House Price Crash

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housepricecrash.co.uk is a website devoted to discussing a perceived real estate bubble in the British property market.

The main benefits of the website are:

  • A news blog with links to web news items relevant to house prices, updated daily.
  • A number of academic articles discussing the economic aspects of the UK housing market.
  • A lively forum about housing economics and other related subjects.
  • One source for all UK house price statistics.
  • House price predictions from a range of economists.

The site was set up by a small number of pioneers who believed that UK property prices had reached a level far above their fundamental value and consequently they decided to sell their houses and rent instead, hoping perhaps to buy again when prices are lower. This strategy is termed "sell to rent" (STR). Over 2005 the popularity of the site steadily increased, as the UK house price inflation rate slowed to almost a halt, making the likelihood of a fall seem more plausible. Nonetheless 2006 showed steady growth in house prices ans the forecast for 2007 is the same.

Visit the site: housepricecrash.co.uk Alternatives include globalhousepricecrash.com

[edit] The housepricecrash.co.uk forum

The forum is home to a number of distinct groupings of opinion including:

  • FTBs (first-time-buyers, looking to buy property but often priced out)
  • housing bears (those who believe prices will fall)
  • housing bulls (those who believe prices will rise)
  • STRs (those who have sold their property to rent) and Downsizers (sell and buy smaller property)
  • STEs (those who have sold their property way too early) and are desperately trying to claw their way back in to the housing market by betting on the stock market and gold
  • BTLers (buy-to-let landlords who have purchased property to rent out as an investment)
  • bemused observers who do not know either way

The forum is open to all to read but users must register to post messages.

The forum is moderated by a small group of users. At times, the moderators have banned users or relegated them to a "troll" sub-forum. An Internet troll is someone who tries to disrupt a forum and this minimises disruption to forum users. All trolls are estate agents as no-one else could believe that house prices are going up.

This moderation policy has proved controversial at times.

On the one hand some new users feel that they have been banned in response to airing their legitimate opinion that house prices might rise or stagnate. The Amazon website contains a number of reviews from viewers of the site; both critical and supportive.[1]

There are a number of long-time property bulls on the forum who do not fall into any of these categories and the moderators would cite them as an example that the moderation policy is fair.

As of Jan 2006 debate has become increasingly heated. Recent statistical evidence[citation needed] indicates the house prices may not be as stable as portrayed in the media[citation needed]. Prices have already started to fall in both Australia and the USA which lends further evidence to the House Price Bubble theory.

Late in January 2006 the site was sold to Fubra Ltd for an undisclosed amount of money. This caused a level of concern to some of the long standing members who had contributed either financially or otherwise to the site in the previous years. The controversy was mainly down to the fact that the webmaster and moderators made no announcement of the sale or change of ownership to these members. When long term members began to question the moderators about the sale or the lack of announcement they were either banned from the site or their posts were deleted. Consequently many of the long term members stopped using the site and began posting at www.globalhousepricecrash.com. www.globalhousepricecrash.com is an independent website free of any vested commercial interests or investment and hosted by Consa who was one of the earliest members of the original housepricecrash site.

[edit] Problems with housepricecrash.co.uk

A similar The Spot the Troll Thread can be viewed here - http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?s=2446d8eb989fc6da8af90dc3fb149827&showtopic=18325

Conversly, many so-called trolls have undertaken a campaign across other forums (including Wikipedia) attacking the HPC site on the basis of their own experiences with the moderation policy. This editor suggests that the reader go to the site and form their own opinion.

HPC is certainly a useful site and contains lots of useful statistics and links, but the forums offer so much counter-spin against the reports and data released by banks and estate agents that it could be said that HPC.co.uk has become another vested interest.

The forums, by their nature, do not give an impartial view of the housing market and they should not be relied upon in making a decision on personal financial issues or the state of the housing market. One criticism levelled at the site, which by right should be levelled at individual posters, is that it ignores the effects of a HPC on social, regional or economic factors. That said, such concerns do not factor heavily in the marketing excesses of banks, estate agents and surveyors, and should not be allowed to dilute or cloud the main issue - are houses too expensive? Perhalps more relevantly...are we in the middle of a speculative market bubble. The graphs provided on the website should help you decide.

In June 2006, advertisements were introduced in between some of the forum posts. Some long-standing members complained about this and some chose to use another forum instead (globalhousepricecrash.com). The negative feedback from members prompted these adverts to be removed shortly afterwards.

[edit] See also

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