All articles by Brian Green – Page 37
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Nero comes to mind
On a day that Wolseley has announced 6,000 job cuts and when the employment figures are looking decidedly shaky, even without the effects of the recent cull by house builders, the latest efforts by Caroline Flint to ease pain in the market seem rather puny.I could go into a detailed ...
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Housing market worsens, but not as quickly - RICS
It is an odd thing that things can still be getting worse, but that sentiment can be regarded as improving. So it is with estate agents, according to the latest housing market survey produced by the surveyors body RICS.The story of the June survey is that while things are still ...
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Futures market puts house prices in cash terms down by a third by 2011
Punters in the residential derivatives game are putting a very bleak gloss on the direction of house prices.The Tradition Future HPI, which measures future prices against the Halifax (HBOS) non-seasonally adjusted average, puts a value of £137,233 on an average house in June 2011. Given that prices peaked at £201,081 ...
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Three years of construction recession forecast - is that possible?
My good friend Martin Hewes provided me with a sneak preview of his latest three-year forecast for construction output. It's not a bedtime read for the faint hearted, that's for sure.The Hewes & Associates numbers show a recession in construction stretching out for the three years of the forecast period, ...
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House prices are falling twice as fast as in 1990 crash
I'll be honest I wasn't expecting the latest Halifax (HBOS) house price figures to be quite as dramatic as they were - showing a further 2% drop in June.Not that I am overly surprised, but on nothing more than a hunch I had expected the rate of fall in June ...
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Media plays down housing crisis - 160,000 house building jobs to go
Not a headline you might expect. And let's hope the house building industry doesn't shed 160,000 jobs, but it is looking ever more likely.First let's get one thing out of the way. The media is blamed for hyping the crisis we now find ourselves in. To hold that view is ...
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Housing rescue plan? What housing rescue plan?
Caroline Flint has just announced the much talked of rescue plan for the housing market - couched in terms of affordable housing, but in essence an attempt to bolster the crumbling house building sector.It has been welcomed by the National Housing Federation, so it must be good. And I am ...
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If this is recession - here's what not to do
Given the slew of shocking data and the seemingly inevitable fate that awaits construction I thought it worthwhile casting my mind back to the horrors of the early 1990s and to try to recall the mistakes firms made in reacting to recession.So here is my: Top five mistakes in a ...
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If this is not recession - what is?
However much you may have been expecting it, the pace of bad news is overwhelming. Back to back, undiluted and dismal.The buyers body, CIPS, today reports on construction and unsurprisingly, given the current wave of shocking statistics, its Purchasing Managers Index for the industry plunged to unchartered depths - from ...
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Workload and job prospects crash, confidence plummets - RICS
A dramatic reversal of fortunes saw confidence in the future of construction workload plunge in the second quarter of this year to the lowest level ever recorded by the chartered surveyors body RICS.The figures suggest that more than 11 years of almost uninterrupted growth has come to a shuddering halt, ...
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House prices down 8%, but where is the bottom of the market?
The Nationwide's latest stats for June on house prices confirmed what everyone knew: house prices are still falling. The figures put the average house price down 0.9% on the month, 6.3% on the year and 8% down from the peak in October.If the current rate of fall continues for the ...
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Rich ditch their homes as US plays celebrity foreclosures
Bored with the subprime homesick blues, the US press has turned to tracking down the rich who have handed back the keys on their multimillion dollar homes. It's "celebrity foreclosures" folks!That couldn't possibly happen here...
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Poll shows confidence at new lows
More news to spoil your breakfast came in today. The latest consumer confidence barometer reading taken by GfK NOP shows consumers expectations of economic prospects in the coming 12 months at the lowest level since the pollster began asking the question in 1982.What does this mean for construction? Well what ...
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First quarter national accounts figures provide cause for concern
The latest quarterly national accounts provide yet more worrying reading for the construction industry.Firstly, the revisions made by the statisticians have just made the pretty poor figures originally released look worse.GDP growth in the first quarter is now officially 0.3% compared with 0.4% (to put that in context 0.1% ...
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When housing market crash meets dot.bomb
For anyone keen to explore the deeper reaches of the effects caused by a slowdown in the housing market here is one for the files.Moneysupermarket.com appears to be seeking to quell investor fears about the impact of "extremely challenging" conditions in its mortgages and loans business.
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We still need 3 million homes by 2020, says official adviser
The National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) set up to provide advice on making homes affordable today released its latest advice on how many homes England needs by 2020.The range of extra homes the unit says are needed by 2020 is between 2,957,000 and 3,475,900. That means an addition ...
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Why so gloomy?
There is a lot of economic gloom about at the moment.Here, Merryn Somerset Webb, editor of Money Week, puts forward a very good case in defence of being gloomy.Anyone care to put a counter argument?
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Myths that provide comfort No 1: House prices and unemployment
It is popularly thought and much asserted that the trigger for the house price crash of the early 1990s was rising unemployment.Indeed, the Government, although with decreasing vigour of late, likes to point to the strong UK employment figures and suggest that these will help sustain residential property prices.The ...
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US house prices down 18% from the peak
What happens in the US housing market is becoming increasingly of interest this side of the Atlantic, as confused pundits scratch around for any clues as to what might be in store for the UK.No longer is there a broad sense of confidence that we are immune to what was ...
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"There is no housing market"
It is always a worthwhile experience chatting to Hometrack's Richard Donnell, there are always ideas and sparks of ideas.Having tracked him down this morning we talked, unsurprisingly, about the weirdness of the housing market. He made one particular comment that caught my ear."There is no housing market," he threw in ...