UK housing market "close to collapse"

[A_Random_Walk]

Sunday Times

Britain’s housing market is a “house of cards” that is set to implode after years of reckless mortgage lending, chronic oversupply of new flats and widespread fraud, a leading analyst said yesterday.

“We believe it is payback time for years of speculation and sharp practice,” Alastair Stewart, of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, said in a note to clients issued at the start of British housebuilders’ results season.

The warning came amid rising fears of endemic fraud in the housing market. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said yesterday that it had banned a further two mortgage brokers for submitting false applications to lenders, in what appears to be a growing trend.

Mr Stewart said there was a bubble in the market for new urban flats, which looked “in line for a full-scale crash”. He said: “Overbuilding, overlending and more than a whiff of fraud have in our view led to ‘mini-Floridas’ in cities from Leeds to Leicester.”

Are Irish farmers still buying property in Florida?

[southofdub]

Here is a BBC money program Buy to Debt

youtube.com/watch?v=4FBGbVLi0tU

youtube.com/watch?v=VW2wYredMjM&feature=related

youtube.com/watch?v=xPTKwskSSQ8&feature=related

I often wonder how those farmers are getting on in Florida