Damien Smith takes time to chuckle at Henry Tricks musing on Roger Bootle. This last name keeps coming up, one day I must find the time to see the argument. Among other reasons my dad once worked as a chauffer to a mayor of Bootle. He was only along for the ride, but he did learn a lot about architecture, some of which he passed on to me.
My eyes normally glase over at property columns, but the FT's new Property Editor, Henry Tricks, made me laugh:
"Roger Bootle of Capital Economics, author of The Death of Inflation, believes low inflation will eventually depress all asset prices, including housing. Bootle argues that, like reckless price/earnings ratios at the peak of the equity bull market, house-price-to-income ratios in the UK housing market are at perilous highs - and will fall 20-30 per cent over the next few years to return to their long-term average. However, even he acknowledges that homeowners do not behave as rationally as economic science suggests we should. His is a case in point. As "Economics Man", he would have considered short-selling his six-bedroom Georgian house on the River Thames in Richmond if a market for such a property existed. As a family man, he realises that would be perfectly foolhardy. "It might be quite difficult to persuade mywife." "
Tricks (in the Weekend section, no less) is trying to hold out hope that the UK's housing bubble will not crash. Given the current market, he may be a little to sanguine, but you have to admire his optimism.
Source: Indiawest
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