Right, that's it!

Just when I think the mainstream media have reached the nadir of their self-serving reality detached agenda.  They go and disprove me and reach a whole new low.

Today, just after writing the linked post, the Land Registry posted their latest house price statistics.  The headlines: a month-on-month rise of 1.7%; year-on-year is down 11.9%.  So far, so expected, given the news from other statistics.

The Land Registry is still the most accurate, if that's what they say then it must be true.  But, the BBC on the other hand:

 

"Biggest rise for years" - only if you count month-on-month statistics, and only if you ignore any other index (which they should do, but they don't when the Land Registry is showing smaller numbers than the other indexes, which it does 98.5% of the time).  Jesus H. Christ.  Also notice the prominent positioning, top story no less, the complete abdication of any of the secondary statistics.  Guess where they used to put the "Sharpest house price fall on record" stories during the latter half of 2008?  Oh, they forgot to write any!  Silly them...

I've included the above as an image, rather than a link, as this sort of thing has happened before only for the BBC to tone-down the posting after a few hours.

Anyway, for any poor souls who both: a) read this blog (not very many); and b) still believe what the mainstream media say, I urge you read the statistics direct from the horses mouth.  Download the PDF from the bottom right corner.  Particular attention must be brought to the annual changes per county:



And the sales per month graph:



The most important piece of new information (we could guess the prices based on other information) is the amount of sales: 42,699.  Look at the above graph, boom years were in excess of 120,000.  This is the key statistic, prices may be moving, but the health of the market (i.e. probability to make a speedy sale at a good price) is still down; not at it's lowest point, but not exactly soaring either, it's been mostly flat for six months.

That number is significant anyway, but doubly so today.  The final sentence of that BBC article says:

This has proved to be bad news for tenants, who have seen rent levels rise again as former "reluctant landlords" put their homes back on the market.

There is nothing in the Land Registry PDF that says any such thing, sales are still at a near-record low.  Text like the above can only have been fed from the various property vested interests, back to their old tricks, trying to drum up business.

This is not a sustainable boom people!  This is not even a long-term rally.  Although, if the Bank of England keep printing money (ostensibly to fight "deflation" - ho ho, do not make me laugh - but really to stop government bond auctions failing) then it will be a long-term rally; it'll be an infinite rally, "One bed flats in Swindow to exceed £1,000,000 by 2011".  Hmm, I think I've got a TV programme to pitch to Channel 4...