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269 sats \ 6 replies \ @carlosfandango 3 Jul 2023 \ parent \ on: Daily discussion thread
The UK housing market exhibits all the signs of being a bubble unrecognised by the majority of people - particularly by mortgage holders themselves.
The 80s Thatcherite mania of home ownership is still strong in the current generation (and help for many first timers comes from ‘boomers’ getting their offspring onto the property ladder). This is in contrast to large parts of Europe which still has high proportions of home renters.
Whilst, as a hard asset, home ownership is a good option - especially given the amount of leverage you can take - you can’t sell into a falling market without pain and you can’t eat bricks and mortar.
In truth the banks are locked to the fate of their borrowers, the Government are beholden to their sacred property cow and its worshippers and many borrowers are now trapped by their mortgage.
Interesting times…
Yep. Despite everything, I'm still regularly hammered with advice to purchase a property from well-meaning colleagues and family members because houses "only go up".
Who knows if they're right. It sure looks like a bubble, but groupthink can carry a market longer than any rational person would expect. It's certainly the case that analysts smarter than me have been prophesizing the downfall of the housing market for years and years now, yet here we are.
What I can say is that the idea of locking myself into a £250k loan at 6-7% interest seems borderline insane and is not a gamble I am willing to take. Especially when the loan is against an asset carrying uncomfortable levels of counterparty risk; if your neighbourhood turns into a dumpster fire or your government decides to raise taxes on home ownership, good luck passing on your hot potato to the next sucker.
There is a decent argument to be made that Bitcoin will begin to demonetise softer assets like gold and real estate. Those would be very interesting times indeed...
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Agree on all of the above.
Not to make light of the entirely avoidable and criminal tragedy that befell Grenfell… but there are people now locked into mortgages on houses and flats they cannot sell. This is wholly the responsibility of lax regulation and weak politicians in the pay of building companies. And no fault of the mortgage holders.
Real estate will always have some value as they aren’t making anymore and you have to live somewhere but Bitcoin is the harder asset and much more affordable. I’m backing Bitcoin.
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You can't completely demonetize real estate, people need a place to live and that won't change.
Also, real estate is not softer than bitcoin, it has a fixed supply.
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The supply of money for it is the problem, not property itself. Property should not have exchange value. If you can't make the money to pay the bills of keeping the land it's overpriced. And it's probably overpriced because of banks suppressing interest rates so they can keep milking the money supply.
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I can't wait to see the banksters favourite racket eaten by Bitcoin.
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Western europe is full of renters but eastern europe half the people own two properties and the rest will inherit one in a few years.
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