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Un crash, profondo, e prolungato.
Come quello del '90, se non peggio.
-20% per il 2009.
In diretta su Sky news.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Seema Shah on SKY news
After the shocking house price data from Nationwide today, SKY news wheeled out a property economist for a bit of analysis.
Oh here we go I thought, another load of old spin to try to gloss over the major housing problems that exist.
Well how wrong I was - the interview was an absolute bear fest and I am sure she must be signed up on housepricecrash.co.uk maybe she is ERIC or Realistbear.
Anyway - watch the interview here
Basically she says that things are as bad if not worse than the 1990 crash, which some of us have been saying for years. She has finally put a bearish, but realistic view on the mainstream news channels.
Judgment Day. That's the only possible description for the news from the Nationwide Building Society that house prices in the UK fell by 2.5% in May. Any suggestion that Britain's overblown, over-hyped and over-valued property market is set fair for a gentle soft landing after the excesses of recent years has just been exploded. We've had the boom: welcome to the bust.
The raw statistics tell only part of the story but are important nonetheless. House prices have fallen for seven successive months, the longest run of declines since the Nationwide index was first published during the property crash of the early 1990s. At an annual rate, prices are now down by 4.4% - the sharpest fall since late 1992. Over the past six months, prices have dropped at annual rate of 11.4% and over the past three months at a whopping 16.1% annualised rate. Both represent more pronounced drops in selling prices than were seen in the early 1990s.
Sketching out the data in this way helps expose some of the myths that have grown up around house prices. Myth number 1 is that the problems in the US real estate market would never spread across the Atlantic. This was always a dubious proposition. Both Britain and America have suffered from property bubbles, and the key point about bubbles is that they burst. America saw its bubble burst about 12 months or so ago: Britain's has burst this spring.
Myth number 2 is that there is no possibility of a repeat of the crash of the early 1990s. The thinking here is that the boom-bust of the late 1980s and early 1990s was a one-off caused by a period of excessively low interest rates being followed by a period of 15% interest rates. Since bank rate is now one third of its level in 1990 there is no chance of the UK suffering the same sort of housing crash as it did back then, particularly since this is a small island with tough planning laws and favourable tax treatment for home owners.
This sounds a seductively plausible argument but it is flawed. Interest rates are only one of the factors that affect house prices: just as important is the ratio of earnings to prices, the share of a household's income that is taken up paying off the mortgage and the ability of first-time buyers to get a home loan so that they can clamber on the housing ladder. All three have been flashing red in the UK for some time. The earnings to prices ratio has risen to record levels; even with low nominal interest rates, servicing a mortgage has taken up a bigger share of family budgets because prices have risen so quickly, and the credit crunch means that first-time buyers have found it harder and more expensive to get a loan.
Myth number 3 is that the pain will be contained to the housing market. That, if you think back to the summer of last year, is what was said about the US economy last year and the optimism proved to be groundless. Apart from the economy's direct reliance on the property market, there is a strong correlation in the UK between house prices and consumer spending. The likelihood that the Bank of England, unlike the Federal Reserve in the US, will keep interest rates high in order to fight inflation, means that there is a very strong chance that the recession in the housing market will spread to the rest of the economy.
Finally, there's Myth number 4: that this is disastrous news. It certainly may be for those with uncertain job prospects who bought at the top of the market, and it is obviously not wonderful news for a government 20 points behind in the opinion polls. But the collapse of the housing bubble will end what has been a massive shift in resources from younger and poorer people struggling to buy a property to older and richer people who already have their own home.
It will mean less reckless lending and borrowing, and - at least until memories of the crash fade - a more stable economy. The International Monetary Fund said earlier this year that 30% of the rise in house prices in the UK could not be explained by economic fundamentals: a fall in prices of that magnitude over the next couple of years is now on the cards. A crash was inevitable and - despite the wailing and the gnashing of teeth - ultimately desirable as well. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/29/housingmarket.houseprices1
Finche' continua a scendere la si lascia scendere ma Barratt a questi prezzi (180p) e' interessantissima. A 200p sconterebbe praticamente una discesa dei volumi di vendita del 40% e una discesa del 20% prezzi delle case che e' veramente il fondo. Bisogna capire pero' se il debito elevato puo' creare problemi di liquidita'.
