House sales drop by half, repossessions soar

[Sweetpea]

The number of homes sold has halved in a year, according to official figures issued yesterday.


Coming alongside evidence of the soaring number of repossessions, the news lays bare the extent of the meltdown in the housing market.

In June last year, 140,000 homes were sold for £40,000 or more. This was before the Northern Rock debacle began and the words 'credit crunch' were bandied about.

Twelve months later, figures from HM Revenue and Customs show that just 77,000 homes were sold in June, the lowest number since records began in 2005.

Many potential buyers are being put off by the difficulty in getting a mortgage, while others are scared away by predictions that house prices could fall 35 per cent by the end of 2010. The scale of the collapse is alarming, and is a nightmare for families who need to sell but cannot find a buyer.


House sales drop by half in a year as repossessions soar | Mail Online


Hope this will be a step up for my daughter, who earns a good amount, still cannot afford to by.

[Churchill]

Oh she will, it's worth a wait after a few years of panic buying and speculation driving prices up to an unrealistic level. They'll go through a period of 'adjustment'. Banks have known about this for a while.

[Sweetpea]

Well, to be honest, I could see it coming.

[Churchill]

That would make you a 'doom and gloom' merchant like me, rather than a fucking maniac who thinks prices will just 'go up and up and up and up and it'll never end!!!!'

What goes up...............

Unless the hopelessly optimistic experts out there want to challenge the Keynes model of economics (still hasn't been done).

[Haqa]

Originally Posted by Churchill

That would make you a 'doom and gloom' merchant like me, rather than a fucking maniac who thinks prices will just 'go up and up and up and up and it'll never end!!!!'

What goes up...............

Unless the hopelessly optimistic experts out there want to challenge the Keynes model of economics (still hasn't been done).

Ok... now my head hurts... Keynes' model appears more realistic, but (unless I'm reading it wrong) doesn't completely fit with the economic factors at play in the UK at the moment. What I mean to say is that a more acurate model is needed to determine what's going on, and where we are headed. While keynes is better than its predecessors, it's not quite "it"...

Then again, I'm no mathmatician...

H.

[Killion]

If we hadn’t had the credit crunch I wonder how much, if any, those Home Information Packs would have had on the housing market.

[Churchill]

His basic principles governing economics are as valid now as they ever where. Imagine him as a sort of Dickens or Dosteovsky of economics, or even a Darwin.

[Churchill]

Originally Posted by Killion

If we hadn’t had the credit crunch I wonder how much, if any, those Home Information Packs would have had on the housing market.

Probably not a great deal as price speculation and inflation was driven by easy borrowing. I'd say fuel price increases, council tax and inflation will have had a greater impact.

[Bernie]

Must be heartbreaking to lose your house this way but I think lenders have to take a lot of the blame, they just seem to lend money willy nilly!!

[Haqa]

Originally Posted by Bernie

Must be heartbreaking to lose your house this way but I think lenders have to take a lot of the blame, they just seem to lend money willy nilly!!

I don't think you can entirely say that the borrower is without blame. They know what they can REALLY afford... Some of the salary multiples I've seen have beggared belief... Saw on the news a few months ago about places offering 10 times salary... Thats just stupid...

H.