Where are House Prices Going

While watching CSI, name your own City, I heard a phrase used that's so well describes the type of acquaintance that you only know from a certain situations. It is one of things that I always find extraordinary, that Americans tend to use English language better than most British people. However it is the use of this phase, that is so appropriate for the relationship I had with the person and now talking about.

When I leave us near the coast at the mouth of the River Tyne, I got to know various people that were involved in property investment. It was mainly through drinking in the same hostelries that it got to know these people. Therefore while I thought of them as drinking buddies, in no way were they real friends. Therefore it was rather surprising when a couple of weeks ago, one of them contacted me.

When I first met these people, I was fully aware that they were engaging in conversation mainly because they thought they could extract the urine, however over time they developed a measure of respect for me.

It was because of this respect that had prompted this person to contact me. Because of the credit crunch and uncertainty regarding house prices, he got in touch with me. However what he did to was surprising. As he asked me to look after the rather nice and expensive camera for him. The story he gave me was that he was moving house or moving some of the contents of a property and wanted to ensure that this equipment was safe. Further encourage me to use it, even repeatedly calling me and asking if I had then take any pictures with it. Eventually they did take the equipment out and some of the results I have posted here. It was only after I'd started using equipment did he reveal his real agenda.

Firstly he wanted to discover my opinion of where I thought that house prices would settle. What it told him shocked him. they told him that I thought that house prices would drop by 50 or 60 per cent. The main reason I say this is that historically, house prices have always settled at three to four times average income. As at the moment house prices are seven to eight times the average income, then if that historical rule is true then property is overvalued by 50 or 60 per cent.

He then asked what I would do if I was investing in property at the moment. All hypothetical as I do not invest in property. But I told him straight that I wouldn't. but he insisted that they gave him an answer. So I taught in told him, that the only where we invest will be in and social housing. By that I mean buying properties to enable a people to rent. Not high rents, but reasonable rents that are based on the people's ability to pay.

It was then that he revealed his agenda in fall, as he wanted me to go around the courts and find the people that would close to having their homes repossessed. He would then buy the properties, at a discount, and men and backed to the people. World this all sounded rather fuller if for philanthropic what he was most interested in was obtaining property is cheap. Further he wanted to avoid buying properties from people who he thought would be bad tenants. He has little or no respect for people that don't have money.

The loan of the camera equipment had been a bribe or an incentive as he thought that I would much want to keep equipment so much that I would jump at the chance to help him. He told me that I could keep the equipment as an advance on the earnings a would garner from him.

However as his whole plan was based upon exploiting vulnerable people, and I refused to do this for him.

While they know they will be people who are in a position to exploit the situation of the credit crunch, I am not willing to be a part of that. Further he was assuming that, I think probably correctly, that the government will be providing some form if rent relief or support to help people stay in their homes. And he saw no moral problems with taking some of that money to finance his property portfolio.

Anyway the long and the short of it is, I no longer have the can requirement to play with.
It is such a shame that people can only think about ways of exploiting our fellow man