Should the government be coming up with schemes to help out the housing market?

[nkf]

I think it will make the long term problem worse.

no they are trying to re ignite something that is a debt bubble.If they suspend stamp duty anyone who buys off the back of that will still be buying something over priced.Prices need to fall to affordible levels but they are petrified of losing votes and are desperate to protect what people consider 'their' equity.

NO. I'm with you. It will make the long-term problem much worse.

Economies are cyclical. All of them.

And tbh suspending the stamp duty and then compelling people to pay it later is a kick in the teeth.

No bailing out banks that loaned irresponsibly or borrowers who borrowed irresponsibly, either - either be capitalist or don't.

Building companies complaining about losing their jobs and wanted bailed out. Why should they be bailed out and not, say, fishermen who are forced out of work due to increasing fuel prices? Or anyone else whose market dries up?

I've been made redundant twice in my life. It sucks. But that's how it goes sometimes.

no I don't it will lull people into a false sense of security and encourage the blame culture when things don't work out or they can't keep up the payments. Think of those already whinging about negative equity when they took out 125% mortgages . It is time people took personal responsibility for their finances and risk not autmatically look to blame someone else !

No it is like Nero fiddling while rome burns. Or whatever. The government might think they have the power to wave a magic wand and "fix it" but the reality is this is a much bigger issue - as expat said, it's cyclical. Some economists are saying that the "bottom" won't be for another 10 to 15 years. It's a long way down baby.

but they're not, fio. and if they are, it's for sale. selling off social housing is what excarbated the entire situation to begin with.

No. It will just shore up high prices, and do precious little to help first-time buyers. Not having to worry about an extra 1% is nothing compared to a house being 10-30% overpriced, and besides the govnt is going to postpone payment, aren't they? I can't see them giving up tax, the state they're in.

thats right they are going to allow it to be postponed at the very best which means down the line even more debt!

PR stunt, don't you think? How can it actually help??

it will get people who can't afford the relatively small % of stamp duty because they have no savings taking on a mortgage they prob won't be able to afford on an over priced house.

I don't think it will make any difference. People are not stupid enough to buy just because they can defer stamp duty, when houses have fallen 10% in the past six months (IIRC).

There are lots of upset and desperate people facing negative equity just now - the government wants to be seen to do something. So you have daft measures like councils giving out mortgages to people who can't get them from banks instead of simply providing much needed social housing.

but some people(admittedly a minority) are stupid enough upwind that si just the problem . They don't look at trends, analysis or even think about the fact that deferral means they still have to pay up in the future. Why would there be such a chronic debt problem atm otherwise. Some people view a credit card, for example, as a licence to spend without even considering the consequences.

No they shouldn't because the bank made the money in the good times and Barclays, who claim to be having a bad time , still made £2.9bn in the last 6 months. They created the bad debts so they should take the hit, not sell their bad mortgages to the govt or whatever scheme is being proposed next.

although...

Yes because if the house prices crash and consumer sentiment continues to tumble then more jobs will be lost creating a spiral that could end only when we are all without jobs.

which is right? I have no idea

RBS just posted record losses.

That's the market, though.

I worked for a huge securities corporation during a bull market. But everyone knew, when times are good, they're good, but they don't last.

Swings and roundabouts.

"either be capitalist or don't" amen expat amen

FWIW, when the market went bear, I got made redundant.

One of 400 employees laid off by that company alone.

Others were P45'd later.

It does happen, sometimes more than once depending on what industry you're in.

My dad had to start working in some pretty shit places abroad during the big oil crash of the early 80s just to keep the wolf from the door, he was a petroleum engineer.

We can't always expect the government to bail us out.

lurkingdad - Barclays recorded profits for first half of 2008 only because of some dodgy accounting.

07 Aug 2008 23:40 GMT

WSJ(8/8) Barclays Net Falls
(From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)
By Sara Schaefer Munoz and Carrick Mollenkamp

LONDON -- Barclays PLC reported a sharp drop in first-half net income and GBP 2.8 billion in new write-downs on souring credit investments, as the U.K. lender's top executives painted a grim outlook for the banking business and the broader economy.

The U.K.'s third-largest bank in terms of market value said its net income amounted to GBP 1.71 billion in the first half of the year, down 35% from the same period last year.

In recent months, the bank's business has been hit not only by credit-related write-downs at Barclays Capital, its investment-banking unit, but also by a slowing British economy and a recent and rapid downturn in Spain's housing market.
(...)

Barclays executives, however, faced persistent questions about the level of the bank's write-downs, which remain significantly less severe than those reported by many of its competitors. Barclays, for example, has not recorded mark-to-market losses on its holdings of some GBP 9.2 billion in so-called leveraged loans, which went to finance some of the multibillion-dollar corporate buyout deals of recent years.

Competitors such as Deutsche Bank AG have slashed the value of such loans to the levels at which they are trading in the market, generating billions of dollars in write-downs. Barclays, by contrast, maintains that it doesn't need to mark the loans to market, because it intends to hold them to maturity. Barclays does record provisions for leveraged loans and it has consistently accounted for the loans in the same way, a spokesman said.

Mr. Cropper, the Bernstein analyst, noted "the perennial issue of Barclays's decision not to mark the leveraged loans to market." Two other research firms also raised questions about Barclays's write-downs and whether the bank had recorded enough.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 07, 2008 19:40 ET (23:40 GMT)

In answer to OP, no, government shouldn't be trying to come up with schemes to keep the good times rolling in the housing market. However, they should be cushioning the blow - that is probably what they are trying to do with the stamp duty thing.

no and the more they talk about doing things, the more uncertainty there is and the longer it will take for the market to settle down.

No to shoring up prices for mortgaged properties and even private rented housing.

I'd love to see more new rented social housing, not for me personally as I'm a lucky homeowner who bought before prices got so silly, nearly 10 years ago. I don't think shared ownership schemes in London can help the people they should be helping at current prices either, minimum incomes required now are really really high.

Alistair Darling has totally screwed things up by even mentioning it. Headlines in the papers now about people pulling out over the past few days as they want to wait until he suspends stamp duty. Estate agents are furious - not too unhappy about that personally! He should have been decisive and either introduced it with immediate effect or made it clear that it wasn't going to happen. Being vague has made people even more uncertain. Why exchange or complete this week if there'll be no stamp duty to pay next week. Ridiculous idea in the first place - if you don't have the money when buying, where are you going to find it later on? How would they collect it? Set up yet another gov department 'Deferred Stamp Duty Collection Centre'?

If anything at all, they should be helping those that get repossessed, not encouraging more debt.

Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown couldn't run a piss up in a brewery.

They wouldn't be able to come to a decision on which brewery to run it in.

No. This govt encouraged the conditions that sent the market beserk - they should leave it be to sort itself out.

It always amuses me and pisses me off as well that the people that scream against any sort of intervention in their ability ti trouser vast sums of cash when times are good are the 1st ones to demand it when things aren't going their way.