Garth wrote:UK house prices in first quarterly fall since 2012:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39842715Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist, said one reason why prices were slowing was that property had become too expensive for many people.
Shocking.
Whilst more useful than Nationwide's monthly report, it's difficult to think of a "UK property" market when really it is broken down into more geographical pockets. The prime central London new builds aren't shifting (developers offering free cars to help shift the stock!) whilst places in commuter areas like Croydon/Surrey still seem to be ticking upwards, but more slowly. Parts of Manchester have seen double digit increases. And the chronic undersupply of housing makes it hard to see a serious long term crash. Prices in Croydon have gone up at least 50% since 2013 so a 10% price drop would only bring them down to late 2015 prices.
I'd argue the BTL stamp duty tax and BTL stress test difficulty increase has had a greater impact than Brexit.
Moggy wrote:Grumpy David is another one, he'll post a news article or a brief opinion and then won't be seen again. He was even cheeky enough the other week to PM me when I answered his post with just a smilie (I later expanded my post), despite him hardly ever answering people's replies.
Other than saying "I would rather British taxpayer money remains in the UK where it is spent on the people who it was taken from rather than being squandered abroad on foreign aid" - there really isn't much to add to it. Someone will quote me saying "you heartless monster" or words to that effect. They may even link to articles showing the good it has done - which I don't doubt - I just don't think it makes sense to borrow money to be charitable. It is a massive misallocation of resources that could either be saved and used to reduce the deficit or spent on things which have a clear, quicker and direct impact on the UK taxpayer. 12 billion+ a year could do so much good in the UK. Personally, I think if we're going to borrow money, infrastructure improvements such as building housing is more valuable to the taxpayer. It's not even a minority opinion, most people believe foreign aid spending is far more than it needs to be.