House price crash the worst since the war

Bruce Robertson

It's more dramatic than the figures show. HBOS applying some highly questionable seasonal adjustments.

cjcjc

Is this still true in real terms?

crown

The last 12 months has seen the biggest falls ever from the Halifax. The previous biggest 12 month fall was in October 1992 of -8.5%

House prices have fallen 9.65% from the peak in August 2007 10 months ago. It took from May 1989 to September 1992 for house price to fall 9.65% that is 41 months.

see crown blog spot for more

Adam

Which war do you have in mind, Fraser? It can't be World War II, as you don't provide the data to show that. But maybe you're just using 1955 data as a proxy for "some time before 1955". That would obviously be wrong, but if you're going to be wrong, be wrong in style.

"This is the worst house price crash since the wars of the roses."

Why not, eh? Or would it be a "Brownie"?

John

Data is a plural noun, Fraser.

Other than that, McLoser has chalked up a record series of 'the worst since 1215'.

david b

Gordans miracle economy does not boom and bust. The iron chancellor has laid the foundations of the strongest economy in europe. (It has to be becasue it has a mountain of debt on its shoulders)

Ray

The great housing crash has been anticipated since at least 2003. Blair was lucky he got out just before this long-awaited downturn materialised. Instead, McBean will go down in history (and rightly so) as the fool who built the house of his tax-and-spend economic policy upon a foundation of sand.

Derah Yasque

Why are we still not getting the fact that this is not a blip but the new direction?

Fraser Nelson

Adam, you raise an intriguing possibility. The 1945-55 data on inflation and asset prices, while patchy and not specific to property, pretty much precludes a crash of this scale (if there was one, it would be recorded). But before that: I have no idea. I shall endeavour to get a more historical list. For example: defence spending as a share of GDP is at its lowest since when? The Boer War? Crimea? When was the last time Labour finished fifth in a by-election: ever? John may have a point. We should get a historian in to chalk up a list of Brown's "worse since xxxx" and keep track of what our little limbo dancer is achieving. It would be a shame not to.

Dumb Engineer

The worst since when is hardly important.
The past 11 years have been a disaster, but why have the political pundits and economists not been saying so during that time.
We have been told that credit is good, the balance of trade is not important, the British economy is strong and you people don’t understand the new economics.
Brown has claimed to be ‘Green’.
The Tories claim to be ‘Green’.
Brown has followed what seem to me to be Tory policies. He hasn’t nationalised anything or turned the unions loose. Many very wealthy people have become much wealthier.
The Tories would follow Tory policies.
I don’t see what DC would do better. He has the advantage, now, of knowing how not to do it, but can he get the jobs back from China?
Can he regenerate wealth creation in a country that has been told it is not necessary and have forgotten how to do it anyway?
I hope someone has the answers, but I am not holding my breath.

Tina

My God on channel 4 news tonight 2 eceonomists said house prices will fall 30-40% over the next two years and that we wil go into recession. It's looking grim.

mike

House prices went up by too much, this is a correction and very much appreciated by the poorer folk. You miserable lot who were relying on the price of your house to fund your early retirement will have to think again, and it jolly well serves you right.

Ian C

"The end to boom and bust" - oh, so that's what it looks like.

TomTom

"eceonomists said house prices will fall 30-40% over the next two years "

Not each and every house - some will not change or may even go up...but the jerry-built apartments and estates of balsa-wood homes will slide as they were overpriced to start with.

john miller

I know journalists have to be piquant and to the point but can you please lay off Major.

He was not a lying theiving stupid hypocritical numpty cretinous mentally subnormal opportunist Stalinist Trotskyite cretin with a mental age of 3.

That's Brown. not Major.

Dora

'NO MORE TORY BOOM AND BUST'

Brown was right about that, only now it's Labour's boom and bust. With a bigger boom and perhaps a more spectacular bust.

Augustus

The main reason why, in the global scheme of things, house prices will not fall quite so far in many parts of Euroland, as they might in Britain and America, is because here mortgage interest is not tax deductible, whereas in other countries it is.

Anthony Barnett

It was the house price rises that were the real bad news. Why is it that we all recognise that excessive inflation is bad except when it comes to houses?

THX1138

The villain of the piece is Alan Greenspan who let the US economy grow on a bubble of cheap easy to acquire debt & we followed along.