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I remember before this current downturn in the property market that lots of people on here were saying that they didn't think there would be a crash and they seemed to have the attitude that it would be a bad thing if there was one.

Weren't these people naive in thinking that there wouldn't be a crash after such a massive boom and also in not appreciating that a crash provides a good opportunity to buy property nice and cheap at the bottom of the market?

right on both counts

however without the credit crunch i feel that stagnation was more likely than a crash.

a rise in prices is only useful if you want/need to sell

a fall in prices is beneficial if you are looking at buying for yield

also of course, although inflation is soaring (Cost push rather than demand led), raising interest rates will have a marginal effect on reducing demand led inflation as what we are seeing is largely cost push inflation, thus as this cost push inflation falls away (commodity prices fall away, oil gas etc as demand drops in a recession) then inflation may well undershoot i see the need for fairly swift IR cuts end of 08 and into 09 to stimulate the economy (pesuming no ther shocks). commodity prices may still be higher than a year ago or two years ago, but they are declining in price and therefore deflationary making a series of IR cuts inevitable

so lower prices, lower rates and considerably better yields.....i'll have some of that

If IR's hit below 4%, frankly i will be the first to fix for 10 years on what i have and buy as much as i can

Rik

Hi Jeff - Yes agree with both those statements too. People who did not expect a fall in prices or a very long period of stagnation need their heads examined! All investors need to do is adapt to the prevailing conditions - prices falling, interest rates rising, people not buying because they cannot sell, people not buying because they cannot get a mortgage, so we adjust our marketing strategy, buy heavily discounted with a view to holding long term. Property market booming again, more of the same but  can afford less agressive discounts and enjoy flipping occasionally and/or developing to take advantage of the boom period.

Good time are always here.

It's not what life throws at you but, how you catch it.

I think the key to this is the reason for the 'crash'

If housing had just got into an over supply mode or there had been a general slowdown / reduction in house prices and nothing else economically had changed then yes it would be great and give people the opportunity to buy either for residential or BTL purposes

What has caused this and is now causing problems for everyone, first time buyer, sell to buy and remortgager is the total lack of finance avaialble to them - i dont know the accurate statistic but there was pretty much about 12,000 mortgage products a year ago and now there are less than 4,000, and the tap to easy mortgages was turned off very quickly.

The BTL market had probabily taken 20 years to grow to the levels of 12 -1 6 months ago and has been curtailed dramatically in less than 6 months. 

This has to account for at least 90% of the reason for this current 'crash'.

Even development lenders used to look at a development deal and say well if the developer cannot sell teh units at the end of the developmnet he can at least get an 85% BTL mortgage and refinance my loan. BTL was like a get out of jail free card.

The lack of cash hits everyone - for someone with an existing portfolio they are finding it hard to refinance to release equity (if they still have any) to use as deposits for new purchase. The level of deposits has increased from 10-15% to pretty much 25% accross the board.

So although there are great opportunities out there at the moment and I believe will be there for the next 12 months, it will become frustratingly difficult for anyone to take advantage of these unless they are cash rich or ar using NMD schemes (whether they work / are legal).

Its like being in a sweet shop and having to keep your hands in your pockets. People have got what they want the ability to buy property cheaper but cannot take advantage of it.

Until cash / mortgages come back into the system this market is going no where but south...... 

Just my humble opinion.