House price nonsense
This year is an exception to my normal practice of not making resolutions.
From now on, whenever I hear anyone bleating about the falling house market or "negative equity" I promise to take issue with them.
"Listen, fuckwit," I shall gently explain, "rising house prices are a modern phenomenon. Apart from a brief period many generations back, second-hand houses always cost less than they did new, until after the end of World War Two."
If they prove unusually resistant to persuasion, I shall point out that everything else they buy has "negative equity". Simply purchasing a new car, never mind if you left it in the dealer's showroom, would knock at least ten per cent off its market value. That formal suit you paid hundreds for might fetch about twenty quid in a charity shop despite being worn only once.
It's tough on those hoping to buy for the first time. Lemming-like we seem unable to question the apparent inevitability of rising house prices. Let me assure you the bubble will burst, a prophecy I've been making since 1968. When it does, I look forward to selling my semi-detached for a fiver and rushing out to bag a four-bed detached in an acre or two for between fifteen and twenty pounds sterling.
School friends of mine lived in homes their parents had bought new in the 1930s for five hundred pounds. A few years later they were worth three hundred and fifty - less than their parents still owed on their crippling three or four per cent mortgages.
For generations the mantra was "Don't put your money in bricks and mortar." It's a lesson the buy-to-let lemmings are beginning to learn the hard way, as rising supply of rented housing drives letting incomes down. Bad enough to have negative equity in the home you occupy but at least you're living in it. Having numerous properties whose rental doesn't even cover the cost of mortgages must be heartbreaking.
From now on, whenever I hear anyone bleating about the falling house market or "negative equity" I promise to take issue with them.
"Listen, fuckwit," I shall gently explain, "rising house prices are a modern phenomenon. Apart from a brief period many generations back, second-hand houses always cost less than they did new, until after the end of World War Two."
If they prove unusually resistant to persuasion, I shall point out that everything else they buy has "negative equity". Simply purchasing a new car, never mind if you left it in the dealer's showroom, would knock at least ten per cent off its market value. That formal suit you paid hundreds for might fetch about twenty quid in a charity shop despite being worn only once.
It's tough on those hoping to buy for the first time. Lemming-like we seem unable to question the apparent inevitability of rising house prices. Let me assure you the bubble will burst, a prophecy I've been making since 1968. When it does, I look forward to selling my semi-detached for a fiver and rushing out to bag a four-bed detached in an acre or two for between fifteen and twenty pounds sterling.
School friends of mine lived in homes their parents had bought new in the 1930s for five hundred pounds. A few years later they were worth three hundred and fifty - less than their parents still owed on their crippling three or four per cent mortgages.
For generations the mantra was "Don't put your money in bricks and mortar." It's a lesson the buy-to-let lemmings are beginning to learn the hard way, as rising supply of rented housing drives letting incomes down. Bad enough to have negative equity in the home you occupy but at least you're living in it. Having numerous properties whose rental doesn't even cover the cost of mortgages must be heartbreaking.
Labels: buy-to-let, house prices, houses
posted by Skip | 3:15 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home