He’s toast anyway…

Just sit tight and wait and the problem will sort itself out soon enough… The UK market has only once grown for more than 10 years without a big crash – the last 15 years are a historical anomaly, not the norm.

1. London is already flatlining as buyers give up or leave…South East London has between 25-30% of properties on a discount from their original asking price. All first time buyers I know are moving out.
2. Foxtons share price is down from 400p to c200p over the last year, suggesting lack of future profits for them… not a sign of a strong market
3. Halifax research the other week showed 80% of London renters have given up ever owning, and something like 70% nationwide. No buyers at current prices = no sales
4. Interest rates will go up eventually which will make other assets more attractive again, as well as spoil the party for a lot of BTL…
5. London is rammed full of speculative money which is there because it thinks London is a one-way bet. When prices stop rising that money is likely to bail out at speed to avoid losing too much…
6. Currently there’s a massive oversupply of high-end flats being built in prime London which is limiting price rises… and increasing liklihood of foreign money leaving
7. Global economy is not in a good way – China slowing up, Russia and Brazil both an utter mess, US and UK not growing as well as expected, Eurozone and Japan stagnant, Greece possibly about to exit Euro/EU. All of these will play on confidence of investors and consumers
8. Baby boomers will be selling en-masse at some point to realise their gains/downsize which could alter the supply/demand argument somewhat
9. UK housing crisis has been manufactured by both Labour and Tories by restrictive planning and excess credit to hide flat wages and stagnant living standards over the last 15 years. However the last couple of years has put house owning beyond so many that it’s finally become an electoral issue so pressure to change this strategy is now growing, which it hasn’t before, so the next government is going to find it harder to continue the game without loud protests and possibly unrest…
10. It’s fast impacting on everyday voters – pressure to resolve the situation is higher now than it’s before.
11. Housing costs are impacting on the real economy – people have a lot less left at the end of the month… so it’s suppressing consumer spending which has been the main source of growth…
12. UK banks were stress tested by Bank of England to survive a 35% drop in prices, and a 20% drop in London wouldn’t be a collapse, it would only impact on that small number who bought since early 2014… so a 20% drop nationwide is unlikely to kill the banks (which is one of the BoE’s concerns)

My theory is that Osborne, whilst is not a nice person, is not a fool, and is a real political game player. His recent repeated subsidies were purely and simply to prevent the underlying crash before the election. If there was healthy demand at current prices, he wouldn’t have had to subsidise the market, would he?
As of next week, if Tories are in, they can let the market slide, knowing they have 5 years fixed term parliament to get it growing again. If they’re not in power they just sit jeering from the opposition benches, blaming the collapse on the incumbents…

At the end of the day, extreme prices are holding UK economy back, a big drop will be healthy rather than negative in the short and long term… it’s just a question of letting it happen at the right time that it doesn’t tip the banks back over the edge

the hair never grew on my shins… makes me faster on the bike though

You need a new wheel size.

And there you have the strategy of a mature industry which is facing little future growth after they’ve inadvertently made everything good enough and cheap enough that there’s nothing left we need to upgrade 🙂

OP – remember N+1. There’s always a cross bike, gravel bike and turning into a stiffback roadie… although you’ll have to forget how to smile if you do that 😉

I use XT SPDs on my commuter – very reliable, and easy click in and out

Hope do 700c wheelsets built with Mavic rims – I have some QR ones from Merlin on my winter road bike. Very nice

Getting into the middle of Hyde Park can feel surprisingly far away from the middle of a big city

But we must be pushing against a limit of what prople will actualy live in and at that point prices will have to stop rising.

I think London’s hit that limit. ONS stats show the 30 somethings are moving out. London prices are beginning to fall and the rest of the country, esp SE is now beginning to rise. I suspect it’s migration out of London that’s leading to the rise.

Whatever estate agents and sellers think, you can’t just push prices up and up an up. If mortgage repayments are so high that people don’t have enough left over to eat and for day to day expenses, there’s no sale. London I think is pretty close to that already – 80% of renters say they’ve given up all hope of buying – that’s from a Halifax survey published a couple of weeks ago. No buyers at current prices = no more rising prices…

What else do you do? – when government policy from both Labour and Tories for the last 15+ years has priced you out of the community you live in… it’s not rational or thought through – just anger and frustration about not being able to do anything about your community being wrecked.

FWIW my landlord lives in Brixton, has a house worth far more than when he bought it, and is also a good friend of mine. He’s selling my flat (not Brixton but still SE London) and he won’t use Foxtons… ‘they overprice’ was his comment – ie: they do a lot of damage to the community by pricing out the people born and bred in the area…

I had a note left on my car last week by an anonymous neighbour…

My Polish colleague at work says Brits are a passive aggressive bunch. I think she has a point…

My landlord is selling my 3-bed basement flat (cold, dark, needs new kitchen and double glazing) + on a main road in Zone 3 of London.
The neighbour upstairs expressed interest, and he said £750k. She bought her much nicer (as well as not being basement) flat a couple of years ago for £500k. I don’t know if she laughed at him but she definitely refused to put in an offer…

^^ sometimes it’s easy, after 15+ years of rising living standards (albeit on a tidal wave of debt) that 70’s and early 80’s Britain was pretty grim for a lot of people…
BC of course were one of those groups making it better, which is why it’s so stupid to let their hard work go to waste, they’re a great example for others to follow

you appear to be arguing that the best way to avoid London-like problems in “the regions” is for London to hold onto all the well paid jobs and people. Have you thought this through?

That’s not at all what I mean. Simply, if you jack London house prices up so high that people move out of London, then it spreads the problem throughout the country, which means London loses and so does the rest of the country. Which is stupid policy. For e.g. with working from home and mobile working becoming acceptable, and improved rail connections you have people like a couple of my colleagues who’ve moved to Bath – but they will work from home, combined with a commute to London 2-3 days a week i.e. retaining London salaries, able to pay far more than Bath locals for their house, which pushes up prices and makes housing unaffordable for local people in Bath on regional salaries. Current data shows London house prices static/falling whilst the SE goes up which suggests this is a broader trend.

Worth noting that local Brixton businesses are also getting priced out of the area: this is not really about house prices, it’s about wrecking a community and it’s about local business and people’s jobs…

Employees from Brixton Cycles, a worker owned bike shop that has been in Brixton for over 30 years, were also at the demonstration. Their current premises are being demolished and the rising house prices mean they will likely be forced to leave the area.

I know the people who run BC and it’s horrible seeing such hardworking, passionate and fundamentally nice people having 30 years’ of entrepreneurialism destroyed… and really not a good sign for the future of London, which as mentioned up there, is supposed to be a centre of capitalism!

Either they’ll have to pay more to get employees or they’ll move out of the city

That’s already begun. Even the City are saying they can’t afford to pay the salaries people need to live in London…Deutsche Bank are moving 3,000 people to Birmingham and HSBC moving 1,000. In that respect market forces will sort things out… the GDP will move elsewhere in the UK – which on balance is a good thing…
The downside of course is as the London money moves elsewhere it jacks up house prices for everyone else, who’re still on local salaries… which is a bit of a lose/lose rather than a win. Again, I think this has already begun.

Apparently, they thought that Foxtons would immediately close down,

Foxtons shares were 400p in March 2014, now 200p so there’s more than a few people expecting something similar, to be fair…

If you saw how much Brixton has changed in terms of house prices over the last 10 years you’d understand why the locals are angry. The prices are through the roof – £500k+ for a 2-bed flat but if you take a walk round the residential streets it’s still tatty, still not a wealthy area, just extortionate prices.

It’s a lot more white middle class than it used to be. You might argue that’s just progress but people who’ve lived there for years are being forced out as a result and as Brixton has a very strong community, that’s not going down too well.

I suspect this is just the beginning of a wider expression of anger – London’s currently being ruined from the inside out as workers and owner-managed businesses are being forced out by sky-high rents and house prices… I’m in SE London and know a lot of people around Brixton, Camberwell, Crystal Palace – mainly white middle class professionals with good jobs and pretty much everyone thinks London’s getting ruined. Most people I know who want to buy have moved out – Surrey, Hertfordshire, Essex, Bath etc, even Abu Dhabi!… there’ll be no-one left to do the work if this carries on… and with that will go the economy

If the seller won’t budge, walk away… if in one visit you can tell they’ve not looked after the place, and they’re being unrealistic on price, what’s the chances of you getting a fair deal?…
With the impending electoral mess in the UK + retail sales unexpectedly down last month, Greece within a month or so of running out of cash and Chinese economy slowing up fast I personally don’t think now is a good time to be buying UK property – give it a few months and sellers are likely to be being less bullish… not least because once we’re through the election, whoever’s in power will have less of an incentive to put out as many ‘the economy’s ok, honest guv’, messages as the Tories have been over the last few weeks

None of the above, just pity him for being stupid and lacking any generosity of spirit…
Anyone who decides to abuse someone just because they’re riding a bike has already lost the argument…

Which reminds me, what did happen to Friday Kylie?

The big problem with e-bikes from a user point of view at least is they totally miss the key benefits of cycling – the endorphins, the dopamine, the calorie-burning and also the mechanical simplicity and freedom from dependence on technology that’s too complex for you to fix when it goes wrong – especially if you’re miles from home…

If you want to drive then drive, if you want to ride a bike then ride a bike. At least e-bikes reduce traffic congestion, carbon monoxide and noise pollution, but with none of the sheer joy of riding a bike…

Also worth noting…

Net debt continues to rise

and

Retail sales unexpectedly dip in March

Personally I think the Tories are more likely to get us through the oncoming slump in global growth than Labour but I would be looking very closely at any stories put out in the run up to an election that suggest the economy is in a good shape… the Tories are under strict instruction from their key strategist to talk only about the economy as they know they’re less well received on all other topics…

… so they’ll be pushing out any story that allows them a positive spin and they’ll be suppressing anything which suggests any underlying weakness despite plenty of data which suggests that we’re really not in a very good shape at all…

and that ^ graph is a perfect illustration of why most forecast models are a load of tosh. If you cant predict a turning point, then stop your model. There’s no point running long run trends set at one point in a cycle in perpetuity.

Your point being that an upturn in 2016 doesn’t mean debt will increase at the same rate through to 2020? True enough. I would like to see the underlying assumptions that led to that forecast… it’s pretty extreme.

The FT is full of warnings of a slowing global economy and housing bubbles all over the world… and UK political future is very hard to forecast at the moment so it’s anyone’s guess what the next 5 years holds for us economically…

When I first saw this graph my assumption was that it was being driven by people needing to borrow more to pay their mortgage (static wages and higher interest rates) or needing to borrow more to pay for everyday expenses (static wages and higher mortgage repayments from ever-higher house prices). Either way, if it turns out to be true then things are getting worse, not better…

To be fair to people who’re out of shape, it takes a huge amount of discipline and independent thinking to stay healthy given our current food choices.

I have a real sweet tooth – I get massive cravings sometimes and the only way to stay clear of sugar is to walk straight past the chocolate and biscuits aisle in the supermarket. If I have it in the house I’m through half a pack of chocolate digestives before I know it.

The only reason I’m healthy weight is that I love exercise and I’m able to be very disciplined when I need to be… and I’m single so my decisions and my time are all my own to focus on exercise and diet as I see fit…

This is what’s forecast to happen…

This kind of case won’t last IMO – online banking is increasing massively in use, which also increases the chance of customers making errors. Whilst the bank may be legally covered, there’s going to be thousands of complaints coming their way from angry customers who’ve made a simple error… which eventually will force a change in the banks’ approach.
Escalate it, tell them you’re going to shut your account and take ALL your business away from them if they don’t get the money back… that’ll cost them more than the £200 to just give you a goodwill refund.

More weirdness. Just doesn’t seem right, somehow.

Ever heard of the strategy of ‘under-promise and over-deliver’? Set a forecast you’re pretty sure you can beat rather than a realistic one, or the one that’s required for success, publicise it widely and then claim to have over-delivered… gives the impression you’ve succeeded, when in actual fact we’re still massively in debt…

It’s similar fudge to supermarket offers which say ‘was £10, now £7, save £3, when in actual fact after you’ve paid that £7 you’ve spent £7 and you’re £7 poorer…

Smoke and mirrors, we’re 2 weeks away from an election that the Tories thought they would win, and are increasingly looking like they won’t.

The ‘economy’ as the only message they have and they’ve thrown everything they could at driving up house prices, and still the electorate is not convinced… expect increasingly shrill misrepresentations of the state of the economy and between now and 7th May

I’ve a mate who was in Bahrain for a few years. We went out for a meal of an evening and he pointed out all the Saudis over for a weekend of hookers and booze which, officially, they never partake of, ever…

He also found the rule of law was not as important as family ties…

I went to the supermarket with his wife when he was out at work, and she pointed out to me we couldn’t have done that in Saudi.

Bahrain and UAE are relatively liberal but I suspect you’d find Saudi very oppressive… there’s a reason why companies have to pay people far in excess of what they’d get in their home countries – they won’t go otherwise!

Well the only people there when I walked past last night were the broadcasters’ trucks – been there for about a week now – must be bored stupid!

When #1 heir popped out it was interesting comparing the photos on the front pages which suggested massive crowds of proles ‘wishing the young couple well’ when walking past that morning there was a crowd of press right by the front door and the rest of the street was clear… which ticks box #5 in that list ^^ 🙂

I reckon the SNP strategy now is to get loads of MPs into Westminster and make such a complete and utter pains of themselves blocking votes and playing games to hold up decision-making, that after a couple of years we beg Scotland to leave UK if only to get rid of SNP from Westminster…

Well, interestingly I’ve not heard a thing from any of my candidates, and the election is in a matter of weeks, so at a local level at least, I’ve no way of making a judgement. Idiots.

Re the politics of fear comment, this is a good point – with social media we can have conversations like this thread – real people with no agenda chatting (albeit virtually) to other real people – which takes the power right away from the media/government/vested interests and allows us to get a different (and more hopeful) perspective. It takes the power of control over the message right away from those who used to have it… and that’s a real sea change in the balance of power. Not a good time to be an autocrat 🙂

It does seem like that sometimes but no, I don’t think we are.
Social media gives bigots and idiots the ability to voice their opinions to the world, when previously they just voiced these opinions to other bigots and we never got to hear it – probably because people like that have no friends!

Social media also allows people to act in a way they wouldn’t otherwise – think of some of the silliness and handbags that get thrown around on here sometimes!

It also means stuff like that silly tantrum those 2 BMW drivers had in East London last week gets heard about by all of us – 5 years ago you’d have no idea it happened

Don’t underestimate the existential crisis some people are going through as they realise that globalisation has eaten our lunch and that we’re getting poorer in absolute and relative terms – and that the materialistic/wealthy lives we thought we were living were largely an illusion and actually only the already wealthy and getting wealthier. financially I suspect some people are in a really tight spot with no way of getting out of it, and that fear will be playing itself out in all kinds of places. Something similar happened in 1930’s Germany… economic crashes tend to lead to bigotry and anger.

Radio 4 Two Rooms

I highly recommend anyone who thinks the great British public are going to the dogs to listen to this programme – it’s a real eye opener – most people know we’re in serious economic trouble and life’s going to get harder rather than better, but they’re thoughtful about it and sympathetic of others worse off than them. It’s a tonic to all the negativity in the media

Clicking into or out of an SPD

I suspect a lot of people are so up to their neck in debt/paying an unaffordable mortgage that there’s not a lot left to do DIY… so a lot of places will be in poor shape
Right now with house prices going back up, even poor quality places which haven’t been properly done are going on the market at unreasonable prices.
I would wait until later this year if you can, the economic outlook’s likely to be looking a bit different and you’ll likely find it easier to negotiate prices down for places that need work…

tbh commuting by bike is always better than by train and tube – other than the odd maltreatment by a stupid person in a car, it’s always positive…

Stopping on the way to work last summer to take a couple of photos of the Mall, already closed at 9am for when the Tour was coming through that afternoon, was a highlight…

Also, the enthusiasm of a couple of new-to-cycling commuters at work is great to see

bunch of pathetic children…

Another previously lifetime Tory voter who really really wonders what on earth they’re playing at with the housing market at the moment… it’s economically illiterate and more than a little transparent! I really can’t bring myself to vote for them on this basis, it suggests they’ve not solved the crisis and have no effective ideas for doing so either.

Possibility a) the market is thoroughly overpriced and effectively bust as prices are so far beyond earnings but it’s the only way the electorate think they’re doing ok so the Tories are just trying to stave off the bust until after the election. If they don’t get back in, they blame the new government, if they do get back in they have 5 years (fixed term parliament) to get prices growing again.

Possibility b)
When they stress-tested the banks the other month, which included a 35% drop in house prices, the result showed another bust the impact of which would be even worse than the current situation as BoE can’t drop interest rates any lower or print any more QE to try and keep things moving.
It would ruin consumer confidence, ruin consumer spending, and hence business, ruin the ‘recovery’, all those people who think they’re going to sell their house for their pension suddenly find themselves 5 years away from retirement with half of what they thought they had, and expecting the taxpayer to bail them out. In all likelihood the emotional shock to a generation addicted to house price growth would mean people on the street and social unrest.

Possibility b is pessimistic I know but the Tories seem absolutely desperate to keep house prices going up so I do wonder quite what they’re trying to gain/avoid that’s leading to such blatant manipulation of the market

Riding primary helps prevent a punishment pass in the first place, and helps give you somewhere to go if someone does try it…

There’s a stretch of road in SE London I ride which is 20mph limit, pedestrian refuges and speed cushions all down it – presumably because it’s straight and fairly wide so v tempting to speed down it, despite it being residential.

I often have drivers trying to push past which would mean coming way to close to me so I just ride properly primary and give lots of looks back to remind them I’m a human. Sure I get leaning on the horn and some abuse when there’s space to pass further down (despite the fact they have to break the 20mph limit to do so) but as I don’t leave space for a punishment pass, it doesn’t happen… and overall I feel far more in control and therefore it’s less stressful.

From what you’ve said OP, going primary earlier on and before the road narrowed would have helped this. I also find a lifesaver or signal before moving into primary can help too

It’s usually unintelligible. There’s something about the level of intelligence of someone who drives like a dick which means they either can’t talk English properly, or they don’t realise that shouting through an open car window when travelling at 30+mph isn’t going to be heard by a guy on a bike riding at 15mph 🙂
tbh, you’re best leaving them to it – Dunning Kruger effect and all that!

+1 for the Topeak – 100psi in 200 pumps and has a hose so you don’t rip the valve out.
I did have a problem the other week with it unscrewing the valve core but you can get a Park Tool to tighten those up

As it happens, roads were NOT actually built for cars…

Roads were not built for cars

MP Sir Ernest Soares told parliament in 1903: “Motorists are in the position of statutary trespassers on the road … roads were never made for motor-cars. Those who designed them and laid them out never thought of motor-cars.”

and to be honest, we’d all be a whole lot better off if we all drove a lot less…