If you are bored enough, there are numerous articles quoted on the Net referring to newspaper comments that may or may not have been made before, during and after the last serious property recession which started in 1989. For those of you under 30 who weren’t too fussed back then about what was happening to the price of mum and dad’s house, I’m talking about a time when the value of your inheritance was about to halve!
There are some great alleged quotes. Try this;-
From The Times – TUE 03 JAN 1989.
Agents optimistic about house prices
A leading national firm of estate agents believes a collapse in the property market in 1989 is highly unlikely. Strutt and Parker has completed a review of 1988 trends, dominated by panic buying in the summer, then a London-led slowdown in the last….
I have to admit that I worked for Messrs Strutt & Parker but I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t me!
Or this;-
From The Times – MON 06 MAR 1989
House prices recover
House prices, suffering from the effects of interest rate increases, showed a slight recovery in February, rising by 1.6 per cent, compared with a fall of 0.8 per cent in January, Halifax Building Society reports today. The index shows that over the…
See what I mean? They sound so fresh, don’t they. It took until 1993 for the market to reach the bottom but fall it did and the quotes above along with all the other King Canute type statements were a triumph of optimism over reality. But can you guess when the following quote was made?
“The reluctance of house owners to sell is causing a shortage of supply which could push up property prices, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says in its survey for the quarter to the end of December, published today.”
This year? January 2000? January 1988? Well yes, Jan 1988 it was. The year of the very first Comic Relief. It sounds so familiar and it’s worth remembering the old saying “what goes around, comes around”. (What it really means is that you get what you give but hey, you know what I mean). We have been here before. Those for whom the glass is half full (with clients who will desert them if they admit that things aren’t positive) will continue to tell you that all is well. The doom mongers walk around with boards proclaiming the end of the world but they are equally misguided.
What will happen is that the market will correct itself, it will then over correct (when you can snap up a bargain and set yourself up as the next boom market property mogul) and it will finally once again swing back. It has done so three times in my professional career. All markets do and this one shows no sign of being any different. That’s why the words seem so familiar. You may be surprised but you are learning them.