house prices to fall by 76.4pc

[Cyberman]

The Tories won't re-fuel the housing boom, they would be mad to do so, and they can't. The banks hold the Key with their LIBOR and lending policies (which have been ignoring BoE changes for some time. Moreover, interest rates will not come down if inflation carries on.

HIPS can be got for a couple of hundred quid, a small cost given the price of houses. I don't agree with HIPS but the legislation hasn't had any significant impact.

Sitting in a position of wealth its easy to dismiss the grim reality which ordinary people now face. they are the people driving the market, and they are the reason it can't carry on.

Bagpuss.. again you refer to a boom. That will not happen, but we do need steadily increasing house prices, if only to cover inflation, or we will be worse off. Removal of HIPs and reduction of stamp duty will not cause a boom but it will serve to rectify some of the current slump before it becomes a major crash. It will also help those first time buyers that you appear concerned about!!

[ace00]

Suits me though, I'll just sit and wait a year then snap up a couple of more nice and cheap to add to the portfolio. (Stamp duty doesn't bother me)

Putting the wheels in motion right now, not UK though. Another 20% off houses and the same off the currency yet to come IMO.

[Incognito]

Putting the wheels in motion right now, not UK though. Another 20% off houses and the same off the currency yet to come IMO.

August 2009 is when my loan for the last 2 gets paid off. Straight back to Black Horse after that.

[Bagpuss]

. It will also help those first time buyers that you appear concerned about!!

Of course I'm concerned about first time buyers. A housing chain cannot work without someone buying at the botom. Until recently BTL was making up the shortfall. No BTL and no first time buyers means market collapse.

Flooding an economy with cheap and easy money is stupid.

[Cyberman]

Of course I'm concerned about first time buyers. A housing chain cannot work without someone buying at the botom. Until recently BTL was making up the shortfall. No BTL and no first time buyers means market collapse.

Flooding an economy with cheap and easy money is stupid.

Where's this cheap and easy money, and who said we should supply it ? Reducing stamp duty and abolishing HIPs will not creating cheap and easy money, but will oil the 'rusty' housing market and aid BTL and FTBs.

[Bagpuss]

Where's this cheap and easy money, and who said we should supply it ? Reducing stamp duty and abolishing HIPs will not creating cheap and easy money, but will oil the 'rusty' housing market and aid BTL and FTBs.

If there are few first time buyers and few BTLers and banks get tight on lending criteria the money supply to the housing market contracts. Even if demand were to stay the same without supply of money the market prices have to fall. The only way to continue the boom is to ease lending criteria and create further bad debt and thus guarantee we have a proper recession. Forget HIPS and stamp duty it's a side issue. The supply of 'consequence free' money has got us into this mess only sound econmic sense will get us out of it. Lending based on affordability,a housing market based on repayable and manageable debt, which is how things used to be.

[Incognito]

Where's this cheap and easy money, and who said we should supply it ? Reducing stamp duty and abolishing HIPs will not creating cheap and easy money, but will oil the 'rusty' housing market and aid BTL and FTBs.

I don't quite understand how scrapping a requirement to put the onus on the vendor to provide the following:

• evidence of title
• local authority Search (including Land Charges, Planning and Highways)
• Water and Drainage Search
• copies of any Leases or Licences to which the property is subject
• Documents relied on to deduce unregistered title
• Documents referred to in the register of title
• Required or authorised common hold or leasehold information

will be an incentive to a buyer? Last time I bought I property, I had to fork out for them. Care to explain.

[rootsnall]

I don't quite understand how scrapping a requirement to put the onus on the vendor to provide the following:

• evidence of title
• local authority Search (including Land Charges, Planning and Highways)
• Water and Drainage Search
• copies of any Leases or Licences to which the property is subject
• Documents relied on to deduce unregistered title
• Documents referred to in the register of title
• Required or authorised common hold or leasehold information

will be an incentive to a buyer? Last time I bought I property, I had to fork out for them. Care to explain.

Exactly, add in the original intention of having a legally binding survey in there also and it would be even easier and cheaper to buy a house.

But the vested interests of surveyors, conveyancers and EAs put pay to that.

[Incognito]

Exactly, add in the original intention of having a legally binding survey in there also and it would be even easier and cheaper to buy a house.

But the vested interests of surveyors, conveyancers and EAs put pay to that.

And the fact that if you've not got shift of your house in 3 months you need to do it all again would surely suggest putting the property on at a sensible price in the first place

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Cybertory - where on earth do you get all this tulip from?

.. Plus a HIP is only valid for a few months....

- once again you redefine our language - "a few"???? Exactly how many do you think is "a few" (unlike you I know the answer as I've had a HIP done for my house).

.. . Thus HIPS are deterring folk from marketing houses unless they are absolutely determined to sell. /.

EH? how is having houses on the market that people don't want to sell actually going to help improve prices?

As for the idea that the Tories will instantly (or at all) fix all this - what a laugh. This from the party that abolished tax relief on mortgages and gave us 15% mortgage rates!