The Truth,The Whole Truth & Nothing But The ..
This is what people swear to when giving evidence in a court of law yet when we let the national media loose on how they direct the public we seem to get “the sensational, the part truth and the outright exaggeration.”
It seems that everyone you speak to at the moment reads the papers and listens to the news with scepticism and disbelief, thinking it can’t be that bad. Yet it leaves at the back of their mind the feeling that perhaps we better not buy that new car or have a holiday this year “just in case the media is right.”
People talk about “we should batten down the hatches in case the economy worsens” and how the credit crunch, fuel crisis and food crisis will bring imminent and impending gloom to us all. Thank goodness England’s football team wasn’t in Euro 2008 or we could be feeling even worse!
What about the good news stories or signs of improvement? Do they gain the same advantage and headlines?
Increasing reports from the USA point to an improving economy there, and how this renewed confidence will reach Europe in due course. The banks that are writing off huge sums in their accounts secretly believe they will recover at least a third, if not a half, of these write offs and declare them as surplus income and profit in another year.
This has the greatest impact since it enables them to greatly justify increasing their operating costs and profit margins based on money they are writing off now yet fully intend to recover. Wait for future headlines to read “it wasn’t as bad as they thought….” Or “confidence returned in the economy leaves surplus for the bank.”
The reasons for house moving still remain very fundamental and basic for many of the public:
- A new job relocates them to the North East
- Getting married
- Starting a family
- An expanding family
- Divorce and matrimonial splits
- Retirement and down sizing
- Deceased estates
The above, and many other good reasons, lead people to think about moving. If the media portrays constant “doom and gloom” then the public will hold back from moving for a while (which they have done for nearly a year now!). But eventually the bubble building for people that have to move will burst and we are seeing signs of this now.
Many buyers are saying “enough is enough”. We can afford a house and we want to own our own rather than make do with renting somebody else’s! An Englishman’s home Is his castle so the saying goes and people prefer to own rather than rent their castles.
I don’t remember the news reporting every daily increase in house prices so why do they do the opposite now? Doesn’t the saying “Statistics, statistics and damn lies” mean anything?
The reality is that many of the public have been scared out of all proportion in recent months in respect of the housing market and the general economy. If we didn’t have constant media bashing then perhaps we would have the public’s own interpretation of how well their business is doing and what their feel good factor is which would be a more accurate way to assess whether they move house or not.
At Sanderson Young we have reappraised the majority of our stock and have many very realistically priced homes which can be bought now and which we are sure will be worth a lot more when you next sell in the average time of 7 years from now.
Most economists (not the extremists or the headline grabbers) forecast prices stabilising over the next 12 months and rising thereafter. Unless someone intended buying a house now and selling in 6 months why be concerned about house pricing?
The intelligent buyers are out there now buying before the market turns for the better.
It’s up to you now to decide are you a leader or a follower of the masses when buying??
Article courtesy of Duncan Young Dip.Est.Man FNAEA
Managing Director, Sanderson Young
