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

The Challenge of Rural Poverty

I have just discovered from reading a friends Blog that Hilary Clinton was a republican but became a Democrat after seeing the poverty and deprivation of the inner cities. While poverty is distressing where ever it is, it was not until the industrial revolution and urbanisation that poverty became noticed.

Previously poverty was something that was hidden away, not because it didn’t exist but because it was a rural problem. With families disbursed around the country, and I am not just talking about the UK, it was something that politicians and the wealthy could ignore.

The difference between the poverty of the cities and that of rural areas was always about the ability of people, mainly men, to work. As in the past most men worked on the land in the countryside, anyone reasonably fit would always find work. Although wages were very poor and housing conditions could be bad, in the old rural economy it was rare for people to starve.

Even the first agricultural revolution, and improvements to farming and agriculture, the situation never altered for the poor labours. It was not until the start of the industrial revolution that real grinding poverty and destitution started to surface. This was caused in two ways primarily. The first being the small craft produces of goods that were put out of business by industrialisation and the second the poor itinerant workers who moved to industrial jobs with the promise of better wages that working on the land.

What industry and urbanisation brought was usually very poor housing and wages that were only high if you worked extremely long hours in dangerous conditions. In the countryside (and I know this is a generalisation) if a man had an accident he would be looked after by his kith and kin, the community, even the employer/landowner. This was never the case with industrialisation, as to the factory owners the labour force was just part of the economic cost of running the factory. Any man who could not work was useless.

Thus urbanisation brought us unemployment. In the countryside of old, even old men could be useful as rat catchers or would have valuable skills that ensured they were never totally economically inactive. Further, it was rare that anyone in the countryside was ever injured so badly while working that they could never work again. This was not so in the urban environment as a man could end up crippled or maimed for life in a factory or mine. That is without even thinking of the families that lost the breadwinner if someone was killed.

Then there were the effects of improvements to industry and industrial processes. Many businesses still close down today leaving people without work because someone else has found a new or cheaper way of making something.

Therefore, poverty always appears to be worse in the cities than in the countryside. However, we only need to look back to the dust bowl and depression years to see that poverty was just as bad in rural areas as it was in the city.

Now if we look at the situation in this century, in this country in the countryside there is extreme poverty, much worse than in any city. The greatest problem is that of housing. Because the countryside can be a nice place to live, people have bought second homes, or else they buy nice places to let out as holiday lets. Thus making it imposable for local people to buy in their own areas. Not only that but rents have become unrealistically high again preventing poorer people from being able to afford to live in their own villages. Add to that difficulty the lack of transport, public transport in many rural areas is a joke and often far to unreliable to allow people to travel to work. Therefore personal transport becomes an essential part of rural life, even for people who are in minimum wage jobs, just to keep the job.

The transport difficulties would not be such a problem if there were local jobs, but with fewer jobs on the land, and an increasing reliance upon the tourist pound, most jobs local to any rural community will be low paid seasonal ones.

The difference between rural and urban poverty is simply that it’s the urban poverty that gets noticed, while the poverty in the countryside no one even wants to think about it.