To think there's an off/bad vibe out there?

[ARichSeamToMine]

Does the world feel "off"?
Sorry if this seems ranty, I'm really interested in the vote though.

I'm feeling like there's a weird vibe out there.

I live in London, meet a lot of people through work and am not just judging by my circle.

I've been struggling to articulate this.

I'm late 40s and have seen recessions etc before.

Was out in the City tonight and I would say bar and restaurant were busy for a Monday night, so good there. The street I was on had several completely closed offices, pubs and two gyms, which was sad.

I understand that changes in social habits have been affected by working patterns etc.

I just feel there is something else at play

I increasingly find that people are a bit...strange? We saw groups in the bar, who presumably went out together from choice, just gazing at their phones. I was never anti tech but I'm starting to wonder if there is something in the idea that it affects communication skills.

my friend is worried about her dad because he constantly watches videos of fights - this is a TV show in the US now I hear.

I know a lot of people in my age group feel very "meh" and have little enthusiasm for things, but it's not just middle age. I don't think so anyway.

I'm happy if people are happy, but starting to wonder if they are happy. I meet a lot of people who don't want to go out, are up at 5am walking a dog, they take care of themselves with a good diet, often vegan, don't drink alcohol.

I'm not saying any of these things are bad. I can see if the City is reasonably busy on a Monday night, hospitality must be recovering, which is great.

But something out in the world feels off...like people aren't interested in much.

My online creative writing group has almost no posts. The tutor is regularly cancelling workshops and looking to do online only.

I'm in touch with a couple of exes and we are staying friends but they seem to do nothing but gaming. One in particular has no friends and is not bothered.

I might get flamed but I do wonder if men are particularly prone to doing less stuff if they are single.

Again, that is fine if they are happy. But I get this sense that people aren't happy.

Social anxiety seems very much on the rise.

Just curious to know if others get this vibe.

YABU - people are fine and just living life as usual

YANBU - people are losing communication skills and becoming unhappy

Mortgage applications recently dropped to near 30 year lows, all those people were still living somewhere, Supply and Demand is a myth, a dangerous myth because it has led people into unpayable mortgage debt to get on "the ladder" (it is a debt ladder that benefits bankers, nothing else)

If the government tried a large scale intervention (what would they do?) the bond markets would react and we will have Truss Budget Moment The Sequel (although swap rates went higher after Truss had to go and the media were strangely quiet on that?)

Your idea on interest rates needing "a decade or more" to affect the housing market is obviously false, rising rates have had a near immediate effect (look at sales volumes)

It doesn`t matter how many people extend their debt or stay put, house prices are made on the margins, one sale at a lower price on a street of similar houses lowers the price for the whole street, and there is always someone who needs to sell, especially in tough economic times.

Most of that is jibberish.

”most people have 5 year deals”

nonsense.

the govt can’t competently “intervene” in anything.

the whole reason we’re in this mess is because the govt can’t manage what they’ve got.

you're talking hopium.

What an erudite response 😂😂😂😂

But that’s what I’m saying. If the house price on one property goes down no one else will move unless they have to. This decreases the stock. Yes someone always needs to move, but this is likely outnumbered by people wanting to get on the ladder. Your own comments indicates there’s fewer people moving. House prices might go down slightly but and desire for a crash is a pipe dream, yes a house worth £350k a couple of years ago might now be worth
and get £330k but it is not going to be suddenly worth £200k which is what people need. If this happened the whole economy would crash and no one would be able to afford this then anyway.

Im lucky, my equity is worth about 95% of my property my mortgage will be paid off soon even with a move. It’s largely immaterial to me what the house price does. But for many a significant fall will put them in negative equity. At which point people are going to sit tight!

A friend sold a tiny terraced house in 2022. At the peak of the market. Recently a neighbour there put their house on the market for the same price, not a viewer. They phoned friend asking what they had done to achieve the sale. Absolutely nothing they admitted it was just timing.

Didn't get a chance to return to thread till today

I realised something yesterday - may or may not be London centric.

A couple of posters have said that going out in the evening doesn't feel right for a range of reasons.

I thought the rise in day clubs, dance events at lunchtime etc was about catering to a demographic - ye old clubbing generation like me.

Now I'm increasingly seeing people who are much younger at these events and I know nightclubs are not doing well. Is that the case everywhere?

Added to that, there's a group of boy racers who seem to have taken over our local streets on a Saturday night, from about 10. Last night I thought they were letting off fireworks but with hindsight it might have been modified exhausts or something.

These are 30mph residential roads, they must be very empty if they are actually able to do this. I know many Londoners have got rid of their cars, but still...seems odd.

I do hear that the Tube is still very busy on a Friday and Saturday night, I wouldn't know first hand though as I prefer to go out on a weeknight.

Probably just witnessing a big cultural change made me feel a bit struck by it all.

I’m London based too.

Not sure what you mean about going out it seems strange. I’ve mostly gone out with friends or my last boyfriend in recent months. Generally it all seems fine. It does seem slightly empty in some areas compared to pre covid but that’s to be expected I think. There’s no Friday night out after work or not that I’m aware but local to where I live Fridays and Saturdays out at night are still very popular.

I don’t do daytime clubbing or to dance event’s at lunchtime and I’m a ye olde clubber like you, that’s only because clubbing doesn’t appeal to me now.

No boy racers where I live luckily.

I have noticed more people including renters in house next to mine tend to stay in and party much more than before whereas I’d always go out and do go out now.

I have seen the tube be very busy like you say on Friday and Saturday nights but not generally out in central London then.

Not read thread but we are in a huge societal change right now, we are all being swept along with it and we can't find our feet because we can't possibly measure what's happening to us.

In the school my sister works in she says the phone rule is not enforced. Pupils sit in class watching u tube discreetly with ear pods in. They do not worry about having to listen anymore because they use chat gpt to do it!

The school has a supposed ai checker but they don't work. She said students are walking down the halls like zombies hunched on their phones.

Yes, worse than heroin, many many more are affected by the digital addiction, you see kids now just sitting on a step or something on their own mesmerised by the phone, they are obviously not even enjoying the experience. You can block the signal to mobile devices quite easily, government could legislate for this in schools if they wanted to? (They should roll it out to public transport too, LOL)

Good points, many people are very very confused by housing market dynamics I find, you can google the charts for interest rates as compared to house prices and house prices very obviously take off on a moon-shot when the cheap debt appeared, and they go stratospheric when the PTB stepped in to cut rates to zero so they could get more juice out of the bubble, masses of people just kept on borrowing like drunken goldfish.

Yes digital technology is the opium for the masses, why should government )of any colour or country) want to stop it. It’s the apparatus of a world wide religion- consumerism and compliant behaviour.

I’ve explained to my DS over and over how dangerous it is. That you should challenge everything you read, hear or see. It’s not a computers job to do it, people can control that, read, read widely, from books. Ask why, over and over. Who is telling you, what do they have to gain from it. Who are they trying to silence, why? What makes the most sense. Have we seen anything comparable in history? What was the outcome? Why? Who benefitted? Who suffered?

"They phoned friend asking what they had done to achieve the sale."

LOL, just shows how out of touch many of the public are on how borrowing costs drive the market, not even funny really.

"Yes someone always needs to move, but this is likely outnumbered by people wanting to get on the ladder."

Recent drops in mortgage applications to near 30 year lows says No. "Wanting to get on the (banker`s cozy safe word to sell debt to morons) Ladder" and "NEEDING a place to live" are two very different things.

"a house worth £350k a couple of years ago might now be worth
and get £330k but it is not going to be suddenly worth £200k"

So people suddenly being able to get a basic shelter for 150k less is going to crash the economy? Wouldn`t they have more spare cash to spend IN the actual economy? Surely the reason that so many smaller shops are becoming boarded up is that people are panicking about their mortgage payments on all that debt the took out on basic shelter?

Obviously you were hoping that when your mortgage is paid off the house would be worth more than you borrowed for it? Maybe it will be, depends when you bought, but a good rule of thumb IMO is to look at house prices when rates were last at this level, that is where we are heading IMO, obviously you can try to account for wage rises by whatever method you think is accurate but wage rises are mainly being eaten up by high rents, much higher mortgage costs and much higher COL costs, they are not being channeled into keeping your house worth 350k, that was the job of cheap debt (now happily in the history books)

You’re getting confused. Interest rates have a much greater effect on the rising house prices than causing a crash. Your user name indicates you would relish a crash (despite the untold misery this would cause people and very wide effect on the economy) whether you’re listing after this because you’re a lefty loon wanting to see the “rich” ( talented hard workers) suffer, someone desperate to get on the housing ladder or an economist desperate to prove some theory or other you aren’t factoring all the different factors into your equation, yes house prices might stabilise, they might decrease slightly but I don’t foresee a massive crash.

Stories like that mentioned don’t mean anything. Maybe there are no buyers who want that house, maybe there’s dodgy neighbours, maybe a buyer will come along next week,

Good points, he will thank you in the future when he is co-ordinating attacks on Skynet from an underground base somewhere. Nothing comparable in history, the printing press was massive, but the speed of transmission and ability to manipulate emotional responses of the internet/digital media is truly unique in our history so far (unless you believe some of the topics covered in "Ancient Aliens" on Blaze channel)

The think that’s concerning me is commercial real estate values. They’re geared straight back to borrowing costs and reflect the rental income. Decent covenant long lease stuff was cap’d up at 20x rental income, but now debt costs have risen so much the cap values have tanked kicking a load into negative equity.

massive impact on pension values etc…

I really do think the whole thing is gonna tank out quite hard and we’ve seen nothing yet.

People always talk about the ladder, but forget about the snakes.

Pensions are going to take a hammering. Those expecting indexed linked pensions years down the road may be in for a shock if the country can't afford them.

"You’re getting confused. Interest rates have a much greater effect on the rising house prices than causing a crash."

That sounds more like an economists"s theory than anything I posted. Far too early to tell, all that has happened so far is that prices have softened slightly and sales have dropped by a lot, I honestly can"t see the new affordability limits available to new borrowers supporting house prices where they are, unless of course the theory that "supply and demand" was vastly overrated (to sell mortgage debt) is true? Then you could maybe bounce along at high prices with collapsed sales, but the reality is that as soon as rates lifted off the cracks started to appear in commercial property, BTL, AirBnB (less people spending/holidaying) and residential sales (they basically collapsed) so I don`t have much faith in your idea that the economy can absorb these rate rises and still tick along at the silly high house prices we saw with cheap lending.

I agree, I think the commercial property value is much more susceptible to interest rate changes.

Maybe, but if banks are deep into these commercial loans and they go bad, this will impact residential property lending as well? Is this why the government are floating silly ideas like 99% mortgages again by any chance?

One immediate impact was councils (who I think the government told to be more "creative" with money raising, by investing into the government`s favourite Ponzi scheme ) going bust, but if you are picking the funds in your pension yourself (obviously most or all index funds/ETF"s are heavily exposed to "financials" and most or all of these banks have commercial loans on their books) can you reduce the risk of over-exposure to CRE?

When they make their living from selling you mortgage debt that is nearly always a deliberate omission.

Like I said upthread. The Government will intervene to stop a crash in residential property. They can’t afford it to happen. The environment is very different to that where big property crashes happened in the past. We are more likely to see a controlled slowing of growth/slight reduction

But people just won’t sell unless they really really have to. At the end of the day people need somewhere to live. So what can happen? The rental market keeps increasing as day after day people are in a situation they need somewhere to live thus furling the BTL market or they chase after the few houses on the market. Houses at the top end might stagnate or reduce those at the bottom and mid end will rise or at least maintain. This just seems common sense.