Happy Days
Have you pasted your diatribe into the wrong story?
If you are in the know you will know that what you are suggesting is simply low hanging man fruit!
Funny, I could have sworn I've heard agents arguing that there is so much more to the job than just advertising properties...
@ in the know?
more like
@ off the topic!
FACTS.
1. Countrywide, Connells and LSL have each been given 10% free equity in Zoopla and DPG.
2. Plan is to drive fees up to the same as rightmove to create a duo-oply with fees at £1,000 a month per branch per month for each portal.
3. If agents refuse to keep paying rightmove and DPG/Zoopla are going to immediately kill agents by offering people the chance to sell their property privately for £99 a month per property.
4. Agents would then be banned. Agents then can't tell vendors they use the mainline portals and will have to charge lower fees with the vendor havng to also place ads on portals as well as lis with agent.
5. risk for agent then is that buyers enquire via portal and vendor deals with buyer enquiry cutting out agent and thus no fee for agent.
6. rightmove will also sell vendor and buyer conveyancing and any mortgage required.
7. estate agents are doomed because they have created the monster in rightmove and are about to DO EXACTLY THE SAME with Zoopla/DPG with the corporates laughing all the way to the bank with YOUR MONEY.
8. TALK ABOUT HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF! LOL!