New Chancellor, New PM: What Burnham Means for UK Mortgage Rates | Propenomix Live

Speaker A: Today? Well, apart from anything else, we had some inflation figures out and we had a bit of a surprise drop, actually. Been banging on about inflation. It's been about five and a half years. I've been banging on about inflation now, apart from anything else. Um, but we had a bit of a surprise on the downside today, which is always very welcome because it is a bit of an enemy of everybody. Although the property investor doesn't do too badly in the face of inflation. So, uh, if you've watched one of these before, you'll know that I like to start with a quote. And, uh, this week's was laissez faire was planned, planning was not. And that's from Carl Polanyi from the great transformation in 1944. Hungarian economists. Why did I use that one? Well, because Blue labor, uh, that's why you probably hadn't heard of Blue labor before this week. It was very much in the news, very briefly, because apart from the else, the Chancellor was going to be Blue labor, uh, it was going to be Shabana Mahmood, we were told. But someone did point out the awkward fact that Shabana didn't have an awful lot of treasury experience, uh, nor economics pedigree whatsoever. And that hasn't put lots of people off. George Osborne jokes often these days about the fact that he had to learn economics on the job. I'd argue that George didn't actually learn any economics on the job. And that was part of the problem with George, apart from anything else. But of course, there's no love lost between landlords and George Osborne. He didn't do us any macro favours either, because his relentless austerity ended up cutting some of the worst things he could have cut realistically. But anyway, let's not knock George before we start. We're 11 years on from, uh, George's budget, and we still are where we are. Um, but, you know, there was a bit of an element of which we're now describing the Burnham administration as the soft left, but there was a bit of an appeal towards Blue Labour, who people often think of as the Blue, meaning sort of the Conservative Party or whatever. Um, there is an element of Conservative in the way that Blue Labour do think, but really it's about economic interventionalism. And that's probably a phrase that makes you a little bit nervous. I think it's a great idea. But then lots of things are a great idea. Marxism is a great idea, isn't it? The problem is, in terms of how you actually implement Marxism is a massive problem because You've got self interested people involved. And all animals were created equal. A bit like this shirt, uh, that I'm wearing here today. Um, relevant to reference, uh, to the great George orwell there. Um, 1984, all animals were created equal, but some more m equal than others. You might remember that famous line. So we had a bit of a, uh, surprise as far as the M Chancellor was concerned in the end. And John Healey was appointed yesterday rather than Shabana Mahmood. But picking up from, uh, where the headline started, inflation CPI print 2.6 for the year to June, down from 2.8. Economic consensus was 2.7. So we're not a million miles away from there. Um, but below, we're always good to miss the target, always helps the guilt yields apart from anything else. Lowest headline CPI since March of 2025. Where's the fire? What's the panic? Well, remember, 2.6 is still 0.6 above the inflation target. And we've been above the inflation target apart from one anomalous print in September 2024 that you might, you might remember. Well, I certainly do. We're above that target Since August of 2021, folks, aside from anything else. So we won't be far off that again. Now we've got another problem now. June, of course, that was the month that absorbed the normalizing, very brief normalizing of the oil prices back down to 70 a barrel. Uh, as I've kicked off the recording here, Brent's at about 92.50 a barrel, so, so that's another 25% increase to be considered, which feeds through into the petrol pumps, as you'll know, and feeds through all the way, no pun intended, feeds through to the food chain, uh, because ultimately everything has to be delivered by road, generally speaking, in the uk and therefore it puts extra money on the shelves. And that's where it hurts, uh, people in the pocket the most, especially the poorest in society who spend more of a percentage of their disposable income on food than anybody else does because they've just got less of it. But they still need feeding ultimately at the end of the day. So core inflation 2.6%, services inflation 3.6% down from 3.7 in May, but yet 21% straight months above that 2% target. And like I say, that's still a bit of a misnomer because September 2024 really doesn't count, really. We're talking about the thick end of 60 months above target, apart from anything else. Um, diesel was down on the month 10.7p a liter. Uh, that's soon coming back as we're seeing. Petrol was down 2.1 p a litre. Transport inflation was then only 5.7% down from 6.8. Why was it still high? Well, because although prices have come back to $70 a barrel, we started the year around about the $55ish dollars a barrel mark in terms of oil, so still up a significant amount since then. Food prices actually fell. Chocolate, margarine, beef and summer clothing. Uh, sales discounted deeper than last year. Places like Vinted, I think are probably having a bite into the fast fashion and the new clothes market, um, potentially, or just the cost of living biting, who knows? Um, certainly the new administration is talking plenty about the cost of living and trying to do something about it. Although these have largely, um, signaling plays at the moment. VAT off domestic electricity bills saving people 45 quid. That 45 quid unfortunately is going to get reversed by the price cap and, and more in October. So no one will see that 45 quid, but it would have been 45 quid higher. Right, um, so monthly CPI only 0.1% month on month. But as I say, it'll be coming back with not necessarily a vengeance. But you know, we're only on the 22nd of July, so we'll see where we are by the end of July. Um, and we'll see how we're doing. Okay. Uh, CPIH, my preferred measure in the ONS's preferred measure because it takes into account housing costs 2.8% and again lowest since September 2024. But forget September 24th. It was an anomalous figure because September 23rd was so high and it was a base effect 2.8 under 3% for CPIH. Good news. That's the one that really compares to the US measure of inflation of CPI because they include housing costs in their CPI. We don't remember supposed to be at 2. That's the target. But look falling but above target. But oil's going the wrong way. That's the awkward place of where we are. Um, and then we had labor market report yesterday. So unemployment steady at 4.9% in the three months to May. That's where the forecasts were as well. Regular pay growth 3.4, but that's being dragged forward still by public sector pay growth. I'm sure we've been saying for months and months these public sector figures are going to drop out of the figures. There were two rises in one year, but they're still at 5.5%. And the private sector is seeing 2.9. Now, you can do the maths yourself, but if you work in the private sector and you're getting 2.9 on your wage bill and you're seeing 2.6 inflation, there really isn't a lot of regular pay growth. The official regular Pay growth print, 0.4%, but that's being dragged up by the public sector. Payroll's down 85,000 on the year to May, and the June early estimate, 71,000 down on the year. Broadly flat on the month, about 30 million. 30.3 million jobs. Aside from anything else, vacancies down to 712,000. And that's now below pre pandemic levels. And what you're hearing, anecdotally, people immediately go to the AI piece these days, and I see a bit of that. Some of it's about business confidence and growth, some of it is about AI. Companies aren't replacing people, they're dealing with organic wastage and they're just making it work with further integration of AI. And, um, you know, there was a company the other day that said, look, I could do with losing 20% of my staff. This is a French company. But they said, we're realistically, we'll just do that over the next four years, because we lose about 5% of the workforce each year and we won't replace them. That's where we're going to be. It's France. It's very difficult to get rid of people. So, um, be careful what you wish for, folks, when it comes to labour market rights and all the rest of it. What about the Mansion House Gap? Well, ultimately, we saw Rachel Reeves swan song Mansion House Peach last week, and I'll be talking about that later on. Um, she didn't talk about the 4.9% unemployment, which is a strange thing to leave out of a speech when you're the Chancellor. Nor did you talk about the shrinking payrolls. But this is the real world of what the John Healy chancellorship and the Andy Burnham premiership are going to inherit. Uh, 1% more on unemployment than when labor came in in 2024, in July 2024. But the Burnham government has arrived. You know, Monday was a big day. The Cabinet was built on Monday evening. John Healey was the big surprise. Uh, Mahmood and Miliband, uh, followed him down towards 10 Downing Street. Mahmood, who's stayed in the homes, the Home Office, um, very much praised by most corners of what she's been doing in the Home Office. Some are saying she's just enacting the tougher policy measures that the Conservatives brought in at the back end of 23, early 24. Um, but of course you could probably fairly criticise the Conservatives by saying why did it take so long to bring those measures in? But, um, it's often the way that this government reaps the rewards and the failures of the last administration. Apart from anything else. That certainly includes the enhanced bond yields that are still out there, possibly with some of it due to that more on premium we've been paying thanks to Liz, the lettuce truss. Um, but of course they are also inheriting what their predecessors have done over the last two years, which Rachel Reeves was keen to say was such wonderful stuff, but I'm not sure I agree with her. Uh, um, I'll talk more about how the markets have reacted to Healey though, when we get to the. The guilts and the swaps. Apart from anything else, what else? Well, of course the anginator is back, I'm afraid. I said it would happen and it's absolutely come true. And Angela Rayner returns to uh, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government as the Secretary of State. Um, you also got Matthew Penny Cook staying in pace in, in post. And um, he's also being allowed to attend Cabinet, so he's not been made a Secretary of State but the Housing Minister is now attending Cabinet as well. Again, this looks like signaling and messaging, something that Starmer did very, very badly. Burnham is sending a message saying he's already mentioned the phrase council houses, the phrase that nobody ever says anymore. Um, he's already said he was going to build more than anything since that post war boom which ended sometime in the 70s in terms of we did have a point where hundreds of thousands of council homes were being built every year. That's obviously long gone. 18,000 would be a great result even though it be a fifth of what everybody accepts is really needed to make a dent in the social housing waiting lists, which would help people and actually help the treasury in the long run if we could get there. Excuse me, um, who else have we had that's worth talking about? Yvette Cooper to Health. We're street into defense. Pat McFadden staying in work and Pensions. Again, that is a big signal. Right. He is known as the tough one. He's going to be enacting some benefit reforms. They are going to be under the, the labor dress of not writing people off and uh, not leaving them to rot on benefits. Apart from anything else. Minibar moved over from Energy and Manita Fanbuller, who's been widely criticized as the Energy Secretary, again, thought to be a bit of a zealot in some departments, but let's see what happens because we've already heard we're going to be doing some drilling, most likely in the North Sea. So how will that all fit in with net zero? That'll be interesting to see. Big, big critique for Louise Haig being appointed, apart from else, because a. Uh, few things, that's few skeletons she's got in her own closet, which I'm not going to go into. Johnny Reynolds is the Business Secretary. I was Boyd to hear someone in business today tell me that they'd heard Johnny Reynolds speak and he really seems to understand what business needs. The theories, of course, has been repeated again and again. He's never been in business himself and no one in the Cabinet has been, so that's a problem. Lucy Powell to Education. Lisa Nandy, um, staying put as the Culture Secretary, which means no room for. Obviously, Starmer has gone. Rachel Reeves is out. Uh, David Lammy is out. Herma, um, and also Steve Reed, the old Housing Secretary is. Or the. The Secretary of State for mhclg, I should say, is also out. Um, John Healey himself, the new Chancellor is a former Housing Minister. So Housing looks like it's got more seniority than it's had for a long time. Can't be bad news, I wouldn't think. And we'll get a lot of scrutiny, I'm sure, but might actually drive something forward that makes a positive change in the uk, which I'm very, very, very much behind. Happening to be clear. Um, Healey went out and stated five priorities at the Treasury's fiscal control as the number one fiscal discipline. Very, very smart to put that at the top. You've really kind of got to growth in every postcode. One of those absolutely stupid political phrases I can never understand while they say things like, because you're never going to achieve that. Um, but maybe they see it as a shoot for the moon and settle for the stars, but I just don't like it at all because you failed immediately. You're never going to get growth in every postcode. By British again. Sounds like a brilliant idea. Uh, what will happen when the budget constraints meet the fact that the British manufacturing or the British whatever of services is 40 or 50% more expensive than a European or dare I say an Asian counterparty? Aside from anything else, public investment within the framework, within the fiscal rules framework, the. The implication being there's going to be a little bit of massaging of the rules here. But I've got to be honest with you, that's exactly what I'd be doing. If I was John Healey or if I was advising Andy Burnham, I would be saying, absolutely, you've got to massage these rules. But the guilt markets, they're not stupid. They already smell this and they're already acting and then backing entrepreneurs and wealth creation. Absolute. So glad that's made it into his top five because it's desperately needed. But I'm sorry if I sound a bit jaded. We've just had two years of hearing someone say, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. We'll do it by cutting regulations and then doing the exact chuffing opposite. So will that actually happen? I hope that it will, but I'm not holding my breath here, folks. I'd rather live than hold my breath to wait to see that one happen. But we can hope, right? And remember, it was Gordon Brown who introduced entrepreneurs relief at 10% up to 10 million quid. So who knows what we might see in the uk? So, cost of living definitely right up there as the top priority in this government. Um, that VAT being taken out, bit of critique on that cost of somewhere between, um, about 800 to 900 million quid. Taking this 5% VAT off domestic energy bills from the 1st of October only for six months until the end of March. So it's clearly a bit of a hedge fund to help people get through the winter because they know the fuel is going to be expensive in winter. They know people need money to put the heating on, um, to about 29 million homes. Right. Funded by canceling the digital ID program. This was criticized. Darren Jones made a complete idiot of himself by saying on. On X that there was. That wasn't actually funded. So you can't cancel that and use the money from there because we haven't funded it. And, um, I rang back to the Rachel Reeves before the first budget that she did, criticizing Jeremy Hunt for saying various things were unfunded because they were going to be funded, basically by the return of funds that you get from various departments that don't spend their whole budget all the time, and local authorities are doing that all the time, so there is always money left over. Um, but Darren Jones, uh, with bitterness, made himself look like he'd done a poor quality job at the Treasury. Not the cleverest thing I've ever seen. And then £2 cap on bus fares. I was a bit disappointed earlier on when I went on social media and I saw this and the, the second biggest, and you shouldn't gauge things like this, I know, but you can't help it. The second biggest, uh, most popular reaction to this post about 2 pound cap bus fares from labour was the laughing emoji. Now, I don't go on the bus. I'm not going to lie to you, I don't have to. Um, you could say I've worked very hard and I've worked to not go on the bus. I did actually force myself to go on a bus about 18 months ago and, my goodness me, it was a bit of a lesson in people watching. Took me about 55 minutes to do a journey I could have done in half an hour, probably maybe 40 minutes in an Uber. But I did it very deliberately so I could see what's going on on the bus network these days. Was it an improvement when I used to go on the bus when I was a kid or when I was a student? I didn't have any money. Yeah, it was actually, it was, it was electric, it was clean, it was nice, it was tidy, it was very busy. But looking at the people who were on the bus and clearly the clothes that they were wearing, the mobile phones that they had and things like that, not attempting to judge people, but they clearly did not have a lot of money to rub together. So maybe it does matter to them that bus fares have been capped at two quid. And I think, jolly good. Right, Jolly good for the moment. And again, it's messaging, it's no more than that. So give them, give them a bit of a chance. I know, I'm an optimist. I know politicians always let you down. I'm definitely not falling in love with Andy Burnham. Do not worry, folks. Um, and I'm sure there'll be plenty to worry about and critique and we'll talk about a little bit about land value tax later on as well, aside from anything else. And then a, ah, 20% hospitality business rates cut being reported. Well, hospital definitely desperately needs this sort of thing. Leisure and Hospo really, really need that. It's good. It's good news. Now, that is, uh, a single source at the moment, so it hasn't necessarily been ratified just yet, but hopefully that's happening and then confirmation that rent controls are being explored. So before we panic, we're going to go into the deep dive and I'm going to talk about that. There's been a, A rent control briefing for the industry that landed two days before this government did. I don't suppose that was A fluke folk, because let's not believe in um, let's not believe in coincidences because they don't, they don't get anywhere. Um, so why do we care about the World Cup? World cup finished because it probably means back to normal or somewhere near normal for the property market. We always see a drop in activity especially when England are still in. Now we're dealing with slightly higher mortgage rates and a world or a nation that thought perhaps the Iran Middle east situation was, I'm not going to say over because it's never over, but had bubbled down a little bit. But it's bubbled right back up again obviously over the past few weeks. So um, England had this crazy 6, 4 game at the weekend against France. Not a real game realistically, but the most goals in that third place match ever. Uh, England's best finish in the World cup since 1966. It won't feel like that to those who watched us capitulate against Argentina and try and park the bus from about 69 minutes or whenever we started doing that from um, Mbappe gets the golden boot. Maybe a little bit controversial but very few people are crying any tears for any Argentine players uh, at the moment, even for the great Messi, uh, who surely has now played his, his last World cup match. But the tournament drag on sales is going to be over. So we're going to see that next week when Chris Watkins data comes through. So we're sort of about 10 days away from analyzing that at the moment because we have a one week lag on the real time data. But if there's no bounce, well, do you know what? The softness was never the football was it? It was just that the markets got softer. So we'll find out. We had about a 9% drop in sold subject to contract properties in June. That's June 26th being compared to June 25th. Nine percent is enough to talk about. It's not enough to start writing headlines in the Guardian about how there's a gigantic crash or whatever but it's enough for us to note and say well let's see what happens there. We saw a big drop in mortgage uh, approvals for, for May we went down to about 56000 from about 63 000. So a decent clip downwards, a double digit drop in terms of percentages. We do need to be aware of all of that. Right. I've been writing plenty on LinkedIn this week and over the last few weeks I'm afraid about the political situation kind of got to at the moment because there's lots and lots of things to consider. Um, but we'll try and keep it as. We'll try and keep the politics out of it as much as possible. Having said that, of course, the next slot is going to be about our friend, the Orange Man, Donald Trump. Um, so what have they been up to? Well, they intend to allocate $12 million to UK organizations founded by prominent conservatives. So that's nothing to them. You know, it's a. Not even. It's probably 10 seconds worth of debt, money or whatever these days. But why they're interfering quite so aggressively. And it's not just the UK. They're not picking on the UK. They're doing this all over the world. Um, 878. Not to be confused with 978 Finance, please, folks. But a think tank called 878 with founding directors Jacob Rees Mog and Dr. Radir Tilecoat. Toby, uh, Young, also in the frame. Um, yeah. Interesting one, isn't it? Why are they, why are they getting so stuck into doing all this stuff? Um, doesn't really feel very good, does it? Um, and then public money is buying influence. Therefore, in allied politics, Germany are getting the same treatment. And Chancellor Mertz has said he plainly does not want the government in America interfering in German elections. But they have been interfering and Elon Musk has been interfering and probably will continue to interfere. Not necessarily on the same page as Mr. Trump these days, as you might well know. Now, what's the new wrinkle? Well, who's running the Foreign Office now, folks? Ed Miliband. Um, not many people's favorite politician, not even many people's favorite Miliband, apart from anything else. Um, but that's where he is. Um, and I don't know how Mr. Trump is going to take that, but I suspect he'll be sending, um, various other people to speak to Mr. Biliban rather than doing it himself. Burnham has said he's going to be very upfront with Trump. Well, that is a good way to deal with him, I think if he's learned a bit from Mark Carney. He knows that he needs to be strong, stick to his guns, not be pushed around. Um, there was a magnificent truth as, as it's ironically called from Mr. M. Trump on his truth social platform, saying, fantastic news for the people of Aberdeen about drilling in the North Sea and the blah, blah, blah. So was that to suck up to Mr. Trump? No, I really don't think it was. But it doesn't necessarily Hurt to start on a good footing with him. He is a very strange character, as you know. He sits there and goes, talks about all these people as being handsome men. It's always a handsome. That handsome man came and did this and it's like, I don't know whether it's supposed to disarm you or what it is. It's obviously a deliberate tactic because he says it about some people who aren't handsome on anybody's standards, I don't think, apart from anybody else. Not that I'm sitting here as an oil painting. Um, I'm not here for my modeling ability, folks. I'm here for my macroeconomic knowledge and my property experience, of course. And then we had a letter, uh, Jim Jordan to Lisa Nandy. Watch, um, this space green paper, um, making prominent news on the social media platforms. Uh, so we're looking for this. Is this idea of the mainstream media being promoted more or less on things like YouTube. And I've certainly noticed it on my algorithm, which is obviously going mad with Andy Burnham stuff and all that at the moment, rather than the usual economic stuff. But it's absolutely prioritized. BBC, um, Sky Sports as well, to be fair. Not just the national broadcasters. Um, and then my second level, when I've either scrolled past them or when I've. I've maybe watched a bit of one of them or whatever, is back to what it normally was. So it's definitely been a promotion of this sort of stuff. But they're still at the bottom line of all of this is the digital services tax that M. Mr. Trump still doesn't like. Still massive threats to the tariffs. Let's see how Mr. Burnham deals with Mr. Trump on that front. Bad fortnight for the Iran situation. As you know, Trump has said Tehran are going to pay for attacks that have killed American soldiers. Um, they claimed an attack on Amazon infrastructure in Bahrain. Apart from anything else, the Houthis are threatening the Red Sea shipping. Uh, a tanker reported being struck near Hormuz. Um, and as I said, about 92.50 a barrel on Brent. Before we kick this one off, um, it was about 88 on Sunday when I wrote up the supplement. Um, we're absolutely going to see this diesel trend reverse in real time. Apart from anything else. If you go and check out the supplement from last weekend, it was a good one. Um, the written. The written version will have the much longer bits on Trump, including things like primetime addresses about election documents. Um, there's not a single switched vote in there. So, uh, it's a bit of an embarrassment, realistically. It's just they'll carry on with the same rhetoric, of course, apart from anything else. And then of course Trump's front row seat at the final on Sunday alongside Infantino, Sheinbaum, Carney and King Felipe. Um, as I say, Carney's the one you need to look at in terms of how you manage Trump these days onto the real time market. So Chris Watkin, week 27 we're talking about here. This was the week ending the 12th of July. So Chris knocks this stuff out week in, week out. Uh, he's very, very kind to me. He sends me stuff that he doesn't even publish. When I wrote the supplement up this week that they hadn't published the property market stats show and put it all out there on the Internet for everyone. But he did still send me the graphs and all the rest of it. So, Chris, I salute you, it's a pleasure to be on your distribution list and thank you for replying to my constant and annoying questions. And I'm pleased to say that when we get into August, I will be featuring once again on the property market stats show. So I'm looking forward to it. Um, obviously it must get a few viewers, a few viewers extra, otherwise why would Chris keep inviting me back on? But it's a pleasure for me to do that. This week though, we had Rob Smith, Bob Loss of Hunters, Northwood and Whitegates at ah, the property franchise group. Um, check out YouTube.com hristopherwatkin um, always pinned in the comments folks, apart from anything else. So what did we see go on the market? Nearly 35k properties, 34.7k on that was down from 36 and a half, but almost exactly the week 27, 10 year average of 34, 600. So the bath at the moment it seems folks, is not filling up any faster than it normally would. Right? But we passed a million listings this year to date. A million listings by week 27, 1 million and 1904 to be precise. That's the second year in a row we've hit the million listings on year 27. Identical to the thousand to 2025. Four and a half percent more listings than 2024, 12.1% more listings than pre Covid. So my 10% more stock than normal that I've been talking about is much more like 12 and a half percent. But that just doesn't sound as good folks, does it? But it stopped being a blip and it started being the market. This is the new market at the moment, right. Gross sales 23.5 K. Subject sold, subject to contract 25,410 year average year to date 667,000. 6.9% below 2025, 717,000 but still 0.2% ahead of 2024, 10.7% ahead of 2023 and 6.9% ahead of pre Covid. So the comparison year down 7% and 7% above pre Covid norms. Both of those are true, interestingly enough. So we're sitting between 2024 and 2023. We've been doing that as a market for about five to six weeks now, apart from anything else. But happily we're closer to 24, but we're still below what 24's performance was like. 25's performance is looking good compared to where we are in the property market in the UK right now folks. So 17.9 thousand net sales, 19.3 thousand is the 10 year average for this week. So uh, slipped a bit there on the net sales, but year to date, 519,000. So year on year we're ahead of 2024, but we're losing ground on it each week. 5.3% below 2025 now and we're losing ground against that, uh, up but 12 and a half percent ahead of 2023. So again, bit of context there folks. Those 5Ds, death, debt, divorce, downsizing, and those diddy ones always keep our engine turning. So June exchanges so far, 66,200. We will get more than that by the time all the data filters through. I'm sure Chris expects it to be in the late 70 thousands in terms of volume, obviously if you think about that, that only extrapolates to about a million dollars deals per year. And there'll be months that are slower for exchanges aside from anything else. But we were doing about 1.2 million transactions when the dust settled in 2025. So let's see. 64, 000 withdrawals off the market. So that's 51% that actually completed and 49 that withdrew of those, those properties that left the market one way or another. Unbelievable. Realistically, seven year average, 57.6%. So we're way, way short of the average at the moment. If you're putting your house on the market In Britain in 2026, your odds of leaving the market one way or another is a coin flip. Whether you sold it or you pulled it off. And it's getting worse, not better. Right. And the coin flip is the biggest single argument for Pricing correctly on day one folks. I bang on about it all the time. You've got to get it right. One chance to make a first impression. Don't be lulled by. Especially by the agent who over instructs to get the instruction. They're the worst people to deal with. Right. Um, so a buyer's market by volume, what does it mean? It means more stock. It means realistic to motivated vendors in the withdrawal pipeline. It means agents incentivized to bring sensible offers because half the book walks otherwise not distressed volumes of a pre Covid norms, uh, are not what distress looks like. Right. Grinding, yes. High friction, yes, but well supplied. A good market to buy in if you can buy. Right? Right. And it is, it is the best market I've seen for buying for some time. The interest rates supporting it at the back end are not great, I'm not going to lie about that. But actually for doing deals it works out pretty chuffing well folks. Right. So are sellers meeting the market yet? Right on your patch. Why don't you let me know if you in the chat or in the comments if you're listening to this on a replay. And please check out Chris's channel. Give him a bit of love. Uh, it's very kind of him to do what he does. It's obviously free to access all his content on YouTube. Yes, it's written for it and, and recorded for estate agents, but it has massive relevance to all property professionals in my opinion. Okay, into the macroscope. So we had some growth figures last week and a bit of a construction flip aside from anything else. So much May GDP was up yay, 0.1%. We've had so many 0.1s over recent months and years, it gets quite depressing. 1.3% annualized. Well that is about 0.1% a month, isn't it? So that's why we have so many 0.1s. But services were up 0.3. The big engine of the economy. And normally when services are at 0.3, the whole of GDP is up, uh, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4. But no, no, not this time around because Production was down 0.5 and construction down 0.8. And this is a 1 point something percent economy. Occasionally it tries to dress up for a bit of fun as a 2 point something percent economy, but it doesn't really succeed for any sustained period of time. So inside construction, the fall was in repairs and maintenance, so that was down 2.1%. Was that because we got out of um, of winter to an extent maybe. I mean it's a bit late for all of that realistically. And new work grew 0.2% so the reverse of what we've seen over recent months. But look, it's a dismal level of trading realistically. We're not going to uh, you know, go off the end of a cliff after one month realistically. But new build EPCs, our leading indicator of completions. The 52 week rolling total 209,847 for England, up uh, from the week before 209,464. So call it 210,000 units a year being delivered against the 300,000. Ambition probably going downwards, not upwards folks, as we know still at the moment. So we'll watch those EPC new EPC new build EPC figures quite closely. Okay, what about rents? Well, Q2 Rightmove said average advertised rent outside London was up 1.9% on the quarter to an average 1,397 per month. So if you rent outside London, the average rent that people are paying is £1,400amonth folks, aside from anything else, um, and the structural line, well available rental homes dropped below the prior year for the first time since 2022. National availability now down 1% on a year ago in the first full quarter since guess when RRA, the Renters Rights act took force on the first of May. So be careful. Look, it's causation, right? It's eight weeks. So let's be careful. Hampton says the pace of landlord sales actually has slowed since the RRA rush. Apart from anything else but the direction is what many, many of us said it would be constrained. The economics and the supply of rental properties thins folks. Okay. Foxton's actually put some pounds on it. Elevated tenancy terminations after RRA in May and June and after fixed terms were abolished. Student lets especially. Roughly 3 million pounds of previously recognized revenue was reversed. One agency group 3 million quid over two months. So you can see how much rent tenants have saved. And of course anyone on the labor side of things and the tenant side of things really don't have to be a labor party supporter would say hooray, that's wonderful. Uh, I don't know about that. I think it's a one off hit that landlords will take and they'll change the way they do things. And future tenants will likely pay for where current tenants made made a bit of money back on student tenancies they didn't want anymore after the end of June or whatever. It was okay. How about the landlord lending picture where we had UK finances Q1 results. The average new buy to let loan rate 4.71. Remember how much rental stock is still in personal name before you you comment? Uh, say well I can't get 4.71 in my limited company. Um, you know, 95 odd percent is still owned in personal name. I know it's a ridiculous figure but that is the figure and that's just the inertia in the property market. We'll see it change fairly dramatically over the next 10 years I think. Average gross rental yield 7.21 according to UKF, up from 6.93 a year earlier. So nearly 30 basis points of extra yield, um, 250 basis points of spread between the average buy to let and the average rent. And that spread is rising. The yield is rising. Right. And then IMLA said uh, that's the independent mortgage uh, association said buy to let house purchase lending 7% higher in March and April than it was in the 2025 monthly average. So the public conversation is all exodus, but the professional end is obviously quietly expanding at uh yields they haven't seen for years. The amateur sells, the portfolio operator buys what the amateur sells. Okay, so on to guilty or not guilty folks about the gilts and the swaps. Um, we had the Friday uh, figures last week at about four and a half percent for the five year, 4.527 to be precise and the 30 year at 5.676. Right. Then 52 week ranges, 3.668 has been the low for the yield on the five year, 4.779 has been the high and then on the 30s we haven't been below 5%, we've been down to 5.033 and we've been up at 5.87. 77 um, we're in the upper reaches of both of those ranges at the moment of course. And then since those Friday figures as of this afternoon the 10 year pushed through to roughly 5.05% in the middle of the day today. The highest since mid May sit in about 5.03 when I started the stream, the 30 around 5.66 but it did get intraday 5.75. I have said before I think 5.75 is a phenomenal yield to be buying the 30 year gilts that earn, um, I'm still there, very much so. And then the five year area priced around 4.55 to 4.6 at Monday's close. So two forces canceling each other out soft CPI pulling the yields down $91, oil pushing them up. And then the new Burnham administration, if they're going to get this reputation for spending a little bit, is also just pushing things that way. When John Healey was appointed, the 10 year didn't really move. No relief rally, no route. It had already rallied on the fact that it wasn't Miliband, realistically. So the market as yet has not really taken a view that it's Healey over Mahmood or he was better or whatever it was. So that obviously wasn't a market driven appointment. The rumor is that Andy Burnham saw a projection of what would happen to the guilt yields if Miliband was Chancellor. I suspect someone said that'll cost you about a quarter of a percent on everything. And he said, well, how much is that worth? And someone said well it's about £10 billion a year. And he said, oh, not sure redhead is worth that, that much money. Uh, to be honest folks. And I think he was probably right there, wasn't he? So two weeks ago it was all streeting right. He was the one who was going to be the Chancellor. He was odds on then Miliband was odds on then Mahmood, she was still 92. Probability according to the prediction markets on the morning, um, that the Chancellor was appointed. Right. So, um, it really wasn't an inside information job this time time around. And the bookmakers had a great result. The layers have, ah, had it off as they say in the industry folks. Um, but the market being that far wrong on such an insider traded market, is this the start of an administration can actually keep their cards close to their chest that can keep their counsel. I'm left asking myself that. Certainly done a better job than last time out. And obviously there was deliberate leaking. But of course because Starmer was so weak, he needed to try and acid test and dip test everything before he made a decision. It does strike me that Burnham has a lot better sense of what the people think and perhaps he's gained that in Manchester. Um, so he's got a lot better sense of all of that. Um, and that's serving him well so far. And perhaps he also knows some of my decisions aren't going to be that popular. That's why I'm the Prime Minister and he's going to go with it. I know, I know. Hopeless optimisto over here, but I'm pretty sure already we're ahead of Starmer in terms of what's been, what's been done. Okay, what about the swaps Monday's close, 4.37 on the five year swap. Not good. That puts our five year mortgage money at six and a quarter, folks. Apart from anything else, we have 4.23 on Friday morning. Not a lot of fun. Um, not happy really. The flipped rate conversation is still there one year ahead. Now the bank of England. The market expectation of the bank of England base rate, 4.28%. So expecting two rises now. So is that next one coming? Um, in a couple of weeks time in the next bank of England meeting? I'm not sure. I'm calling six, three for the next vote. So six to hold, three to raise the rate. I'm hoping that I'm um. Well, I'm hoping that I'm right in that they hold it. But that one more dissenting voice will be enough to signal to the markets we're close to a rise here. We're on top of this inflation that's going to, that is coming out of the uh, Iran situation. We will do something about it. Um, I still think Andrew Bailey would like to hold the rates as much as possible. Will he be able to control the rest of the committee though? I'm not so sure that he will and he's not going to sit there and vote on his own as the only person who wants to hold the rate if as. Ah, and when we get to a meeting where that's a live runner. Um, so six, six and a quarter on your financing folks. I'm afraid it's not getting better. Products are getting pulled. You need to get those applications in if you've got anything in the pipeline and then if your refinance is going to land before the autumn budget, look, definitely price it now and then keep reviewing, as I've been saying to people for years now, just make sure you keep your broker reviewing those rates because if swaps do improve, you don't have to watch this stuff every day obsessively like I do. Right. Just check in with your broker once a week just to see if you can uh, if you can bring that rate down. Hopefully there might be a, huh, a uh, pause or a ceasefire in the Middle east conflict. There might be other things that go on. Um, it might suddenly be. They look like a really competent team of people in charge of the country. But let's maybe not go for Game of Thrones fantasy level stuff folks, I suppose. Okay, we. One golf headline is going to change every number here. Also does any lines that are released about Healey's first budget, although like I said, it Seems they're keeping it relatively tight at the moment. Right. So underwrite your deals at six, six and a quarter percent. That's the reality of it. Um, I think buying below replacement cost is a very, very sensible strategy. Even more sensible in a world where you might get a land tax. Because in theory, what a land tax does is it taxes the land that the property is on. So it removes the rebuild value of the property and then charges you a, uh, tax based on the land. That seems quite incredible because for my entire portfolio they'd end up paying me realistically, because I've always used a below replacement cost strategy. And it's very common these days for a rebuild to be 200, 225, 230 grand on a property that maybe is worth 150, or even if it is worth 200, still has a negative land value. And, uh, what is that saying, apart from anything else? Well, it's saying that you wouldn't be able to build this house today, or if you did, you'd have to charge more money for it or you'd have to get a grant from the government in order to build it. And that's the only way these things happen, as a general rule. Okay, so a quick plug for the October property business Workshop is the big one, folks. Joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, Thursday 1st October in central Manchester. Uh, myself and Rod Turner. Uh, so how do you structure a JV that can survive contact with reality? How do you buy portfolios? How do you buy companies rather than just houses? Some of the classic blowups that help make the lawyers rich and the JV partners poor. And some stuff to avoid. And if the next decade is consolidation and Molly, or the ah, report we'll be talking about later on, say that this shakeout is already underway. This is the workshop for it, folks. This is the one that you need to make. We've got an amazing venue and we've got a superb sponsor confirmed for you both very much under wraps for the moment, but really looking forward to it. Now, super Early Bird has got a genuine 20 off the VIP dinner tickets are selling very well. We've sold more than half of the VIP tickets that we've got already. Dinner is a chance to get 15 minutes with myself and Rod talking about what you need to talk about. Dinner doesn't just last 15 minutes. To be clear, folks, we have a good couple of hours in there, but you've got a dedicated slot at that dinner to discuss what's going on, what's holding you back aside from anything Else, uh, and it's the best way to get some Adam and Rod access at a reasonable price because for the other stuff we do, we are expensive consultants, even though, if I do say so myself. But of course I think we price ourselves very fairly because we've got a lot of experience. Okay, the link to it tinyurl.com pbwoct26 it's also in the show notes. Uh, there we go. So into the deep dive then folks. And this one is called Planned or Unplanned. So we've got one number to open with here to smack you in the face with and that number is 589. That is the number of UK individuals who bought a new build home in the whole of London in three months. Right? Five, eight, nine. That doesn't sound like a lot, does it? Nine million plus people. Well, first of all, we're going to discuss the Mansion House speech and Rachel Reeves swan song, obviously her last one. Um, well, you never know, I suppose. Angela Raine is back, so who knows, right? But her third one and her last one, she claimed a scorecard. She marked her own homework. Of course she did. This is her CV for her next job, apart apart from anything else, having rumored to have turned down a couple of tough cabinet appointments and decided to instead retire to the back benches. Um, fastest G7 growth at the start of the year, perhaps for about four minutes or something like that. Borrowing down from 5.2 to 4.2% of GDP. Let's just dwell on that for a moment, right, because that's not what you would think, everyone going on about the debt all the time, is it? But we were borrowing so much, we. On the back of the pandemic. This is actually a six year low in terms of our borrowing as a percentage of gdp. What's not said there is that, uh, really the old money safe limit has been deemed to be about 3% of GDP. So we're still well over that old money safe limit. Now, NHS waiting lists are falling at the fastest rate in 17 years. That's a pretty good result actually, I suppose. Although they were in charge of some of those 17 years, of course, when they've been pumping huge, huge increases in money into the NHS over that time period. But anyway, credibility plus radicalism was stated five separate times in this speech. I found it difficult to listen to, folks, I'm not going to lie. Completely missed out the unemployment rate of 4.9% going the wrong way. Didn't talk about the shrinking payrolls. You know, one glancing mention of Inflation, you know, eight days before today's print that was, you know, good, but not good, is it? When you're still well above the target. Huge gap between the mansion house economy picture that she painted or her digital CV or whatever you want to call it versus Chris Watkins numbers here folks. And that's the gap that the new government are going to inherit what survives her secure anomics. I'm not sure it'll be a phrase everyone will remember with fondness. Um, but the active state is now shared ground between the outgoing chancellor, the new PM and the new Chancellor. The only argument will be about which version. And you know this is a good point that I heard on a podcast this week and that you can extend it to the treasury as well. A lot of what you know, Starmer and Reeves are now significantly invested in what Burnham and Healey do, right? Because if they do well, they can turn around and say, well apart from anything else, they did this because we put the right things into place for them. So we set the goal up and they were able to knock the penalty in. Big deal. Anybody can do that. If they do badly, it's going to reflect badly on the legacy of Starmer and Reeves. So much to. Starmer might not like Berlin that much for doing what he's done. He is tied to him, uh, inevitably for whatever he decides to do with the rest of his time apart from being on the back benches. But our uh, $64,000 question, there was this bank capital release of up to 150 billion of additional lending capacity. Well that's come at a good time, hasn't it? Because mortgage approved mortgage demand was down over 10% for May in the figures that we saw. Not ideal, I think you'd agree. Aside from anything else. But good for us realistically because it means more competition in the lending sector. It means lenders cutting margins in order to compete. Um, so nationwide have committed 40 billion of extra lending uh, that they're allowed to do within the rules around more pushing for more than five times um, incomes apart from those they can go to six times or even higher if they want to. Um, the flow limit as it's known them. Them being the, the one bank that are taking that on most directly and interpret interpreting the rules as they're perfectly and legally entitled to and perhaps have even been encouraged to apart from anything else. But will it, will it manifest as mortgages, will it be SME loans? Will it be buybacks? Well, land banks lend into demand ultimately and demand at uh, current rates is the constraint that they're facing. But what do we need to watch? Well, regional leaders getting a share of national taxes. Is that going to happen? Income tax and business rates. I mean that'd be a huge structural change to how growth gets funded in a lifetime. If it survives the treasury and it hands the old PM's old job in Manchester rather a lot of muscle, which is quite convenient and I'm sure relatively coincidental. Um, and then the digital sovereign bond mooted the first in the G7 early next year year. Um, new packaging for the same product. Right. Um, do we need more guilts? Is that what we're doing this stuff for? I've spoken in the past about having war bonds. I said Sunak should have done it in 2021. Apart from anything else to help get over Covid, we can look at defense bonds. We can look at all sorts of things. Digital sovereign bonds is a, uh, one way of doing it. Um, if you want to really get subscription for these issues with people, of course what you do is you offer things like inheritance tax break breaks. You already don't pay capital gains tax on government bonds if you buy and sell them. Apart from anything else, there's no cgt. So people already like that. But what if you took them outside of the inheritance tax net? That might attract a few people. Might net. So when I went to print with the supplement last Sunday, it was nailed on. It was going to be Shabana Mahmood. There were various posts that I did about um, was according to the Financial Times, uh, I don't remember them ever being that wrong before but they indeed were wrong. Um, Sterling had hit a one year high but then Burnham appointed Healey ultimately at the end of the day. So the reporting was really confidence built on positioning really. And also the markets loved. Not Miliband. They didn't necessarily love Mahmood, although they do very much like I think as a general rule what she's achieved in the home office. Um, so as I say, John Healey, former Defense Secretary, former Housing Minister and now the second Chancellor Healey as it goes after Dennis, we don't really want to remember Dennis too much was remembered for saying things like we'll squeeze the rich until the pips squeak. I don't think we've got another. Another Healey like that. I hope at this point in time. Um, little bit of blue labor. Yeah. Not as much as Mahmoud would have been. There's uh, there's an element of which he prefers to identify with the soft left. More of a Brownite really as far as Labour is concerned and you know, a former cabinet minister from the old administration before the 2010 coalition took over. Now, ah, Blue Labour is a deeply conservative socialism, all about family, faith and work, uh, with this car Polanyi behind it all. But the state is the one who constrains capital and makes markets deliberately dangerous stuff, interventionalist economics, isn't it, really? Um, Maurice Glassman, Lord Glassman had said that Mahmood was the movement, the Blue Labor Movement's de facto leader. Right. But she's staying at the Home Office, so it's going to be some funny Dynamics really, between 10 and 11. It looks like Burnham might have appointed someone who he wants to influence significantly, rather than a Reeve Starmer kind of relationship where Reeves was given a brief to sort of try and get on with it, apart from anything else. Right, so let's see. A politics built on genuine reciprocity would be a massive upgrade on the decade of landlord bashing from one side that we've been experiencing over the last 10 plus years. And also the stake bashing from the other side. I've argued on both sides of this over the years, ultimately, but the risk is the gap between the poetry and the spreadsheet. Laying down the law to the market is a fine slogan until the market in question is needed to buy your guilts apart from anything else. At which point the law lane gets negotiated very, very quickly and very quietly. But the real rumor of a bit of discipline was worth a rally about a week ago. But look, the appointment is not the test. The test is the autumn budget. They did talk about an emergency budget, but they've decided not to do it, probably because there is no emergency. And it would seem silly to do one, um, spending review already committed. Revenue undershooting, um, the market, pricing the next movement up in the bond yields in the bank of England base rate. And this will be a fiscal debut on the biggest stage that there is, folks. So watch the appointments and watch the red book. Don't watch the essays. Okay? And then rent controls openly on this exploration list. Let's get into our third item, which is about rent controls. The Re UK paper. Rent Controls Risk Worsening the Housing Crisis, handily released last week. Right. Two days before the uh, PM went into, uh, was. Was confirmed finally as the new pm, apart from anything else, before he went to kiss hands with the king. Um, and this is the industry's opening letter to number 11. Right. Prophetic timing, Exhibit A, you won't be surprised to hear. And if you've listened regularly, you'll know I've talked about it before Scotland, the rent cap that was legislated in 2022, capping the in tenancy increase in rents aside from anything else. Now they capped at 0% to start with. And that was the big mistake that they made. Right, folks, new let rents went up 15% in Edinburgh in that year, 14% in Glasgow, and it wasn't a nationwide thing because in England they went up 4.1% even though there was the same or a similar level of inflation apart from anything else. Right, So a massive difference around 700 million pounds of build to rent in Scotland was paused or withdrawn over a three month period. After that, that rent gap was announced. Not small money for the Scottish market. 700 million quids worth of building. Two and a half billion identified as being at risk of leaving entirely sitting tenants briefly protected. But every mover, every student, every future renter, every new household paid a massive entry fee for a minor amount of protection to those tenants. And of course what happened after the cap went from 0% to 3%? And they would have been much better off to say inflation folks, but they said 3%. Everybody put their rents at 3% apart from those who went for the 6% special dispensation for people who could prove that their costs had gone up. Of course people could prove their costs have gone up. It was one of the worst, most ridiculous pieces of legislation that I've ever seen. Right, okay. We're talking about 4.7 million households in the PRs in England, a sector that's 52 bigger than it was in 2008. 19 of the landlords considering exit and 66,0 saying they would exit if there were rent controls. Right, so look, we've got to look at both these stated intentions. I'm always skeptical. I will do this. I will. Okay, it's happened. Oh, I might do it tomorrow is usually what we see. But still, 60% is a lot. Um, so we do need to bear that in mind. We have to look at action, not intention. Surveys, ultimately. And then what about the quality mechanism? Well, the social sector's 1% annual rent cut from 2016 was followed by 7.3% fall in major repair spending. So if you cap that income while the costs rise, then the adjustment comes out of the roof, the boiler and the damp proofing at the end of the day. And then a committee holds hearings into the deterioration that it voted for, ridiculously enough. And then don't forget our EPCFC by 2030. We'll obviously hear more from, uh, Fanboule about all of that. But ultimately are we going to see it now? Is that going to happen by 2030? You know, raising that mandatory quality floor whilst considering capping the income that funds compliance is disinvestment with a moral glow in my opinion. Build to rent starts. London's 3065 starts down to 613 down 80%. Regions down 37% and then 2025 starts had also been suppressed by building safety regulator delays. So this whole collapse piece has got more than one father in terms of build to rent starts, apart from anything else. And uh, there's only really one model. One answer that works, you'll be pleased to hear in this paper. Finland. Helsinki built ahead of demand on purpose for years. Vacancies of 8 to 10%. Rents growing about 1% a year, falling in real terms. Landlords offering incentives to tenants. The state made the market, the market did the redistributive work that caps pretend to. But ultimately how are you going to address that level of supply that's needed in the UK? Even with 100,000 social homes a year, you're still going to have more than a million on the waiting list for several years. Not going to be, not going to be easy to do folks. And then the position that I've held, that I've held for absolutely years, rent controls are bad economics with excellent polling which makes them permanently dangerous. Right. The honest counter is the supply case made relentlessly, not shouting about Venezuela or whatever. And then the fourth part of the deep dive this week, a Molly or paper about residential development in London. This was Q2's data. Uh, so this is those 589 people who bought a new home in London in three months. Nine million plus people. 589. So not even 900 of 9 million, which would be 1 in 10,000 folks. Not even that bought a new home in London. So excluding corporate deals, active sales outlets average 0.3 sales per week, week. So basically one sale a month really per suite. Near enough, right. Sales running at 13 of ah, roughly 22000 a quarter. That's needed to sustain this. 88000 homes a year target in London. London's contribution to the one and a uh, half million homes target is not being missed by a small margin. It's been missed by an order of magnitude folks. Now the unsold mountain is growing as well. 4,629 homes complete and unsold, highest Molly or has ever recorded. 13,770 under construction. Unsold 27 oh, 4 unsold homes, M halted, part built. Work stopped at 1 in 5 projects, 56 developments padlocked. 3,913 part built homes, weathering remediation, compounding monthly and then starts up 82% on a building safety regulator suppressed 2025. Right, but still 13% of the target. So I mean this was, we, we talked about this number last year when it was about 6 or 7% where Sadiq Khan was at with his target. So up to 13 now with an 82% increase in activity. Um, London Square plus Berkeley, uh, actually account for 40% of all the private starts in London. So not a market, a duopoly with a long tail built by two decades of hostility to SMEs in the house building sector. What about Plan B? Well, 52% of the quarter's absorption was built to rent and block deals. Institutions taking blocks off developers hands at discounts that stay politely unquoted. If institutions can build portfolios that way, a state wanting social housing at pace could do precisely the same. The 85-90p in the pound logic that I've talked about, this is the idea that the state, the local authority or whoever, probably the local authority, offers to buy from landlords who want to sell at 85 to 90 pence in the pound. Right? So the state immediately builds a balance sheet. It's all funded with debt. It's going to bring revenue in straight away and those can be repurposed, uh, as social homes if the, if the existing tenants are not already on benefits. You don't have to go around evicting people. It can be particularly organic. There's no big issue there, apart from anything else. And the state borrows to invest, it immediately gets net assets on its balance sheet because it bought them cheaply. Aside from anything else, it could give itself a stamp duty break as well, of course. Just like Angela Rayner did. Oh, sorry, I thought we'd forgotten about that one. But clearly some of us haven't. Um, okay, what about the 2028 cliff? Well, 70% of current construction will be completed by the end of next year, end of 2027, leaving 8,750 homes forecast on site in January 2028. So 140 of London's 166 active developers would effectively exit simply by not starting the next job. Industries demobilized far faster than they remobilize folks, so we need to remember that. And then the, the sober, uh, words of Molly, or the confession if you will, the pre sale buy to let investor Was the ignition system of development finance removed by deliberate policies and success successive governments. The 3% stamp surcharge, uh, now 5% of course section 24, the ratchet and the engine now will not start. And the arbitrage, it left investors selling 5 to 15 year old stock at 20 plus percent below comparable new build level. Now a thousand units in Canary Wharf alone are available for sale on the market right now. Below replacement cost documented at district scale. Not easy money. There's service charges, there's cladding legacies, there's lease terms. They all need forensic work, folks. But pricing you go years without seeing. There really are some deals out there in London at the moment. I'm hearing some friends and colleagues of mine who are doing much better deals than that. 35% below previous prices in London. I'm um, not saying it's 35 below today's prices, folks, please note, but 35% below prices from a few years ago, quite, quite ridiculous really. So how do we avert this cliff? Well, rates need to fall meaningfully. Good work with that at the moment because it's not happening anytime soon. If it does, it's because we've had a recession and something, an unusual black swan has come along. Not that there are usual black swans, I should say. Um, that's a double emphasis that I didn't need there. Apart from anything else. Um, will we see the state by stock at scale? I don't think it's a bad idea. I'd like us to look into it, to be honest with you, but I don't think it'll be happening anytime soon. Or a mass market product shift. Right. So we can only really be confident about the first one. Uh, rates will fall at some point, somewhat meaningfully. But what's the time scale? Nobody's controlling that one at the moment. Years, I would say. Right. Blue labor, incidentally say that housing is critical. National infrastructure. Um, but the budget will tell you what they actually believe. Because like I said, everyone said growth, growth, growth, cut regulations or everyone. Rachel Reeve said that. Uh, and she didn't do it, did she? She didn't do it. And Keir Starmer didn't do it. It didn't happen. Um, so whenever a door threatens to open, you know, when there's opportunity, we're always looking at it. If you go and look at the written supplement on my LinkedIn, you will see I go into some detail about all of that and especially that Molly or report apart from anything else. So here's a few seed questions. So bits and bobs I've been asked on LinkedIn or via WhatsApp or, or on any of the presentations or anything I've given over the last week or so. Uh, should I be waiting for the first John Healy budget before I fix my mortgage rates? No, you shouldn't. Right. The five year swaps moved from 4.23 to 4.37 since Friday. So if you can take a product today at, uh, Old Money, certainly, if it starts with a five point something in a limited company, get up with no fee, get on with it. Apart from anything else, the one year bank rate expectation 4.28%. The market says the next move is up. Not in a yaz and the plastic population kind of way. The only way is up. But the next move is up. Right. Take your price certainty now, ask for a rate drop review later. Uh, any rally will be a bonus. It's not a plan to wait for it. Question 2. Rent controls are being explored. So should I sell? Well, watch the mechanism before you act. Scotland's in tenancy cap, remember? Put 15% on Edinburgh New Lets and pause 700 million quid of investment. Every previous panic transferred stock from the leveraged amateur to the prepared operator. So decide which one of those camps you want to be in and why. And if you need to move, make the skill. Get the skills together and make the moves that you need to make. Is 2.6% inflation the all clear for cuts? Well, services at 3.6 and core at 2.6 say no. And oil at 91. 192 says not yet. Right. Next Thursday is going to be a hold with, uh, a new forecast round and the vote split will matter more than the decision. How about half of these homes leaving agents books unsold? Should I hold off selling? That would be the wrong lesson to take, folks. 49.1% that withdrew mostly. Chase the valuation price to the market on day one and you're in the half the exchanges then. Then the coin flip is a pricing choice, not a coin. Okay, and then the last one is London new build carnage. A buying signal or a buying opportunity? Well, the published arbitrage is secondhand. Right. Five to 15 year old stock, 20% below or more. Um, comparable new build. But what new build premium are you paying? What do the service charges look like? You know the dangers of this leasehold stuff. But if you're below replacement cost, I like it. Right. Forensic due diligence on service charges, cladding and leases earns you your discount. I'm certainly not saying no at the moment. I'm not buying in London, so you're very clear about where I'm at. But that's because the yields still don't stack up and I can't make it work. And then the big high purchase prices, the stamp duty is utterly punishing as well. Apart from anything else. Okay, so remember this folks, as your takeaway. There is a shortage of two to three bed terraces and semis. There was one 15 years ago when I started in this game and it's worse today. Investing in property is not a guaranteed win. Indeed, I was helping a consultancy client this week who's in an unfortunate situation where she's put a huge amount of money into a jv. She hasn't kept money behind, she doesn't have money behind. Looks like she's probably metaphorically business perspective got into bed with the wrong person. And I'm trying to help her, uh, extricate herself from that situation, but. Not funny, right? Not big, not clever, not funny. Okay. Investing in property is not a guaranteed win as uh, unfortunately she is learning. And the long end of the curve, long end of the guilt is above five and a half percent. New money is costing you six in a limited company. First budget still to land discipline on leverage and loan to value is going to earn its keep this month, um, as much as any as I can remember. But look, if you stick to buying below replacement cost it in, in areas that are undervalued with a little bit of a discount, right? They're strong on the spreadsheet, they're strong on yield in a market quietly repricing in real terms rather than crashing in nominal ones, which is exactly where we are. That remains as close to a guarantee as this gaming property has ever offered. The houses are not being built and the people still need somewhere to live, right? So things have moved, right? New prime minister in the building, new chancellor next door to him, new ideology on the bookshelf and the fundamentals have not moved an inch because of that housing supply issue. Keep calm and carry on folks. So don't forget Manchester. Next Property Business Workshop, 1st of October. It's a Thursday. Joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions with my erstwhile business partner in these ventures, Rod Turner. Check out his Rodcast. If you've never checked it out before, it's a great piece of work. And it's some fantastic, phenomenal evergreen conversations on there that will stand, and I've already have stood some of them, the test of time apart from anything else. What about next time out? Oh, by the way, sorry, if you Want to book on the workshop? You have got a 20% discount opportunity. Remember with those super early bird tickets. Follow the link www.tinyurl.compbW Octo6pbW Opt 26 or it's down there in the show notes folks, if you want to come along and meet myself and Rod if you've never been to one before, okay, next time out we're going to have a monetary Policy Committee meeting decision to talk about. So that won't be this Sunday supplement. Next Sunday supplement hoping to get on a live in the interim week. But I am finding it challenging to find the time at the moment folks. I'm afraid there's a full monetary policy report at the next bank of England meeting. That's my idea of Christmas come early, folks. So there'll be a full breakdown on all of that. Um, we'll be talking about John Healey's moves first, first moves as Chancellor in a proper way with a few more days to reflect on them. And let's then test if Chris Watkins World cup bounce does come back to the market. But please, please look in the show notes, look in the description for the links to subscribe to the supplement. I really appreciate it. I'm coming up to two and a half thousand subscribers on the YouTube channel. So if you've been listening along folks, please could you give me a subscribe. I'd really like to get to that 2500 number. It would be great and it will help me with reach of the supplement and it'll help me get more attention of more people who feed me some great hints and tips and those sources who prefer to remain anonymous of course. Don't forget the workshop. Thank you for tuning in. Um, and one more time folks, keep calm and carry on and I'll see you next week.