Last eve's Location Location Location must have been in the can for a while - I missed the very start and end, so maybe it was mentioned.
What struck me was not just how passe all the talk of increases and 100% mortgages, but how the whole thing just summed up the madness of the past few years.
Kirsty says (not verbatim) "a first time buy flat should always be looked on merely as an investment...a stepping stone to something more grand".
That psyche spread like a virus and was part of the problem. If people bought to live in rather than make a quick buck then maybe the ludicrous (and ultimately disastrous) inflation may have been contained. My parents lived in their first bought house for 50 years - not that I'm saying people should aspire to that - but the buy-for-profit frenzy brought us to where we are now. Property programmes played their part in fueling the fire.
The P & K double act is going to have to learn a new parlance very soon otherwise they'll be a laughing stock. At the moment, they sound like Mr & Mrs Loadsamoney.
Finally - the Fulham "party couple" make my toes curl. "Great - I'll have the amplifiers here, and the speakers all around here" he said.
IT WAS A PERIOD MID-TERRACED HOUSE!
London is full of people living in terraced houses with little sound insulation carrying on as if they're in a detatched mansion within 3 acres. Typical of the selfish me-ism that predominates.
My heart aches for their new neighbours.
------------------------------ 35% constitutes neither a majority nor a mandate
Another great post TrevGo. As usual, you are spot-on!
It struck me that the programme must have been taped a while ago. Didn't it say summer 2007? Yes, the "party couple"... did they really need a 4-5 bed house? It seemed to me that they didn't really appreciate the history of the property at all. I got really fed up with him in the first five minutes. He seemed like a spoilt child.
The other couple were first-time buyers - with a budget of £250K! Not your typical first-timers, then!
I couldn't really empathise with either couple. And yes, P and K going on about 100% mortgages is just laughable. Couldn't they have just edited that bit out?
Yeah but as always on TV, they only show the people who will make the 'best' entertainment. I often wonder how many straightforward 'middle of the road' applicants are sifted through in order to find the people who actually make it onto the telly-box. Two words - Property Ladder. Nuff said.
Yes, it was early Summer 2007 and the World has moved on far from P&K's assessment of the property World that's for sure. As for the comment that Phil made "property like this has risen by £250,000 in the last 18 months around here".... what a joke eh! thank goodness property is on a downward spiral in London. The young couple made a wise choice as it happens to sit tight and wait because if they hadn't they would have been staring at negative equity by now not to mention the mortgage crunch. A classic case where a 5 times earnings on a 100% mortgage would have gone down the pan. As for the other couple I was surprised they actually bought anything tbh. Very overpriced for what they were looking for imo. Mel.
Good riddance I say. at last the love affair with property prices is over; if phil and Krustie had taken a programme model along the lines of Grand Designs instead of property price pumping drivel, I may have been interested. Instead, all they bleat on about is price growth potential. Who cares? ITs a blinking home, not an ATM! If you want more cash, go out, get more qualifications. Work a few more hours. Dont just sit back and expect those further down the ladder to pick up the bill.
I really hope Cameron doesnt make the mistake of putting Kirstie up for a safe conservative seat (housing minister ?!?!), she is going to be as unpopular as Gordon Brown in 12 months, mark my words!
Originally posted by TrevGo: Finally - the Fulham "party couple" make my toes curl. "Great - I'll have the amplifiers here, and the speakers all around here" he said.
IT WAS A PERIOD MID-TERRACED HOUSE!
London is full of people living in terraced houses with little sound insulation carrying on as if they're in a detatched mansion within 3 acres. Typical of the selfish me-ism that predominates.
My heart aches for their new neighbours.
"Oh, absolutely!"
I think people like this are an endangered species in 2008. I wonder how well Mr's recruitment business is doing in the current credit crunch?
I breathed a sigh of relief when the FTB couple decided not to buy. Their Kensington flat looked lovely and seemed quite happy in the area. I'm really glad that they didn't go for the shared ownership flat in Hammersmith. *phew!* They would be paying a £172k mortgage on a perceived 50% share for a flat that may be worth no more than £200k.
Phil Spencer predicted that house prices would rise about 9% during 2007-2008. Looks like he's wrong on that count.
I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.
I wasn't sure if this was a repeat of one I had missed or a new one as the prices were Summer 2007. All the way through I was hoping the young couple with a 100% mortgage of five(?) times their salary didn't buy a £250k flat.
The Fulham house - well, what an annoying pair they were. I think they just wanted to be on the telly. I am always amazed how over-hyped some London propertise are. It was a terrace with no garden or off-road parking.
Some areas of London command a premium because stock is so limited and the area is very desirable. But I agree with you, I didn't much fancy the Fulham house. They would have had to spend a fortune to do the work on the rear extension and I didn't think it was worth it. And yes, they were very annoying.
I'm half watching the program (on More 4) as I write.
Yes, the social climbers couple are perhaps more than a tad annoying, but they are certainly not alone here. What about all the scripted spontaneity and Sophy's (Kerstie's sis?) amateurish school style commentary?
Well, amongst the gloom, at least the FT have got a sense of humour... Many are offering over at HPC to pay for the hat themselves!
quote:
UK house prices Published: July 1 2008 09:31 | Last updated: July 1 2008 14:00
Would you like ketchup with that? For Kirstie Allsopp, the bullish presenter of a Channel Four property programme who once promised to eat her hat if UK house prices fell, Tuesday’s data from Nationwide will make chewy reading. For the first time in the 17-year history of the mortgage lender’s monthly index (which is, incidentally, turning into something of a liability for the building society), house prices have fallen for eight consecutive months. Even in the downturn of the early 1990s, prices never fell with such conviction.
Average house prices, which started falling year-on-year in April, are now 7.3 per cent below their October peak and 6.3 per cent below their levels of a year ago. It is far too soon to look for a bottom. That will only come when activity data, as measured by mortgage approvals, completions and sales per surveyor, start to pick up. This week saw another unexpected plunge in mortgage approvals, which measure the amount of new money coming into the market, to just 42,000 in May from an already shockingly low 58,000 in April. Nationwide reckons a run-rate of 70,000 or so approvals is needed to clear the supply of fresh properties coming on to the market.
Oh Kirstie, no cheating now, you cant go for the rice paper option either!
Kirstie, in the Times (oh, apparently prices ARE crashing):
quote:
Don't blame me for the property crash It's much easier to point the finger than to examine why house prices are falling
It is a newly minted British tradition to gripe that a terrible plague of property shows is ravaging television (I assume people are complaining about them during the ad breaks) - and I wouldn't disagree with the complaint.
But it's plain silly to point the finger at these programmes for puffing up the property market, forcing people into taking out massive mortgages or into negative equity. Blaming such shows and their presenters for the present uncertain state of the property market is akin to blaming TV chefs for the great bulge in obesity. Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the rest recommend healthy eating and responsible shopping - yet many people ignore their advice and binge recklessly. Likewise, I hope that I give sound advice rather than inveigling viewers into “get rich quick” schemes.
In recent weeks I've been described as a “property porn queen” in the New Statesman, sniped at on the pages of The Guardian and lambasted by Panorama for excessively inflating house prices.
I only wish that the show I present was as influential as some have been claiming. If it was, people might have taken notice of a campaign we have been running on Location, Location, Location, asking for a review of stamp duty, a tax that without doubt has contributed to the drop in the number of house sales. Background
But it looks highly unlikely our pleas will be heeded. It is much easier to fire off flippant articles blaming property TV shows than properly examining why there has been a fall in transactions and - in some places, though not all - a fall in property prices. Some of the recent gloomy headlines make me suspect that all the journalists in the country have sold up and are doing everything in their power to cause a property house price crash so that they can buy at rock bottom.
I am guessing there is not going to be a new series of location for a good few years now...
Don't flatter yourself Kirsty. There were better shows than yours that were proclaiming huge profits to be made in property and I am thinking of "Homes under the Hammer" where nobody lost a penny on what they bought and sold on. "Property Ladder" which must rank as the worse offender for claiming the paths to instant riches in property developing was for everyone and their dog. The other thing was the instant upsurge in Property Companies selling apartments and flats to BTL's. It didn't take a genius to work out that their format for selling and buying was very flawed indeed but how many programs advertised that fact? only one as I recall. My goodness, how people must be reeling from the purchases they made as it is well known that some people have lost huge sums of money after entering into these flat/apartment new build contracts. Mel.
I agree Mel, Property Ladder was the worst offender, it showed total muppets constantly bailed out by a rising market, it had to have an effect on muppets everywhere who thought it was money for old rope.
But Kirsty and Phil did increasingly bang on about investment potential, adding value, etc etc, rather than showing people simply buying ...er... a home. And I cannot forgive them for adding 'wow factor' 'kerb appeal' and 'ticking all the boxes' to the lexicon (but that's another story ).
To be fair to Beeney, she often seemed to end Property Ladder by saying to the muppets, "You've been saved by a rising market. This house would have gone up 10% if you hadn't done a thing to it."
Who's fault is it? Bit of everything - banks reckless lending (5x salary and 100% mortgages), property shows making property looking like a surefire investment, property investment companies luring people into dodgy schemes, and the Labour government who should have acted to stop the market overheating.
I don't think you can blame Kisty and Phil directly, but it all contributed to the atmosphere that our houses were investments that couldn't go wrong, not homes.
I'm reminded of the caveats... "The value of your investment can go down as well as up...past performance is no indicator of future returns... (and the classic) your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on a mortgage or other loan secured on it..."
To be fair to Beeney, she often seemed to end Property Ladder by saying to the muppets, "You've been saved by a rising market. This house would have gone up 10% if you hadn't done a thing to it."
Quite right, she did.
I think that it is often forgotten (as i keep saying!) that they only show and say what it is that will make 'good' TV. It doesnt matter what the show is about, there wil always be 'muppets' who make 'good' TV. But to take it to the logical conclusion, if joe public DID believe all that was said by the muppets in these shows and the people who present them (or should that be the people on the shows and the muppets that present them?) then the whole world would be agreeing with the likes of Jeremy Kyle and Trica as well and Phil & Kirsty and Ms Beeny. I worry far more about the former catergary there than the latter.......
La Beeny has said on a few occasions that even more profit could have been had from a property if the 'developers' had sat on it and did nothing (or just stripped the crap out of it) for 3 months.
I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years.
La Beeny has said on a few occasions that even more profit could have been had from a property if the 'developers' had sat on it and did nothing (or just stripped the crap out of it) for 3 months.
There was a lass on Homes Under The Hammer who did that....admitidly she was a 'professional' but she bought this cr@p hole of a house, spent hardly any money stripping ALL the plumbing and wiring from it, tidied the garden, then sold it as it was a few months later, making a few ££££££ as she went. Nice work if you can get it.....
I wonder how well Mr's recruitment business is doing in the current credit crunch? 
Their Kensington flat looked lovely and seemed quite happy in the area. 
I'm really glad that they didn't go for the shared ownership flat in Hammersmith. *phew!* They would be paying a £172k mortgage on a perceived 50% share for a flat that may be worth no more than £200k. 
I can only assume they mean Plymouth is our first... 
