Owning your own home

Fuck it: this house is meant to be a nice place for me to live, not some kind of speculative investment.

This.

Yes, go for it.
Beware of the risks but remember in the worst case you will still have somewhere to live. The only way to survive serious negative equity is to stay where you are, take in lodgers if you have to.
I can't agree with all your analysis.

Fundamentally, the housing market is about supply and demand, because everyone needs somewhere to live.

Is not true. Like it or not the housing market is all about speculative investment. For a couple of decades now property has been the best place to store your wealth and get a better return than anywhere else. That has been overheated by £billions of foreign cash coming in, looking for somewhere to hide.
There is a slight risk of a big collapse, but in that case the government will have to do something to protect millions of people like you. And also to protect the banks that depend on your mortgage payments. So hang in there and don't panic.

Like it or not the housing market is all about speculative investment

Not really true either, I don't think. Even though large numbers of people have been investing in the market speculatively , most of the houses they bought are still lived in. Ok, so there's a very, very small number of "buy-to-leave" properties kept empty — but even if these were all sold, my guess is that there would still be more people wanting to live in London than there are houses available for them.

Since 2011 London population has increased by around 120k every year. If Brexit and cheap Pound mean people are moving elsewhere in Europe there could be a lot less demand. Apparently house prices in Fulham ave dropped 10%, partly because of expats moving back to Europe.

I think you'll likely see a hollowing out of the core type effect as HNW/rHNW individuals bugger off.

Of course, those might be replaced by those seeking to evade taxes in the New, Improved, UK-Laundry, although we've got something of a frosty relationship with the Russians at the moment.

You'll also see a lot of EU citizens moving away I am sure - we've been total wankers to them for years now, which will take out another ring, maybe zones 1-3?

That said, I'd put some money on Hammond being PM before November, and he'll likely stop the whole thing (if he possibly can).

expats

immigrants*

Would you be OK if interest rates went up, say 4%? Savings rate in the UK is very low and personal debt high, that could be a bigger issue than just a drop in value.

If he does stop it before the real panic sets in, leave voters will argue that he undermined Brexit from the start and that the EU would have flinched first if not for him. It would likely stay a divisive issue for a long time.

Yeah, an interest-rate hike is possibly more concerning than a property market crash. Given that mortgage offers are stress tested, and I'm not maxing out my mortgage allowance, I'm kind of trusting/hoping/praying that I'll be ok.

Certainly if interest rates leap up, millions of mortgagees are going to be screwed, which probably would cause a property market crash — possibly even a multi-national recession a la 2008 — which is why the Bank of England will probably go to almost any length to avoid a sharp rise.

Who knows, maybe the combined efforts of the government/BoE won't be enough to hold off such a situation. Maybe we'll all be screwed. But I like to try and stay optimistic.

If he does stop it before the real panic sets in, leave voters will argue that he undermined Brexit from the start and that the EU would have flinched first if not for him. It would likely stay a divisive issue for a long time.

I don't see a way that this current period ends without there being a split in the Conservative party, with one part welding permanently with UKIP and the other moving more to the centre-right.

which is quite ironic considering that Cameron started this shit storm as a half arsed attempt to weld the party together.

For anyone with access to the link and thinking of buying this is worth a read.

Eight questions every first-time buyer should ask -
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/08/17/1534478400000/Eight-questions-every-first-time-buyer-should-ask/ via @FT

The two terms aren’t synonymous, through, are they? ‘Immigrant’ conveys a permanence that ‘expat’ doesn’t, I think.

I disagree. Expat is a white immigrant but they are referred to as expats because that doesn’t have the negative connotations that immigrant now has, thanks to the right.

You're both right...
You get people who are called expats that are permanent, but often hold onto their own culture (Brits who retire abroad).
You also get expats who aren't white but have moved temporarily (usually for a good job).
Temporary white immigrants to the UK aren't really called expats unless they're from English speaking countries. Americans maybe, Germans no (as a generalisation). Especially if they're relatively poor. Eg. Central and eastern Europeans here for a few years for work are never referred to as expats.
Some people use the terms without racial connotation, based on permanence/intent, but obviously there is a wider bias in how the words are used.

There's also a slight difference in whether you'd call yourself an expat or an immigrant, and whether other people and the media would. Maybe people would call me an expat if I moved abroad because I'm British even though I'm not white. To me there's a kind of colonial echo to the word and I'm not likely to call myself an expat. I also think it's a word that non-native English speakers are unlikely to use so even if Europeans might be referred to as expats by other people when they are here, they would call themselves immigrants.

Yep. Expats are middle class white people who send their kids to private schools. Everyone else is an immigrant. They are still allowed to own their own home [keeping on topic]

Expat: not expected to integrate.
Immigrant: called out for not integrating.

Plus inflation has eroded your debt in the same period.

Anyone want to buy my house? @Dammit?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-67175977.html

What weird edits have been made to those photos? It looks like a sims house.

Some kind of dodgy HDR program.

They're re-doing some photography middle of next week.

If you're in London (doesn't really look like it) you might find your council has an arrangement with the City of London to collect asbestos - Enfield does:

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/waste-and-recycling/household-waste-and-recycling/Pages/Hazardous-Waste.aspx

Maybe your local council has a similar thing?

Love that garden, but holy cow, that post processing on those pics...

I thought they were screen grabs from The Sims