House Price Spy Blog

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The current financial slump is not the first to hit the UK and it wont be the last, the last one was in the 1990′s and was partly caused by a similar situation in US savings and loans and the UK entry into closer financial union with Europe.

Inflation jumped to 15% for a short time, the Pound was devalued and the resulting furore saw the Conservative party (led by previous Chancellor John Major) losing the next election by a landslide. The parallels are there, ex rock solid Chancellor gets power (eventually) and instantly becomes a figure of fun, economy takes a nosedive with records being broken right, left and centre. Ex Chancellor is voted out by a landslide…

The only difference is that John Major as PM made a decision to enter the EU, where as Gordon Brown made all his errors while Chancellor

Other countries have resolved problems like this in the past, for example Sweden in the 1990s, so we need to get a permanant solution with strict legislation in place to regulate lenders and the financial industry.

You dont have to enter the property market to enjoy the benefits of Free House price at House Price Spy, anyone with an interest in property, the local economy or just wanting a property related bargain such as insurance, DIY and entertainment can benfit from our free service!

Having a look at House Price Spy for the last year its clear that certain areas of the UK have faired better than others, Wales appears to have been hit hardest with average prices down £10,000 and sales standing at just 700 for a whole year! Englands total sales have fallen from almost 100,000 to just 17,000! Scotland appears to have been the most hardy market with prices unchanged and sales down less than the rest of the mainland.

England – Average price – Sep 07 £230,000 – Aug 08 £224,000

England – Number of sales – Sep 07 93,000 – Aug 08 17,000

Scotland – Average price – Sep 07 £162,000 – Aug 08 £163,000

Scotland – Number of sales – Sep 07 12,00 – Aug 08 4,000

Wales – Average price – £164,000 – Aug 08 £153,000

Wales – Number of sales – 4,000 – Aug 08 700

How long will it take for prices to start to reach the levels they were at during mid 2007? property Insiders are saying it should be 2 to 3 years, but this will depend on what Gordon Brown (or whoever is in charge in 2009) does.

You can’t help but have noticed that the housing market had taken the kind of turn that usually has Ambulance sirens wailing. While many people are still braving the new economic climate by selling and buying property there are many other sound reasons why you can benefit from the free information and analysis on offer at House Price Spy.

House Price Spy can help if:

You need a valuation for insurance or financial reasons

You want to find out what someone you know really paid for their house

You want to keep tabs on which towns or areas which are ‘up and coming’ to rent in or move to at a later date

You are re-mortgaging and want a better deal

You want to lower your utility bills

You want home improvement tips

You want to contact a property related ombudsman

You want to contact a government department but don’t have the website or phone number

You want to get information from a government department

You are interested in the market and want to keep with the latest developments in legislation and government

The UK property market is not dead, despite the recent press overkill. Its time to tighten the belt and get on with your life! Why pay for property information, when it is freely available on House Price Spy!

BBC 1 had an hour long show about the financial crisis, that started as a ‘credit crunch’ and has seen banks and financial institutions fall like dominos starting with Northern Rock and taking in Halifax/Bank Of Scotland and Bradford & Bingley. Gordon Brown came out of this show really badly, they interpolated footage of him talking at high level finance dinners talking up the top financial institutions with disastrous figures on the present state of the eonomy.

The New Labour success story was built on ‘growth’ which now means voodoo economics, lending chains with no firm foundation and bankruptcy. The FSA (set up to regulate the industry) also dont come out of this show with pass marks, the only excuse they can come up with seemed to be that they ‘paid the best wages to attract the best candidates’ so anything that happened was not their fault!

3 things need to be looked into:

Similar companies should not be able to let to each other in a haphazard fashion.

Lending should have some solid basis ie not be sold on as an asset from company to company and have something to guarantee it.

There should be strict rules about what can be lent rather than leaving it up to the conscience of the lender, especially for business and ‘buy to let’ commerical borrowers.

It’s clear that most of the ‘growth’ in the last 10 years will evapourate with business finance being withdrawn and property prices going back to previous levels.

A couple of things in the Panorama show were just wrong, the main guy said something along the lines of ‘anyone who wanted to have their house price go up is at fault’, the average borrower does not have control over lending between City institutions or the way they regulate themselves. Also someone from the press said that the press had simply ‘reported what was happening’, if the press had not made the most of the Northern Rock people would have not withdrawn millions and it may not have had to get sold off cheap starting a chain of bad debt.

The Interest rates for UK mortgages has been cut by 0.5% to 4.5%. This should be a good thing for getting people to enter the property market, this comes in addition to £500 billion plans to bail out UK finance. What will the UK tax payer get for their money? will they get a real stake in firms (whose shareholders have been coining it in for years). Or will this just be another ‘loan’? These measures will cost everyone in the UK between £1,000 and £2,000.

The stumbling block in the US bail out plan was that these institutions are private companies and should be treated as such, the US Senate has now agreed the proposed package to back up US finannce.

Neither Brown or Bush will wanted the financial ‘ship’ to go down on their watch. Both men seem to be on their way out, the US elections are just around the corner-Bush having served his maximum 2 terms. Brown is not expected to win the next election, the only question being who will be in charge of the two main parties. Has David Cameron actually got what it takes to win even against the hapless Brown regime? Will Labour be brave enough to stick with Brown. With the re-appearance of Peter Mandelson that is not looking likely….a deparate measure surely. Brown and Mandelson have never been friends so that was a strange one!

With Christmas coming up on the horizon, this is usually a record time of year for shops with billions being spent in the next 2 months. Is consumer confidence strong enough to see heavy activity which could bolster the economy?

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The Bradford & Bingley are the latest lender to have severe problems, being bought out by the UK government and Spanish group Santander (who bought the Abbey)

Bradford & Bingley were heavily involved in the Buy To Let market lending billions in recent years. With this market being one of the hardest hit by the lending crisis it was only a matter of time before they hit problems. As we know many people saw ‘Buy To Let’ as being a safe and lucrative way of freeing cash and steady earnings, with huge numbers of flats and other properties being on the market.

Riding a wave of success can be a risky situation, with developers and landlords thinking that the boom would never end and lenders happy to profit. Now we are all paying the price of saturation of the renting market, crazy lending and even competition between banks.

With so many lenders being amalgamated (think Lloyds TSB Halifax BOS) we cannot expect the good deals of 2006 2007 that made us change bank or open additional accounts.

With so many (often poor) new property developments across the country the demand for rented accommodation will be checked. This will of course see a rise in the numbers of property for sale at lower prices.

Three of the beggest mortgage lenders in the UK have raised their mortgage rates. Never reticent in passing on losses to customers the ‘big three’ have increased their rates by around 0.35%, adding around £600 per year to the average UK mortgage. Where the ‘big boys’ go the others will follow.

This comes in the same day as it was announced that reprieved lender Northern Rock were withdrawing many of their products including: Silver Savings, Silver Savings 30, Business Reserve and all Fixed Rate Bonds. As with the last announcement other lenders will follow suit and withdraw many of their services and products. Only last year I opened an attractive bank account with Abbey giving 6%, seems like a waste of time now!

As mentioned in a previous blog, the people who I feel really sorry for are the the ones who took out mortgage products or exorbitant loans and now find those products withdrawn and either having to sell up (at a loss) or forfeit their home.

I also hear that the government have decided to raise the guaranteed savings value from £35,000 to £50,000 which seems correct. This will deter people from rushing to withdraw their savings at the first sign of trouble, along with the media hype this is one of the reasons why we are in this situation. Any sign of trouble we rush to withdraw savings even thought they are guaranteed, this was the worst financial storm in 18 years and no UK major institutions went down.

If you are withdrawing all your savings to pump them into The Bank Of Ireland expect a lenghty wait!

In other news the US senate is set to approve $700 plans to backup stateside finance after a long fight.

I heard that Vladimir Putin (Russian PM) had joined the criticism of the US, how times have changed! It was only 20 years since the USSR crumbled and now they are telling everyone else how to run their country…I would still rather live in the US! The Russians have waited 20 years for that little dig.