claret+blue_watch

So our team of mostly British players don't seem to fancy a wet, windy, cold day at Turf Moor.And nice to see that midfield dynamo Steve Sidwell doing his usual superb impression of the invisible man.Not good enough.

5th, but if we sign a top class midfielder, and goalscorer I'd fancy us for 4th.

I'm still not bothered even though we won last night.

Ditto.Couldn't care less.

so, you haven't "lost interest" then? You were just never that interested anyway?

Fair doo's, but a completely different argument/point.

Or if you have "lost interest" at some point, why? Too many years of dissapointment?

what would bring the interest back?

Villa have had many years of dissapointment IMO, especially since the mid 80s. But I have not "lost interest" in them, and hopefully never will.

Losing interest is, IMHO, the easy way out .....

I must qualify my statement, having said I've lost interest, I failed to add that at no time have I really ever been a big England fan, even during the peak of my interest in the mid-late 80's when I was a young lad, I'd watch the games but not really be bothered that much whether England win, lose or draw.Over the years my interest has dwindled particulary during the post 1992 'Sky years' to the extent that now I have no interest at all in the England team.Various reasons mainly, but not exclusive to do with money, The FA, players, media and a section of England 'fans'.In fact my interest has dwindled in football as a whole, with Villa being the exception.

Like I've said before, I'd rather the Villa win a corner than England win a match, if that upsets or offends people so be it, I know I'm not the only one with that viewpoint.

I'm still not bothered even though we won last night.

Ditto.Couldn't care less.

Voted yes, but I lost my interest in the national team around the early nineties, now I can't stand them.Rather Villa win a corner than Enngerrlluunnddd win a game.

From The TimesSeptember 2, 2008

How not to help first-time homebuyers

If you don't own property already, falling prices are the best way to get you on the housing ladderRoss Clark

Imagine - if you are not one of the several million people who falls into this category - that you are a frustrated first-time homebuyer.

Over the past few years you have resisted the temptation to borrow six times your salary to buy a dingy one-bedroomed flat. Neither have you got together with a distant friend, or a stranger plucked off the internet, and bought a share of slightly brighter two-bedroomed flat. You would still like to own a home, but are happy to rent as you bide your time.

You should listen out carefully this morning, because the Prime Minister has a plan to revitalise the housing market - and he says it is for your benefit. According to the advance billing, this will revolve around a large expansion in shared-equity housing, where you buy half of a house and the Government buys the other half.

Mr Brown also wants to try to arrest the slump in house prices by giving councils money to buy up homes under the threat of repossession and to underwrite billions of pounds of mortgage loans. Another plan that was floated earlier in the year would have given buyers of properties worth less than £250,000 a stamp-duty holiday, saving a levy of 1percent on the house's value. Try as you might, you could have a problem working out how any of these measures will benefit you. The problem of unaffordability in the housing market is rapidly being solved without government intervention.

Background

House prices slide as sellers cut by 10%

Extra help for first-time homebuyers in autumn

When it comes to property prices, how full is your glass?

Mortgage hopes hit by Darling

According to the Nationwide Building Society, house prices have fallen by 10.5 per cent in a year. Why then, would you want to invest in half a house now when, if you wait for a year or two, you will be able to afford the whole house?

Moreover, why should you want your taxes used to bail out feckless homeowners who borrowed too much during the boom and, worse still, the greedy banks that lent it to them?

Even the stamp-duty holiday would have been only a temporary reprieve. Who wants to buy now and save 1per cent in tax when house prices possibly still have a further 30 per cent to fall?

None of the measures announced today will genuinely be in the interests of first-time buyers - it just sounds better if they are promoted in that way. In reality, they are a crude attempt to buy the votes of those who already own property and are feeling a little sick at the diminishing value of their investments.

Pour a bit of public money into the housing market, Mr Brown figures, and it might just be possible to re-create the glory days of the 1997-2007 property boom, when voters felt a warm glow from effortless wealth creation and began to believe his propaganda that he had put an end to boom and bust.

The moral hazard of bailing out the housing market is serious enough - by protecting borrowers and lenders from the consequences of their actions, the Government will simply be encouraging even more reckless behaviour in the next housing boom. But perhaps we should not be overly bothered about this, as any attempt to buck the housing market will be doomed to failure - just like the Tory Government's efforts in the early 1990s to buck the currency market under the exchange-rate mechanism.

The Government first tried to underpin the housing market in April when it swapped £50 billion worth of government bonds for mortgage-backed securities. The result? The banks said thanks very much but carried on as they were doing before - tightening lending criteria and raising mortgage rates.

The Bank of England's figures for July show just how seriously mortgage lending has collapsed - and demonstrate just how much the Government would have to spend to re-create the boom. In July 2007, lenders advanced a total of £17.2billion to homebuyers. In July 2008 they advanced only £4.3billion.

If the Government was going to step in and make up the weight of money that has been lost from the property market it would have to double income tax or close the National Health Service.

In any case, who really wants a return to the days of mass council-owned housing? When property prices were rising rapidly the Government did much to encourage the sale of council housing stock - the number of council-owned homes has fallen from 6.1 million in 1997 to 2.5 million today.

It did so for the same reason that the Tories sold council homes in the 1980s and 1990s - home ownership encourages self-reliance and diminishes the number of social ghettos. To force taxpayers to rebuild a stock of council homes now in a falling market is not just perverse; it would also rank alongside Gordon Brown's sale of gold reserves at the bottom of the gold market in 1999 as one of the most crass cases of public investment ever.

There are few problems so bad that a government cannot make them ten times worse by intervening. The housing market is no exception. Much as it will cause pain to those who bought too late into the dream of home ownership, the only sensible policy is to stand back and let the market find its own level.

Even the Murdoch press are highlighting the folly of this

Don't listen to Hazel Blears. Don't buy a house By MoneyWeek Editor Merryn Somerset Webb Sep 03, 2008

Imagine an environment in which house prices had fallen 10.5% in a year. An environment in which the risks to the market were considered to be so extreme that even the biggest lenders in it were too frightened of negative equity to lend money to anyone without a 30% deposit. One in which mortgage approvals have fallen 70% since this time last year and in which a mere 21,000 houses are recorded as changing hands in July (that's down from over 100,000 in July 2007). And one in which every single commentator and analyst expects house prices to keep falling for some years to come. An environment a bit like the one the UK housing market finds itself in, perhaps.

Now imagine buying a house in that environment.

You might laugh. But there is someone out there doing just that - Communities Secretary Hazel Blears. I don't mean that she is thinking of buying a house for herself. No, it's you she imagines buying a house - so much so that she's prepared to bribe you into it. Or that's what she told the Today programme this morning, anyway. If a couple in their twenties came to you for advice "would you seriously say 'buy now'?" asked her interviewer incredulously,"even with the market as it is?"

Her answer? Yes, she would. If a couple who couldn't get a commercial loan (i.e. who were considered by the mainstream lending industry to be not well off enough or not financially stable enough to be eligible for one) came to her and asked her advice, she'd say to them "It's your dream… Go for it."

Then, she'd offer them the chance to do just that via the new HomeBuy Direct scheme whereby they'd get to borrow 30% of the price of the new house they want from the government and an appropriate housebuilder, interest-free for five years. The idea, I suppose, is that lenders would then consider them to have a 30% deposit and offer them a loan for the remaining 70%.

Why stamp duty change is little incentive to buy a house right now

There's more. Just in case the HomeBuy Direct concept isn't enough to lure our young couple into the market, the government has announced it is to temporarily lift the stamp duty threshold to £175,000.

Tempted? You shouldn't be. The stamp duty business can be easily dismissed. The maximum possible saving here would be £1,750, small beer when it comes to the total cost of buying a house. What incentive can that possibly offer when prices are falling at 10% a year - and forecast to be down a good 30% from their peak by the time all this is over? Buy a house for £175,000 and there's every chance you'll be down £17,000 by this time next year, regardless of how much stamp duty you do or don't pay. Buy a house for more than that and you don't get anything off your stamp duty anyway.

The HomeBuy Direct scheme has 'gimmick' written all over it

The HomeBuy Direct business can be just as easily dismissed. It comes with very little detail for starters. You get the 30% somehow from the taxpayer and from the housebuilders. Then, despite the fact you couldn't afford to borrow it in the first place (that's why a real bank wouldn't lend it to you), you have to pay it back at some point. Worse, you don't know how or when.

All we know so far is that you will have to pay a 'fee' at the end of the five years. Of how much? And to whom? Who knows? The whole thing has 'gimmick' written all over it. And the timescale doesn't help. Five years may seem like a long time, but in a housing market crash it isn't. Let's not forget that it took six years for the market to hit bottom in the last crash and a long 11 years for prices to regain their previous peaks. Buy now and you could easily be in negative equity for a decade.

So why would Hazel want you to buy a house quite as much as she does? Either it is because she is very stupid, has no idea how markets work and has bought into the absurd idea put about by her government over the last decade that home ownership is a good thing in its own right, regardless of the cost to individual or to country; or it is because she is an exceptionally unkind person who is putting the short term interests of the big housebuilders ahead of those of would-be homeowners (remember, the HomeBuy Direct scheme sticks you with the houses they don't want). Either way, don't listen to her. And don't buy a house.Don't listen to Hazel Blears. Don't buy a house By MoneyWeek Editor Merryn Somerset Webb Sep 03, 2008

Imagine an environment in which house prices had fallen 10.5% in a year. An environment in which the risks to the market were considered to be so extreme that even the biggest lenders in it were too frightened of negative equity to lend money to anyone without a 30% deposit. One in which mortgage approvals have fallen 70% since this time last year and in which a mere 21,000 houses are recorded as changing hands in July (that's down from over 100,000 in July 2007). And one in which every single commentator and analyst expects house prices to keep falling for some years to come. An environment a bit like the one the UK housing market finds itself in, perhaps.

Now imagine buying a house in that environment.

You might laugh. But there is someone out there doing just that - Communities Secretary Hazel Blears. I don't mean that she is thinking of buying a house for herself. No, it's you she imagines buying a house - so much so that she's prepared to bribe you into it. Or that's what she told the Today programme this morning, anyway. If a couple in their twenties came to you for advice "would you seriously say 'buy now'?" asked her interviewer incredulously,"even with the market as it is?"

Her answer? Yes, she would. If a couple who couldn't get a commercial loan (i.e. who were considered by the mainstream lending industry to be not well off enough or not financially stable enough to be eligible for one) came to her and asked her advice, she'd say to them "It's your dream… Go for it."

Then, she'd offer them the chance to do just that via the new HomeBuy Direct scheme whereby they'd get to borrow 30% of the price of the new house they want from the government and an appropriate housebuilder, interest-free for five years. The idea, I suppose, is that lenders would then consider them to have a 30% deposit and offer them a loan for the remaining 70%.

Why stamp duty change is little incentive to buy a house right now

There's more. Just in case the HomeBuy Direct concept isn't enough to lure our young couple into the market, the government has announced it is to temporarily lift the stamp duty threshold to £175,000.

Tempted? You shouldn't be. The stamp duty business can be easily dismissed. The maximum possible saving here would be £1,750, small beer when it comes to the total cost of buying a house. What incentive can that possibly offer when prices are falling at 10% a year - and forecast to be down a good 30% from their peak by the time all this is over? Buy a house for £175,000 and there's every chance you'll be down £17,000 by this time next year, regardless of how much stamp duty you do or don't pay. Buy a house for more than that and you don't get anything off your stamp duty anyway.

The HomeBuy Direct scheme has 'gimmick' written all over it

The HomeBuy Direct business can be just as easily dismissed. It comes with very little detail for starters. You get the 30% somehow from the taxpayer and from the housebuilders. Then, despite the fact you couldn't afford to borrow it in the first place (that's why a real bank wouldn't lend it to you), you have to pay it back at some point. Worse, you don't know how or when.

All we know so far is that you will have to pay a 'fee' at the end of the five years. Of how much? And to whom? Who knows? The whole thing has 'gimmick' written all over it. And the timescale doesn't help. Five years may seem like a long time, but in a housing market crash it isn't. Let's not forget that it took six years for the market to hit bottom in the last crash and a long 11 years for prices to regain their previous peaks. Buy now and you could easily be in negative equity for a decade.

So why would Hazel want you to buy a house quite as much as she does? Either it is because she is very stupid, has no idea how markets work and has bought into the absurd idea put about by her government over the last decade that home ownership is a good thing in its own right, regardless of the cost to individual or to country; or it is because she is an exceptionally unkind person who is putting the short term interests of the big housebuilders ahead of those of would-be homeowners (remember, the HomeBuy Direct scheme sticks you with the houses they don't want). Either way, don't listen to her. And don't buy a house

Some analysis you wouldn't get on the BBC

hasn't everyone accepted the mantra of home owning ?

only a few don't

and C&B watch agree with you totally on what you say but as you say this will bottom out, there will be 'bargain's' and so it starts. Who knows when it bottoms out I might be able to take advantage amnd get the house I want because it will become affordable - £160-170k ....

No other country in the world has our tradition of a)being obsessed with house prices and b)having the property market as the main driving force in the economy.

And yes it will start all over again, proving yet again that as a country, as a people and as an administration we have learnt nothing from what has gone on before.

The two great myths about rising house prices are that they are good, and they are fuelled by supply and demand.What they do is create and illusion of wealth leading to debt fuelled excess and cause divisions within society.And Labour, just like the Tories before them have been on the sidelines cheering.Vince Cable has been warning for many years of the problems we face now, most other MP's were too busy with their snouts in the trough to give two shits.

We could probably close this thread and re-open in 10+years time.Or maybe it will be different THAT time.

Oh dear, looks like we are in the middle of a hugh crash, good job i didn't listen to Phil and Krusty, the BBC, Fionnuala Earley et al and all the other VI's, spin artists and billy bullshitters throughout the media.All together now:Don't worry it will be different this time, stable economy, low unemployment, low interest rates, supply and demand etc etc...yawn.

Hey maybe in 2-4 years when the market bottoms out a whole generation of people may be able to afford a roof over their and their families heads (how selfish), without putting themselves on a treadmill of debt until they die, and having to take out mortagages that border on criminal and totally irresponsible just to get 'on the ladder', purely to benefit those at the top of the property pyramid scheme, like the baby boomers, banks, brokers, estate agents and BTL's to name just a few.

Hi General

Only my second post on this thread, and I would like to echo the comments of Pricey1984, and say thanks for the common sense ticket prices for the UEFA Cup game, much appreciated in the current economic climate.

Also a bit off topic, but what do you think of Brett Favre going to the New York Jets? As a long-suffering Jets fan I'm surprised and delighted.Do you think the Jets can topple the evil that is the New England Patriots?

Keep up the good work.

No, £18 Million cash, or £17 Million+Finnan.No compromise with that filth.

Thatcher once stated that there was no such thing as 'society'.So why should society pay for her funeral?

I revile her as much as that other right-wing fruitcake Blair.

I'd rather listen to a bad Clash tribute band than The Police.

Oohhh the "Game of Games" .I want to watch this epic showdown, but unfortunatly I have a more pressing matter to deal with.I'm de-fleaing my cats, which thinking about it will be more interesting and relevant to me.

Yawn, couldn't give a flying ****.

For me depends who he returns with:

If it were the plastic scouse filth then I would act like he doesn't exist.

Anyone else then I would applaud.

Shallow and childish? Probably.

Good to see the neanderthals are showing their true colours once again, **** pond life.I was going to say **** off to where you belong, but that would require them being relegated for the next 10 years.Nice to see the biggest club in Birmingham sold out the game..oh they didn't? That's a surprise.

Thanks for the reply General regarding a secure area for bikes, nice to know you have it in mind.

But house prices are still higher this year than last year, are still massively higher than they were 10 years ago - explain please.

Correct, apologies for my ignorance but explain what, how they can still be higher?

YoY will turn negative with Halifax and or Nationwide probably next month.As for 10 years ago approx 180% higher.That is not good for most people or the economy but this has not happened accidently, it has been at the core of this Government's economic policies.

Do you think the massive HPI we have seen over the last 10 years is good for the country, if so why?

Telegraph:UK Housing Bubble Bursting And It's Serious

UK housing bubble is bursting and it's serious

By Karen Ward, an economist at HSBC

Last Updated: 12:42pm BST 08/04/2008

Prior to the events of last summer, the UK had undergone the biggest investment boom since the late nineties. This was not the promise of new technology that will revolutionise business and increase profitability, like the dotcom bubble. Instead, the latest craze was something you could paint magnolia and turn over at a 15pc profit - housing.

The boom time past is over

But the issue goes well beyond house prices. In the scramble to accumulate housing, the UK economic landscape has altered significantly. Households have taken on substantial amounts of debt at ever increasing multiples of income.

Their spending has outpaced take-home pay, lowering the savings rate to unprecedented levels. And the UK's current account position has deteriorated to a position not seen for the past two decades.

House prices: Steepest fall since 1992, says Halifax

Bryony Gordon: Home owning's overrated anyway

It could be argued that there is no need to fret about such developments. The resilience of house prices and consumer spending may be telling us that UK households are confident about their future earnings and rightly so. In that case, increased borrowing will be easily repaid when future gains are reaped.

Or perhaps due to a chronic lack of supply, households have no choice but devote an ever increasing part of their salaries to housing. If gains are a result of a demand-supply imbalance, current house prices may be perfectly sustainable.

But there are rather less benign interpretations. Income expectations, particularly accounting for ever higher inflation, may have been overly optimistic. And house price gains may have been built on the shakiest of foundations - speculation based on expectations of unrealistic returns and overly loose credit conditions.

advertisementWe believe that house prices started rising for perfectly valid reasons as the UK outlook improved following central bank independence. But these house price gains were then extrapolated into the future. Buoyed by overly loose lending conditions, the UK property market has exhibited classic bubble features in the past couple of years.

We often hear that these problems are caused by the sub-prime crisis in the US. But it's worth remembering that whilst overly loose lending practices in the US pushed house prices to six-times the average salary, in the UK house prices are now nine-times the average salary.

As lending standards at banks now recoil the correction is likely to be marked. In our view, it will have serious consequences - depressing consumer spending and leading to the sharpest downturn in more than a decade. As the problems in the credit markets intensify, the Bank of England will have to cut interest rates more aggressively. But the bad news is this is unlikely to translate into lower mortgage rates, and so unlikely to revive either the economy or the housing market in the near-term.

In our view house prices have moved significantly away from 'fundamentals'. Price declines in the region of 10pc this year cannot be ruled out.

Hi General

I'd appreciate it if you could spare a few moments to look at this short article:Arsenal Bike Parking

I think I read somewhere that we have an area to leave bikes, but is it secure? I'd be tempted to use my bike BUT not in an unsecure area, the frame may be safe via a good lock, but the thief will still take parts off the bike(forks, mechs etc.) or simply vandalise it.

Have we a secure area for bikes? If not are there any plans for one?It would certainly help the congestion on matchday if you could get as many people as possible using a bike.

Thanks General.

without wanting to steal the Generals thunder, there are bike parking places at the end of the TRS as you walk towards the Villa Village (big hooks on the wall that you would chain your bike to)

Fair enough for the above, General. But we're asking about something more secure. God knows what would happen to a bunch of bikes chained up against a wall most of the fans stroll past. These hooks don't really get used probably for this reason, security.

Thanks for the heads up, but I agree with maccadooby, it would need to be more secure, i.e in a compound,and/or guarded with either personel or cctv.Are there any plans for security measures like this General?

Saw Mr Brown being interviewed earlier, didn't pay much attention to what he had to say on today's news of falling house prices, but I'm sure in the usual spin he and Darling churn out "Strong fundamentals, low unemployment et al, he mentioned low debt??

Either he is insane or just plain thick.

As for Ms Flint on Breakfast news desperatly trying to coax FTB's into a tanking market that is desperation personified.

Credit is drying up all the time, personal and collective debt is at an all time high, and sentiment has definatly swung amongst those with no vested interests.

Tommorow's Daily Express headline?

Either Diana/Maddie/House prices still rising (YoY from 1993).

They're both better than 'The Premiership'. Thank god that didn't last.

Seconded.That debacle was the epitome of the media and their fawning over the 'big four'.

And we don't have to listen to Clive "That night in Barcelona" Tyldesley every Saturday.clearing in the woods.Appalling programme.

Hi General

I'd appreciate it if you could spare a few moments to look at this short article:Arsenal Bike Parking

I think I read somewhere that we have an area to leave bikes, but is it secure? I'd be tempted to use my bike BUT not in an unsecure area, the frame may be safe via a good lock, but the thief will still take parts off the bike(forks, mechs etc.) or simply vandalise it.

Have we a secure area for bikes? If not are there any plans for one?It would certainly help the congestion on matchday if you could get as many people as possible using a bike.

Thanks General.

Sorry Snowy I didn't notice your reply.Do you think that really was Krusty?

Nah. I doubt it was her. I think she's probably got more to occupy herself than do that. And regardless of what I may think about her performances, I think he's probably above that. She didn't conduct herself that badly when she appeared on Question Time a couple of months ago.

I may think her opinions on economics are crap but I don't think she's that pathetic.

I heard her on the radio a few weeks ago, either Radio 4 or Five Live, and many callers disagreed with her views, one caller inparticular had her on the ropes over the availabilty of credit, CDO's, MBS.She hadn't a clue what he was talking about.She has NO grasp of economics, she is just a greedy, privileged spoilt brat, who see's her free ride through life being gradually taken away from her, and she is getting angry.

More lenders withdrawing mortgage deals:Times

S&P predict large downwards correction for European property prices(especially UK and Spain) S&P