Thursday, December 21, 2006

Forecasts for 2007 (1)

Lombard Street Research forecasts UK house prices could rise by another 15 per cent next year. The fools. They aren't even close. House prices outside London will remain flat or fall slightly. Inside London they will rise to the point where any form of shelter more luxurious than a cardboard box in Old Street tube station will be affordable only by eerily glowing Russian oligarchs. Central London a year hence will thus be a)Russian speaking b)radioactive and c)oligarchical. More prophecies when my inner voice speaks. Or, of course, you may have your own.

3 comments:

  1. The cardboard box market in Dublin is very buoyant right now. This form of shelter, sometimes referred to as an apartment by those suffering from a rare form of frontal lobe dementia that predominantly affects journalists who write for property supplements, can comfortably accommodate a five foot two, agoraphobic, multimillionaire with no children, no pets and no friends. Luckily, we don't have too many eerily glowing Russian Oligarchs, but we have plenty of cheerily gloating estate agents and speculators.

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  2. Or in the case of the outskirts, Poles? I rarely venture into central london apart from to work in it, but out here in the Styx, I have noted a huge increase in Polish conversations while queueing up in John Lewis (that's what we do with our time out here).
    Not much in the way of Russians, though -- I think they are all over in Chobham down the road, where Chelsea has its practice ground.

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  3. Bryan, I was under the impression that London was already radioactive and oligarchical. You definitely have a gift for seeing into the present - two out of three ain't bad. In fact, it's uncanny.

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