Sunday 13 July 2008

Crash, freefall, and wishful thinking

It is getting extremely difficult to find any house ramping stories. The message is hitting home; the housing crash is here to stay.

UK housing crash is over before it started

The independent indulges in wishful thinking, which is about as close as we get to a bubble bloater this days. "Crashes aren't good for us but at least we'll find the floor. And by 2010 we could be looking up." After this blag is over, Banks will shy away from mortgages for a generation. There will be no recovery. Remember that - NO HOUSING MARKET RECOVERY. If there is, I will eat my hat.

Bloggers speculate on the Freddie and Fannie bailout

The big story; and there is lots of good analysis out there. Here is a collection of useful links: Mish;Calculated risk; Econobrowser; and big picture.

How shot the celtic tiger?

"We were never going to have a soft landing. This is a crash in the housing market. Look at what is happening to price, to transactions [volume], to building activity." Dr Alan Ahearne, economics lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway.

The summer of discontent

Oil prices and the credit crunch; all we need now is a worldwide slowdown.

Debt collecting Nu Labour

Absurbity layered upon incompetence: "Northern Rock is using aggressive debt recovery tactics which are putting at unnecessary risk the homes of people struggling to pay back loans, say debt advice experts. The bank is rushing to take court proceedings against defaulters and is unsympathetic when borrowers try to negotiate repayment deals to avoid their homes being repossessed."

Pick your panic

Fannie, Freddie, Lehman, oil, stocks: How Wall Street became paralyzed with fear.

Emergency scheme to help cash-strapped homeowners

Foolish ideas are proliferating like weeds in an unkept garden

"Homeowners struggling to meet their mortgage payments would be able to sell their homes to the local authority and rent them back as tenants under radical proposals being considered by the government to prevent the misery of repossession."

The misery of repossession would be transformed into a massive loss for local authorities. Any house sold today will be worth less in a year and a lot less in five years time. Who will cover this loss? The local authority? The council tax payer?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ireland is sliding into a hole. Check out the dublin property market; it is terrible.

Anonymous said...

Dear dublin lizzi,

Do you have any links that we can check?

Thank you in advance.

Rambo

Anonymous said...

rambo,

Try:

http://southofdub.blogspot.com

You will find a full list of Irish property links.

Lizzy

Anonymous said...

so we have a government owned institution throwing people out of homes. Shameful

Anonymous said...

Dear anonymous,

The name of the system is capitalism!!!

For uncensored news please bookmark:

www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.com

Rambo

Anonymous said...

Alice,

Your tone is really apocalyptic - do explain why. Hat-eating is serious!

I mean, things eventually came back after 1929! I would say the present opaque securitisation of debt and massive use of leverage is much like buying shares on margin was then - just things which has to be restricted by regulation, and then things eventually work again.

Even if it takes a world war or something like that, surely the markets will all come back; even if it takes a decade

Is this really, really the end? Have I missed something in the New Testament?

Thanks again for all your committed blogging,

B. in C.

Anonymous said...

"NO HOUSING MARKET RECOVERY": then most people who have been worrying about Inheritance Tax can just relax.

Anonymous said...

"so we have a government owned institution throwing people out of homes. Shameful"

Would you rather people are relieved from the burden of paying back the debts? Cool. Can you lend me £1000. I promise to pay you back unless for some reason I can't, then you have to forget about it.

Nick.

Alice Cook said...

Nick,

I was trying to be slightly ironic.

Like you, I firmly believe in the central importance of respecting contracts.

Alice

Anonymous said...

Missed it. I stand corrected.

Nick.