In most markets, a price is struck between a ‘willing buyer and a willing seller on an arm’s length basis agreeing on a fair exchange’. However, in the property market, there are other stakeholders and influences that have a bearing on the market price.
Today, I shall share with you some of the key actors and factors that can play a part on property prices. The result is not a straightforward one, sadly. Nonetheless we need to be both aware of and prepared for these influences. Crucially, we also need to be ready to act and react to these influences too.
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Transcription of the show
In most markets, a price is struck between a ‘willing buyer and a willing seller on an arm’s length basis agreeing on a fair exchange’. However, in the property market, there are other stakeholders and influences that have a bearing on the market price.
Today, I shall share with you some of the key actors and factors that can play a part on property prices. The result is not a straightforward one, sadly. Nonetheless we need to be both aware of and prepared for these influences. Crucially, we also need to be ready to act and react to these influences too.
Property Chatter
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the property voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown. And as always, it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. What I wanted to talk about today was something that's been on my mind actually, for a few weeks Actually, I've been thinking about this. And I guess you know, when there's a sign, though, you just know there's a sign that you should talk about it. Well, Nana Piesie who was a guest on the podcast, you might remember some time ago on, he was, I think, part of the second steppers, in the going full time in property series, and one of the guests in that panel discussion that we had there. He often, you know, sends across me property research and news and starts a conversation if you like that way. So thanks, Nana for doing that. Because obviously, you you're kind of piquing my interest and we start a conversation and start thinking about things. And you sent me an article that was talked about valuations, if you like, properties being down valued, actually,, by lenders. And I've been thinking about this anyway. And so you know, when two things come together, it's just obviously a sign that we should talk about it. So what I'm really wanting to talk about today is who controls house prices. And I just going to go through that. I mean, I did actually do a social media post today. So some of it, I'm going to literally clip from that I'm going to embellish it a little bit for your, for your delight, but I'm going to base it around that really, and then just add a few extra bits of it. And I guess the other thing is to think well, what kind of so what I was asked these questions if you see some research.
So what? And there's a couple of questions. One is, so what and the other one is, what's the vested interest, what's the personal motive of the people who have commissioned the research or have released a press statement or something like that. So don't lose sight of that people have got an agenda, people have got a personal motive. And so when we're asking, so what that's one of the things we need to actually understand. So what's their agenda? What are they trying to achieve? So, I guess if we talk about house prices, it's easy to think that actually, who sets the house price? Well, it's an exchange, isn't it? It's, it's a transaction between a buyer and a seller, a vendor, and a buyer of a property.
And, of course, you've got, you know, two main categories, I guess you've got homeowner buyers, you've got investor buyers, predominately, we're talking about the residential market here, predominantly, but I won't necessarily only reference the residential market, it's just I want to kind of keep it relatively constrained. So you've got a willing buyer, and a willing seller. And that should set what's called fair market price, as it would do. If you go to a market stall, or the or, you know, the soccer or something like that, you should end up with a fair market price. Actually, if you go to the soccer, you probably end up not with a market price, unless you've got a bit of experience, if you like and add a little bit of patience and, and gravitas, etc, behind you to be able to negotiate in that environment. So that's maybe a bit of a clue here. And in the housing market is not as simple as that either. Because it isn't only the willing buyer and a willing seller who was going to set the price. It's part of the story, but it's not the full story, so to speak.
So what are the other influences if you like that we can have on house prices. Let's start with what Nana, you know, inspired me to, you know, talk to you about today. And that's the lenders now, the article I'm reading it was is actually in the property industry, I'll probably put a link to it in the show notes. And it just it the headline is almost half of properties have been down valued by lenders. And that sort of stuck out with me, it's actually down valued by lenders. And this is some research commissioned by bank rate UK. And bear in mind, they were looking at this, the research dates back to march.
So it does cover the entire pandemic. Period really, we really started we went into kind of a lockdown in March, didn't we? And so it covers that entire period. So maybe it's not altogether surprising, because probably market sentiment people would have been a bit spooked at that point in time. What's going to happen to the economy, what's going to happen to people's jobs and incomes, what's going to happen to house prices, and I guess the lenders as well. They kind of thought well, we might get you know, we might catch a cold here,
so to speak.
So talking a personal motive, what is the lenders what's in their interest? What is their personal motive as when it comes to house price valuation? Well, really, it's about risk management for them. And so they want to take on their balance sheet assets which their value is going to stack up and they All about managing risk and mitigating risk and avoiding risk. That's really what a bank is or is employed to do. The margins technically are quite small, quite slim from a percentage or money point of view.
And so they actually have to protect that margin as far as possible. So that's where they come from. And so they're kind of risk-averse. And that means that maybe if there's a hint that the market might, you know, turn against them, then they're probably going to be looking at valuations and other types of leavers, which I'll come on to in a more stringent way. But when it comes to valuation itself, if there's a mortgage-backed purchase house purchase, whether it's with a homeowner, or whether it's with an investor, the person who's actually engaging the valuer is the bank. So it's not as even though we're buying the property. It's the bank. So that value and I'll kind of come on to some of the dynamics here. That value is actually working for the bank accountable to the bank, and has to provide their professional indemnity insurance to the bank. So there that's what's the personal motive of the valuer? You know, in the context of it being a mortgage backed investment properties, and you're not No, not just an investment property and mortgage-backed purchase.
So we're in the financial crisis, which is seems like an awful long time ago now 22,008 2009, about 12 years ago, when that started, and it caught a number of valuers off guard. And what happened was that there was a number. Anecdotally speaking, at least of overvaluations, that happened, when, you know, there was this massive spike in house prices in the early 2000s, early to mid 2000s, and run about 2007. At the peak, possibly a lot of people thought it was going to continue value as a human beings too. And so I think there was a situation where people were, were still buying properties into 2008. And the valuations were still pretty high, at 2007 level or even slightly above. And of course, the market turned there was a global financial crisis, credit crunch, whatever you want to call it. And the market declined pretty significantly proximately a 15%, fall in that one year 2008 and stretching into 2009. And so in some of the some of the valuations that came in, were effectively high, overvalued in the context of how the market shifted. And that was the that was the key thing the market had shifted. But what it meant was the the lenders look to some of their values because they started to incur losses. The market turned against them, they overpaid or they've overlent against properties. The loan to values are being squeezed people couldn't afford to pay banks recording in the debt. And you know, they were trying to sell the assets, how to sell the property, and unfortunately to take a take a loss. And so they would look into well, who can we pin this on. And the valuers were caught in their crosshairs if you like and a number of them were sued a number of valuers went out of business effectively withdrew from the market. And that was really what happened. So if you think about the personal motivation of the valuer, they're a little bit afraid, especially when it comes to bank lending. Because you know, the the banks might come after them, quite frankly, if they overvalue a property, sothey'd like to be much more cautious, especially if they know that there's some sort of finance or mortgage that's backing the purchase.
So they're cautious, to begin with. And they're looking out for signs that can go along with that, but they just stick with the lenders for a minute. So the lenders, perhaps at the moment, they might direct the valuer. To be a little bit more cautionary, let's say in the comparisons that they're selecting for valuation purposes. And bear in mind what to say the valuer is appointed and works for the lender, even if we are a buyer ends up paying for that valuation. We don't have a say, basically. So that's why so many valuations don't, even if we don't agree with them, they end their challenge they rarely overturned. So the lenders looking more widely at the housing market. They they'll have a view, essentially of what's coming on, they'll have their own economic experts looking at the market, and then they'll, you know, when we went into pandemic, pandemic panic, panic mode and the lockdown the lenders would have been probably panicking literally about what's going to happen.
And so the leavers they've got to pull include things like loan to values, their interest rates, their lending criteria and their fees. And since that period of time, they a number of them actually ceased lending, or reduce their loan to values at the beginning of the lockdown period back in March, April May time. And since they've come back to market, they started to relax some of these criteria so that actually that would have a bearing on the market, because it would affect the availability of finance, the terms of financing the cost of financing, which will then feed through into the purchase decisions of house purchases, whether they're homeowners or investors in terms of their affordability level, and therefore will govern to some extent the price that would be paid. Okay, if you just look at a simple example, of reduced loan to value means anybody would need to put in a higher deposit, which makes it less affordable for them to get into the into the transaction in the first place, which might discourage them from overpaying for the property. So that's just an illustration. So the first category I'm talking about is lenders. And if I go back to the piece of research that Noah shared with me, he was saying that, or sorry, not Hey, but the research was saying 46% of UK, UK homes have been down valued since March, according to bankrate, and just a dive into that little bit further, without spending too much time on it, it The picture was varied across the country. So we don't we have a national view. And that's that 46% of homes are down valued, if you like, and the but then if we look at regions, the variation was quite pronounced actually. And, you know, peaking in Wales at 63% down, properties being down valued and being boarded up if you like in the southwest, we only 26% of properties being down valued there. And so a whole range of between the 26 and the 63% of property.
So bearing in mind, this is where a lender is commissioned a valuer, to go out and value property for a house purchase, which has been going to be backed by a mortgage. So the there's a few dynamics there, as I mentioned, there's a balance of power, the lenders have got a grip on the value or the value is going to be cautionary, we went into some earns uncertain times on the back of some previous uncertain times, which is Brexit. And you can see why such a large number of properties were down valued over that period of time, probably and I dare say, if you looked at breaking down that sort of six to eight month period, it's probably not eight is it but six and six or seven month period, for the first three months followed by the second three to three or four months, you'll probably find there was a deeper level of down valuation in the earlier part than in the latter part I suggest. So anyway, that's that so they've got the lenders as one influence on on house prices, not just willing buyer willing seller. I guess let's stick with the values and as we as we refer to them. So the second category, of course, is values. And I would say that a value his opinion is critical. They're often the ones who really drive house prices. And if they get a bit spooked about what's going to happen in the market, you'll start to see that be, you know, reflected in values. And it perhaps doesn't make sense. You probably see comparables, and many of us have probably seen valuations over the last couple of months, which you've probably referenced two major significant events, one being Brexit, and one being the Coronavirus, as being reasons to be cautious about family values. And so valuers would be looking at comparable evidence which is the predominant way of valuing a residential property.
Recent sales within close proximity and light for light condition essentially, will be what they're looking at. But valuers might then you know, adjust down the value of that property based on the uncertainty that they're perhaps foreseeing with things like Brexit and the Coronavirus. But here's an interesting thing. And I'll just maybe signpost you to this as well, our ICS which is of course the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, they actually conduct a market survey amongst valuers and surveyors. And they do that every month. And you can look at the our ICS website, excuse me, and you can pull that that data out and it's quite it's quite interesting. Now it looks at a national picture but it also looks at a regional picture bit like I was talking about with bankrate data, or the research there and it's judging sentiment on a number of different levels is looking at housing stock, which is the supply and supply of houses. And that would give an indicator of what sort of transaction-level is what sort of supply of houses are coming to the market, but also by demand and buyer affordability. So it's looking at the supply and demand side of things, but it looks at other indicators too, like the macro economic climate, for example. It will also look at the lending climate and it will just sort of take all this into consideration and the report for set timber, which I was looking at in just prior to recording this, it again, it described a different picture across the country. And interestingly, the the September report, so I'm talking about different timescales here. So the bank rate research spanned from March through to, to now essentially, whereas the our ICS report that I'm looking at literally as I'm talking to you, was dated September, so it's much more recent. But here we go. In Wales, for example, is there's very strong expectation for price growth in Wales. And there's other ones as well. But that was interesting, wasn't it that the, there was a significant number of bank or lender based valuations being down valued in Wales over the last six months, and yet, the outlook for Wales seems to be very strong, because there's been a lot of down valuation.
And there's maybe some room for growth, there's been obviously some changes in terms of economic policy, and government intervention that has taken place, obviously, during this time period. But if I look at the overall picture for the UK, then there's a very strong positive indicator for house prices over the foreseeable future. So I think it's a net positive of 19%, for house price growth over the next three months, for example.
Now, bearing in mind, I'm going to drift into another influence here, but bearing in mind, we've got some stimulus going on.
So our ICS will be taken on board some of these external indicators as well, when they're passing through their market sentiment, this market sentiment report will be circulated amongst all the members. So the canvassing the members for opinion, they're consolidating that data, and then they re circulating the results across all members. So it's going to have a bearing. In other words, when the value returns upon you at your property. And they've got this the latest market sentiment, which for them will be probably dated October, not September, because obviously they have insider information, if you if you're a member. And so that will be at the fingertips of the valuer.
When they come visit the property. We've got two conflicting pieces of information. They're one of which is more recent, and one of which is more in a long term if you like. But they're kind of pointing in opposite directions to some extent. And this is where some of the confusion can arise, of course. So we've got here we've got the we've got lenders, we've got valuers, as two significant stakeholders, if you like that can have a bearing on house prices. And trust me, if you go for a if you get a down valuation from a value or a lender who's appointing a valuer, then it probably will mean one of two things, it will probably mean either a renegotiation of the price and therefore bringing the price down. If the buyer doesn't want to chip in and put more money into the deal, that's another option, of course, but the other alternative is the sale could collapse. And of course, that will then feed through into the market with you know, stock coming back onto the market, perhaps a negative sentiment about the fact that it has to has come into the market when people understand why that's the case. And that will drive prices down. So you can see how it all gets interrelated.
Well, the next thing I wanted to talk about or the next group was basically central banks and the government. So the these are the people who set you know, economic policy and fiscal policy for the marketplace overall. And so in, you know, thinking about interest rates, think about general economic policy, especially from a government point of view, it could be both direct and indirect interventions. So let me illustrate so they could be helped to buy assistance, which there was in the past not so much now. Although there's talk of maybe help to buy better mortgage lending for first time buyers as sort of 95% loan to value that's the the the government are talking about that as a potential incentive for the for the market to in inverted commas help first time buyers acquire their own home. But we all know really that's just an economic stimulus, which is intended to get people owning homes and drive the economy.
And the other one, of course, is stamp duty. Well, I interestingly talking about valuers, the our ICS are canvassing and lobbying for stamp duty to be abolished round about April time as we entered into the lockdown period and were really concerned about the state of the housing market. And they lobbied for, you know the for stamp duty to be halted if you like. And they got they wish the government complied. And I've spoken about it before that I call it the stamp duty trap, stamp duty land tax incentive trap. And people have been piling into the marking basically overpaying and then forgetting themselves that actually they've got a certain amount of saving and maybe overpaying for the property by at least that if not more, and offsetting any potential gain in the process. So you've got those direct interventions. You've also got some indirect ones, such as printing money or quantity servicing. And then you've got interest rate policy as well.
This talk of potential negative interest rates, you know, on the horizon, the banks have been asked, Can you cope with negative interest rates if it were to happen. So it's obviously being spoken about. And that might happen. And so if there's negative interest rates, it means there's no point, people holding money on deposit them as a lender, if they're a bank, the mozal spender, or a saver. And so that might therefore feed into house prices, of course. So we've got three interrelated points, we can see how they also are connected in some way also, as we go through this, but then turning away from some of those sort of larger institutions, we've got more individuals, so we've got cash buyers.
So we talked earlier about lenders and who are backing people who needed a mortgage to buy a property. Well, of course, there's some people who buy a property, you don't need a mortgage and their cash buyers, but they still influence and affected by the returns on the cash that they can normally get. That would be influenced by things like interest rates. So what I said about negative interest rates, you can probably guess, the implications there and what that might mean to them, but also what sort of returns they might get on other asset classes.
In the beginning of the pandemic, back in March, there was a kind of a stock market crash, where everyone was a little bit afraid. And so Pino, people who were sitting on cash weren't going into the stock market. And we're looking for other asset classes to invest in the property market actually once locked down opened up round about June. And obviously, coupled with the stamp duty change, people were piling into the property as an asset class. So that was driving prices up, we're actually seeing something like a 5% year on year house price increase in the recent month. So there's definitely, you know, a wash with cash or wash with, you know, a positive view of the market. And people have been piling in, as I mentioned, but equally cash buyers will be interested in what's going on in the general economy. And if they see recession coming, maybe they'll sit on the cash for a while for one of two reasons. One is to take advantage of opportunities they might spot and wants to protect themselves, in case there's a bit of a downside. So the influence of cash buyers can be significant, there's a number of people who buy properties, using cash, some of them are based in the UK,
not all of them are.
So that's another way that's another influence itself, so you could get overseas buyers, and they've got maybe currency, you know, gains or losses that play a part in their affordability as well. So, you know, you can start to see how this all fragments, you can start to see how it's all interconnected and interdependent, but it's also a bit, you know, difficult to call essentially, have not even you know, talked about regional variations. So we've just picked up another group, which is a cash buyers. The next one I wanted to pick up really well, they kind of two related. So one is the general economy. So you've got the housing market, which is a part of the overall economy, but it's not the whole of the economy. So you got the wider economy, if you like and, you know, got three principal categories, you got boom, recession or stagnation. So you know, it's high growth or it's in decline, or it's kind of relatively flat or stable, and how the economy is doing and how in particular things like employment is doing economic growth is doing is going to have a bearing on the housing market, you know, how much money people have got available, for example, returns and other places have been speaking about, we'll all play a part two. So there's another part of the market that that plays. So another part of the economy that plays a part into the housing market.
And then sticking with another category of buyer, we've got investor buyers, so investor buyers could be cash buyers also or could be mortgage-backed buyers. So it breaks down into that kind of level. But they'll be looking primarily at you know, income returns, which is based on rents. Now, if rental growth is is high that might attract people into the marketplace. And that might drive prices up for a time until rent starts to normalise. And thanks, Martin, for asking that question on martin Evans, that is for asking that question on Instagram, when I posted this on on on Instagram earlier today, and I'd missed I've missed actually rents off that list. So you stimulated me to remember that but yes, indeed, rents can drive prices until they relatively speaking, normalise, you know, in terms of yields that you know, people or investors would expect to see. So, the next one is really sentiment. And that's just what people feel, you know, what is the outlook and how positive are people?
So we talked about valuers having, you know, a market survey about what their views are which you could argue about more professionally back there seeing data every day. But the market has got a sentiment as well. It's got a collective sentiment. And so you've got the mood of the market, individual buyers and sellers, if you like, who were looking at the market now making a call. And you know, we were chatting, we had a mastermind call, earlier on today, we were talking about this issue about values and valuations. And one of the members said, I would I personally wouldn't get into residential at the moment. And if I would, I'd be looking for a significant discount something like 15%. And he and rich, yes, you, you talked about, you know, making an offer on a on a purchase with that kind of discount baked in. And you also commented that the house hasn't sold, although that was interesting. So you're pricing in your view of the potential drop in price. And so you're hedging, if you like, against that potential loss arising and you know, protecting the downside risk. And of course, if it doesn't arise, and you've you've banked a bit of extra profit. And from the sellers point of view, they perhaps have a higher expectation, from a sentiment point of view, that personal sentiment point of view, they probably think everything's okay, they probably think it's a bit of a seller's market at the moment, and probably one didn't accept your offer, I guess. But you've got this sentiment going on.
So you've got all these individuals with their own points of view, they're getting information and data from all over the place, and putting it together. And what I'm trying to say is, there isn't just a market, there isn't just one stakeholder group, there isn't just a whole UK market, there isn't just one
section of buyer that we're talking about here breaks down at fragments, it's spread out. It's interrelated. And some of these things are not easy to call. So for example, the government, you know, policy, or stamp duty, well, who saw that coming, but it came out and you know, the government now talking about 95%, loan to value mortgages for first time buyers. Clearly, the government's trying to stimulate the market with some very obvious tactics to boy up the economy. Because once the housing if the housing markets doing well, generally speaking, the economy is going to be doing well as well.
People are going to be moving people are spending money on home improvements, people are going to be, you know, having other sorts of associated costs and support other industries as a result of the housing market. So it's kind of an easy lever for government support is to stimulate the housing market. So we've got the individual investor, and they're calling it the sentiment there. So of course, so what is I did promise you, I'll ask this question. So what and I've been alluding as we've been going on about personal motivations, what are the personal motivations of buyers and sellers, in particular, you know, cash buyers or investor buyers, there's things that drive their behavior, for example, investors will be looking for a rental return, cash buyers will be looking for an overall return and maybe opportunity costs and what they could get elsewhere.
The Bank of England is going to support the overall economic objectives for the country, including, you know, interest, sorry, well, basically growth and inflation. And the government will be looking at wider, you know, economic implications and things like unemployment, JOB, JOB growth, overall, grow your market growth, if you like, and will, you know, adjust accordingly. So these things factor in, there's a personal motivation or as an agenda, you know, behind each stakeholders interest, so we shouldn't lose sight of that. But then, you know, when we're thinking, so what, well, what can we do about it? Well, assited rich in the guy who priced in something like a 15% reduction in an offer that he was trying to make. And so he was hedging, essentially. So he was willing to keep moving forward, but on the proviso that he gets a price that he feels is comfortable and will protect, and give him what I would call a margin of safety. Not sure I agree, 15%. But that was his perspective, I might price in a slightly different number. You know, early on in the year, I definitely would have been pricing in sort of somewhere between five and 15% settle on 10. But that was proven not to be needed.
You know, earlier, I think four months ago, famously samples were predicting something like I think it was a forget my fingers right way round think it was a 7% drop in prices in 2020. And then, you know, four months later, it was a rise in prices. So it was the ASEAN talked about, on a mastermind call. It was a boomerang prediction, it made probably made them look a little bit silly, to be honest. But that's the thing with predictions, it's really, really difficult. So in terms of so what we can price in, you know, potential declines, we can price in potential increases as well for that matter. And it also depends on our strategy.
Now, personally, what I would suggest we do, if we're investing for the long haul, is you know, just buy steadily over time. do what's called pound cost averaging. So if we're buying, you know, if we want to buy 20 properties over 20 years, sorry, yeah, 20%, over 20 years, you know, we can average out the highs and lows of prices by buying one a year. And not necessarily just waiting and then piling in when the market crash, although some people individually decide to do exactly that, you know, they follow the principle that you make your money when you buy, they sit on cash there, or they have it invested in other asset classes. And when there's a price correction or a price crash in the housing market, by the way, a price crash is defined as a 15% reduction over a two year period.
So something less than that, as a correction, something like something of 15% or more, over a two year period would be classed as the house price crash, apparently. And so you know, people might pile in at different points in time, but pound cost averaging is one way to head you know, smooth out those highs and lows. And another yet another strategy, I prefer this one is just to be in control, really, of what we can control, we can't really control house prices, let alone predict them.
You know, we so many different things going on. So what we can control is what is under our direct control. So we can hopefully control what sort of price we pay for a property. It might mean we get rejected on a few offers, if we're going in lower than let's say the typical four or 5% discount from the listing price. And we're going a little bit deeper than that, as rich said he wanted to, then we might comprehend. Or we might be able to get a better deal basically going in if we adopt a strategy of adding value or forcing the appreciation. So not relying on natural capital appreciation, when I say natural might not actually happen, become you know, maybe speculative. So forcing the appreciation is the second thing. And then investing for yield, or in particular actually, for cash flow, again, as Ian talked about, during a mastermind call is probably the safest thing is to invest for high cash flow, then we can service the debt, then we you know, we're not so worried about what happens to prices, because it's usually paper gain or paper loss as we go through time. So we can adopt those sort of strategies. And if we're looking for more of a short term strategy, such as flipping, Darren, I'm going to name check you, you're starting to get nervous about your flipping strategy. we'll bake in the numbers, and I asked you didn't I on the call, I said, what sort of margin were you aiming and it was a minimum of 18% on total cost? Well, I just defined a per house price crash as 15% reduction in prices over a two year period.
So if you're 18%, proximately, I know we're not necessarily comparing apples and apples here. But let's let's assume we are for a minute. There, Darren. So if you're you've got a margin of 18%. In other words, you wouldn't do the deal unless you thought you're going to get an 18% profit margin, or you've got you know, a house price crash of 15% over two years, which is more than comfortably going to be mopped up by your 18%. So you shouldn't risk your capital is the point. So you know, if the market turned against you, you probably in a flip deal for approximately nine months all in, you start to see market decline, you could sell and maybe you don't make the same profit, maybe you don't make any profit, depending on how things go. And then you cash your chips out without a loss of capital that says one thing you could do.
The second thing you could do is have a plan B. So if your plan A is to sell the property and obviously bank the profit, a plan B could be to keep your property and rent it out and refinance it and then go back into the market sometime in the future. Yes, it isn't ideal opportunity, or your ideal plan, hence why so plan B, but you know, might get you out of the situation. And I've been there myself. So there's a there's another there's a couple of examples of the so what so if you're investing for the long term, you know, trying, you know, buy, well, China add value to property, try and force the yield. And if you're going for short term, for example, property trading or flipping, and have a big enough buffer or margin of safety in your profit numbers that you could, you know, get out without a loss of capital. Or perhaps you could switch strategy and refinance and retain that property instead if you needed to. So that hopefully answers the so what question as well.
So I've tried to name-check a few of the people who were speaking, I've been speaking to, if you like over the last 24 hours, hopefully this has been of interest to you to just talk about some of the influences on house prices and maybe to recognise that it isn't actually just the case of this willing buyer and a willing seller striking a deal. There's a lot of other things going on. There's a psychology of the market. There's other stakeholders, you've got vested interests, or actors, as they call various actors who've got their vested interests who are bringing to bear their influence and their opinion In into the marketplace, and that is also having an impact. You've got regional variations, you've got ripple effects going out from previous highs and lows, local characteristics are taking place and affecting prices as well. So in other words, People sometimes ask me, what are your predictions for the housing market? And I quite simply say, I don't do predictions, because it's really, really complicated, basically. And he can make a fool out of us really, if we try and do that. So I think, keep calm and carry on, can you still invest if prices are going against you? Yes, you can. All the strategies that work more effectively at certain stages in the market.
Yes, there are. So I think, you know, just have your wits about you collect data from different places, always recognise that people who have got a stake in the housing market have got an agenda of their own personal motive. And that will have a bearing on their individual behaviour and therefore the overall collective behaviour, but don't lose sight of the fact that there's lots of competing stakeholder interests. There's lots of sub or micro markets that are taking place with different issues. So you know, just keep rolling in together. And as far as possible, try and control your own destiny, rather than sort of trying to guess the market. As Buffett, Warren Buffett says, it's not timing the markets time in the market. So if you're a long term approach to it, maybe the pound cost averaging, maybe the three F's of forcing the discount, forcing the yield and forcing the appreciation, and the right way forward. And if you've got a short term strategy, have a margin of safety so that you can protect your capital position, and or you've got an alternative plan B. So hopefully, it's been useful. Now, as always, the the show notes are going to be over the website, the property voice.net. So please go and check them out. I'll try and drop in the links that I mentioned in the course of this conversation. And if you want to talk about about anything from today's episode, or indeed anything more generally, regarding property, you know, you can always email me podcast at thepropertyvoice.net and I'd be delighted to hear from you. But I guess for now, that's all I'd like to say this week. And until next time, on the property voice podcast is Jojo.
That's all from me this week, remember if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you! The show notes can be found at our website www.thepropertyvoice.net
Thanks very much for listening again this week, so all that left to say is ciao ciao!