Category: UK Housing

The analysis published under this category are as follows.

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Current State of the UK Housing Market as Stocks Climb a Wall of Worry / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Dear Reader

The stock market is literally climbing a wall of worry, refusing to give any opportunity for the mass of investors sat on the sidelines to jump on board the AI gravy trains unless they buy the highs! Most AI tech stocks are now very overbought i.e. Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, KLAC, AVGO which had an insane spike last week to $933 that triggered one of my distant SELL limit orders at $899 (current $812).

Whilst many are very overbought that does not mean they cannot become more overbought! This is the problem with TA, the charts tells you that markets are over bought and ripe for a correction, and so one anticipates a fat juicy correction to accumulate into on buying opps perhaps down to below S&P 4000, but as I often state Technical Analysis on it;s own is a coin flip, and worse still is that which most focus on the S&P which is a RED HERRING! Put the two together and you can see how easy it is for most investors to be constantly wrong footed by a. focusing on the S&P and b. not realising that TA is not that reliable going forward, in hindsight its perfect, but going forward it's at best 55/45. One has to go beyond the charts and crunch the numbers and understand the fundamentals that differ for every stock.

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Monday, July 24, 2023

Will UK House Prices Crash 2023? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

First a reminder of some of the primary drivers for UK house prices (in order of importance).

1. Population Growth

2. Inflation courtesy of money printing.

3. Growing economy.

4. Insufficient new housing construction.

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Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Is It Cheaper To Buy A Home In Canada Compared To The UK? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

The cost-of-living crisis has been hitting heavily in the last couple of years. Not only is it affecting the price of consumer goods and services and the cost of materials and energy, but it is also affecting the very homes we live in.

Back in 2021, property experts were stating that the UK would experience a “bumper year”, but now it is not looking very likely. In fact, housing prices are expected to dip under the rate of inflation, meaning there will be a real-terms reduction, meaning higher interest rates and pricier mortgages for cheaper properties.

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Tuesday, December 06, 2022

UK House Prices CRASH 2023 - Warns every man and his dog! Reality vs Perma Doom! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The doom merchants are back, that's if they ever went away, go search UK house prices forecast and you are met with a stream of expectations that UIK house prices will fall by between 10% to 30% all latching on to utterances from the OBR and Bank of England despite the fact that neither can forecast their way out of a paper bag!

SO are house prices about to enter a bear market or worse CRASH in response to RISING interest rates? Find out in my latest UK housing market video.

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Saturday, October 01, 2022

Will UK House Prices CRASH Following Bond Market Panic? - 3 Year Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Bank of England PANICS and Bailouts the Banks and Pension Funds once more by reversing course on barely begun Quantitative Tightening to buy up a huge supply of Government Bonds to force long-term interest rates lower because the Banks and Pension funds had gambled with pension fund holder funds on interest rate derivatives.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2022

UK House Prices 2022 to 2025 Trend Forecast Conclusion / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

My expectations are for for average UK House prices (Halifax) to continue to trend higher over the next 3 years, punctuated by a brief pause during early 2023 in response to interest rate hikes, weakening economy and tax rises. However persistent high inflation, extreme over crowding and continuing strong population growth ensures that the bull market will remain in tact. Therefore my forecast conclusion is for average UK house prices (Halifax) to target a rise from £278,123 as of February 2022 over the next 3 years to £340,632 for February 2025 data (Halifax) targeting a price increase of 22.5% over 3 three years as as illustrated by my trend forecast graph below -

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

UK House Prices Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This is the 3rd and final part of my extensive analysis of the UK housing market that concludes in a detailed 3 year trend forecast for UK house prices ( Part 1, Part 2 )

UK House Prices Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025

THE INFLATION MEGA-TREND
WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO INVEST IN STOCKS AND HOUSING
High Inflation Forecast for Whole of this Decade Due to Rampant Money Printing
Fed Inflation Strategy Revealed
Russian Sanctions Stagflation Driver
RECESSION RISKS 2023
UK Debt Inflation Smoking Gun
Britains' Hyper Housing Market
UK Population Growth Forecast 2010 to 2030
UK House Building and Population Growth Analysis
UK Over Crowding Ratio
Overcrowding Implications for UK House Prices
UK Housing Market Affordability
UK House Prices Real Terms Sustainable Trend
UK House Prices Relative to GDP Growth
UK House Prices Momentum Forecast
UK House Prices and the Inflation Mega-trend
Lets Get Jiggy With UK INTEREST RATES
Is the US Yield Curve Inversion Broken?
UK house Prices and Yield Curve Inversions
Interest Rates How High WIll they Go?
Work From Home Inflationary BOOM?
Formulating a UK House Prices Forecast
UK House Prices 2022 to 2025 Trend Forecast Conclusion
Peering into the Mists of TIme
Risks to the Forecasts
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2022-2024

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Sunday, July 10, 2022

Formulating a UK House Prices Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

House prices will be higher a year from now, 2 years from now and definitely 3 years from now, the question mark is how high?

Momentum suggests a flat lining market from late 2022 with very light upwards price pressure during early 2023 that could see house price inflation briefly fall towards zero accompanied by maybe a couple of down months before the bull market resumes going into 2024 and 2025.

Net immigration of 300k and an expected Ukrainian influx of at least 200k is going to put the UK housing market under extra strain and upwards price pressure.

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Sunday, July 10, 2022

Work From Home Inflationary BOOM? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The pandemic has resulted in many tens of millions more americans working from home. As someone who has been working form home for a good 15 years I can well understand why house prices have rocketed higher as prospective home buyers both seek out properties that are better suited to working from home, more suburban, quiet office spaces, plenty of storage, or view properties with scope to being upgraded into work from home environments.

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Saturday, July 09, 2022

UK house Prices and Yield Curve Inversions / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Bank of England just like it's US counterpart recognises the significance of the yield curve inversions not because it has magical powers but that it tends to act as a self fulfilling prophecy, i.e. if enough people act on such as trigger as they tend to do then YES it will negatively impact on economic activity as market participants respond accordingly.

However in this respect the Bank of England has done a good smoke and mirrors job of masking the importance of yield curve inversions in the UK, which just don't carry as much weight as they do in the US. The UK yield curve has already temporarily inverted in December, but as has been the case for some time it tends to be of a con flip significance. At best UK yield curve inversions signal economic stress that we are already well aware of.

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Thursday, June 30, 2022

UK Housing Market Analysis, Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025 - Part 2 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Dear Reader

This article is part 2 of 3 of my extensive analysis of the UK housing market that concludes in a detailed 3 year trend forecast for UK house prices (Part 1).

UK House Prices Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025

That was first made available to patrons who support my work.So for immediate first access to ALL of my analysis and trend forecasts then do consider becoming a Patron by supporting my work for just $4 per month. https://www.patreon.com/Nadeem_Walayat.

Including access to my recent analysis -

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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

UK House Prices - Lets Get Jiggy With UK INTEREST RATES / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK House Prices - Lets Get Jiggy With UK INTEREST RATES

There have been so many interest rate hike false dawns over the past decade that one has become skeptical that this time could be different, and YES THIS TIME COULD REALLY BE DIFFERENT DUE TO OUT OF CONTORL INFLATION that worries the CENTRAL BANKS for they understand that it risks igniting the wage price spiral which once it takes hold is not easily brought back under control, hence there is a very high probability of high inflation for a decade because the central banks will not do what needs to be done! FORGET THE NOISE ABOUT Interest rates soaring to ridiculous levels for Central banks know their banking crime syndicate brethren would go BUST! Instead rates will rise but NOT to the level needed i.e. to ABOVE the rate of INFLATION. The UK base Interest rate to control inflation would need to be ABOVE the rate of Inflation i.e. at about 10%! which is clearly not going to happen! Not even to HALF that level, and probably not even to 1/4 of that level, 2% is what the Bank of England is targeting! Whilst INFLATION rages to 10%! That is not going to cool inflation OR the HOUSING MARKET!

The Bank of England is targeting a joke interest rate of just 2%. For UK Interest rates to have any significant impact on the UK housing market the base rate would need to be above 5%, and even then the impact would be relatively mind. People are NOT STUPID! They understand Inflation of 10% vs a Mortgage rate of say 4% is a NO BRAINER i.e. BORROW to the HILT and let inflation do it's MAGIC!

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Wednesday, June 22, 2022

UK House Prices and the Inflation Mega-trend / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices have soared into the stratosphere! Or have they? Not really, not in real terms anyway (RPI). However they are approaching the resistance of 2000's bull market high which could result in a consolidation of sorts. After all if I can see house prices in real terms hitting the buffers then so will be the expedience of most market participants where they are unable to finance property purchases at such extremes.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2022

UK House Prices Momentum Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices momentum soared to over 10% per annum after the bull market broke out of it's 0% to 5% momentum range that it had been in for most of the 2010's. Instead it looks likely the UK is entering into a 10% to 7% momentum range which suggest to continue to expect year on year gains for several more YEARs in the range of 10% to 6%! Yes we will get corrections i.e. 2 or 3 months of mildly falling prices that I am sure will have the perma bears crowing of top being in and a crash just around the corner, but this bull market is far from done and momentum suggests to expect strong house price inflation for at least the next 3 years.

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Sunday, June 19, 2022

UK House Prices Relative to GDP Growth / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This graph shows that following Brexit UK house prices consolidated in GDP terms for a number of years towards trend before the current blast higher driven by the governments maniac pandemic spending binge .However, house prices are NOT that distant from trend so unless there IS a significant recession around the corner, this graph suggests the bull market has plenty of scope to continue trending higher for many years.

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Friday, June 17, 2022

UK House Prices Real Terms Sustainable Trend / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Continuing with the affordability theme the real terms sustainable house prices trend metric uses a souped up version of the oft mentioned average earnings X 3.5 ratio, where the X3.5 ratio has been defective since the 1980's instead the relentless trend puts the ratio currently at about 4.5X average earnings which resolves in the following trend graph.

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Monday, June 06, 2022

UK Overcrowding Implications for UK House Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The following is one of my custom UK housing market indicators that more clearly illustrates the degree of housing market crisis that Britain finds itself in as a ratio between the accumulative change in population since 1970 against the accumulative number of new completed house builds also since 1970 which shows the magnitude of the trend in over crowding of Britain's housing market that given recent mainstream press headlines based on academic studies clearly remain largely blind to the consequences of, because they still are unable to visualise the magnitude of Britain's housing crisis that has WORSENED since Britain voted to LEAVE the EU which should act as a warning to those who contemplate ever holding a second EU referendum, as it implies LEAVE would win by an even bigger margin next time!

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Saturday, June 04, 2022

UK Housing Market Over Crowding Ratio / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

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Thursday, June 02, 2022

UK House Building and Population Growth Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The below graph shows the UK annual population change against annual net additional dwellings which includes completed new builds.

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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

UK House Prices Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025 - Part 1 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Dear Reader

This article is part 1 of my extensive analysis of the UK housing market that concludes in a detailed 3 year trend forecast.

UK House Prices Trend Forecast 2022 to 2025

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Friday, May 27, 2022

Britain's Hyper Housing Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

In Britain we have long since known and factored into the equation the China effect on London's property market that has long since sent it soaring into the stratosphere following the stagnation of the Mid 1990's which was probably one of the best times in decades to buy a property in terms of bang for ones buck i.e. it was before immigration soared into the stratosphere courtesy of the open door policy of Tony Blair's Labour government as the socialists enticed millions of eastern european's to come to the UK and become new Labour voters that sent house prices soaring across Britain and eventually putting housing out of the reach of many millions of prospective home buyers who enjoyed a brief respite in the aftermath of the great financial crisis when demand slumped along with the economy.

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Monday, November 01, 2021

4 Ways to Reduce the Housing Crisis in UK / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mark_Adan

Given the house prices are rising by around 3% every year, with the current data revealing over a third of millennials will never be own a home, it is quite evident the housing market is still in a crisis. But are we making a big deal out of this than it needs to? Well, in this read, we are going to take a closer look at ways the housing market crisis could be averted in the United Kingdom.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2021

Staying Out of the Red: Financial Tips for Kent Homeowners / Personal_Finance / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Trying to maintain healthy finances despite a busy schedule and plenty of responsibilities can often feel like an impossible affair. As a matter of fact, it can feel like despite all the money you earn, it easily gets depleted no matter how hard you might try. That said, it is quite similar to trying to maintain an active lifestyle. While the first time you decide to go jogging might feel like a miserable experience, it gets easier with time.

For finances, it is all about building a mindset fully geared toward saving. Eventually, it will start feeling like second nature, and you will wonder why you had any trouble, to begin with. Here are just a few financial tips for homeowners to ensure that they have enough to spend on a rainy day.
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Monday, May 04, 2020

Ways to Speed Up Your Mortgage Application / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Travis_Bard

Homeownership comes with many perks, and it is everyone’s dream to become a homeowner. Thanks to mortgages, this dream has become a reality to many. It helps homeowners build their credit and make their ratings go higher, get tax breaks, and helps in building equity. The most important is that you will get a permanent home from where you will grow your family and enjoy your time together looking for new film releases and enjoying quality time.

Getting the mortgage, however, may not be as easy as it may appear. It might take some time before you are able to buy that house that you really want. There are, however, ways that you can speed up your mortgage application.

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Wednesday, August 28, 2019

How Brexit Will Affect House Prices in 2019 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Three years ago, the UK public voted to exit the European Union. Since this was an outcome that only a few people expected, it had a dramatic outcome with David Cameron, the prime minister, resigning with immediate effect. The vote caused a stir in the financial markets.

A few weeks after the results, the pound sterling was still weak, and the economy, in general, was on the verge of going from bad to worse. Many business leaders who were benefiting from the stable UK economy started to fear that they would soon encounter a critical financial crush. These were the very first indicators of the negative impact that Brexit had on the economy.

Now it’s been two years since Brexit, and the financial crisis that most sceptics used to talk about is yet to happen. Though there has been a long waited expectation of economic breakdown, the UK still seems to be a good place that investors can confidently park their money and yield impressive returns.
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Tuesday, August 20, 2019

UK House Building and House Prices Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK House Building 20 Years Shortfall

The Tory government has once more pledged to build 300,000 homes per year to address Britain's chronic housing crisis which is set against the current pace of construction of about 200,000 homes per year. However, every government of the past 20 years has made similar promises to increase house building to targets of anywhere between 250,000 to 400,000 homes per year and ALL have FAILED to deliver! Every house building manifesto promise BROKEN! That's by Labour, Coalition, Tories, and our current DUP/Remain barely able to open a tin of beans government. So the first message is to take government house building targets with a giant pinch of salt!

However, against this consistent mantra of increasing house building is the reality of the real agenda which is actually not to increase house building to meet demand but rather one of leveraging house prices as being one of the primary drivers of the UK economy and thus the chances for electoral success, so forget opinions polls it is house prices that are one of the most accurate predictors for the outcome of UK general elections.

UK House Prices the Most Accurate General Election Forecast Predictor

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Wednesday, July 17, 2019

UK House Building and Population Growth Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Part1 (UK House Building 20 Years Shortfall). The below graph shows the UK annual population change against annual new housing build completions accompanied by annual net migration.

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Saturday, June 01, 2019

UK House Building 20 Years Shortfall / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

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Monday, May 27, 2019

How to Choose a Good Online Estate Agent / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sumeet_Manhas

Traditional high street estate agents still control around 95% of the market, but in recent years a newer type of intermediary, the online estate agent, has gained a significant foothold in the sector. Using an ever-expanding range of technological options, a reliable online agency can now offer a similar level of service to their high street equivalents. And because an online operator has substantially lower overheads, homeowners are usually charged a fixed fee which may be just a fraction of the price charged by a bricks-and-mortar estate agent.

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Wednesday, May 08, 2019

Average UK House Prices Dragged Down by Decline in Capital / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Over recent years, house prices in the UK have fluctuated quite significantly. There has been some positive news of late, with house prices across the country increasing by 0.6 percent over the year. However, house prices declined in the South East and London, which resulted in the UK average house price falling.

According to figures, performance in London was the worst in a decade. However, despite the falling property prices, it is still the most expensive place to buy property in the UK. The South East and East of England are the second and third most expensive places to purchase residential property. Figures show that house prices in London have fallen at the fastest pace since 2009.

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Monday, May 06, 2019

Impact of Demographics on UK House Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This analysis directly continues on from (UK Real Unemployment Rate is 5.5 million - Britains Benefits Culture) which is part of a series that aims to conclude in a new multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices. But first a recap of my analysis to date that so far suggests to ignore mainstream press hysteria that warns of impending doom for Britains housing market, encouraged no less than the Government and Bank of England which warn to expect a 30% CRASH in UK house prices should the UK LEAVE the EU without a deal.

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Sunday, March 31, 2019

UK Population Growth Trend Forecast and Housing Market Consequences / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This analysis directly continues on from (UK Population Growth - Latest ONS Immigration Statistics and Consequences ) which is part of a series that aims to conclude in a new multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices. But first a recap of my analysis to date that so far suggests to ignore mainstream press hysteria that warns of impending doom for Britains housing market, encouraged no less than the Government and Bank of England which warn to expect a 30% CRASH in UK house prices should the UK LEAVE the EU without a deal.

Instead my analysis so far (first made available to patrons) continues to paint a picture for UK house prices to remain on an overall upward trend trajectory.

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Sunday, March 10, 2019

Taylor Wimpey Reports £811m in Profits boosted by Help-to-Buy / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

The housing market slow down many feared resulting from the uncertainty of Brexit and been quelled by the United Kingdom’s low mortgage rates and its help-to-buy program. Housebuilders across the country have reported profits this year including Taylor Wimpey, and that signals a solid start to 2019.

Taylor Wimpey, the third largest builder in Britain, reported pre-tax profits of £810.7 million for the 2018 year on 15,275 house built. This was an increase of 19% and saw its shares rise by 3%, and that saw them becoming one of the top on the FTSE 100.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

UK 10 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Borrowers weighing up their mortgage options at the start of the year may find that the typically favoured two and five-year fixed mortgage rates are low compared to recent years. However, amid heightened concern about future Bank of England base rate rises, many could be seeking even further security with their monthly payments.

The latest research from Moneyfacts.co.uk reveals that now could be the time to consider longer-term fixed deals, as the average 10-year fixed mortgage rate has decreased significantly over the past five years, dropping 1.56% to stand at 3.05% today. Not only this but the availability of longer-term fixed mortgages has increased to stand at nearly 10 times what it was in January 2014.

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Monday, January 21, 2019

UK House Prices, Immigration, and Population Growth Mega Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

My latest analysis in a series aimed at arriving at a new multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices covers population growth which is one of the key primary drivers for UK house prices which since the Labour government of 1997 natural population growth net of births and deaths has been vastly supplemented by what has amounted to out of control immigration courtesy of Britain's membership of the European Union and the former Labour governments objective for the importation of millions of potential Labour voters from mostly new member states from across an impoverished eastern europe that resulted in near 5 million economic migrants settling in the UK by 2016, mostly in what were already over crowded British cities, thus putting severe pressure on services and infrastructure and the whole housing market as the likes of the rental sector soared with 1 million new buy to let landlords entering the market buying 4 million properties, forcing up house prices across the board where rents in large part are being funded by tax payers in the form of the soaring housing benefits bill.

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Friday, January 04, 2019

Rising Cost of Moving Home / Personal_Finance / UK Housing

By: Submissions

It continues to be a time of uncertainty for the housing market with the ongoing Brexit saga. Therefore many people are choosing not to move home, when they usually would have done so. The cost of moving home also continues to rise as expected. Here we cover the breakdown of the average costs in 2018.

It is difficult to figure out an exact overall cost but based around the average house price in the UK, and the different services required for moving home, it is likely to add up to around £10,000. This of course would include the main areas of buying, selling and moving home. This is all based around the average house sold in the UK which in 2018 was £224,144 (according to the Property Price Index).

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Sunday, December 30, 2018

UK House Prices Bank of England 30% Crash Warning vs Momentum Forecast 2019 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This is the next analysis in this series to conclude in a new detailed multi-year trend forecast for UK house prices.

So is a NO DEAL 30% crash in UK house prices even possible let alone probable as the Bank of England forecasts? Lets see what momentum suggests is going to happen in 2019.

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Thursday, December 27, 2018

UK House Prices 2019 NO Deal BrExit 30% CRASH Warning / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The mainstream media has been busy all year publishing dire warnings of the consequences for NO Deal Brexit warnings emanating out of the Government and the Bank of England the latest of which was the Government warning of a loss of 9% of GDP, albeit as a deviation from trend over 15 years. Soon followed by Britain's central bank, the Bank of England setting forth it's own NO DEAL economic armageddon forecasts, warning of an immediate economic collapse on a scale twice that of the 2008 Financial Crisis. A 25% collapse in sterling, a collapse in GDP of 8%, inflation soaring to over 6.5% and a 30% CRASH in UK house prices.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

UK House Prices Momentum Forecast 2019 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This analysis of UK house prices continues from Part 1 (UK House Prices 2019 No Deal BrExit 30% Crash Warning!) and was first made available to Patrons who support my work. So to get immediate First Access to ALL of my analysis and trend forecasts then do consider becoming a Patron by supporting my work for as little as just $3 per month. https://www.patreon.com/Nadeem_Walayat.

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Saturday, December 01, 2018

Bank of England Warns UK House Prices 30% BrExit Crash! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This week saw the harbingers of the NO DEAL Brexit economic apocalypse set forth their forecasts of what awaited Britain following a No Deal exit from the European Union on the 29th of March. At the top of the doom merchants was the Canadian Governor of the Bank of England warning of a string of catastrophes for Britain where at the top of the doom list was a 30% CRASH in UK house prices. The following graph illustrates what the Bank of England's 30% crash in house prices would look like if it were to materialise post Brexit.

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Friday, November 30, 2018

UK House Prices 2019 No Deal BrExit 30% Crash Warning! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Within hours of the UK Government publishing it's dire economic forecast of a NO DEAL BrExit resulting in a loss of 9% of GDP, albeit as a deviation from trend over 15 years. Britain's central bank, the Bank of England set forth it's own NO DEAL economic armageddon forecasts, warning of an immediate economic collapse on a scale twice that of the 2008 Financial Crisis. A 25% collapse in sterling, a collapse in GDP of 8%, inflation soaring to over 6.5% and a 30% CRASH in UK house prices. Though it should be noted that none of similar fear mongering pre EU referendum materialised as the UK economy continued to grow on a similar trend trajectory to what it was on as before the EU Referendum BrExit result.

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Saturday, November 24, 2018

Key factors to take in to account when buying your first home / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

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Friday, November 23, 2018

Factors Behind Why People Move House / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

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Thursday, November 08, 2018

Home Equity Release Interest Rates Are on the Rise / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

The equity release market has continued to evolve, not only by allowing customers to release more equity from their homes, but also in terms of providers offering more flexibility, such as the inclusion of drawdown options.

While the equity release market is nowhere near as volatile as the residential mortgage market in terms of interest rate changes, it has not been left unscathed by recent cost increases. The latest analysis by Moneyfacts.co.uk reveals that over the last quarter, more than half of the 11 lenders in the lifetime mortgage market have increased interest rates within their range (Aviva, Hodge Lifetime, Just, LV=, Legal & General, Vernon Building Society).

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Tuesday, August 07, 2018

First Time Buyers Need to ‘boost the affordability’ of Their Move Alone / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Recent reports by the Financial Times note that ‘more needs to be done to boost affordability for capital’s first-time buyers’. Well, duh.

Renting in London is prohibitively expensive and buying is perhaps even more so, in the short term at least. In fact, recent studies conducted by The Times found that a first-time buyer in London needs a salary of £100,000 to get on the property ladder. (Basically, you need to be a wealthy financial sector worker.)

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Monday, May 21, 2018

Free Cash on UK Mortgage Deals Intensify / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Borrowers navigating the mortgage maze could well be looking for the best possible package to suit their circumstances, and one of the many perks that can stand out is cashback.

Mortgage deals with cashback may not be a new concept, but moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that the popularity of such offers is growing: some of the newest deals to be launched onto the market recently include a cashback incentive*, with both the number of deals and average cashback amount on the rise.

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Thursday, March 08, 2018

London Property Market Sees Brave Bet By Norway As Foxtons Profits Plunge / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– Sales in London property market at ‘historic lows’
– 65% fall in pre-tax profits in 2017 to £6.5m reported by London estate agents Foxtons
– Foxtons warns 2018 will ‘remain challenging’ for London property
– Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is backing London’s property market
– RICS: UK property stock hits record low as buyer demand falls
– Own physical gold to hedge falls in physical property

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Thursday, March 01, 2018

How Will Brexit Affected the UK Property Market? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

RW Invest: What will Brexit bring?

Uncertainty. Brexit. And the North West - who really knows what will happen when the UK is scheduled to leave the European Union on Friday 29 March 2019?

But one thing that will remain, is that people will still buy and rent properties - whether that’s student or residential buy-to-let or people wanting to buy their own property. That is something that won’t change.

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Tuesday, January 30, 2018

London Housing Market Tumbles As Glut of Luxury Apartments Grows To 3,000 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– London property market tumbles as glut of luxury apartments grows to 3,000
– Property crisis in London as over half of 1,900 luxury apartments built 2017 fail to sell
– London’s still high priced property causes companies to locate offices elsewhere
– At current rates, glut of London properties will take three years to sell
– Leading London-based estate agents Foxtons’ sees 42% drop in earnings, yoy
– UK’s largest estate agent issues second profit warning in three months
– Number of homes sold in December fell to 99,100, lowest level since Nov 2016
– The ‘Shard disaster’ – Ten apartments at top of London’s largest skyscraper, all priced over £50m and in five years not a single one has sold
– Property gold? Diversify and own the physical property of real gold

Editor: Mark O’Byrne

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Monday, January 15, 2018

London Property Market Crash Looms As Prices Drop To 2 1/2 Year Low / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– London homeowners cut property prices by another 1.4% in January
– Average price for a London house dropped by £22,000 to £600,926 in 2017
– Takes 78 days to sell a home on average, the highest level since 2012
– London’s downtrend continues after 2017 performance as worst UK housing market
– UK regional house prices begin to falter as house prices climb slows down
– Gold bullion remains a great hedge for property investors

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Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Does Stripping Streets of ALL of their Trees Impact House Prices (Sheffield Example)? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: N_Walayat

Sheffield City Council's Streets Ahead PFI Contract with the Spanish Ferrovial family owned multinational Amey apparently also means that many of the Sheffield's tree lined suburbs are being stripped of virtually all of their big trees that have taken over 100 years to grow to their current house prices boosting splendour.

The big question is does felling of these community assets valued at approx £50k each (CAVAT method) also mean that the properties on these streets are also being felled?

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Monday, November 06, 2017

Confidence in the UK Housing Market Continues to Fall / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

According to a recent survey conducted by Halifax bank, 20% of people believe that house prices will drop in the coming year. This is despite inflation continuing to rise and interest rates increasing. Experts believe that this could be disastrous to the health of the British economy, especially with weak wage growth leading to British households feeling under pressure.

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Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Are Amey Street Tree Felling's Devaluing Sheffield House Prices? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Sheffield City Council's Streets Ahead PFI Contract with the multinational Amey apparently also means that many of the Sheffield's tree lined suburbs are being stripped of virtually all of their big trees that have taken over 100 years to grow to their current magnificent house prices boosting splendour.

The big question is does felling of these community assets valued at approx £50k each (CAVAT method) also mean that the properties on these streets are also being felled / devalued?

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Tuesday, October 10, 2017

London House Prices Are Falling – Time to Buckle Up / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– London house prices fall in September: first time in eight years
– High-end London property fell by 3.2% in year
– House sales down by over a very large one-third
– Global Real Estate Bubble Index – see table
– Brexit, rising inflation and political uncertainty causing many buyers to back away from market
– U.K. housing stock worth record £6.8 trillion, almost 1.5 times value of LSE and more than the value of all the gold in world
– Homeowners and property investors should diversify and invest in gold

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Friday, September 15, 2017

Why it is Often Difficult to Sell a House Fast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

It is indeed often quite a chore-like process, trying to sell a home for a decent price, without having to cut down on the actual worth of the home so much that you do not make as much profit as you would otherwise need to relocate to a nice home.

When attempting to sell your home quickly, there are some factors which may hinder such a process. This article will look at some of the reasons why such an undesirable sluggishness befalls your sales process.

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Thursday, August 03, 2017

How Much Money Do First-Time Home Buyers Need for a Deposit in the UK? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

The dream of buying a home one day is something that many people share. For some, realising this dream can be a long journey filled with questions, apprehension, and confusion. Of course, one of the biggest questions people have is how much of a deposit they need to save in order to buy a house in the UK? This one simple question helps to determine if it’s possible to even purchase a home, and when it may actually happen.

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Saturday, July 22, 2017

UK House Prices Momentum Crash Warns of 2017 Bear Market - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The June 8th general election result delivering 'chaos and uncertainty' instead of 'strong and stable' not only shocked Britain's political and media establishment but also looks like the UK economy suffered a heart attack with confidence fast evaporating as the economy slows down which makes a mockery of the Bank of England MPC clowns persisting in their talk of raising UK interest rates this year. And along with evaporating economic confidence is the confidence in the UK housing market that risks bringing a 5 year housing bull market to an abrupt end! And this is even before we see the chaos that will ensue once Theresa May quits as PM that risks triggering another chaos inducing general election!

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Friday, July 21, 2017

UK House Prices Momentum Crash Threatens Mini Bear Market 2017 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

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Friday, July 07, 2017

UK House Prices the Most Accurate General Election Forecast Predictor / ElectionOracle / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices wealth effect once more proved to be the MOST accurate forecaster for the outcome of UK general elections i.e. April house prices data implied 342 Tory seats, which far more reliable when compared to the a range of forecast expectations primarily by pollster based analysts that extended 375 seats just prior to polling day.

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Tuesday, July 04, 2017

UK House Prices ‘On Brink’ Of Massive 40% Collapse / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– UK house prices on brink of massive 40% collapse
– UK at ‘edge of worst house price collapse since 1990s’
– Two leading economists warn of property crash
– “We are due a significant correction in house prices”
– Brexit and wages failing to keep up with inflation to trigger collapse

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Thursday, June 22, 2017

Grenfell Fire: 600 of 4000 Tower Blocks Ticking Time Bomb Death Traps! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

As suspected the use of combustible cladding that the residents of Grenfell Tower paid a heavy price for is widespread across Britain's social housings sector, not a dozen suspected tower blocks, or even 100, but as many as 600 of Britain's 4000 Tower blocks could be primed to first gas (cyanide) and then incinerate their residents.

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Sunday, June 18, 2017

Are Sheffield's High Rise Tower Blocks Safe? Grenfell Cladding Fire Disaster! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: N_Walayat

The residents Grenfell Tower have paid the heavy price for the cladding refurbishment craze that has been sweeping Britain for the past decade. One of 30 to 50 year old social housing tower blocks, many of which that should have been demolished but instead are being dolled up with cladding and insulation to reduce energy costs to make them externally more appealing to both residents, visitors and most importantly nearby affluent areas as was the case with Grenfell Tower, a pocket of social housing in Kensington, probably the most affluent area of Britain.

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Wednesday, June 14, 2017

UK Housing Market Forecast to Take Hit on Political Uncertainty / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

Growing evidence of slowdown in UK property market
Slow-down in activity in UK housing market in run up to UK election
Average UK house prices dropped in the three months to May
Halifax report annual house price growth fallen to a four-year low of 3.3 percent.
“Political instability breeds procrastination on the part of homebuyers and sellers”
Sterling drop will increase divide in housing market, first time buyers continue to struggle
House price growth has lost momentum, volumes continue to drop

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Wednesday, May 03, 2017

London Housing Market Property Bubble Vulnerable To Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

– London property market vulnerable to crash
– House prices in London are falling
– London property up 84% in 10 years (see chart)
– House prices have risen over 450% in 20 years
– Brexit tensions as seen over weekend and outlook for U.K. economy to impact property
– Global property bubble fragile – Risks to global economy
– Gold bullion a great hedge for property investors

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Thursday, April 27, 2017

UK Repossessed Houses: do They Still Represent the Best-valued Properties? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Jake Moore writes: “Repossessions typically come to market 30% under their market value. “ - This commonly used statement is absolutely correct, however, doesn’t fairly paint the picture of the risk vs reward.

Let’s start with desert; reward!

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Monday, March 13, 2017

UK House Prices Forecast 2017, President Trump vs the Deep State / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
15th January, 2017 Issue # 3 Vol. 11

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Tuesday, February 21, 2017

UK First-time Home Buyer Market is Robust and Ready for Spring / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

In just a couple of weeks’ time, Spring will arrive, which is typically the time of year when house hunters start searching for their ideal home as many more houses become listed for sale. Once first-time buyers have built up a big enough deposit to get themselves onto the property ladder, the next port of call is to find the right property and to pick the best mortgage.

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Sunday, January 15, 2017

UK House Prices Forecast 2017 - Crash or Bull Market? - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices ended 2016 up 7.2% despite London house prices weakness that according to the Nationwide increased by an average of just 3.7%, near half the UK rate. This illustrates why so many housing market analyst / journalists got UK house prices so badly wrong for 2016 as they mistakenly latched onto London weakness as a sign for a imminent UK house prices bear market or worse a BrExit CRASH. After all the consensus view was that if London was weak then the rest of the UK would be suffer far worse.

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Monday, January 02, 2017

No UK House Prices Brexit Crash 2016 Despite London Weakness, Forecast 2017 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices ended 2016 up 7.2% (provisional) despite London house prices weakness that according to the Nationwide increased by an average of just 3.7%, near half the UK rate. This illustrates why so many housing market analyst / journalists got UK house prices so badlty wrong for 2016 as they mistakenly latched onto London weakness as sign for a imminent UK housing market bear market or worse a Brexit CRASH After all the consensus view was that if London was weak then the rest of the UK would be suffering far worse. This view was liberally regurgitated across the mainstream press all year.

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Thursday, December 01, 2016

Will US Housing Real Estate Market Tank in 2017? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Clif_Droke

In many ways, 2016 has been a banner year for U.S. real estate. Housing prices continued to strengthen in several major metropolitan markets and even reached frothy proportions in at least three major markets. Below the surface of an otherwise healthy market, however, lies a set of factors that could cause problems for the housing market in 2017.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

UK Property Market: Slow Growth Does Not Equate To Decline / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nicholas_Kitonyi

The property market is one of UK’s main economic drivers given the clear link to the financial industry. Right now, several people have expressed doubts on how the UK economy could fair following the separation from the EU single market. And as analysts have pointed out, the most problematic aspect comes from the uncertainties surrounding the separation process.

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Tuesday, September 20, 2016

London Housing Market Bubble 2016, London Bridge Comes Falling Down… / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Harry_Dent

I just got back from a seminar in London. I spoke there late last year for Graham Rowan, who heads the Elite Investor Club. This time, my promoters in Australia, Greg Owen and Steve and Corinna Essa, decided to team up with Graham to promote a two-day “Secure the Future” seminar in London.

I was more than happy to do that. I love London, even though it’s always cloudy and drizzly. But it was also a great opportunity to promote my new book, The Sale of a Lifetime (out now!), because it touches on many of the same themes I wanted to discuss with my British audience.

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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

It’s Official: The Global Real Estate Bubble is Finally Bursting! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Harry_Dent

It’s official.

The global real estate bubble is bursting.

After imposing a hefty 26% tax on foreign buyers, and a 12% to 16% surcharge for buyers who flipped their house between one and two years, Singapore real estate has declined 21.5%.

Vancouver has taken similar measures, and – surprise, surprise – its real estate is down 24% in just five months!

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Tuesday, August 23, 2016

First-time Home Buyer Deals Start to Dwindle / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

With some predicting a fall in house prices following the EU referendum vote, many potential first-time buyers are poised to take advantage of the moment to get themselves on the first rung of the housing ladder. However they might be disappointed, with research from Moneyfacts.co.uk showing a number of 95% loan-to-value (LTV) products disappearing from the market.

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Wednesday, August 03, 2016

BrExit House Prices Crash, Flat or Rally? UK Housing Market Affordability Crisis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

In the run up to the EU referendum the establishment REMAIN camp had peddled a perpetual year long story that UK house prices would collapse or crash if BrExit happened, as operation fear each month ramped up the threats of that which awaited a post Brexit Britain.

For instance George Osborne repeatedly issued doom warnings that likely contributed to his swift sacking by Theresa May

“If we leave the European Union there will be an immediate economic shock that will hit financial markets... That affects the value of people’s homes and the Treasury analysis shows that there would be a hit to the value of people’s homes by at least 10 per cent and up to 18 per cent." - George Osborne

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Sunday, July 03, 2016

UK House Prices BrExit Crash NOT Likely Despite London Property Market Weakness / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The establishment REMAIN camp peddled the same story for the UK housing market all year, one of a collapse, crash or worse! As operation fear each month ramped up the threats of that which awaited a post Brexit Britain. The house prices crash fear mongering even emanated direct from George Osborne himself who warned: “If we leave the European Union there will be an immediate economic shock that will hit financial markets... That affects the value of people’s homes and the Treasury analysis shows that there would be a hit to the value of people’s homes by at least 10 per cent and up to 18 per cent."

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Thursday, May 05, 2016

Barclays 100% Mortgage Pours Fuel on UK House Prices Bull Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK mortgage providers are once more innovating new products with old objectives, that of allowing those who cannot afford to buy their first homes, being engineered an helping hand onto the property ladder. Which is what Barclays 100% mortgage (no deposit) represents at upto 5.5X earnings. However we are not quite back to the free for all frenzy of 2007 when the credit markets were so loose that self certified mortgages were rampant and not forgetting savers who could lock in 7%+ yields! Even savvy borrowers could turn the tables on the credit card providers and rake in several thousands of pounds a year by stoozing (borrowing on 0% credit cards and saving in accounts paying as high as 7%).

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Saturday, April 23, 2016

UK House Prices, Immigration and the London Property Bubble / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
Dec 11th, 2015 Issue # 25 Vol. 9
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Thursday, April 14, 2016

UK House Prices Bull Market Accelerates on Panic Buying / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Barely a few weeks on from when Britain's housing market bears were starting to reappear on the scene in the mainstream press with perma doomsday headlines that followed Februarys 1.5% plunge and on the back of news of a fast slowing UK economy. Now out pops the Halifax with its latest data that show average UK house prices have once more accelerated to above 10% per annum! By galloping ahead by a whopping 2.6% for March near double Februarys 1.5% drop, and despite Februarys drop are up by 2.9% so far thus year which converts into an annual inflation rate of 11.6%.

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Friday, April 08, 2016

UK Housing Market Panic Buying Accelerates House Price Inflation to Over 10% Per Annum / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016

UK House Asking Prices Break Above £300k! Housing Market Paralysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Apparently according Rightmove average UK house asking prices (for England & Wales) have now breached the £300k price level for the first time ever, currently standing at £303,190 against Februarys 299,287. And for comparison the previous bull market peak was £236k, whilst asking prices bottomed out in 2009 at £215k and where most of the surge higher has come during the past 3 years, a rise of 24%.

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Monday, March 21, 2016

UK House Prices - This is London Falling / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: EWI

Editor's note: The following article is adapted from the State of the Global Markets Report--2016 Edition, one of the most anticipated annual reports for technically minded investors and analysts around the world. For a limited time, we are making the report available 100% free of charge. After that, it goes to $99 per download, where it will stay for the rest of the year. Click here to get your free copy now >>

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Tuesday, February 23, 2016

First-time UK Homes Buyer Mortgage Deals Edge Towards Pre-crash Levels / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

In the aftermath of the economic downturn mortgage choice at 90% and 95% loan-to-value (LTV) became woefully limited. However, research from Moneyfacts.co.uk shows that product availability for borrowers with small deposits has now expanded to reach its highest level since April 2008.

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Monday, January 11, 2016

Think Tiny When it Comes to 2016 Real Estate Investments / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Larissa James writes: For years, homes have been getting bigger and bigger. As a result, real estate investors have tied their money up in massive properties and McMansions. And while there will always be a demand for large luxury homes, there’s a growing trend that’s evolving into a new real estate investment opportunity. They’re classified as “tiny homes,” but cash flow is anything but tiny for those willing to take on new risks.

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Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Countdown to the End of UK Housing Market Help to Buy Phase 2 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

In December this year the mortgage market will wave goodbye to the Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee Scheme. Since its introduction, the scheme has had a profound effect on the 95% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage market, giving it a significant boost at a vital time.

As a result of the impetus from the scheme, data from Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that the number of mortgages at 95% LTV has risen from 56 in October 2013 to 249 today – a 444% increase.

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Sunday, December 27, 2015

UK Climate Change Floods Crisis to Hit House Prices 2016 and Beyond / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Whilst Britain was still dealing with the consequences of the floods of the northern most regions of England of barely 3 weeks ago, now the conveyor belt of heavy rainfall has been working its way down the length of Britain to encompass much of the North of England, Yorkshire and Lancashire and increasingly starting to impact on central England. These are further signs of the real consequences of climate change as the diverging Jet Stream, a conveyor belt for dumping heavy rainfall onto Britain is increasingly becoming a common occurrence that is likely to persist for many more months with the next heavy deluge expected Wednesday.

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Monday, December 14, 2015

London Housing Market House Prices Forecast 2016-2018 - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

London's housing bull market continues to gallop along at an astonishing pace which depending on which measure one looks at ranges from an annual rate of between 8% and 12%, and that the most recent surge higher has now lifted the average London house price to over an eye watering £600k! Pushing London house prices affordability ratio's upwards of X10 average London earnings, pushing London properties out of the reach of even the professional middle classes, let alone the army of working class necessary to keep the metropolis ticking over. Where many prospective home buyers are being forced to adopt extreme measures such as shared ownerships or be convinced by highly polished sales pitches that a tiny box studio flats priced at £300k+ in run down areas sold as up and coming are a very good deal! So buy now before it is snapped up by someone else, probably who has yet to even set foot in Britain which highlights London's ultimate safe haven status, not just for the worlds people but capital of tax evading billionaires and people of more ordinary means plowing billions into London's better than gold property market each year.

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Friday, December 11, 2015

UK House Prices, Immigration and London Property Bubble Mania Housing Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

London's housing bull market continues to gallop along at an astonishing pace which depending on which measure one looks at ranges from an annual rate of between 8% and 12%, and that the most recent surge higher has now lifted the average London house price to over an eye watering £600k! Pushing London house prices affordability ratio's upwards of X10 average London earnings, pushing London properties out of the reach of even the professional middle classes, let alone the army of working class necessary to keep the metropolis ticking over. Where many prospective home buyers are being forced to adopt extreme measures such as shared ownerships or be convinced by highly polished sales pitches that a tiny box studio flats priced at £300k+ in an run down (up and coming) area are a very good deal! So buy now before it is snapped up by someone else, probably who has yet to even set foot in Britain which highlights London's ultimate safe haven status, not just for the worlds people but capital of tax evading billionaires and people of more ordinary means plowing billions into London's better than gold property market each year.

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Wednesday, December 09, 2015

BSA Property Tracker Reports that Barriers to UK Home Ownership are Shrinking / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Charlotte Nelson, Finance Expert at Moneyfacts.co.uk, comments:

“The finding that major barriers to home ownership have fallen to a six-year low is great news for first-time buyers and instils greater confidence in the housing market.

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Tuesday, December 08, 2015

UK Climate Change Floods House Prices Crash Could Hit 20% of Properties / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

What were supposed to be once in century floods are now occurring every 5 years or so as the North of England has been witnessing this past week, as the consequences of climate change is starting to make it's real extreme weather effects become manifest with costly consequences for home owners and not just in terms of costly repairs and replacements but the negative hit on house prices right across the UK as the escalating future consequences of climate change will increasingly be factored into home buying decisions.

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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

George Osborne's 2015 Autumn Review will Exacerbate UK Housing Crisis - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mario_Innecco

Today I'm gonna be talking about the autumn spending review which is like a budgets temporary budget by the UK government. Chancellor Osborne will be making a statement today 12:30 London time the main focus be according to Bloomberg News at this stage you will be the housing market. George Osborne will say that there's a crisis housing prices in the UK in and there's a shortage of homes that he will be focusing on, he's expected to spend billion pounds extra into the into the help build new homes schemes because the reasoning behind his actions is that there's not enough and that's what we hear from from almost everyone in the mainstream media.

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Monday, November 23, 2015

UK Regional House Prices Analysis - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Average UK house prices have now risen by 30% from the 2009 bear market low to currently stand at an average price of £204,119 (Halifax NSA Oct 2015), and are currently galloping along at an annual inflation rate of 10%. However, the UK average price masks huge regional variations in trend and momentum most notable of which is that London has literally soared into the stratosphere, up over 70% on it's bear market low and by virtue of which has significantly lifted average UK house prices higher.

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Monday, November 23, 2015

UK Regional House Prices, Cheapest and Most Expensive Property Markets / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Average UK house prices have now risen by 30% from the 2009 bear market low to currently stand at an average price of £204,119 (Halifax NSA Oct 2015), and are currently galloping along at an annual inflation rate of 10%. However, the UK average price masks huge regional variations in trend and momentum most notable of which is that London has literally soared into the stratosphere, up over 70% on it's bear market low and by virtue of which has pulled the average UK house price indices higher as illustrated by the below graph.

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Saturday, November 21, 2015

UK Housing Market House Prices Affordability Crisis - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing market has been in a perpetual state of crisis for at least a decade in terms of the lack of affordable housing that just tends to get worse with each passing year. Therefore most housing market commentators tend to focus on the various measures of housing market affordability or rather unaffordability as house prices despite the price crash of 2008-2009 never fell to anywhere near the affordability levels of the early 1990's housing bear market lows and therefore ivory tower academics have continued to cling onto expectations that a further house prices crash is inevitable so as the fit in with their theoretical models of where house prices should fall to in terms of affordability that gets liberally regurgitated in the mainstream press, see this new video to find out what this means for future UK house prices.

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Saturday, November 21, 2015

UK Housing Market Affordability, House Prices Momentum and Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Most academic housing market commentators focus on the various measures of housing market affordability or rather unaffordability as house prices despite the price crash of 2008-2009 never fell to anywhere near the affordability levels of the early 1990's housing bear market lows and therefore ivory tower academics have continued to cling onto expectations that a further house prices crash is inevitable so as the fit in with their theoretical models of where house prices should fall to in terms of affordability that gets liberally regurgitated in the mainstream press, and looking at the graph below it really is very easy to be seduced by something that on first glance appears obvious that house prices really did have a long way to fall to reach the affordability levels of the past.

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Thursday, October 29, 2015

London Property Bubble Set To Burst – UBS and Deutsche Warn / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

The London property market is being increasingly recognised as a bubble and now even leading international banks are warning that the bubble may be set to burst.

Today, UBS has warned that London’s property market is “frothing” and last week Deutsche Bank were the property party pooper “calling time” on the London property “party.”

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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Help to Buy keeps the UK Housing Mortgage Market Alive Two Years On / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

The Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee Scheme will soon be celebrating its second birthday. Phase two aimed to help borrowers who have a 5% deposit buy a home by giving lenders a Government-backed guarantee of 15% of the mortgage.

Since its launch in October 2013, the 95% loan-to-value (LTV) mortgage market has changed dramatically, and data from Moneyfacts.co.uk has revealed that not only are there now lower rates available for borrowers with small deposits, but there’s also far more product choice.

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Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Will UK Interest Rate Rises Crash House Prices? / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter Aug 20th, 2015
Issue # 14 Vol. 9

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Wednesday, September 09, 2015

US Housing Market - It's 2008 All Over Again / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Rodney_Johnson

You might have thought it was a good idea when the government started taking all the profits of the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA, or Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC, or Freddie Mac).

After all, the two quasi-private mortgage insurance giants had sucked a lot of profit out of the markets over the decades, and then required over $180 billion in bailout money from taxpayers. Why not get a little of the bailout cash back, right?

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Sunday, August 23, 2015

Will Rising Interest Rates Crash UK House Prices? - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK interest rates have remained frozen at 0.5% for 78 straight months, with the Bank of England having refused to budge an inch even when inflation had soared to above 5% on its official measures of CPI and RPI. However, now with the general election out of the way the Bank of England has started to signal in its forward guidance that the markets should prepare for interest rate hikes.

Therefore this analysis seeks to determine the consequences for rising interest rates on UK house prices into the end of 2018.

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Thursday, August 20, 2015

Will UK Interest Rate Rises Crash House Prices? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK interest rates have flat lined at 0.5% for 78 straight months, that now post the general election has market attention turning towards the prospects for the first of a series of interest rates hikes as signaled by the Bank of England. Firstly, understand this fundamental fact that interest rates at 0.5% has been a PANIC measure. The Bank of England has been in a state of perpetual PANIC for over the past 6 years of which 0.5% interest rates was just the first step towards propping up Britain's bankrupt banking system, the second step was the £500 billion or so of Quantitative Easing or money printing that has been stuffed into every orifice of the bankrupt banks, and the list goes on with capital injections and the Funding for Lending Scheme which has succeeded in eroding the purchasing power of savings (stealth theft) since it was first implemented since Mid 2012, ALL to prop up the Bank of England's banking sector brethren.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Why Change in Tax Relief for Landlords is Going to Impact Everybody / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Peter Scully writes: In the most recent budget, George Osborne cut tax relief on private rental properties. In the budget, private landlords had their tax relief on mortgage payments cut from the current 45% (or 40% in some cases) to 20%. This is a change which will come into place by April 2020. As you can probably guess, a huge change like this in the industry is going to have an absolutely huge impact on many people.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2015

U.S. Housing Market: Is the Roof About to Cave In (Again)? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: EWI

"This is clearly not a bubble" says National Association of Realtors chief economist

Editor's note: You'll find a text version of this story below the video.

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Thursday, June 18, 2015

7 Stages That Borrowers Face During Mortgage Home Repossession / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Victoria Adams writes: When you have fallen into mortgage arrears, it is very important to communicate with your mortgage lender about your financial situation. Also, getting legal advice immediately could help you resolve the problem. Your lender cannot just throw you out of your home. He needs to follow a pre-action protocol. Here are the 7 steps of repossession that you must know:

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Thursday, June 04, 2015

UK House Prices Post Election Fall, Whilst Annual Momentum Plays Catchup / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest UK house prices seasonally adjusted data published by the Halifax registered a fall of 0.1% for May 2015 that followed a 1.6% surge for April as George Osborne succeeded in his pre-election house prices boom timed to reach maximum intensity just prior to election day. Following which house prices are starting to show signs of rolling over in the monthly data whilst the annual data continues to play catch up as annual inflation nudged higher to 8.6%. Which also makes a mockery of recent mainstream press deflation scare stories in the wake of annual CPI dropping to -0.1%, which at the time I warned was ignoring the elephant in the room, namely house price inflation galloping ahead at 10% per annum.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

What move should overseas investors make next in UK property? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Peter Scully writes: From 6 April 2015 there will no longer be tax advantages for non-UK residents who invest in the UK residential property market.
These changes have seen Capital Gains Tax (CGT) exemption being removed along with restricted access to Private Residence Relief (PRR) as well as the potential removal of personal allowance for income tax.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

5 Ways You Can Stop House Eviction In UK / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Victoria Adams writes: Mortgage arrears could be the worst nightmare for any homeowner since it leads to you losing your home. When you are unable to pay the loan secured on the home, the chances of having your home repossessed increase. The risk of losing the possession of your home to your mortgage lender also increases if you do not pay your instalments on time. Mortgage repossessions have leaped to their highest levels in the last few years.

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Saturday, April 18, 2015

UK Housing Crisis, Immigration, Population Growth, Election Forecast 2015 - Video / ElectionOracle / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britains housing crisis is one of limited new build supply that consistently fails to keep pace with new demand that typically tends to average twice the rate of supply resulting in an worsening housing crisis each year which explains why academic theories of UK house prices being in a bubble that is always imminently destined to burst persistently fails to materialise. Instead the reality is one of house prices relentlessly grinding ever higher with an ever escalating house prices to earnings ratio that on an average stands at over 7X earnings, and far beyond that of virtually every other western nation and in some parts of the UK is greater than 25X earnings.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2015

UK House Prices, Immigration, Population Growth and Election Forecast 2015 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britains housing market pressure cooker is one of limited new build supply that consistently fails to keep pace with new demand that typically tends to average twice the rate of required supply resulting in an worsening housing crisis each year which explains why ivory tower academic theories of a UK house prices bubble that is always imminently destined to burst persistently fails to materialise. Instead the reality is one of house prices relentlessly grinding ever higher whilst people in other nations can only look on in puzzlement as to how can UK house prices continue to defy gravity with an ever escalating house price to earnings ratio that on an average basis stands at X7, far beyond that of virtually every other western nation. Therefore this analysis revisits the UK's near unique immigration driven population growth demographic drivers that contrary to bubble bursting expectations could yet continue to persist for several more decades!

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Monday, April 06, 2015

Housing Market Economics for the Younger Generation and the Prisoners Dilemma / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Tom Naysburn writes: Politicians and the Media now claim they recognise that the general public are fed up with politics and politicians like never before but they never seem to acknowledge the reasons why. Most of them may genuinely not know because the answers require a specialist knowledge but the few who do are suppressing the truth of the matter from the disillusioned citizens. Listen up because I am now going to explain in the simplest way I can.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Help to Buy ISA 25% Government Home Buying Deposit Top Up UK House Prices Mega-Boost / ElectionOracle / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

George Osborne's Budget 2015 contained the latest boost to UK house prices in the form of the Help to Buy ISA (savings account), that for every £200 saved will have £50 added to by the government i.e. a 25% government house buying deposit subsidy that currently converts into a maximum of £3,000 per prospective home buyer (£12k total deposit) that I am sure will be raised annually, and which for couples implies an current £6k subsidy.

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Saturday, December 27, 2014

Has Housing Been the Best Way to Preserve Purchasing Power of Money in 21st Century Britain? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mario_Innecco

If you are chatting to people down at the Red Lion or the Bullʼs Head about investments this Christmas season I am sure 99%, if not 100% of them, would say that housing has been and always is the best place to put your money in. I would not blame them either as the U.K. populace has always been attracted to the real estate market and renting is not the British way of doing things. An “Englishmanʼs house is his castle” comes to mind! So if the asset that is held most dearly to the British starts going up in value they will notice and the newspapers and the press in general will let them know.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Stamp Duty Cut UK Housing Market Election Boost, Home Buyer Examples / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing market will receive a significant boost from midnight tonight with what amounts to a cut in the amount of stamp duty charged on approx 90% of property purchases as the Chancellor, George Osborne in his Autumn statement does away with a huge anomaly / penalty in the way stamp duty tax is charged on property purchases, where for instance just a £1 increase in the price paid would tend to result in many extra thousands due in stamp duty tax that tended to result in huge bottlenecks around the stamp duty bands that acted as caps on house prices in many areas and thus resulted in much inertia.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2014

London Property Bubble Primed To Burst - Consequences For UK Economy and Sterling / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: GoldCore

The ongoing slump in oil prices looks set to take their toll on London’s “super prime” property markets with attendant consequences for the rest of the London property market. Foreign money that had been flooding into the UK from a whole array of international sources and parking in London real estate is drying up.

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Sunday, October 05, 2014

Monetizing the UK Housing Market Bubble with 20% Discount Election Bribes / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Many people continuously ask how can UK house prices continue rising from already a very high levels to what appear to be new bubble extremes, especially when average wages have been falling in real terms for the past 5 years and only likely to turn marginally positive this year. The answer to this remains the same in that all governments of whatever party will always seek to monetize the UK housing market in an attempt to keep inflating the housing bubble in perpetuity by literally printing money (QE and and debt that will never be repaid but inflated away).

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Saturday, October 04, 2014

UK Interest Rates and House Prices Trend Forecast / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter

June 30th , 2014 Issue # 14 Vol. 8

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Saturday, October 04, 2014

UK and US Housing Market Trend Forecasts and How to Profit FREE Ebook / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter

May 22nd , 2014 Issue # 12 Vol. 8

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Sunday, August 31, 2014

Scotland Independence House Prices Crash, Deflationary Debt Death Spiral / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The consequences for the people of Scotland voting YES would be tantamount to the Scottish people firstly committing economic suicide as a consequence of the immense uncertainty in virtually every aspect of economic activity that would expect to manifest it self in dis-investment / flight of capital out of Scotland, from funds held in the banks deemed to be Scottish, to sale of a whole host of business and private assets such as properties as for many Scottish households the safest place to be at such an uncertain time would be to move into rental premises, even to the extent of a panic swapping of Scottish paper Pound notes for English paper Pound notes, just in case of volatility in the relative value of the notes by the market (shops).

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Monday, August 25, 2014

A Dodgy UK Housing Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Harry_Dent

The U.K. has been perhaps the hottest housing market in the developed world this year, and London’s housing market is even hotter, as I reported in “London has Gone Bonkers” on June 23, 2014.

Now, the sh*t is starting to hit the fan.

Rightmove is like the Zillow of the U.K. and it surveys 90% of the residential housing market. Its most recent survey found that prices dropped 2.9% in August (2013) in the U.K. and are down 3.7% since it peaked this past May as the chart below shows.

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Monday, August 11, 2014

UK House Prices Crash Warning - Daily Mail Cognitive Dissonance / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

FEAR Sells, DOOM Sells which is why the mainstream media at least 80% of the time peddle FEAR and DOOM by even turning a positive news story into a DOOM AND GLOOM story as illustrated by Britain's Daily Mail where it does not matter what the event, it is always an imminent catastrophe!

Take the weather, a slightly windy and rainy Sunday / Monday was flagged as Britain being about to be hit by a hurricane as illustrated by the Daily Mails headline.

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Monday, August 11, 2014

UK House Prices Boom - Top Quick Cheap Tips to Help Sell Your Home / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Average UK house prices are now rising at the rate of £2,665 per month which exceeds average UK gross earnings of just £2,300 per month as house prices inflation is now being sustained at a rate of more than 10% per annum prompting many home owners to attempt to capitalie on the gains by putting their homes onto the market.

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Friday, August 08, 2014

Why UK House Prices Will Continue Rising - 'It's Immigration Stupid' / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest data from the Halifax puts average UK house prices at £189,726 (NSA) up £18,662 since the start of this year, which is resulting in a huge boost to home owner consumer confidence as house prices are now rising at a rate that is more than average monthly earnings which is strongly favourable for the Conservative party should the trend be sustained into the May 2015 General Election as election wins have always been a case of the 'it's the economy stupid' or more accurately put 'it's the housing market stupid'.

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Thursday, July 03, 2014

UK Interest Rates and House Prices Trend Forecast - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Blasting away Mark Carneys flop flopping smoke and mirrors statements on the prospects for UK interest rates to reveal the underlying fundamentals for RISING interest rates this year. This video addresses the likely impact on the ongoing UK housing bull market.

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Wednesday, July 02, 2014

UK House Prices Soar to New All Time High, London Bubble, Nationwide Data / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Nationwide released their latest UK house price data for June 2014 that showed a 1% rise on the month lifting the annual rate to 11.8% and taking average UK house prices to a new all time high of £188,903. All UK regions saw a rise in house prices with the South East continuing to outperform and London's bubble market hitting an raging hout annual price rise of 26%.

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Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Rising UK Mortgage Interest Rates / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Moneyfacts.co.uk can reveal that the cost of direct fixed rate mortgage deals, especially the most popular two-year fixed are creeping upwards.

After three months of historically low rates in the two-year 60%, 65%, 70%, 75%, and 80% loan-to-values (LTV), the lowest rates offered by lenders have shot upwards as at the 1 July. The cheapest 90% LTV also increased from last month’s rate.

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Wednesday, July 02, 2014

UK Home Building to Fall - Iimplications for House Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Leaked government documents have fallen into the hands of BBC Newsnight that show that despite all of the extreme measures to date to stoke up house building such as the help to buy scheme, instead the accelerating trend for house building looks set to come to an abrupt halt in the lead up to the next general election as the number of homes built for 2014-15 is now expected to fall by 4% to 128,000 from 133,650 for 2013-14.

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Monday, June 30, 2014

UK Interest Rates and House Prices Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Whilst borrowers fear a rate rise, savers instead salivate at their prospects especially as the banking crime syndicate is now into its 6th year of the stealth theft of purchasing power of savings as the banks continue to suckle on the teat of the Bank of England through a myriad of schemes that results in effectively providing the banks with unlimited funding that has resulted in the collapse of savings interest rates that began in May 2012 and have been kept at sub inflation rates of systemic theft.

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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Housing Markets? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Jonathan_Davis

BANK OF ENGLAND FINANCIAL POLICY COMMITTEE TO CAP BULK OF HIGH LOAN-TO-INCOME MORTGAGES AND TOUGHENS UNDERWRITING STANDARDS

TO SET FROM OCTOBER LOAN TO INCOME RATIO AT 4.5 FOR 85 PCT OF NEW MORTGAGES

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Monday, June 16, 2014

Global and UK House Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Jonathan_Davis

The charts below show global house prices in relation to local incomes and historic rents. Some of the prices are shockingly high, relative to reasonable economic comparators.

This first one, shows prices to incomes. To explain the chart, Italian house prices are seen as about the same, historically, relative to current income levels.

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Tuesday, June 03, 2014

European Commission Advises Booming Britain to Burst Housing Market and Collapse UK Economy / Politics / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The clueless academics employed by the European Commission's political elite of the euro-zone, who for the glory of power over the european people are hell bent on driving much of the european union into the abyss of a socialist utopia where the masses own and earn nothing but become wholly reliant on ECB central bank money printing funded government hand outs as bought and paid for vested interests in exchange for votes for career european union politicians who have nothing in common with their electorates, today have been busy issuing advice to the one Island of Independence on a continent of conformity as to how Britain should ruin its booming economy.

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Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Add Home Value By Going Green - Insulation, Green houses and Water Butts / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Percentage added to home value of 200% to 300% of typical costs incurred. Typically £700 spent can convert into as much as a £2k increase in value.

At relatively little cost home owners can boost their green credentials to not only increase the value of their homes by making their homes more appealing to increasingly environmentally conscious prospective home buyers but also save money on an ongoing basis.

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Sunday, June 01, 2014

How Trees Increase or Reduce Home Values - Dangers, Inspection, Neighbours, Pruning and Removal / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Percentage added to home value of 200% to 500% of typical costs incurred. Typically £500 spent can convert into as much as a £2.5k increase in value.

It is the responsibility of every home owner to ensure that their trees are in keeping with the size of their garden and neighbouring properties. Not only do very tall unpruned trees result in a lot of maintenance issues such as from falling leaves branches and wide spreading roots, as well as the legal responsibility of the tree owner should during a storm the tree topple over and damage property or even cause injury.

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Thursday, May 29, 2014

Help to Buy Caution - House Buying or Renting Scenarios / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

You may not be fully aware that the Help to Buy Scheme is an upto 20% EQUITY BACKED LOAN, which means that the government owns 20% of your property in exchange for the 5 year interest free loan. The loan is repaid when the property is sold or at the end of the mortgage term when you repay 20% of the SALE PRICE. So if house prices rise by 33% then so does the value of the loan at the time of repayment.

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Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Will a Garage Conversion Add Value to My Home? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It can be very tempting for home owners in need of living space to contemplate the conversion of their integral or attached garages. However this can turn out to be a huge mistake in terms of it being highly unlikely that you would ever recoup the costs in terms of an increase in your homes value, not unless you live in places such as central London where space carry's a heavy premium.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

How Much Value Does a Conservatory Add to Your Home? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Percentage added to home value of 50% to 133% of typical costs incurred. Typically £16k spent can convert into as much as a £22k increase in value, though this is very variable and can result in a loss of 50% of the costs incurred.

Whether a conservatory will add value to your home is not a clear cut decision as it depends on a number of factors such as the intended quality of build as the price for conservatories ranges from £5k at the low end for a wholly UPVC build bolted onto the back of houses to one built onto a dwarf wall of upto 30square metres in area that can cost upto £30k.

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Monday, May 26, 2014

Top 15 Home Value Increasing Improvements - Extensions / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Moving home can be one of the most stressful times in ones life, therefore before one considers moving it may be better to fully evaluate the potential that your existing home presents in terms of a myriad of possible home improvements that not only make your home more livable but also add significantly more to your homes value than the amount spent.

In today's age it is taken as granted that your home has both double glazing and central heating installed, if for some reason you have been putting off installing either of these than that will be a huge red mark against your home when you put it on the market as it will ring the warning bells amongst viewers that there could be much more wrong with your property. Similarly this guide assumes that if there are any serious structural issues such as subsidence then these will already have been dealt with before hand.

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Sunday, May 25, 2014

Home Buyers, Sellers and Estate Agents, Sell Your House for Cash? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

What you need to know about Estate Agents

There will be greater competition in affluent areas between estate agents for business due to higher potential commissions, therefore there is a tendency to more aggressively value these properties so as to secure business and shut out other agents which means houses at least when first going on the market will tend to be over priced by typically 10%.

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Saturday, May 24, 2014

London House Prices Bubble, Debt Slavery, Crimea 2.0 - Russia Ukraine Annexation / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
April 14th , 2014 Issue # 9 Vol. 8

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Thursday, May 22, 2014

UK and US Housing Bull Market Trend Forecasts and How to Profit New Free 300 page Ebook / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing bull market has barely begun and already bubble talk fills the media air waves whilst similar bubble talk in the US began a year earlier! The latest media noise concerns mortgage caps and rising interest rates, both are red herrings as the media fail to even be conscious of the primary drivers of this bull market, hence much of which is written will remain several years behind the curve and continue to miss whole bull markets just as the stocks bull market has passed under their collective radar for OVER 5 years! The end of which is supposedly always imminent which is now also repeating towards the housing markets with constant commentary of a an about to burst bubble.

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Monday, May 19, 2014

Mark Carney Smoke and Mirrors Warning of UK Housing Market Bubble Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Mark 'Money Printing' Carney continued to put up a smoke screen of a UK housing market bubble that needs to burst as he acted to cover his and the Bank of England's backs for being the architects of the current UK housing bull market that continues to accelerate towards an average inflation rate of 10% per annum, which looks set to break to a new all time high within the next few months, whilst the London bubble already stands at a 20% premium to its 2007 bull market peak following waves of foreign buying that seek a safe haven from their own corrupt and always eager to steal the peoples wealth governments.

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Sunday, May 11, 2014

UK Housing Market Bubble Warnings Mainstream Media Mania / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The mainstream media has been busy this past week regurgitating on a near daily basis warnings of a UK housing market bubble from wide range of academic economics institutions despite the fact that the said institutions never saw the housing bull market coming.

Guardian - Three former chancellors warn of house price bubble

Pressure on the Bank of England and the chancellor to scale back the Help to Buy programme has risen after three former chancellors, including two Conservatives, warned that the scheme needed revision and might be fuelling a house price boom.

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Monday, April 14, 2014

London House Prices Bubble, Debt Slavery, Crimea 2.0 - Russia Ukraine Annexation / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Is London House Price Boom Sustainable? Regional UK House Prices Analysis

Recent data released by the Nationwide illustrates that whilst UK average house prices are rising by near 10% per annum to stand at £180,264 and now just 3% away from their 2007 peak (-3%), meanwhile London has been in a raging bull market for well over a year with prices rising by 18% per annum putting the average at £362,699 which is more than 20% above London's 2007 peak.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Nationwide UK House Prices 9.5% Inflation, Housing Market on Steroids, Help to Buy Anniversary / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Nationwide woke up today to the UK house prices boom underway by reporting that its HP inflation index had risen by 9.5% over the past 12 months to stand at £180,264 as average UK house prices home in on breaking their 2007 peak (-3%), something that London achieved over a year ago having since galloped ahead to stand at an average price of £362,699 which is more than 20% above its 2007 peak.

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Friday, March 28, 2014

How to Increase the Value of Your Home With Loft Conversions / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Percentage added to the value of ones home is typically 125% to 200% of costs incurred. Typically £30k spent can convert into as much as a £60k increase in value.

If your loft is of at least 2.3 metres in height (centrally) then a loft conversion is one of the easiest ways to add both space and value to your home that can typically yield twice the amount spent. The cost to convert a loft into a layout of 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom would typically cost £30,000 to £40,000 for a standard dormer window conversion, therefore adding approx £60k to £80k to the value of ones home.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

North England's New Mega-city - MANFIELD, Comprising Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Rotherham... / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Investing in Future New Mega-Cities

Whilst most house hunters will be viewing properties in terms of what would be a good investment over the next 10 years or so, I tend to gaze much further into the mists of time to try to ascertain what the mega-trends are and then attempt to leverage my wealth towards profiting from them, even if most of the payoff could come beyond my life-time and thus for future generations to profit from.

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Monday, March 03, 2014

UK Facing Housing Costs Time Bomb - Millions at the Mercy of Bank Interest Rates / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Global_Research

Dennis Moore writes: Millions of people across Britain have serious concerns as to whether they will be able to afford to keep their homes, according to the housing charity Shelter.

A survey of 4,000 people by the charity, organised via YouGov, revealed the disturbing trend, as many said they feared they would not be able to meet housing bills. One in five of those surveyed said they were so anxious they did not open their post if they thought it could be a late payment reminder.

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

UK House Prices vs Earnings, Immigration, Public Spending, Unemployment and Affordability / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter

Janaury 21st , 2014 Issue # 2 Vol. 8

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

UK House Prices Forecast 2014 to 2018, The Debt Fuelled Election Boom / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter

December 30th , 2013 Issue # 22 Vol. 7

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

Bank of England UK Housing Market Bubble Panic is Mark Carney Playing Game of Thrones / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter

November 29th , 2013 Issue # 20 Vol. 7

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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

UK Housing Market and Climate Change, Floodplain's & River Flooding Risks / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The people of Britain during January and February 2014 have received a wake up call that climate change is real and will increasingly impact on their lives over the coming years, busting the myth that climate change consequences were decades away as home owners not only have to contend with rising sea levels impacting on low lying coastal regions but also with what were once deemed to be extreme weather storm events that are increasingly becoming a regular occurrence.

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Tuesday, January 21, 2014

UK House Prices vs Earnings, Immigration, Public Spending, Unemployment and Housing Market Affordability / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Politicians have been busy in recent months making a series of speeches warning of the cost of living crisis as liberally reported on by the mainstream press, a crisis that manifests itself in earnings unable to keep pace with even the official rate of inflation that has been systematically revised over several decades to under report the real rate of inflation. The persistent lack of apparent housing market affordability has encouraged many academic economists and journalists to warn of falling earnings against rising house prices as a fundamental reason why house price rises are unsustainable as obviously people just do not have enough money to finance house purchase costs such as mortgage payments as prices rise, and thus deflation is always deemed to be just around the corner. We'll as I will illustrate in this article in my UK housing market series that they are once more WRONG!

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Friday, January 10, 2014

Immigration Drives Down UK House Prices Says Clueless Financial Times / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Having scoured the mainstream press for their views on immigration and house prices for a comparison against my recent series of UK housing market articles led me to the venerable FT that not so long ago ran with an academic study that goes against decade long facts of upward pressure on house prices due to immigrant demand, which instead concludes that mass immigration tends to drive down house prices in a study by Dr Nils Braakmann from Newcastle University.

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Friday, January 03, 2014

Help to Buy Scheme Prompts Panic Buying UK House Prices Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Coalition government's March 2013 help to buy scheme, the extension of which to all properties rather than just new builds that itself was brought forward to the 1st of October 2013 from 1st of January 2014 has sparked panic buying amongst many thousands of prospective home buyers who had been finding it near impossible to build deposits of 20%-25% that mortgage lenders typically sought in terms of managing risk, however now the same mortgages can be secured with just 5% deposits which on the £600k valuation limit amounts to a huge difference between a previous deposit requirement of £120-£150k against £30k today under the help to buy guarantee scheme.

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Wednesday, January 01, 2014

UK Housing Market House Prices Forecast 2014 to 2018 - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

This video is based on the in-depth analysis and detailed concluding trend forecast for UK house prices into the end of 2018, (thus a full 5 year forecast) from the content within the NEW UK Housing Market ebook (FREE DOWNLOAD).

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Monday, December 30, 2013

UK House Prices Forecast 2014 to 2018, Inflation, Trend Trajectory and General Election 2015 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Introduction: This analysis is part 2 of 2 that seeks to conclude in a detailed trend forecast for UK house prices that extends my existing forecast into Mid 2014 to the end of 2018, thus a 5 year forecast for UK house prices 2014-2018. This analysis is focused on the impact of the Inflation mega-trend on the prospects for UK house prices that concludes in a detailed trend forecast and its implications for outcome of the next general election.

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Monday, December 30, 2013

UK House Prices Forecast 2014 to 2018, The Debt Fuelled Election Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Introduction: This analysis is part 1 of 2 that seeks to conclude in a detailed trend forecast for UK house prices that extends my existing forecast into Mid 2014 to the end of 2018, thus a 5 year forecast for UK house prices 2014-2018. This analysis is focused on the outlook for the UK economy, debt and QE money printing dynamics and their implications for UK house prices and on the outcome of the next general election.

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Friday, December 20, 2013

Real UK House Prices and the Inflation Mega-trend / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest inflation data shows CPI falling to 2.1% for November 2013 (RPI 2.6%, Real inflation 3.6%) which was received as good news as inflation was finally starting to home in on the Bank of England's 2% CPI target rate. This prompted the usual mantra amongst the academics of the risks of dis-inflation and in some cases even deflation which were coupled with benign inflation forecasts by government institutions such as the Bank of England and the OBR that repeated their forecast that UK inflation would resolve to 2% in 2years time that is always the case and I mean ALWAYS, for more than a decade now the Bank of England has been spouting the same mantra of what amounts to nothing more than economic propaganda aimed at keeping the wage slaves sedated as the actual inflation graph below illustrates that in reality there is an over 90% probability for UK Inflation being significantly above 2% in 2 years time.

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Friday, November 29, 2013

Bank of England UK Housing Market Bubble Panic is Mark Carney Playing Game of Thrones / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Bank of England's relentless, monotonous statements of a stable UK housing market for the whole of 2013 that have been dutifully regurgitated by the mainstream media was punctured yesterday as the broadcast news was full of the image of money printing Mark Carney issuing a warning of the risks of an unfolding UK housing market bubble that the Bank of England would seek to take measures to counter starting with withdrawal of the funding for lending scheme for mortgages from the end of Jan 2014.

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Saturday, November 23, 2013

Home Investing Tips - Insurance, Cost of Owning and Market Value / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Boris Dzhingarov writes: Home buyers often overlook or do not understand the details and ramifications of three critical aspects when buying a home:

Insurance
Cost to Own a Home
Market Value

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Monday, November 18, 2013

UK House Prices Boom Propelling GDP Economic Growth to Above 3%, Interest Rates Pressure Cooker / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britain's house prices bull market momentum as a consequence of 5 years of ZIRP and rampant money printing is finally and rapidly starting to translate into positive economic data as illustrated by the unemployment rate tumbling to 7.6% and GDP growth rate of 0.8% for Q3, which prompted many academic economists from the Bank of England downwards to busily revise doom and gloom forecasts of in some cases just 1% GDP growth to now a high 2.5% as illustrated by Money Printing Mark Carneys latest quarterly Inflation report forecast for 2014, that in my opinion could easily exceed 3% with Inflation consequences for in excess of CPI 3% that will result in far more than mere hints of interest rate hikes that the mainstream press has been busy scrambling over these past few days to commentate on the risks of.

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Thursday, October 17, 2013

UK House Prices Bull Market Soaring Momentum, 10% Inflation by October? / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
August 19th , 2013 Issue # 16 Vol. 7

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Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Robert Shiller Demolishes UK's Housing Market Help-To-Buy Scheme / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Raul_I_Meijer

It's always amusing to peruse the press and find stuff that just doesn't hold up. Not for a big analysis, just a chuckle, albeit with a serious undercurrent. I've explained a hundred times that the prize Bob Shiller was awarded on Monday is not a Nobel prize, but a cheap fake, and I've looked for the correct name for it, Notbel, NoNobel, Fauxbel, but that ground has been covered and Shiller got the thing and why dwell on the stupidity of it all indefinitely?

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Tuesday, October 08, 2013

Help to Buy Phase 2 Mortgage Loan Examples / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

The Help to Buy scheme has arrived earlier than originally anticipated, albeit amid a certain amount of confusion around the finer details.

Based on the details to surface, Moneyfacts has worked out how much of a saving these deals will mean to borrowers and how much money will come out of your pocket.

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Sunday, September 29, 2013

David Cameron Brings Forward Help to Buy Mortgages, Stoking House Prices Bubble, Election Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The coalition government is ramping up its efforts for not just igniting economic recovery but an election boom as David Cameron announces that the Help to Buy Scheme which was due to be extended to all house purchases upto £600k from January 1st 2014, will instead now commence this coming week. This is a clear case of actions speaking louder than words for literally just days ago George Osbourne was issuing statements that he wanted the Bank of England to step in to prevent a housing bubble, we even had the likes of Vince Cable calling on the 2nd phase of Help to Buy to be scrapped, instead the Coalition governments ACTIONS for over a year have been one of escalating efforts towards stoking a house prices bubble in an attempt at igniting an ELECTION BOOM, an election that could come much earlier than the consensus expects.

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Friday, September 20, 2013

UK House Prices Forecast 2013 to Mid 2014 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Many housing market commentators have been busy this past week revising their house prices forecasts for 2013, such as Rightmove tripling their forecast for UK house prices from just a 2% rise to now 6% for 2013. This follows hot on the heels of the Liberal Democrats economic guru, Vince Cable warning of a potential a new UK housing market bubble as a consequence of the governments "Help to Buy" scheme.

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Saturday, September 14, 2013

Ridiculous RICS Calls on Bank of England to Cap UK House Prices at 5% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has called on the Bank of England to cap house prices at 5% to prevent another house prices bubble, this is set against recent Halifax data that puts house prices rising at a rate of 4.6% per annum.

The problem with the RICS call for a 5% cap is that it implies that the Bank of England is ever competent in capping anything let alone house prices inflation, when the evidence suggests otherwise as the Bank of England has FAILED in its primary remit to target or cap CPI inflation at 2% for the past 5 years, and this during a period of economic depression i.e. the most favourable economic conditions for an inflation CAP , instead Inflation has averaged more than 60% above the Bank of England's 2% target rate at a rate of approx 3.3% per annum. Though real inflation tends to average between 1 to 1.5% above the highly suspect official rate therefore currently at between 3.7% and 4.2%, to which asset prices tend to be leveraged.

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Friday, September 13, 2013

Army of Estate Agents Recruited for UK House Prices Boom, Election May 2014? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK's latest better than expected unemployment figures reveal that Britain's estate agency firms have been engaged in what can only be termed as 'panic hiring' as the firms ramp up operations in preparations for the return of a UK house prices boom by hiring more than 77,000 estate agents over the past year to a new record high of 562,000 estate agents, 16% more than a year ago and about 25% of ALL jobs created!

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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

UK Housing Market Final Warning - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Take this as your final warning for a UK house prices boom as those waiting on the sidelines have only a matter of weeks to act before housing market sentiment responds to prices rising at a rate of more than 10% per annum. The days of under offering for good houses in good locations is about to end.

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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Final Warning UK House Prices Boom Imminent! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

At this very moment in time, long before the EFFECTS will become manifest in the underlying prices data, the UK housing market is fast accelerating towards a boom BEFORE the end of this year as the latest news out of the UK housing market continues to gives strong indications towards.

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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

US and UK Soaring House Prices Bull Market Momentum - Video / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Despite academic and mainstream press skepticism, US and UK house prices are literally starting to soar in response to government measures aimed at boosting housing market sentiment into sustainable bull market trajectories, that I expect could continue for the remainder of this decade.

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Monday, August 19, 2013

UK House Prices Bull Market Soaring Momentum, 10% Inflation by October? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Prospective U.K. home buyers who may have been persuaded by the pseudo-economists, financial / economic journalists that populate the mainstream press as to the sustainability for any rise in UK house prices will over the past few months been finding themselves in an increasingly panicky state as UK house prices have literally started to soar as illustrated by the latest data and news out of RICS that reported that house prices are now rising at their fastest pace in 7 years, with their indices giving their best readings since November 2006.

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Friday, July 19, 2013

UK Housing Bull Market Opportunities In Britain's Multiculturalism Immigration Crisis / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
June 3rd , 2013 Issue # 12 Vol. 7

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Monday, June 03, 2013

UK Housing Bull Market Opportunities In Britain's Multiculturalism Immigration Crisis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

In the recent May 2013 local elections support for UKIP soared to more than 25%, over taking the Liberal Democrats as the third party of protest as the major parties haemorrhaged voters due to their respective failures to address a crisis that has been fermenting over a near decade that has its roots in Labours open door policy to immigration from all new eastern european accession states, especially as many in Britain now fear another re-run of what followed the likes of Poland joining the EU near a decade ago as Bulgaria and Romania joining will likely see as many as 400,000 migrants over the next 3-4 years which is set against official expectations of just 13,000 new arrivals during 2014 (Communities Department).

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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

George Osborne Boosts UK Subprime Housing Market Ahead of Election Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

George Osborne announced a series of additional measures in along stream of give away's aimed at inflating the UK housing market the most significant of which is the policy of zero interest rates which artificially depresses UK interest rates as a consequence of inflationary Bank of England QE Money Printing to the tune of more than £500 billion to date.

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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Return of the high LTV UK Mortgage Market Products / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

There has been an increase in activity from lenders launching mortgage deals at higher loan-to-values (LTVs), providing some much-needed relief for first-time buyers (FTBs) searching for competitive rates for smaller deposits.

There were 36 new mortgage deals in the 85% LTV tiers and above in August 2012, a complete reversal from the drop of 26 products the previous month.

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Saturday, September 08, 2012

UK Home Extension Planning Rules Relaxed to Boost Economy, Trigger Housing Bull Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Coalition government in panic has realised that it is destined to lose the next general election unless it kick starts the UK ecocnomy so has announced proposals for a whole host of initiatives that will seek to provide billions in funding and cut through red tape that is hindering infrastructure and new homes construction with the aim of triggering a mini building boom and thus help the economy to recovery in the run up to the next general election.

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Monday, July 02, 2012

UK House Prices fall by 1.5% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

James Mechan writes: The average UK house price fell by 1.5% in June – the largest decrease since August 2009. The average house is now valued at £165,738, as prices fell by 1% nationally. However, for the same period, prices in Greater London rose by 1%, giving an average house price of £401,841.

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Monday, April 16, 2012

UK 95% LTV Mortgage Availability Doubles in a year / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

The number of mortgage products offering maximum loan-to-values of 95% has more than doubled over the past year, from just 27 to 61 today.

Deals with a maximum LTV of 90% have also increased to 316 today compared to 228 this time last year, an increase of 43%.

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Friday, April 13, 2012

Could U.K. House Prices Fall Again By Another 20%? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Andrew_Butter

Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Personally, I thought the bounce of house prices in UK starting April 2009 was an illusion. Three years later, they still didn’t go down so I started to think I obviously got that wrong, although there is still a niggling doubt in the back of my head.

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Friday, March 23, 2012

The U.S. Housing Market's Biggest Hurdle / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Money_Morning

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Shah Gilani writes: Forget about optimistic headlines on the housing market.

Whether it's record low mortgage rates, improvement in the Case-Shiller Index, higher housing starts, or any other report, the headlines don't tell the whole story - and the story matters.

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Monday, March 12, 2012

Bank of England Losing Control of Mortgage Interest Rates, Perversely Bullish for UK Housing Market? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Bank of England last week kept the UK Base interest rate on hold for a third year at 0.5%. The tax payer bailed out and supported banks answered by again announcing a series of mortgage interest rate hikes to take place over the coming months towards 5%, or ten times the official base interest rate.

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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

UK Buy-to-let Mortgage Market Blooms / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Moneyfacts research has shown that the availability of buy-to-let mortgages has risen over recent months. There are currently 486 buy-to-let mortgage deals available, compared to 386 last February.

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Friday, August 26, 2011

UK House Prices Update / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Tim_Waring

We have entered an interesting stage of the housing market with many factors beginning to influence different segments.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

UK Housing Market Sellers Forced to Cut Asking Prices, Still 16% Over Valued / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Rightmove, Britain's largest online estate agency is reporting that UK home sellers have cut their asking prices for the first time this year, by dropping them by 1.6% this month. The BBC further estimated that this still leaves national seller asking prices over valued by 16% at £236,597 against the average actual sale price of £203,528 on the DCLG valuations measure (implies 40%! over valuation on other house price indices such as the Halifax).

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Friday, June 10, 2011

UK Property Sellers Inflated Asking Prices Risks Chasing After House Prices Downward Spiral / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The UK housing market depression continues as Labours election bounce has long since evaporated, many home owners relieved that the house price crash had stopped during early 2009 had put their plans to sell on the back burner as they envisaged a return to the 'norm' of rising house prices, this expectation continued even after the coalition government took office and announced unprecedented spending cuts and tax rises during mid 2010, and scheduled to start from April 2011.

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Monday, March 21, 2011

Accelerating Trend of Foreigners Buying London Real Estate / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Pravda

Foreigners are still interested in London's real estate. Citizens from 61 foreign countries purchased real estate in the British capital last year, a report from Knight Frank consulting company said. The presence of foreigners is especially noticeable in the sectors with prices starting from 2 million pounds sterling.

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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

UK House Prices 2011 and Beyond / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Tim_Waring

In 2007 we saw the images of Northern Rock customers queuing on the streets to withdraw their funds. It seemed that finally the exuberance in the housing market was going to be deflated. Three years on and this has not happened to any really significant extent. Up until recently, I have been waiting for the monthly data from various sources to show an accelerating rate of falls. In reality, the market has traded sideways at a level just below the all time peak. When markets do not do what you expect them to you eventually have to ask why.

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

UK House Prices Overvalued, So Where's the Crash? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Tim_Waring

It is fairly unanimous that houses in the UK are over-priced - 30% according to The Economist. I have been a long term bear for a decade as by every measure such as income, yield etc they seemed well due for a much greater correction than has occurred.

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Friday, November 05, 2010

UK House Prices Downtrend Continues in October, Market Waits for Further QE / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by 0.7% in October
Three month rate of decline accelerates to 1.5%
Further quantitative easing could boost the housing market

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Friday, October 08, 2010

UK House Prices Crash, Record 3.6% Monthly Drop / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK house prices crashed in September, falling by a record -3.6% to an average of £162,096 (SA) according to the Halifax, which annualises to an eye watering -43%. The slump beats the preceding record monthly drop of -2.8% in December 2008 when house prices were in free fall, therefore fears are prevalent of a similar downtrend now unfolding as the Labour election bounce has fast evaporated following the May 2010 General Election.

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Saturday, September 18, 2010

Britains Population Growth and Ageing Demographics Impact on UK House Prices / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The Market Oracle Newsletter
Sept 12th, 2010 Issue #53 Vol. 4

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Friday, September 03, 2010

UK House Prices and GDP Growth Trends Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Whilst many methods have been utilised for determining future housing market price trends such as average earnings, mortgage interest rates, currency valuations, real terms inflation adjusted valuations, comparison against other global housing markets and real disposable earnings, this analysis seeks to add real UK housing market analysis against UK GDP growth. The assumption here is that the value of assets should over the long-run increase in inline with a countries actual economic growth rate as measured by gross domestic product.

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Thursday, September 02, 2010

UK House Prices Fall For Second Consecutive Month / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by 0.9% in August
Three month rate of change shows price stagnation over the summer
Percentage of borrowers on variable rates has increased

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

First Time Buyer UK Housing Mortgage Market The Toughest For Decades / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Today's first time buyer entering the housing market will borrow more money and raise a larger deposit than at any other point over the past 25 years, with the price of a first home now 4.6 times higher than the average gross salary in the UK. This growing financial commitment means that it is more important than ever for first time buyers - who account for 38% of all house purchases in the UK* - to be able to sift through the mass of information available and ensure they can make educated choices about their house purchase - from considering whether to rent or buy, through to putting in an offer, exchanging contracts and moving in.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

FSA Proposes to Ban High Risk UK Self Certified Liar Mortgages, Housing Market Impact / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The FSA has announced a crackdown on high risk mortgages as data shows that self certified loans still amount to over 40% of all mortgages, which is at a similar percentage level to the pre housing market crash days. Self certified mortgages as the the name suggests are mortgages where borrowers are not asked to provide proof of stated earnings and which are commonly termed as liar loans in the U.S. that led to the subprime mortgage market boom and bust.

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Friday, July 02, 2010

UK House Prices, Unemployment and Claimant Count Impact Trend Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK unemployment is set to rise as a consequence of deep spending cuts and tax rises that target an annual £113 billion withdrawal from the economy by 2015-16, which according to the ConLib governments own figures will result in 1.3 million job losses comprising of 600k public sector and 700k private sector jobs. This analysis seeks evaluate the likely impact of unemployment trends against house price trends.

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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

UK Buy-to-Let Housing Market Sector to be Hit by Housing Benefit Cuts / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The ConLib coalition government's emergency budget intention is to lower the cap on housing benefit payments from £1000 to £400 per week (£20,800 per year) in an attempt to address the rampant and out of control fraud that takes place that runs in the several billions per year which is likely to hit the buy-to-let sector as the £400 weekly cap will force landlords to cut rents charged and thus act as a disincentive to invest in the buy to let sector.

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Thursday, June 17, 2010

UK House Prices Inflation Adjusted Long-term Trend Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Inflation has huge a impact on the trend for nominal house prices over the long term and therefore forms an important factor in determining a multi-year house price trend forecast.

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

UK House Price Trends for 2010 According to the Halifax and Nationwide / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Labours debt fuelled economic election bounce is over. The new coalition government is gearing up for deep cuts in an attempt to bridge the huge £156 billion gap between government revenues and spending with already a down payment of £6.2 billion recently announced and at least another £24 billion to come on top of tax rises including raising VAT from 17.5% to 20% to raise at least another £25 billion in new taxes.

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Thursday, April 29, 2010

UK House Prices Rise by 10% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article • House prices increased by 1.0% monthon- month in April
• Annual rate of price inflation moves into double digits for first time since June 2007
• House prices are 10.0% below the October 2007 peak

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Friday, April 16, 2010

Britain's Giant Housing Market Property Bubble / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: DailyWealth

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article My friend lives in a popular neighborhood in London. When I asked him about housing prices in his neighborhood, he said they've been rising all year. They're now breaking the records set in the great housing boom that ended in 2007.

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Friday, February 26, 2010

UK House Prices Fall 1% in February, Hit by Snow / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article •House prices fell by 1.0% month-on-month in February
•Price decline may be explained by snowy weather and expiry of stamp duty holiday
•Too early to say whether February’s drop is start of a new trend

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Saturday, January 02, 2010

Telegraph Forecasts 10% Drop for UK House Prices 2010, Wrong Again? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Telegraph is forecasting or rather regurgitating Capital Economics House price forecast that prices could fall by 10% in 2010.

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Saturday, December 26, 2009

UK House Prices Continue 2010 Debt Fuelled Election Bounce / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article This UK house price trend analysis represents the next in a series of analysis as part of my unfolding inflationary mega-trend scenario towards the formulation of 2010 forecasts for inflation, interest rates and economy. I aim to complete the whole scenario and implications of before the end of December which will be published as an ebook that I will make available for FREE. Ensure you are subscribed to my always free newsletter to get the latest analysis in your email box and check my most recent analysis on the probable inflation mega-trend at http://www.walayatstreet.com

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Monday, November 16, 2009

UK Housing Market Buy-to-let Mortgage Sector Sees Signs of Recovery / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

The buy-to-let sector has been one of the biggest casualties of the last two years, with 93% of all deals disappearing in that time.

Landlords unable to find more than a 20% deposit can no longer find a new deal, despite deals requiring just a 10% or 15% deposit making up 64.8% of the market just over two years ago.

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Thursday, November 05, 2009

UK Home Buyer Mortgage Deposit Requirements Ease But Interest Rates Still High / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

There is a welcome relief to homeowners and first time buyers as lenders start to increase their maximum loan to values.

Since bank rate reached 0.50% on 5 March 2009, the number of products requiring a minimum of 15 per cent deposit has risen from 169 to 231, those requiring a minimum of 10% have risen from 89 to 105.

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Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Telegraph UK House Price 55% Crash Forecast Revisited / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Back in March if this year the Telegraph and other mainstream media ran with a scare story that UK house prices could crash by a FURTHER 55%, this was after UK house prices had already fallen by 22% and whilst house prices had yet to bottom the Telegraph story at the time seemed to be a completely ridiculous scare mongering purely for the purpose of sensational headline grabbing rather than presenting something that their readership could utilise to their advantage.

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Saturday, October 31, 2009

UK House Prices Post Annual Gain for First Time in 18 Months / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article • House prices rose at a slightly slower pace of 0.4% in October
• Annual house price inflation turns positive for first time since March 2008
• Poor GDP figures have mixed implications for house prices
• Consumer expectations consistent with stable to slightly positive house price inflation

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Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Four Reasons Why UK House Prices Will Keep Falling / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyWeek

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Yesterday saw another sign that Britain's housing market is bottoming out. Or so you'd have thought from some of the media coverage.

But on a closer look, the latest residential lettings survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) wasn't really that upbeat at all. And it certainly hasn't changed our view that house prices in the UK still have some way to fall.

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Friday, August 28, 2009

UK House Prices Tracking Claimant Count Rather than Unemployment Numbers / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article This is the first in a series of analysis as part of an in depth up-date to the UK house price forecast of August 2007 that correctly called a peak in UK house prices and forecast a 2 year bear market that would see UK house prices fall by 15% to 25%. This analysis seeks to compare UK house prices against unemployment data. To ensure that you receive the full final analysis and conclusion / forecast for the UK housing market covering the trend for the next 2-3 years subscribe to my always free newsletter.

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

UK House Prices Summer Bounce Extends into August 2009 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article • House prices rose by 1.6% in August
• Year-on-year decline slows from -6.2% to -2.7%
• Low interest rates helping to underpin prices for the moment

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Thursday, August 13, 2009

UK Unemployment Figures Mean Disaster for the Housing Market / Economics / UK Housing

By: MoneyWeek

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article David Stevenson writes: Britain's dole queues just got a lot longer. Another 220,000 people were added, according to yesterday's official stats. That takes the total to 2,435,000, or a rate of 7.8%, the highest since 1996.

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Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Has the UK Housing Market Bottomed? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyWeek

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Well, there's a surprise. It turns out that Northern Rock was a risky lender after all.

The bank that brought the credit crunch vividly to life for the British public when it blew up in August 2007, has often insisted that its actual loans weren't that bad. It was the business model and the reliance on the wholesale markets that pulled it down, as a result of the "totally unforeseeable" credit crunch.

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

Lunatics at Nationwide Offer 125% LTV Mortgage as if the Housing Crash Never Happened / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Nationwide as if the financial crisis never happened, as if the housing market had not crashed, as if the tax payers had not been forced to bail out bankrupt bank after bankrupt bank have seized the moment to grab the headlines by announcing a 125% LTV mortgage reminiscence of the pre-crash housing bubble mania days.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Summer Sun Shines on Rising UK House Prices in June / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices rose by 0.9% in June
Three month rate of change turns positive for first time since December 2007
Low supply supporting prices for now, but a sustained recovery still faces risks

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

Halifax UK House Prices Index Surges by 2.6% in May / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: HBOS

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Annual change -16.3%
Monthly change 2.6%
Average Price £158,565

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Sunday, June 07, 2009

UK House Prices Rise for Second Time in Three Months / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article • House prices rose by 1.2% in May
• Annual rate of decline improves sharply from -15.0% to -11.3%
• Low supply levels may explain some of the improvement in price trends

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Saturday, June 06, 2009

Government Mortgage Support helps Save Home Owners From Repossession / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Fewer people are losing their homes, due to measures introduced by the government to support homeowners during the current economic climate.

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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

UK House Prices on the Rise / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: LiveCharts

Pending home sales climbed 6.7 per cent in April, which is the highest single monthly jump in about eight years. Pending sales are deals made by a buyer to close on a previously owned home.

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

UK House Prices Summer Bounce an Illusion / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Andrew_Butter

The Value of Housing in UK: Update April 09…The Up-Tick is An Illusion. - The recent up-tick in house prices in UK was a glimmer of hope, I'm sorry to say that I think that's a false dawn.

Last September I wrote an essay putting the peak to trough in UK in the range 34% to 40% (Value of Housing Markets in USA and UK Past, Present, and Future ) (its gone about 20% now on the Nationwide), in January I had another look and said 33% peak to trough. (UK Housing Market Will Not Bottom Before 2012).

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Monday, May 18, 2009

UK House Prices Moving in the Right Direction According to RightMove / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK house prices rose for fourth month in a row according to Britain's biggest online estate agent, Rightmove. House prices surged by 2.4% for the month to 9th May, which takes average house prices on Rightmoves index to £227,441, down 6.2% on an annualised basis.

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Thursday, May 14, 2009

UK House Prices Bottom or Temporary Summer Bounce? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK House prices have now fallen by more than 22% from the peak and down 13-16% over the past 12 months with the most recent data across a series of house price indexes such as that of the local government & communities, Nationwide and even the Halifax suggestive of near term support for UK house prices as we move into the seasonally stronger summer months.

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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

UK Property Watch - Can You Beat the Housing Market? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Yesterday marked the second hourly showing of the BBC's daily "UK Property Watch" programme shown on BBC2 at 8pm that began on Monday and is set to end this Friday. The aim is to provide analysis on the UK housing market and regional house price trends. However having watched two episodes, I get the distinct impression that the BBC have padded out the useful content of perhaps just two hours of programming to over five hours just to fill the TV schedule which has resulted in repetitive interviews asking the same questions of alternative guests that are either in favour of a UK housing market bottom or are against a property bottom. In fact the same questions are being asked of the same guests as I am sure Merryn Somerset Webb of the Money Week magazine gave near enough the same answers to the questions as she did during yesterdays show.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

UK House Prices False Signs of a Bottom on Government Data / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest UK Government House Prices index data (Communities and Local Government) showed a continuing downtrend with the annual pace of decline accelerating in March to -13.6% from Februarys -12.3%. However the quarterly change showed a significant improvement with a -3.8% drop for Q1 2009, against the housing market crash the occurred in Q4 2008 of -6.4% (-25.6% annualised), which is falsely being jumped upon by some as signs of a housing market approaching bottom.

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Monday, May 11, 2009

UK Property Watch: Most People in Britian Don't Want House Prices to Rise / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: BBC

Most people in Great Britain would not welcome a pick up in house prices, suggests a poll commissioned for BBC Two's Propertywatch.

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Saturday, May 09, 2009

UK Housing Bear Market Forecast 2009 Update / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

May 7th, 2009 Issue #33 Vol. 3

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

UK House Prices Bear Market Trend Forecast 2009 Update / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis Article With the stealth stocks bull market bouncing along nicely towards the mid May interim target of Dow 8,750, attention is increasingly being drawn towards green shoots of economic recovery elsewhere, specifically in the UK housing market which has endured a severe bear market that began following the August 2007 peak. Therefore this in depth analysis seeks to provide an up to date answer to the question as to whether the UK housing market is near a bottom or not, following the release of UK house price data for April which showed an headline drop of 1.7% for April though the non seasonally adjusted figure showed a pause with average UK house prices now standing at £157,156 down 22% on the August 2007 Peak.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

UK House Prices Continue Falling in April / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article • The price of a typical house fell by 0.4% in April
• Housing measures in the budget are welcome, but are unlikely to turn things around
• Economic fundamentals will continue to dominate housing market prospects

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The UK House Price /Gold Ratio: Bricks vs. Bars / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Adrian_Ash

"Top to bottom in the 1970s, house prices measured in gold lost four-fifths of their value all told..."

BEWARE THE CLAMOR to call the bottom in house prices.

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

UK Housing Market Bottoming? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is reporting that the average sales per surveyor increased for the first time since late 2007 as the number of sales ticked up to 9.7 from a low of 9.6 last month as record low interest rates of 0.5% have cut the mortgage servicing costs for homeowners coupled with the government running an unsustainable £160 billion per annum budget deficit as the government announces ever more reckless stimulus packages and thereby attempting to entice prospective home buyers back into the housing market, though an up tick from 9.6 to 9.7 in the number of sales amounts to a pretty insignificant move of just 1%.

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Friday, March 20, 2009

FSA to Regulate UK House Prices Lower / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The FSA has proposed changes to limit the amount of money people can borrow for house purchases which includes minimum deposits of as much as 15% of the value of the property as part of the Chairman of the FSA, Lord Turners review into the banking crisis. The aim of the review is to put an end to the high risk mortgages that at the height of the housing boom had the likes of the now nationalised Northern Rock bank allowing mortgages of upto 125% of the value of property, far in excess of the X3.5 safe salary multiple which witnessed self certification mortgages of as much as X10 salaries with the accepted norm of more than X5 salaries.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Telegraph Runs with Improbable UK House Price Crash Forecast of Another 55% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Diamond Rated - Best Financial Markets Analysis Article

The mainstream press as illustrated by The Telegraph has run with a house price forecast by Numis Securities (NS) that states that UK house prices could fall by a further whopping 55%, that is a rather incredible forecast to make in light of the of 22% fall to date. NS states that a buy to let investor panic will trigger an avalanche of further selling. I am not aware of Numis Securities past forecasts, however analysis of the perma-bear Capital Economics that has consistently been cropping up with bearish house price forecasts since at least 2002 in the mainstream media illustrated the propensity to reprint press releases with-out checking the facts as to whether the forecast is actually probable or not.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Why UK House Prices Crash is Set to Continue / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyWeek

I am detecting a certain amount of bullishness in the housing market of late. A number of people with cash are talking about "buying later this year", or "taking advantage of these low rates".

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

UK Repossessions Hit 40,000 as Housing Mortgage Meltdown Continues / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Council of Mortgage Lenders reports 40,000 repossessions for 2008. My original forecast for 2008 was for some 75,000 repossessions therefore 40,000 for 2008 is a surprisingly much lower figure than expected with possible reasons as follows:

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

UK House Prices Crash 2009- Update / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

A cheer went up amongst housing market participants across the land as UK house prices rose by nearly 1% in January 2009 as measured by the Halifax. However the government is throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the housing market to bring about a halt to the ongoing crash in nominal terms. The amount of money printed has mushroomed from the £50 billion of April 2008. that I warned was just the tip of the ice-berg that would soon mushroom into the hundreds of billions, we are now in the process of leaving the hundreds of billions behind and moving into the trillions, sums that seriously risk the bankruptcy of Britain.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

UK Housing Mortgage Market Lending Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) mortgage lending data released today shows a 49% crash in the number of mortgages granted to home buyers to just 516,000 which is the lowest number since the mid 1970's property crash. There were 32,000 house purchase loans in December, a decline of 5% from November and the lowest level since monthly records began in 2002.

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Commercial Property Crash of 2009 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyWeek

Don't be fooled - commercial property is no bargain - They're an upbeat bunch in Southampton , it seems. The BBC took a trip down the local high street yesterday to ask shopkeepers in the town: "are you more or less optimistic about your business than 12 months ago?"

And the answer? Three-quarters of the panel were still "defiantly optimistic about business prospects for 2009".

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Thursday, January 08, 2009

UK Housing Market Forecast to 2012 / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

January 5th , 2009 Issue #1 Vol. 3

Recent house price data as released by the Halifax showed that UK house prices have plunged by more than 20% from the peak of August 2007, which has fulfilled much of the original forecast made in August 2007 for a minimum fall of 15% for the UK housing market and 25% for London, therefore this analysis seeks to project the forecast trend for UK house prices for the next 3 years into 2012.

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

UK Housing Market Will Not Bottom Before 2012 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Andrew_Butter

Unless "Farrell's" Cycle is broken - Yesterdays News was predicting when the housing bubble would go pop; the game today is predicting the bottom.

In August it was hard to understand how the bursting bubble would affect (or infect), the economy, because thanks to the clever bean counters, information on the number and size of the naked bets was well hidden from outsiders, just as it was from as shareholders, government, and even, by the cloak of denial, from the gamblers themselves.

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Sunday, January 04, 2009

UK Housing Market Crash and Depression Forecast 2007 to 2012 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Recent house price data as released by the Halifax showed that UK house prices have plunged by more than 20% from the peak of August 2007, which has fulfilled much of the original forecast made in August 2007 for a minimum fall of 15% for the UK housing market and 25% for London, therefore this analysis seeks to project the forecast trend for UK house prices for the next 3 years into 2012.

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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Abbey Squeezes Mortgage Payers Whilst Losing Billions to Wallstreet Fraud / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

After the British government literally handed over a blank cheque to Britain's biggest banks on the basis of promises to provide liquidity to British home owners and business, more evidence emerged that this is not happening as the Abbey's practice of sending out letters that calls on ultra small print that seeks to financially crucify home owners that during Britain's house price crash of 2007 to 2008 have increasingly fallen into negative equity.

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Monday, December 01, 2008

Collapse in UK Mortgage Lending / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Bank of England announced that UK mortgage lending collapsed in October, falling to the second lowest figure since records began at just £459mln, down 70% on the month and only 6% of the October 2007 levels which followed the collapse of Northern Rock Bank in Sept 07. The data continues to suggest that bank lending continues to tighten despite the £500 billion bank bailout of early October.

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Nationwide UK House Price Forecasts Track Record / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest housing market commentary from the Nationwide Chief Economist Fionnuala Earley states - "In spite of the moderation in house price falls recorded in November, with the economy in recession, conditions do not appear very favourable for a swift recovery in the housing market. The labour market is weakening, which will inevitably hinder market demand, particularly when property remains expensive relative to earnings. With prices falling at their current rate there is also little incentive for new borrowers to hurry into the market. However, there are a number of measures which should provide some support to the market in general and help existing and potential homeowners in these difficult times."

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

UK House Price Falls Moderate in November to -0.4% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

• Prices fall by 0.4% in November
• Annual rate of fall moderates to 13.9%
• Deep interest rate cuts will provide support for borrowers
• Fiscal measures may help housing market indirectly, but policies to support funding markets may be more likely to speed recovery

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Kirstie and Phil's Location, Location, Location Returns as UK House Prices Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Kirstie and Phil self professed property experts make a return to the UK's TV screens with a more muted version of their long standing delusionally bullish UK property candy floss show titled location, location, location that helped feed the get on the property ladder frenzy of the last few years.

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Friday, November 07, 2008

UK Housing Market 15% Crash Forecast Fulfilled / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest house price data by the Halifax shows that UK house prices have fallen by more than 16% from the peak of August 2007 and October 2008. The crash in both US and UK housing markets over the last 12 months was increasingly followed in September by the bankrupt banks collapsing one by one like a chain of dominos with governments rushing to their rescue during September and early october to the tune of unheard of amounts of tax payers money that now runs to collectively over $3 trillion. This first triggered near panic interest rate cuts in October of 0.5% which was yesterday followed by true panic cut of 1.5% which takes UK interests rates down to 50 year lows.

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Thursday, October 30, 2008

UK House Prices Crash by 14.6% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Prices fall by 1.4% in October
Reluctance of sellers to reduce asking prices could be hindering market activity
Recognition that the UK is heading into recession opens door to sharp cuts in rates

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Thursday, October 02, 2008

UK House Price Crash Worse than 1990's Nationwide / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

• The price of a typical house fell by 1.7% in September
• Market weakness not surprising given ongoing turmoil and many risks remain
• House prices will continue to fall in short term, but longer term prospects are more sound Read full article... Read full article...

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

UK House Price Crash Spreads Economic Chill Implying Interest Rate Cuts / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

The price of a typical house fell by 1.9% in August
More borrowers opt for fixed rate loans to protect their payments in uncertain times
Gloomy Governor opens the door to rate cuts

Headlines	August 2008	July 2008
Monthly index * Q1 '93 = 100	329.5	335.9
Monthly change*	-1.9%	-1.5%
Annual change	-10.5%	-8.1%
Average price	£164,654	£169,316

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

UK Housing Market Rescue Plan Will Fail as Government Seeks to Lasso First Time Buyers / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Whilst house prices are tumbling at the rate of 2% a month, the labour government finally revealed its feeble attempt to interfere with market forces by suspending the 1% stamp duty taxed on house purchases on properties up to a value of £175,000 for a period of 1 year.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

UK Idiotic Tax Policy Demolishes Properties / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mike_Shedlock

Previously we discussed the Growing Herd Of White Elephants in the US. Today, let's take a look at white elephants in the UK.

Preemptive White Elephant Demolition
The Telegraph is reporting Buildings razed turning British cities into 'bombsites' .
Hundreds of buildings are being razed as a result of an empty property tax, turning British cities into "bombsites", a government regeneration chief said.

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Friday, August 08, 2008

UK Housing Market Freezes as Chancellor Dithers Over Stamp Duty / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The crashing UK housing market is heading for a further deep freeze following speculation that the Chancellor, Alistair Darling is about to suspend the Stamp Duty tax charged on house purchases in an attempt to stabalise the housing market. The few buyers that are in a position to proceed with home purchases are now delaying completing contracts or pulling out altogether and thereby likely to make the collapse in the level of market transactions even worse, thus contributing to the squeeze on sellers, estate agents and other housing market transaction beneficiaries.

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Thursday, July 31, 2008

UK House Prices Falls Accelerate to -8.1% / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

The price of a typical house fell by 1.7% in July
The price of a typical house is now £15,000 lower than this time last year
Housing purchase activity reaches a new low
Weakening economic conditions raise the likelihood of earlier interest rate cuts

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Monday, July 28, 2008

UK House Prices to Rise by 25% States National Housing Federation / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The National Housing Federation (NHF) is forecasting that UK house prices will rise by 25% by 2013, that will take house prices upto an estimated £274,000 by 2013 from their current levels of approx £180,000 based on the Halifax House Price data.

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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

UK House Price Crash of Summer 2008 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The latest UK house price data as released by Rightmove shows that the UK housing market crash continues to accelerate by registering a fall of 1.8% for July 08. The rate of descent on an annualised basis now extends to -11% and on a quarterly basis to -6.7%, far above the originally forecast crash rate of 5% per quarter as per analysis of November 2007 for the quarter April to June 08, which came in at -5.8%. The housing market is in full panic selling mode, as property owners slashing prices are met with silence from potential home buyers.

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Friday, July 11, 2008

UK House Price Crash In Progress! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Halifax house price data for June revealed a 2% fall in house prices for the month or a loss of value of £3,500 from May, house prices are now down 6.1% on an seasonally adjusted basis, which is a far cry from March 2008 when the bank's chief economist was painting a bullish picture for house prices. However the housing market is in CRASH mode for the quarter April to June 08, as forecast by the Market Oracle in November 2007 - "house prices could register a drop of as much as 5% in the quarter April 08 to June 08"

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Saturday, July 05, 2008

UK Housing Bust to Hit British Pound / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Money_and_Markets

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Jack Crooks writes: I've pointed out many times here in my Money and Markets column that interest rates and economic growth are always the two primary fundamental drivers of currency prices. Therefore, it's no stretch to conclude that housing has been the Achilles' heel for the U.S. dollar.

But what if there's another major currency country that has a much worse outlook for its housing market? Would we then expect bad housing news to play a similar role in pushing its respective currency lower? I think the short answer is: Yes!

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Wednesday, July 02, 2008

UK House Price Crash is Here as Forecast! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Nationwide following on from a series of house price data releases by several mortgage banks and institutions in recent weeks confirmed that UK House price declines are set to accelerate over the summer months as the market heads for a crash that I first warned of occurring in the quarter April to June 2008 in November 2007. - "house prices could register a drop of as much as 5% in the quarter April 08 to June 08"

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Tuesday, July 01, 2008

UK Housing Market Transactions Slump to Historic Low / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

• House prices fell by 0.9% in June, less than half the rate of the previous month
• Prices are 6.3% lower than this time last year, but remain 4% higher than 2 years ago
• House purchase transactions remain subdued across the UK
• Northern Irish and Scottish activity levels stand out at each extreme

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Friday, June 27, 2008

UK Housing Bear Market Threatening Economic Deflation / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

May saw another sharp plunge in UK house prices towards what is likely to be termed as a mini-crash in UK housing market for the quarter April to June 08. Many homeowners who bought early into the current boom may be consoling themselves with having built up an healthy level of equity that is able to weather the downturn in UK housing market, after all someone buying 10 years ago would have racked up gains of over 180% to the 2007 peak and even after the initial forecast for a 2 year bear market if 15% would still stand to be some 140% richer.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2008

UK Housing Mortgage Meltdown for Purchases and Equity Withdrawals / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Mortgages for home purchases and equity withdrawals continues to slump for May data released by the British Bankers Association, falling to just 27,968 approved loans down from 34,752 for April 08 and down by 56% from a year earlier. These are the worst lending figures since the BBA started recording mortgage data in 1997 and confirms that the UK housing market is trending towards a 1990's style housing market depression.

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Monday, June 23, 2008

UK House Prices GDP Adjusted Real Trend Forecast / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The UK housing bear market continues to gather momentum as the mainstream increasingly awakens to the prospects of falling house prices following house prices going negative on a year on year basis for Aprils house price data.

This analysis forms part of a series of articles that seeks to extend the current Market Oracle forecast forward for several years well beyond the current forecast for a 15% fall in nominal house prices between the August 2007 and August 2009 (as of August 2007).

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Friday, June 20, 2008

UK Property Auction Sale Values Slump by 44% From a Year Ago / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: David_Sandeman

Welcome to the June newsletter that reviews auction activity for May 2008. Continuing market conditions have seen the overall sales rate slip 3 points from last month to 56%. It should not be forgotten however that the auction process did sell over 2,100 lots in May, no mean achievement in this market.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

How Inflation Will Destroy Home Owners Equity / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing boom has seen house prices rise from a low of £60.096 in 1993 (Halifax UK:NSA) to a high of £201.081 by August 2007. A whopping gain of 334%. The below graph illustrates the remarkable strong trend higher, where even the measured forecast downtrend of 15% only measures as a minor blip on the long-term trend of ever higher house prices.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

UK House Prices Real Inflation Adjusted Long-term Trend / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article In recent months inflation has started to breakout to the upside, as CPI began to soar in February, hitting 3% in April and destined to pass 4% this year, busting straight through the Bank of England's 3% upper limit.

Leaving aside the headline house prices, inflation has huge consequences for the real value of house prices which impacts on the wealth effect of the consumer economy which comprises some 65% of the UK economy.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

UK Housing Market Seizes Up / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mike_Shedlock

The Telegraph is reporting House sales fall is steepest since the 1970s .
The number of houses changing hands has "collapsed" to the lowest level in 30 years, an influential housing market survey shows today. Its report also says that gazundering, the controversial practice of buyers dropping their offer price after they have agreed to purchase a property, has returned.

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Friday, June 06, 2008

UK House Price Forecast 2008- Bear Market is Only Beginning / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Editors Note: Housing Market Forecast Updated December 2008 - UK Housing Market Crash and Depression Forecast 2007 to 2012

UK House Prices, the current bottom line - Down 6.4% year on year, Down £14,600 from the peak, Down 7.2% from the peak. Down 3.6% on a quarterly basis. The Halifax, Britains biggest mortgage bank's housing market data for May 08 continues to confirm the Market Oracle forecast for a 15% drop from August 07 to August 09, and a 7.5% drop for 2008.

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Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Housing Market Boom and Bust Cycles Driven by Real House Price Values / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing bear market is now into its 9th month as of the peak in August 2007. This article analyses the real value of UK houses prices based on average earnings as part of ongoing preliminary analysis towards the extension of the existing 2 year housing market forecast for a 15% drop from August 2007 to August 2009.

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Nationwide- UK House Prices Plunge by £5,000, 2.5% in May / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

• House prices fell by 2.5% in May
• Prices are 4.4% lower than this time last year, but remain 5% higher than 2 years ago
• Falling house prices combined with higher inflation makes MPC decision more difficult still
• Borrowers are better placed to weather the storm than in the 1990s
• Tighter credit conditions should help the longer term sustainability of the market

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

US and UK Housing Bear Market Trends / News_Letter / UK Housing

By: NewsLetter

The housing bear markets continue to bite into economic activity as the US heads for recession this year and the UK during 2009. The US is still showing no signs of a housing bottom having fallen by 3.1% in the first quarter of 2008 according to government statistics, and foreclosures rising to a all time high as borrowers walk away from homes sinking into negative equity. The UK housing bear market has now entered its 9th month following the peak of August 2007, having gone negative on a year on year basis for April 08 data, which was one of the primary reasons for the meltdown in the UK Labour parties vote in the recent string of May elections.

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Monday, May 26, 2008

US and UK Housing Bear Market Trends / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Friday, May 23, 2008

UK Auction Houses See Surge in Lots Offered and Slump in Sales / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: David_Sandeman

Welcome to the May newsletter that looks primarily at auction activity in April 2008.

The lack of liquidity in the money markets has again been reflected in the subdued sale rate with only 59% of lots finding buyers. This is the national figure and do take a look at the regional variation which is shown in the tables at the bottom of this newsletter.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Council of Mortgage Lenders 2008 Housing Market Forecast Demolished / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The Council of Mortgage Lender (CML) revised their forecast for UK House prices for 2008 from an anticipated rise of 1% as of Oct 07 to now project a fall in prices of 7%. The CML, inline with its member institutions has a vested interest in talking up the housing market as evidenced by the inaccuracy of their housing market forecasts during periods of falling house prices.

As a reminder to readers, the Market Oracle forecast for UK house prices made ahead of the actual peak in the housing market in August 2007 is for a 15% drop over 2 years from August 2007 to August 2009, therefore forecasting a 7% to 7.5% drop for the year 2008.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Caroline Flint UK Housing Market Briefing Notes in FULL / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Caroline Flint the UK housing ministers full cabinet meeting first page briefing notes on the state of the UK housing market follows in full. In summary the housing minister expects UK house prices to fall this year by between 5% and 10% which is precisely in line with the Market Oracle forecast for a 7.5% drop for 2008 as of August 2007 (UK House prices to fall by 15% between August 2007 and August 2009).

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Monday, May 12, 2008

Credit Crunch Bites UK Mortgage Payers as Risk of Repossession Soars / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The number of home owners at risk of repossession surged in the first quarter of 2008. Home owners served with county court claims jumped by 16% to 38,700. Home owners actually issued with eviction orders surged by 17% to 27,500. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) upped their estimate for the number of repossessions for 2008 to 45,000. The Market Oracle forecast as of August 07 is for 70,000 repossessions this year, though the actual number will probably be around 60,000 as the CML repossession statistics tend to under report the true number of repossessions.

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Sunday, May 11, 2008

UK Housing Market Surge In Mortgage Repossession Orders / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Mick_Phoenix

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article Welcome to the Weekly Report. This week we look at Gordon Brown the UK Prime Minister, US and UK mortgage markets and the US consumer.

We are all aware of the US mortgage problems which are now beginning to show up within prime mortgages but some people, outside the UK, might not be so aware of the problem growing in the 5th largest economy in the World.

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Thursday, May 08, 2008

UK House Prices Tumbling- Interest Rate Conundrum / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK house price data from Britains biggest mortgage banks for April 08 now show negative house price inflation year on year. Statistics released earlier than usual by the the Nationwide that house prices have now fallen by 1% on a year earlier, closely followed by the Halifax that also shows house prices down by 1%. This was originally forecast by the Market Oracle for the April 2008 house price data in the analysis of November 2007.

Despite the fall, the Nationwide put a positive spin on bad news by alluding to the Bank of England rate cuts and liquidly measures that would stabalise the housing market: "the Bank’s measures should help to restore a more orderly transition and ultimately bring about a more stable market."

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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

UK Housing Market Weakness Stretches into April / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell for the sixth consecutive month in April
The price of a typical house is now 1% lower than this time last year
The Bank of England bond exchange scheme should help to improve financial market liquidity
More than 5 million borrowers have benefited from Bank of England rate cuts

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

UK House Price Futures Market Confirms Sharp Fall in House Prices During 2008 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article The UK House price futures market has been in existence for some 10 years now and is based on the Halifax House Price Index data. The market is managed by IG Index and operates under the principle of a spread betting market maker.

Current IG Index quotes against actual published Halifax Index data :

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Housing Market Worst Since 1978- Heading for April Apocalypse? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) report confirms that the UK housing market is in countrywide meltdown mode. House prices are falling at their fastest pace in 30 years (since records began). The net balance between those reporting price rises against price falls deteriorated to a reading of -78.5 in the three months to March 08, from -65.7 in February 08.

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Tumbling UK Housing Market Leading to Sterling Devaluation / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Gary_Dorsch

Economic events in the United States often provide a sneak preview of what's around the corner for the British economy. Both countries run large external trade deficits, and much like the US, the British economy has been expanding on little else than the availability of easy credit and asset price inflation in the housing market. The ties between the US and UK run even deeper. About half of the profits for FTSE companies come from overseas, and 15% from US-based affiliates.

Imaginative lending practices fueled a doubling of British home prices over the past six-years, the key engine of growth for the world's fifth largest economy. But British borrowers now face a perilous situation where their home values are tumbling, and the local banking oligarchs are lifting their lending rates, in order to recoup big losses of up to 20 billion pounds in toxic sub-prime mortgages.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

UK House Prices Plunge Over the Cliff / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article UK house prices plunged by 2.5% in March (Halifax seasonally adjusted), the fall was far bigger than estimates and points to an acceleration in the pace of house price falls across the UK.

The credit crisis is continuing to lead to a much tighter mortgage lending environment as highlighted in December's article. Mortgages continue to vanish from lenders shelves, with the total number of products having been reduced from 11,000 in May 2007 to just over 3000 today. The tightening is as a consequence of risk averse lenders seeking to repair their balance sheets from US mortgage related losses and batton down the hatches in advance of a surge in repossessions and mortgage defaults amongst UK borrowers.

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

UK Housing Mortgage Market Crunch / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing market continues to trend lower towards the Market Oracle forecast of negative house price inflation on release of Aprils house price data in May. The Housing market was hit today by further news of withdrawal of more mortgage products that has seen the mortgage products market now shrink by 2/3rds from a year earlier. First Direct announced that it would no longer be offering mortgage products to new customers. This follows hot on the heals of many banks and building societies making borrowing far more difficult, the aim being to reduce their exposure to the UK mortgage market.

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Friday, March 28, 2008

Falling UK House Prices Point to April Rate Cut / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House price growth slows to lowest level in twelve years
Clear change in consumers’ housing market sentiment
Outlook more downbeat, but within forecast range
MPC expected to bring rate cut forward to April

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Monday, March 24, 2008

BBC Shows Re-runs of Old Property Shows From the Housing Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It can be confusing watching UK broadcast TV housing market programming, as I am finding that the property shows being aired are more often repeats captured from the heights of the housing boom. Viewers could be confused into thinking that what they are watching is current programming as usually there is no clear indication of the date of the original filming.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Calls on the Government and the Mortgage Industry to Help UK Homebuyers / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

On the eve of the launch of the first ever Moneyfacts mortgage report “Tougher times in the UK residential mortgage market”, Andrew Hagger of Moneyfacts.co.uk comments on the following topics:

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

RICS Data Confirms UK Housing Market Heading for 1990's Style Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Best Financial Markets Analysis Article A matter of days after soothing words on the prospects for UK house prices for 2008 were issued by the chief economist of Britain's largest Mortgage Bank (The Halifax), the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors released data today which shows the worst margin between rising and falling house prices since the height of the 1990's property crash.

The RICS data shows that only 4% of surveyors reported a price rise against 57% reporting price falls, thus resulting in a net negative reading of 53%, which seasonally adjusts to a 64% negative reading, the worst since June 1990. Stocks of unsold inventory continue to build up on surveyors books to levels not seen in a decade and up more than 50% over the last 12 months.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

FSA Campaign to help UK Homeowners Worried about Meeting their Mortgage Repayments / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

New figures published by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) today show that one in five mortgage holders are concerned about meeting their repayments in the next 12 months. When asked how they would meet these costs, a quarter of them said they had no plans.

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

UK House Prices Fall in February- Home Owners have Lost £7,600 in 6 months! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Seasonally adjusted house prices fell in February by 0.3% to £196,649 (Halifax:SA), a fall of £600. None seasonally adjusted house prices are now down £7,600 since the peak made in August 2007 which equates to an average drop of £1,266 per month in equity. This is against an interest rate implied cut of 0.5% on interest repayments on an average UK mortgage of £150,000, or just £62.50 per month (Rate cuts inline with Sept 07 forecast). Therefore housing market commentators expecting UK interest rate cuts to support the housing market need to revisit their methodology of calculating the difference between implied impact of rate cuts i.e. £62.50 per month against that of the loss of equity per month of £1,266. I say implied impact of rate cuts as the credit crisis has ensured that the spread between bank mortgage rates and the Bank of England Base Rate has widened, therefore effectively not entirely passing on the rate cut to mortgage customers.

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Sunday, March 02, 2008

UK House Prices Tumble Tracking GDP Growth Rate Lower / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by 0.5% in February, the fourth consecutive monthly decline
The annual rate of house price inflation fell from 4.2% to 2.7%
UK recession “a remote risk for the UK economy”

Headlines	February 2008	January 2008
Monthly index * Q1 '93 = 100	363.3	365.0
Monthly change*	-0.5%	-0.3%
Annual change	2.7%	4.2%
Average price	£179,358	£180,473

* seasonally adjusted

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Saturday, March 01, 2008

UK Mortgage Banks Call in the Loans - Housing Market Deflation / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The British Bankers Association mortgage lending statistics reveal a contraction in the total amount of outstanding mortgage debt amongst its UK member banks, of nearly £6 billion from the peak set in October 2007. Whilst the amount may seem small in terms of the size of total mortgage debt of some $1.2 trillions, it is however opposite to the atmosphere of rising mortgage debt that sustained the housing bull market.

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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

UK House Prices Fall for 5 Months in a Row- Housing Market Will Go Negative April 08 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Hometracks house price data released on Monday points to house prices in England and Wales falling for 5 straight months in a row as banks tightened lending criteria as the risks of residential housing market bad debt exposure continues to grow. Annual UK house price inflation fell to a near 2 year low of 1.4%. The hometrack data is in line with the Market Oracle forecast as of August 2007 for a fall in average UK house prices of 15% over two years to August 2009.

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Friday, February 08, 2008

UK House Prices on Target for 15% Fall Despite Interest Rate Cuts / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK House prices fell by £4,000 (2.1%) in January 2008 (Halifax), the average price falling to £191,275, down £9,806 (4.8%) from the August 2007 peak of £201,081. The Market Oracle forecast as of August 2007 is for a fall in average house prices of 15% over two years to August 2009. UK interest rates were cut yesterday by a further 0.25% taking interest rates down by 0.5% from its peak of 5.75% (Forecast December 2006), the cuts to date and further anticipated cuts during 2008 are being mistakenly taken by many market commentators, economists and large mortgage banks such as the Halifax to imply that UK House price inflation will be neutral during 2008. Therefore this article illustrates why house price inflation will start going negative by April 2008.

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Bursting the UK House Price Bubble - BBC1 at 8.30pm Today / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: BBC

Mortgage lenders have called for tighter rules to stop possible mortgage fraud involving the sale of newly built city-centre flats.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

UK House Prices Fall - Buy to Let Now an Unsatisfactory Investment / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by a modest 0.1% in January, the third consecutive monthly decline
The annual rate of house price inflation edged down from 4.8% to 4.2%
Housing market conditions have loosened further, but there are tentative signs that demand may have bottomed out

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

UK Housing Bear Market Confirmed / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK house prices slumped in the quarter to December 07, with London leading the way as momentum gathers towards the 2 year forecast for an average decline of 15% by August 2009. The mortgage banking sector is only just beginning to feel the impact of the housing slump as the number of foreclosures (repossessions) is expected to surge to a record busting 80,000 for 2008 from 40,000 last year. Northern Rock was the first to go bust, other banks will follow. But in the meantime watch out for other mortgage lenders, especially those exposed to the buy to let sector such as Paragon to be pushed towards bankruptcy, down 90% from its highs.

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Friday, December 28, 2007

UK Housing Market Movers and Shakers of 2007 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

• Almost one third of Nationwide’s survey of 30 towns and cities saw double-digit house price growth in 2007 • St Albans remains the most expensive town in the UK with an average house price of almost £350,000 • Belfast saw the fastest rate of house price growth in the UK – house prices rose by £200 a day

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Friday, December 28, 2007

UK House Prices Fall by 0.5% During December / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by 0.5% in December, the second consecutive monthly decline
The average price of a UK property is £8,334 higher than a year ago
Rate cuts will help but are unlikely to re-ignite the housing market as in 2005

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Friday, December 21, 2007

UK Commercial Properties Crash Looms as Property Investment Fund Frozen / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britain's fourth biggest insurer, Friends Provident froze its Property Fund on Thursday, thereby denying over 110,000 investors the ability to liquidate their investments. The property fund has an estimated value of more than £1.2 billion or $2.5 billions. The insurance company stated that investors will not be able to gain access to their funds for a period of six months due to a sharp fall in its cash reserves as investors took fright from the collapsing UK housing market, both residential and commercial.

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Monday, December 17, 2007

UK House Prices Fall 3.2% in December - On Target for 2008 Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Rightmove survey announced a 3.2% drop in UK House price asking prices in the month from Mid November to mid December. This was the sharpest decline since rightmove's records began in 2002. The sharpest drop of 6.8% was in London with average house prices falling by a whopping £28,000 in one month.

Rightmove sited the implementation of the home information packs (HIPs) for the sharp drop. The impact of the HIPs was inline with the Market Oracle warning of 23rd November 07 - UK Housing Market to be Hit by the Big HIPs Freeze During December.

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

UK House Prices Slump 1.1% - Interest Rate Cut? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK Housing Market fell sharply in November, registering a 1.1% price drop according to Britain's biggest mortgage lender, the Halifax. The British Pound fell sharply on the news and stocks soared in anticipation of deep cuts in UK interest rates as the Housing Market has its first consecutive decline for 3 months in a row since 1995. The credit freeze is now in its 5th month with the interbank rate soaring to 6.65% increasing the chance of an interest rate cut at today's Bank of England MPC Meeting.

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

UK Home Owners Unable to Refinance Mortgages As Fixed Rates Expire During 2008 / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Nearly 1.5 million homeowners fixed rate mortgages taken out during the past 3 years reset to much higher variable interest rates during 2008. Now Clive Briault of the FSA has waded in with a warning that borrowers will find it increasingly difficult to obtain further favorable refinancing due to the tightening in the credit markets as the now global bad debts credit crisis continues to unfold.

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Subprime Mortgages Continue to Vanish – Where will it end? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Latest research from Moneyfacts.co.uk reveals two thirds of sub prime products have vanished in the last six months. The credit crunch has virtually destroyed the sub prime buy to let market and made a significant dent in the residential market too.

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

UK Housing Slump Gains Momentum as Properties Fail to Sell at Auction / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Home owners failing to sell properties through the traditional estate agency route are increasingly opting for the chance of a quick sale offered by Auction houses up and down Britain.

However the number of sales being achieved at auctions has plummeted, even after worried sellers rush to accept offers prior to the auction. The resulting supply overhang will result in further sharp falls in the housing market that will accumulate over the coming year as home owners price expectations are behind the housing curve and are forced to repeatedly cut prices.

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

Mortgage Arrangement Fees Double / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Latest Moneyfacts.co.uk research reveals the average mortgage arrangement fee has almost doubled during the last 2 years. Figures from November 2005 showed an average flat arrangement fee at £441. Today it stands at £827, with a massive 9% of prime deals now charging a percentage fee.

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Friday, November 30, 2007

UK House Prices Fall by 0.8% In November / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices fell by 0.8% in November, bringing the annual rate of increase down to 6.9%
Sentiment in the market has weakened, but can be volatile
Uncertainties remain, but underlying fundamentals continue to be supportive
Introduction of final phase of HIPs may reduce available housing supply in the short term

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Friday, November 30, 2007

UK House Prices Plunge 0.8% In November on Target for Forecast 15% Drop / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Nationwide, one of Britain's biggest mortgage Lenders announced a sharp 0.8% Drop in House Prices for November, the biggest fall for 12 years, bringing the annualised rate down sharply to 6.9%. Whilst at the same time the Bank of England reported a slump in new home buyer mortgage approvals to a 3 year low. The fall house prices is inline with the Market Oracle forecast for a 15% drop in UK House prices as of 22nd August 07.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Sharp Drop in London House Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Land Registry reported a 0.1% rise in UK house prices during October, down from the average of 0.7% during the past 12 months and thus bringing the annualised rate down to 8.1%

However, house prices in London fell sharply by 0.6%. The fall was much greater than any other region and represented the first fall since mid 2005.

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Friday, November 23, 2007

UK Housing Market to be Hit by the Big HIPs Freeze During December / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The British Government's decision to expand the requirement for ALL UK Home Sellers to provide a Home Information Pack as of 14th December 07, will likely result in a big freeze on transactions hitting the UK housing market from 14th December 07. As fewer properties are put onto the market and thereby less transactions take place. Whilst this could be construed as being short-term supportive of house prices, it will hit the housing sector hard, which includes mortgage lenders and estate agents that could see as much as a 25% drop in business over a short space of time, and therefore the expectations are for further shocks in the housing and financial sector, this time focused on estate agencies.

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

UK House Price Declines Gather Pace As Surveyors Report Falling Prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Survey today revealed that 22.2% more surveyors are reporting house price drops, compared with 14.9% in September. This was worse than market expectations of a minus 20% reading accompanied by a surge in stock on estate agent books of 8.8%.

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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Crash in UK House Prices Forecast for April 2008 As Buy to Let Investors Sell on Capital Gains Tax Change / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Editors Note: Housing Market Forecast Updated December 2008 - UK Housing Market Crash and Depression Forecast 2007 to 2012

The UK's property boom has to large part been fed by an army of buy to let investors (many of whom are amateur landlords). This is illustrated by the estimate of 1,000,000 buy to let mortgages, up from barely 20,000 ten years ago. However for some time new buy to let investors have been increasingly banking on capital gains rather then rental incomes covering the costs, which given the most recent HBOS statistics of 2 months of consecutive price drops for Sept and Oct 07, increasingly looks less likely going forward and hence primes the buy to let market to lead the stampede for the exit, resulting in a sharp drop in UK house prices.

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Friday, November 09, 2007

UK Housing Bear Market Has Begun - House Prices Fall for Two Consecutive Months / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Britian's biggest mortgage bank HBOS's monthly house price statistics revealed that UK House prices fell by 0.5% in October to £197,248. This follows a 0.6% drop in September, which is the first consecutive drop in house prices since May 2005, as the credit crunch hit the UK mortgage banking sector and five interest rate rises to 5.75% started to impact on affordability. The trend in UK house prices is now in line with the Market Oracle forecast for a 15% decline over the next 2 years as of 22nd August 2007.

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Saturday, November 03, 2007

Buy Or Rent A House in the UK - Five Scenarios of Gains or Losses's over the Next Five Years / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The following analysis presents five scenarios that prospective home buyers can use to evaluate whether today is a good or bad time to buy depending on the scenario's that they deem to be the most probable. The analysis is especially geared towards first time buyers seeking to buy an average priced property of £200,000.

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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

UK House Prices Remain stubbornly Robust Despite Weakening Demand / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices rose strongly in October, but underlying market activity is clearly slowing
Although demand is weakening, existing homeowners appear in no rush to sell
New buy-to-let landlords will need a long investment horizon to realise good returns

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Monday, October 29, 2007

UK Mortgage Approvals Slump and House Prices Register First Fall for Two Years / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Bank of England revealed today that the credit crunch resulted in a sharp drop in mortgage approvals during September 2007, falling to a 2 year low of 102,000 loans down from 108,000 loans in August 2007. The trend is expected to continue as surging repossessions result in more bad debt provisions and hence tighter borrowing requirements going forward. The credit crunch has seen the LIBOR rate (the rate at which Banks lend to one another) surge from 5.4% a year ago to more than 6.5% during September, with little reduction since.

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Sunday, October 28, 2007

UK House Prices - Primary Reasons For a Sharp Fall / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Market Oracle expectations are for the UK housing market to fall by 15% over the next two years. However this decline is not expected to be a gradual trend but rather periods of stagnation punctuated by sharp falls which could be of more than 5% in a single quarter! Therefore this article looks at the primary driving forces that could lead to sharp falls in the UK housing market.

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Friday, October 19, 2007

Where have all the mortgages gone?– 40% less products available than three months ago! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Julia Harris, Mortgage Expert at Moneyfacts.co.uk – the leading independent financial comparison site, comments:“The mortgage market saw an extremely buoyant start to 2007, both in terms of the number of products to choose from – growing 22% in the first six month, but also as new lenders had recently entered the market and existing players explored new lending areas. But since its peak in July, products have been flying off the shelves.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Truth About UK Property – A Stretch Too Far / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

UK House prices have trebled over the last 10 years and analysts are debating whether this is the top of the market and what will happen to the value of people's homes. Getting a foothold, and staying, on the property ladder has never been so difficult. Whether it's buying, selling, renting or simply keeping up with the mortgage payments, nobody seems to know the right thing to do. Now Andrew Verity, BBC Radio 5 Live's Business and Finance expert, travels around the UK to explore the issues surrounding the property market in a bid to tell The Truth About Property.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

IMF Awakens to Possibility of UK House Price Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the UK Housing market could slump due to the impact of the ongoing credit crunch.

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

UK House Prices Fall by Fastest Pace in 2 Years as Housing Market Slump Gathers Pace / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Royal Institute of Surveyors (RICS) monthly report shows house prices fell for a second consecutive month and are falling at their fastest pace in over 2 years, with 14.6% of surveyors reporting a fall in UK house prices.

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Sunday, October 07, 2007

Tips For Graduates Keen To Get On The Housing Ladder / Personal_Finance / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

The summer is over, the studying complete, and, for numerous new graduates, full time working life is in full flow. For many, home-ownership will be the next landmark achievement to tick off the list but, with student debts and house prices continuing to rise, this may seem like an impossible challenge.

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

UK Regional House Price Growth Sags In The Middle / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Weakest annual house price growth recorded in the Midlands
Strong performance in London continues to widen the North-South gap
Average house price in London breaks £300,000 barrier
House price forecasts remain on track in most UK regions
London first-time buyers won’t benefit from £250,000 stamp duty threshold

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Friday, September 28, 2007

Credit Crunch Starting to Bite the Buy to Let Housing Sector / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: MoneyFacts

Julia Harris, Mortgage Expert at Moneyfacts.co.uk – the money search engine, comments: “While the prime residential sector has so far been largely unaffected by the sub prime crisis, the buy-to-let sector is beginning to show signs reminiscent of the subprime market over the last few weeks with tightening credit criteria, the withdrawal of products and rising fees.

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

UK House Prices Appear to Shrug Off Credit Crunch in September / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices defied gloomy expectations and showed another gain in September
But the trend growth of house prices is now the lowest since July 2006
Credit conditions are now clearly tightening for leveraged borrowers
The interest rate outlook has shifted from hawkish to dovish, which could provide some welcome relief to homeowners next year

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

UK Housing Market on Brink of Price Crash - Media Lessons from 1989! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK Housing market is teetering on the brink of a crash led by the buy to let sector investors jumping ship. But the messages coming from the major banks and UK central bank are still benign. In many ways the situation is reminiscent of the initial stages of the the early 1990's property bust, which was also accompanied by soothing statements that ignored the facts on the ground as this article will illustrate.

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Thursday, September 13, 2007

UK House Price Fall Signals Start of Housing Market Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

UK House prices fell in August, which is for the first fall in prices since 2005. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) stated that this was the first fall since October 2005, which coincided with a temporary lull in the UK interest rates raising cycle during 2005. Since which time UK interest rates have increased by a further 1.25%, and mortgage interest rates much further.

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Saturday, September 08, 2007

250,000 UK Fixed Rate Mortgages to Reset 3pcent Higher This Winter / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Nationwide reveals that over 250,000 borrowers will see their two year fixed rate mortgage mature between October and December 2007 and are likely to see their average monthly payments increase by around £200* per month as lenders start to charge them their standard variable rate.

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Monday, September 03, 2007

Financial Market Turmoil Poses Risks For the Housing Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House prices are unlikely to be significantly hit by market turmoil in the short term
But dependence of UK economy on financial services poses a longer term risk
Unexpectedly low inflation and financial market unrest has reduced the risk of a Bank Rate rise to 6%

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007

UK Housing Market Crash of 2007 - 2008 and Steps to Protect Your Wealth / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Credit Crunch has been hitting the UK Mortgage Sector hard as many easy credit mortgage deals have been removed from the high street shelves in recent weeks. Despite central bank actions to ease financing terms and increase liquidity, this does not address the real issues of illiquid mortgage related bonds and expectations that the UK Housing Market will slump on the back of a surge in foreclosures.

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Saturday, August 11, 2007

Mortgage Equity Withdrawal Syndrome. The Third Rail of the Housing Led Boom / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Dr_Housing_Bubble

Unless you've been living under a rock, it is apparent that there will be no summer bounce in housing. This comes as a grave shock to those that are entwined like a ball of yarn with the housing industry. We've created an entirely new generation of folks that think housing equity equals housing wealth. All of us have anecdotal stories of friends, family members, or ourselves tapping into home equity for vacations, consumption purchases, or using the HELOC to pay off other credit cards. The simplicity of getting money out of your home is so easy it is frightening.
Step one , you call the bank.

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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Brakes Slammed on UK House Prices in July / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

House price growth stalled in July, bringing annual growth back down into single digits
A rise in interest rates to 6% is firmly on the horizon, but weak household income growth and mortgage payment shocks highlight the risk of monetary overkill
The Housing Green Paper is a welcome step on housing supply but, as the recent flooding shows, the challenges ahead are substantial

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Ten Top Tips For Selling Your Home / Personal_Finance / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Nationwide research reveals the most important things to consider when selling a property

Following a recent report* of a reduction in the number of buyers visiting estate agents, the competition to sell property is stronger than ever.

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Wednesday, July 04, 2007

FSA finds poor practice by intermediaries and lenders within sub-prime mortgage market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) today published its latest review of the behaviour of intermediaries and lenders within the sub-prime mortgage market, which services consumers with impaired credit histories. It has found weaknesses in responsible lending practices and in firms' assessments of a consumer's ability to afford a mortgage. As a result the regulator has started enforcement action against five firms.

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Friday, June 15, 2007

We are on the Brink of a UK Housing Market Crash Warns Fool.co.uk / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Fool.co.uk

Household finances in British homes are at breaking point. With virtually no safety margin in the average household budget, a further rise in interest rates could tip many homeowners over the edge, according to a study by personal finance website Fool.co.uk .

Currently, the gross income of the average household in the UK is £32,800 (1). This equates to a net income of £,700 (1) after adjusting for the receipt of benefits and the deduction of direct and indirect taxes. While this comfortably exceeds average household expenditure of £20,800 (2) before mortgage payments, it only tells part of the story.

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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

On Interest Rates Decision One Million Homeowners Drowning in Alphabet Soup / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Adrian_Ash

"...The City of London leads Europe – and only just tails the US – in packaging debt as an investment product. Most especially, the City loves mortgage-backed securities..."

WILL THE BANK OF ENGLAND raise Sterling interest rates on Thursday? One million British homeowners are hoping they don't.

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Thursday, May 31, 2007

MORTGAGE APPROVALS FALL / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: bsa.org.uk

Building society gross advances amounted to £3,772m in April 2007, compared to £3,512m in April 2006.
Net advances were £1,031m in April 2007, versus £1,106m in April 2006.
Approvals were £3,910m in April 2007, down from £4,248m in April 2006.

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Thursday, May 31, 2007

UK Housing Market Boom Coming to an End / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Phillipa_Green

Data released by the Bank of England confirms a continuing drop on mortgage approvals as the number of loans approved for house purchases in April were 107,000, for remortgaging 98,000 and for other purposes 72,000 were all lower than in March. The numbers are all down significantly on the start of the year.

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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

UK Home Information Packs (HIPs) on the Rack ? / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

The looming introduction of home information packs (Hips) will no doubt have had many property investors and landlords scratching their chins and wondering whether they would cost more than they could possible save.

While the packs might be a welcome boost for landlords looking to expand their portfolio, those aiming to sell off a few properties could have regarded them as one extra headache.

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Friday, May 18, 2007

HIPs Will Lead to UK Housing Market Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

The introduction of home information packs will lead to a housing market crash, it has been claimed. Julian King, director of National Homebuyers says: "There are many indicators of a crash already in place; increases in repossessions, continued interest rate hikes, first time buyers unable to get on the ladder and the introduction of Hips."

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Sunday, May 13, 2007

Analyst Warns of 'Potential Housing Market Crash' / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

A financial industry expert has warned of a 'potential crash' in the property market.

F&C Investments' Ted Scott believes a negative yield on property could lead to buy-to-let investors selling their homes as they can no longer cover costs - which would precipitate a housing market crash.

This scenario will be made more likely should the Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) choose to increase rates to 5.75 per cent in the near future - as has been predicted.

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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

UK Housing Market Heading for a Property Crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The next rise in UK interest rates to 5.50% is anticipated in a little over a weeks time. This is expected to further impact on a slowing housing market in the UK. Statistics from the British Bankers Association showed a drop in the rate of mortgage approvals by 8% despite the market entering the traditionally strong summer period. UK interest rates are on target to hit The Market Oracle forecasts (as of August 2006, expanded upon in Nov 06), of 5.75% by September 2007. With the risks of even further rises thereafter should inflation continue to stay above CPI 3%

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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Pick up in UK house price growth seals a May interest rate rise / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

Pick up in house price growth seals a May interest rate rise
• Pace of house price growth picks up in April, but trend still shows a gradual cooling
• Market demand has been supported by movers, but this too is beginning to wane
• Too rapid an increase in rates could destabilise the market
• Current economic conditions suggest that a house price crash is unlikely

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Mortgage approvals weaken in the face of rising costs and prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

Following last week's release of MBBG net lending figures for February, further information now available on lending to individuals shows that:

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Green Homes have More Appeal for House Buyers / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nationwide

According to a recent study by Nationwide Building Society, the majority of UK homebuyers preferred a house with environmentally friendly features. Given the choice between two properties of a similar size and value, 82% of respondents claimed a house with features such as solar panels, had more of an influence on their decision to buy than attic rooms (68%), period features (63%) and walk-in wardrobes (62%).

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Monday, April 02, 2007

Special Report on the UK Housing Market : First-Time Buyers and Affordability / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Submissions

First-time buyers hit by double whammy

New first-time buyers face double whammy of house price and rate rises
Higher house prices alone add £75 to typical first-time buyer monthly costs compared to last year. Interest rate increases bring this up to almost £120
Locking into a fixed rate loan this time last year would have saved a typical first-time buyer £170 to date, with further monthly savings of £50 at current mortgage rates
More first-time buyers choose longer-term and interest-only mortgages which can cut more than £300 off monthly payments

Nationwide Building Society has released a report showing the effects of interest rate and house price rises on first-time buyers.

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Sunday, April 01, 2007

Mortgage approvals weaken in the face of rising costs and House prices / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

Following last week's release of MBBG net lending figures for February, further information now available on lending to individuals shows that:

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Monday, March 26, 2007

UK strong house price growth signals further rises in interest rates / Interest-Rates / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Hometrack revealed house prices in the UK surged in March to take the annualised rate to 6.7% from 6.4%. With the likelyhood of further strengthening as the market moves into a traditionally stronger housing market demand period going into the summer. London experienced an even stronger growth of 1.8% due to the boom in the financial services industry, which provided a lift to the overall UK figures.

This confirms my expectations of further interest rate rises during 2007 towards our target of 5.75%, (UK Interest Rates could rise to 5.75% in 2007) - Nov 06. The expectation is now for the next rise in interest rates to come in a little over a months time at the May 2007 Bank of England MPC Meeting. A rise in April is highly unlikely, given the soft tone amongst the MPC members who voted 8-1 to keep interest rates on hold, with 1 vote for a cut.

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Friday, March 16, 2007

RICS UK House Price Growth Weakens as Interest Rate Rises Start to Bite / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

The series of rises in UK interest rates over the past 9 months from 4.5% to 5.25% has started to have an impact on the UK housing market, according to a survey by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' (RICS).The gain for February is the slowest in over 9 months,

RICS UK House Price Growth Weakens as Interest Rate Rises Start to Bite

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Analysis of the last UK Housing Market Crash as today's US Real Estate Meltdown continues / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Adrian_Ash

As house prices fall, repossession rates rise. Unless the lenders wake up to their dilemma...

"UK HOUSE PRICES to recover next year," said The Times of London on 17 November, 1989.

Real estate in the United Kingdom had risen three times over on average during the previous 10 years. National prices rose 40% in the last 18 months alone!

But now, suddenly, house prices had stopped rising. When would the good times kick off again?

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Sunday, February 25, 2007

UK House Prices continue to Rise whilst the US Housing Market Slumps / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The UK housing market has proved remarkably resilient by notching up a further gain for January of 1.3% (Halifax) , whilst the US Housing market continues to go from bad to worse as the sub prime mortgages time bomb goes off, resulting in a slump that looks set to be the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

The key to the strength of the UK housing market has been the fact that UK house prices have yet to reach the excesses of the early 1990's, in terms of House Price to Earnings to Interest rates ratio. Traditionally, average earnings and house prices have been taken together to produce an affordability ratio, this ratio has clearly in recent years shown itself to be flawed, as UK house prices have not fallen, because this measure has ignored historically low interest rates as a function of earnings and house prices, and therefore a more accurate indicator needs to include interest rates.

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Friday, February 09, 2007

REITS signaling a bottom in the US Housing / Real Estate Market / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Clif_Droke

One of the inescapable conclusions one comes to after a long-term study of history is that current events and financial markets is very little happens without a pre-ordained reason. This statement is especially true when applied to the financial markets. With literally trillions of dollars in money and credit floating around the world, there is simply too much at stake to allow the natural forces of chance and coincidence to interfere with the plans and dealings of the world's financial controllers.

REITS signaling a bottom in the US Housing / Real Estate Market

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Saturday, October 14, 2006

Why UK House prices continue to rise ! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

For how many years have the market commentators been predicting a UK housing crash ? 1 year, 2 years, 5 years ? Yes in some cases even 5 years ago market pundits have been calling a crash, but in the meantime house prices, to this very day continue to rise ever higher !

Why ?

Here are four reasons as to why house prices in the UK continue to rise

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Monday, September 25, 2006

Joseph Rowntrees report into the state of UK Housing / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

According to the report, affordability is currently stretched, with mortgage costs currently accounting for 36 per cent of average earnings.

The supply of affordable housing is also at a low level, the study claims, with 35,000 homes available in 2005-06 – half the level experienced in the mid-90s. This is well below the minimum of 48,000 outlined in the government-commissioned report.

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Saturday, September 16, 2006

IMF warns over UK property crash / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

A sharp rise in interest rates could trigger a slump in house prices, which are overvalued by "any conventional measure", the International Monetary Fund warned yesterday. The world's chief financial watchdog warned that soaring prices posed one of the biggest risks to the UK economy.

"House prices in Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom still look elevated, and could come under pressure in a rising interest rate environment," it said.

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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

UK Housing Bubble is Popping / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

From the low in 1995 the average UK house price has risen from £50,930. to the £158,745 by the end of 2005, which is more than tripling in price ! From peak to to peak House prices have risen about the same 50%, as when the peaked in 1990. The Trend analysis suggests any decline could take house prices to the previous peak of approx 105k ! which would represent a staggering drop of 34% off current prices !

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

House Prices - Tulip Mania - A lesson from History ! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

Holland in the early 17th century was embarking on its Golden Age. Resources that had just a few years earlier gone toward fighting for independence from Spain now flowed into commerce. Amsterdam merchants were at the center of the lucrative East Indies trade, where a single voyage could yield profits of 400%. They displayed their success by erecting grand estates surrounded by flower gardens. The Dutch population seemed torn by two contradictory impulses: a horror of living beyond one's means and the love of a long shot.

Enter the tulip. ''It is impossible to comprehend the tulip mania without understanding just how different tulips were from every other flower known to horticulturists in the 17th century,'' says Dash. ''The colors they exhibited were more intense and more concentrated than those of ordinary plants.'' Despite the outlandish prices commanded by rare bulbs, ordinary tulips were sold by the pound. Around 1630, however, a new type of tulip fancier appeared, lured by tales of fat profits. These ''florists,'' or professional tulip traders, sought out flower lovers and speculators alike. But if the supply of tulip buyers grew quickly, the supply of bulbs did not. The tulip was a conspirator in the supply squeeze: It takes seven years to grow one from seed. And while bulbs can produce two or three clones, or ''offsets,'' annually, the mother bulb only lasts a few years. Read full article... Read full article...

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Britains biggest estate agent loses £6.4 million / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Sarah_Jones

Countrywide hit by 'appalling' downturn

Britain's biggest chain of estate agents yesterday showed just how dramatically the housing market had slowed when it revealed it had suffered a loss for the first time in a decade.
Countrywide said its UK estate agency division made losses of £6.4m in the first six months of this year - down 129% on the £22m operating profit notched up a year earlier. Read full article... Read full article...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

House Price News from 1989 ! / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

The Times TUE 03 JAN 1989 Agents optimistic about house prices A leading national firm of estate agents believes a collapse in the property market in 1989 is highly unlikely. Strutt and Parker has completed a review of 1988 trends, dominated by panic buying in the summer, then a London-led slowdown in the last q...

The Times FRI 06 JAN 1989 Shortage of teachers in Essex linked to soaring house prices Essex faces a chronic shortages of teachers because of soaring house prices, according to a survey by the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers. Eight per cent of teachers are moving from the Basildon and mid-Essex area to ot...

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Friday, March 18, 2005

The housing bear market will result in a recession / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

It is inherent in market systems, to move to between extremes, so at the very least real house prices will decline by 10%, depending on the effects on the economy, which obviously will be negative this will feed through to further declines.

As the bull trend in house prices from 1994 to 2004 was unprecedented, so it can be imagined that the bear trend from 2005 to 200? will also be unprecedented.

Plain old market driving forces of fear and greed. For there is no real reason why house prices have tripled other than greed.

A real 10% drop in house prices will be very bad.
A real 20% drop in house prices will be disastrous
A real 30% drop in house prices will be catastrophic
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Monday, November 15, 2004

UK House Prices Futures Market Analysis / Housing-Market / UK Housing

By: Nadeem_Walayat

Futures markets are primarily to hedge against future price movements. So people can 'lock' in a price now and take uncertainty away.

Obviously with house prices, were more talking profit and loss gambling, but if you are looking to sell your house in 15months time, and the futures were at a premium then you could have locked in that price, then you would have the certainty of knowing that, that is the price you will get, i.e. if by then house prices have fallen, you will get less from your sale but have made a profit on the futures. If house prices have risen more than the futures, then you will get more from your sale but have a loss on the futures.
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