Housing

Today's topic is a departure from the normal betting flavour, but is a subject that is relevant to both me personally (I'm trying to move), and also on the lips of the current government as they try and 'sort' the problem...

Anyway the topic is one that has occupied Britain for decades, and will continue to do so far into the future...

It is ......... housing ....... and rather than wallow in my moving stasis I thought I'd take the long view on the overall situation in the country with a historic lens...

The post will not split down on regionalism, instead looking at the whole of the UK. London property in particular has grown more than regional property - and I believe property in the south of England has gone up rather more than the north.

These might be explored further in later blogs - and of course everyone's individual mileage varies - for now this one looks at overall averages across the whole of the UK.

First up lets have a look at the headline picture - house price growth since 1971: (Source ONS)

The 'crash' of the early 90s is in there (Though it was more of a flatlining in the round), and the 2007 correction. We can also clearly see the mid 90s -> mid 2000s  at least tripling of prices.

Of course wages have also increased from 1971 to now. Here is a plot of the average wage (I'm ignoring skew for the sake of simplicity) added to the house price graph. The source is: https://measuringworth.com/ukearncpi/ ,and both lines have been rebased to the same point.

Rising wages, rising house prices - who'd have thought it ! Although we can clearly see house prices have risen faster than wages. Anyway here is the 'ratio' graph

The local maxima are December 1973, July 1989, September 2007.

But of course there is an additional factor, the bank of England base rate - ostensibly used as a tool to control inflation - here is how that has gone from 1971 to present (The latest 0.25% increase isn't shown as the data only goes to September of this year):

From this the I'm going to derive a slightly contrived function - the average mortgage repayment (As a % of salary). The terms of the mortgage are 25 years, at the BoE base rate + 2% (This reflects that some people will be on offers, and others on bank SVR; and that the banks generally look to make a profit on mortgages !). The mortgage will repay 100% of the capital borrowed, and the mortgage is assumed to be 100% of the property value:

Anyway here goes:

The local mortgage maxima are November 1973, November 1979, the third quarter of 1989 and August to November of 2007.

Conclusion Purchasing a property financially is a game of two halves: The deposit and the mortgage repayments. Right now the deposit required for a property is historically unaffordable, but if ALL the capital could be borrowed then the mortgage repayments are historically somewhere near the global minimum due to the extremely low interest rate currently at the Bank of England.

Looking forward:

Dwelling growth continues to be outstripped by population growth1, hence the general upward trend in wage-house price ratio. Also seeing as people only need one property, the value of one's property doesn't particularly matter providing people can service the mortgage as superior properties will generally cost more, and inferior ones less.

It is also the one general purchase in life where credit almost always makes sense seeing as a use is received from housing over a lifetime, whereas the price is only paid once. This blog post doesn't have the scope to get into Buy to Let arguments beyond noting purchase of property beyond a first is to a large degree speculation.

What should be done:

The historically high house price/wage ratio makes it more difficult than at any time previously to purchase a property, though once purchased the mortgage repayments are not historically onerous. Policies such as help to buy are basically sticking plasters (And could inflate the market yet further as well as exposing the Gov't to house price risk)

A program that encourages housebuilding either directly or indirectly, and a (very) slow rising of interest rates would seem the best way out of this to me so as not to cripple the market but also return long term affordability.

1http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11113110/Three-reasons-why-Britains-housing-market-is-broken.html (Which has some interesting charts - chart 1 is the one to look at though) & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_immigration_to_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_Migration_from_1970.svg which shows immigration (I understand it doesn't show population growth but that is very highly correlated)

The "cry wolf" election.

I knocked this up June 8, before the election results came in:

Ed Miliband the Labour leader in 2015 had a broad range of policies that were not a million miles off of what Theresa May has in her SDP-Tory hybrid manifesto to bring onboard working class Labour voters.
An energy price cap here, a few modest spending increases there...
The press went after him as they have with every Labour leader forever (Except Blair) - Red Ed, mocking him for the way he ate, his late father being disgustingly attacked as a danger to the country and somehow this impacting on Miliband's standing himself. I also remember the Alex Salmond posters, not the ones portraying Ed in his pocket, but one in Broxtowe where he was shown as a burglar. He of course is nothing of the sort, and the advert for me crossed the line - however as the ASA can't regulate political advertising it could go through.
Of course Ed Miliband was emphatically NOT a danger to the country if he had attained power we'd have had no EU referendum, and Jeremy Corbyn would not be leader of the Labour party.
Anyway Ed was beaten by David and that was all history.

Fast forward to 2017 - Labour through its own incompetence now has a man who is threatening to do a left wing Donald Trump to the country, a tub thumping "For the Many not the Few" machine that has defied all political logic about how campaigns should be run, and like Trump certainly NOT playing by the established media rules. He doesn't use twitter too much himself, but his acolytes and followers do - and I have noticed that once someone succumbs to the Corbyn tendency doesn't give it up too easily. May has called an election that seems far tougher than it ought at the start, and the adoration for Corbyn amongst the young is palpable.
Moreover, he's enjoying the campaign - and I believe the Tory tools that are being thrown at him by their friends in the right wing press are simply not as effective as they should be. Jeremy Corbyn claims to be a man of peace, but he has sympathised far more readily with Britain's enemies than he has with our friends. He did give succour to the IRA, and his right hand man, John McDonnell's comments should make the whole package completely unelectable. Mo Mowlam he is NOT.
But there is a problem. The buckets of slime that were poured over Ed Miliband's head in 2015 are being chucked by the same news outlets again at Corbyn. It looks like the same monstering even though the two crimes they commit are very different - one couldn't quite eat a bacon sandwich correctly, the other finds Hezbollah a respectable organisation.
The right wing press just may have cried wolf one too many times, and perhaps the public are dismissing the warnings because of this.

Corbyn I believe will stay on even with defeat, particularly if Ed Miliband's vote total is increased (I think this will be the case now), and the movement will grow and grow. The redtops - who proclaimed our High Court judges "Enemies of the people" will have no effect on him going forward. In fact they just make his appeal greater.

Australia; Chaos with the Cons and Brexit...

So it looks like my Osborne prediction went up the swanney, though Brexit was kind bettingwise to me (God knows what the country does though)

Anyway

A letter to ABC Aus:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I do not understand how the seat of Flynn is being projected for Labour (yet). Taking data from 2013, the 2 party result was Dowd 48352 vs Trevor 37178 = 85530 2 party votes

Now according to the data there were 10492 postal ballots in 2013 - stripping these out yields a result of: 41113 vs 33926 = 75039

54.78% vs 45.22%. According to @_ctnews the postals split 69% to O'Dowd. Which means he overperformed "on the day" by 14.22%

Taking this year's results he has 48.5 (On the day) +14.22 = 62.72% (Expected overperform) for the postal 9518 votes 62.72% = 5969 + 3548 (Beers)

Which yields a net gain of 2421 votes

Which means O'Dowd wins by ~ 363 votes

Also the electorate seems to have shrunk, and taking into account expected informal ballots I actually think O'Dowd will win by more.

Anyway I'd predict all the "in doubt" seats will go Lib coalition (13), with the possible exception of "Grey" to yield a result of

Labor 66
Coalition 78
Xenophon Team 2
Greens 1
Others 3

Lindsay, Longmann not 100% certain yet either - though I haven't done the maths on these.

Thanks,

James

Can honestly see a repeat in miniature of the Austrian postal 'catch up' here.

US Race:
No price more visibly demonstrates the utter lunacy of the Betfair markets than Bloomberg being rated as a ~ 0.5% chance for the GOP nominee.

My cat has more chance of being president than this happening. Namely Bloomberg ain't entering the GOP convention. He's very unlikely to run, but certainly not as GOP nominee.

The market has been mad, completely mad.

One word - There is no point in putting Hillary +ve at the moment, absolubtely none. But don't make her too big -ve right now as she has 3% of Sanders price to absorb.

So POTUS

++ Trump
++ Cruz
+ Biden
+ Kasich
0 Rubio
0 Clinton
-- Sanders

If you are starting De Novo right now, laying Sanders and backing Trump and Cruz might be the best way to go.

October update.

An intermittent update.

Corbyn is now the Labour leader, and despite chucking money away by laying him at over 100-1 I managed to buy a couple of pounds at around 500. That represents my total profit on the event and well despite thinking I could have earnt more a grand in hand is worth a thousand pounds.
So thank you very much Jeremy !

He's also worth backing to keep his job in my view (For a while anyway...) betting on the obvious is normally a good way to make money in politics, Victor was 4-6 for him still to be in in 2017 which looks fair enough. Labour are also not doing so well in the polls but they're not in the catastrophic twenties, and the only Labourite who has a pair and would perhaps be willing to launch a coup is Watto who has problems of his own. Take the Victor bet if its still up at anything over 1-2.

The by-election in Oldham West and Royton is a penalty kick for Labour, and Skybet's 2-9 is a very generous price if still available. This is a sub 1-10 bet in reality.

On the London Mayoralty, 5-6;6-5 is probably correct, and I'm currently long Zac. We shall see though closer to the time. If Khan goes above Evens he is a buy but he will probably remain around 8-11.

Now onto Con next leader. I think though there are many runners and riders, one stands out in particular. George Osborne looks like he will run in my book and is a back at the current price of 2-1.

In the States, surely Hilary is unstoppable for the Dems, thankyou Paddy for the 5-6 on Iowa which she must be hot favourite for. I'm positive Clinton and roughly neutral on Sanders. Surely Lessig is in reality a true 1000-1 or longer shot, and there are no other runners.

It'll be Clinton....

The republican race meanwhile is the greatest circus in town with all the fruit loops (Trump; Carson; Cruz) crowding out the more moderate and sensible choices (Bush; Rubio). I'd say lay them all, but one MUST win ! Hopefully Carson will come into single figures soon on the betfair exchange so we can start laying him. Small stakes only on this one.

Well got the big call wrong, but hey ho - the list as long as your arm of Conservative and SNP constituency bets made sure it was a very decent night *cough*

Anyway this site isn't a record of my p&l, but for predictions:

First one for 2020

SNP Gain DCT.

Calling it for Ed - Back Con Minority

Right - Time to put my neck on the block.

I'm calling it for Ed:

Here is why:

I fully expect the Tories to win the national vote share. The national polls point to Ed (In aggregate) being ahead on seats or it being too close to call. The likely distribution from the models (UKElect, FIsher, Hanretty) points to a Tory lead on votes and seats. BUT Here is the thing... Con + LD + DUP must equal 323. In order for Ed to NOT become PM he musty abstain the Conservative Queen speech. SNP, PC, SDLP, Green voting it down is even more sure than the Labour party. No doubt if it really is Labour 260, Tories 285 he will give it serious consideration. But then he will put forward a Labour Queen speech and DARE the SNP to vote it down. There will be some Labour rebels who will be expelled, Danczuk, Mann, perhaps one or two others.

The SNP will vote it through.. And thus as Rod Crosby has pointed towards in his constitutional musings Ed is PM. I expect him to remain in post till Holyrood 2016. Past that the SNP may well pull the plug.

However there is enough uncertainty in the whole situation to make CONSERVATIVE MINORITY the best value bet right now at 5.9 on Betfair.

How can I predict Ed, yet recommend Con minority as a bet ?

BET WHEN THE PRICE IS WRONG NOT WITH WHAT YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN.

So in short:

Prediction: Ed Miliband PM.

Bet recommendation: Conservative Minority.

Update: Lab minority more likely with Burnham's comments on R5L this morning.

(Guided) finger in the air stuff here

Unexpected Holds & Gains for each party:


Con HOLD: Brighton Kemptown
Con Gain: Bath

Labour hold: Dumfries & Galloway
Lab Gain: Ilford North

Lib Dem Hold: Berwickshire Roxburgh Selkirk
Lib Dem Gain: Watford

SNP Hold:All 1-100 shots...
SNP Gain: DCT

UKIP Hold: Rochester
UKIP Gain: Great Grimsby.

Not betting recommendations by the way !

Can the Gov't survive - a seat by seat analysis:

Seeing as the rest of parliament is basically to the left of Labour with the exception of the DUP - Well Con + DUP + LD + UKIP needs to = 323 for Dave to hang onto power.

Even at 323 it is highly dubious that the LDs don't switch sides, but we can regard it as an absolute minima.

Con/LD; SNP/Lab not important for this analysis:

LD losses to Labour according to Election forecast.

Bradford East
Brent Central
Manchester, Withington
Norwich South
Redcar
Burnley
Cardiff Central
Hornsey and Wood Green
Leeds North West
Bristol West

(10 losses to Lab)

Orkney is the 1 LD Hold against SNP (9 losses) - BRS switches LD to CON on the model.

Con losses to Lab.

6 London (Hendon, Brentford Isleworth, Enfield North, Ealing Central Acton, Croydon Central)
8 NW (Lancaster, Fleetwood, Chester, Bury North, Wirral West, Morecambe, Warrington South)
3 East (Waveney, Bedford, Ipswich)
2 Yorkshire Humber (Dewsbury, Keighley)
3 West Mids (Wolves SW, North Warks, Nuneaton)
2 SW (Plymouth, Stroud)
2 SE (Hastings, Hove)
6 East Mids (Erewash, Amber Valley, Sherwood, Lincoln, Amber Valley, Broxtowe)

The current potential centre-right coalition/confidence & supply arrangement is as follows Lib Dem total is 56, Conservatives 302, UKIP 2, DUP 8.

So  368 'forces of the centre/centre-right'

Subbing the Lab losses yields  358
The 9 SNP losses gives 349.

And then the  32 Conservatives gives 313..

To begin to have a prayer of staying as PM, 10 Holds are needed from this lot, and also crucially no losses 'off the list'.

Scotland looks to be a fair reflection, as even though some argue East Dunbartonshire might stay Lib Dem (Or even Thurso), DCT and BRS could both well go to the SNP... particularly BRS. Dumfries & Galloway could even be a CON gain. Though this is unlikely. Nine losses to the SNP looks about right to me.

With the Lab gains from LD 

Brent Central
Manchester, Withington
Norwich South
Redcar
Burnley
Cardiff Central
Bristol West

Are all surely dead. If Bristol West doesn't go red, it is going Green and that is of no use to Dave whatsoever.

Hornsey and Wood Green looks fairly dead too, and there are some arguments that Ward PV may hold Bradford East.

Leeds North West is odds against, but then again Birmingham Yardley and Sheffield Hallam could be brought into play.

Eight is a working minimum here.

Which gives 351 seats.

So 28 is the absolute and complete minimum no of seats Dave needs to stop shipping...

The Labour seat total is almost immaterial, it is all about the above group hitting 323

Even then it may not be enough.

 

  
  

The value of Edward Samuel Miliband

The model from Electionsetc currently gives Conservatives a 20% probability of forming the next Gov't.

On the Betfair Markets this is currently 9/9.2 (10.9% probability)

I'm reasonably neutral on this, having enough to cover various NOM bets within Con Green.

Con Largest Party is rated at 75%

On the Betfair markets Con Most seats is 1.63/1.65 which resembles a 60% chance.

So both of these are actually backable. Except listening to experienced gamblers both aren't great value at the moment.

Now we come to Ed PM - rated at 42% - William Hills has a bet at the moment Ed Miliband to be PM on August 1st.

So the 6-4 on this is value if you believe the Correct Con Seats should be 1.33 and Con Maj should be 5.0.

Also given recent polling 47 seats for the SNP looks like a roughly even money bet - which reinforces Fisher's reasoning...

The expected performance of the SNP making it tricky for Labour to actually get most seats. But they don't need to for Ed to become PM... If Con + Lib Dem + DUP < 323 he is PM pretty much nailed on as SDLP, PC, SNP, LAB will vote down a Tory Queens Speech.

He then becomes minority PM or forms a minority coalition with the Lib Dems to get through English only matters.

It's unlikely that a Gov't will fall or take past August to form whatever it's shape so anyway this is my tip of the day.

Examining the Fisher models and the current odds.

In this blog post we'll examine the seats and votes models but this time taking a deeper look and using the models to examine what prices from the bookies may be right or not:

First up Stephen Fisher with his electionsetc model:

Elections Etc ‏@ElectionsEtc  Mar 13

With polls tied, we give the Tories a 74% chance of winning the most votes at #GE2015: http://wp.me/p4Be9H-f6  pic.twitter.com/smJnfrFwBt.

Clearly at the inception of this model "crossover" was predicated alot earlier than the seeming point it is at right now with the parties bang level.

Nevertheless we are where we are, and the 74% chance suggests that neither 3.5 Labour most votes nor 1.3 Conservatives is value (Bookies best prices). Indeed it points to bookies using this model for their prices, whether this is the case or just a coincidence at the moment is however not clear.

Next we see that the model has Labour seats at 45%, with Conservative seats at 55%.

The 1.48/1.49 price for Conservatives on Betfair most seats is wrong according to this model and it should be 1.81/1.82.

This is even accepting that 3-10 is the correct price on the Conservatives for most votes is correct (With bookie overround factored in) as indicated by the model.

The model also shows that Labour can get a PM in (This is most likely to be Ed but not 100% certain) with just over 50% probability (The first bit of that SNP king makers/wreckers section of the pie inevitably leads to PM Ed in my view) so the 2.6 on Ed to be PM after GE is high, even accepting that Conseratives are 1.3 for most votes !

My position holds up well to Mr Fisher's model for the overall, however I've asked them about the method of translation from votes to seats, UNS is a fair bit too generous to Labour in my view.

Will Charlie win ?

So Mr Kennedy is 5% behind "Thinking about your own seat" in the Ashcroft polling - would he be ahead if he was named though.

I don't think so, but it will be very tight on the night.

Mind you he'll do well to only lose by 3 odd %, and it'll look like a remarkably good result on the night.

Can CARMICHAEL possibly lose his seat.

I'm going to go with "No" but certainly given his role at the heart of Government I really wouldn't advise taking the 1-8 on him. Since I think the bet is a likely loser and is unlikely to be tradeable for a profit I'll leave this seat as No bet.

If you're feeling brave though, the 5-1 on him might be worth a punt.

Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Danny

Just a short post this time:

There is a quite extraordinary market on Inverness, Nairn Badenoch & Strathspey

1-3 SNP (SkyBet)

11-2 Lib Dems (Paddy Power)

50-1 Labour (Ladbrokes)

A 92% market. I think the Skybet 1-3 price is the wrong one however. Ashcroft polls put the SNP 29% ahead here.

Fill your boots on the Nats at 1-3 imo.

Hat tip @TissuePrice of the political betting.com boards.

Who will win the votes and who will win the seats ?

Lets have a look at the votes/seats for the upcoming election:

Now first stop to get away from any possible bias is to look to those judges of opinion who deal in profits, the bookies.

I'll start by looking at who may win the "Most votes"

Prices:

Conservatives 4-9
Labour 2-1
UKIP 25-1
Lib Dem 250-1
Greens 500-1

First up I'm dismissing Greens and Lib Dems straight off the bat - UKIP you could argue perhaps have a chance, though it's more likely to be of the 1000-1 or longer sort rather than 25-1.

The same argument can be run for seats, even more so - with FPTP "Most seats" is a two horse race. In Scotland it's looking like a 1 horse race, but that's not the UK wide picture.

So taking 4-9 and 2-1 we can split the difference and end up with 17-8 for Labour.

Thats a 32.0% probability. If you think the probability is over 33.3% you may wish to bet on Labour, if you think it's under 30.7% take the Tories. But for the sake of this article we'll assume the bookies are correct...

Anyway moving onto seats:

Labour are best price 7-5 and Tories are best price 8-11.

So knocking out group overround gives Lab 7-5; 11-8... 56-40; 55-40... 111/80 = 1.3875-1 = 41.9%

So now we have the Seat/vote probabilties:

Con Seats 58.1%
Lab Seats 41.9%

Con votes 68%
Lab votes 32%

Now to get down to business on the vote-seat split shares...

First up let us examine the rank outsider:

Labour votes; Conservative seats.

It is almost certain that if Labour win the most votes then they win the most seats. Note the way round this is:

Lab Votes => Lab Seats; I am saying nothing about Labour seats.

However there are some potential flies in this ointment - if Labour have an exceptionally awful night in Scotland (I am talking wipeout), they pile up votes in Northern and London heartlands and Conservative marginal candidates perform exceptionally well against a backdrop of UKIP eating into huge safe majorities but not winning them... then it could happen

Lab votes/Conservative Seats. But it is very unlikely. I've bought this at 50-1, you can make a case that is poor value... you might be right. Certainly 2% is the highest probability we shall asign this scenario.

So Lab Votes Conservative Seats = 2%

Now we can fill the rest in quite easily:

Lab Votes Lab Seats is necessarily the remainder of Labour votes = 30%.

Now we have Con Seats, Lab votes at 2%, we can quickly deduce that Con Seats, Con votes should be 56.1%

And adding to 100%:

Lab votes Con seats 2%
Lab votes Lab seats 30%
Con votes Con seats 56.1%

Which means that Con votes; Lab Seats =  11.9%.

Checking the numbers:

Lab votes = 30 + 2 % = 32%
Lab seats = 30 + 11.9% = 41.9%

So the maths looks OK.

Anyway lets check this against Paddy Power's market:

Con Seats Con votes 5-6
Lab votes Lab Seats 2-1
Con votes Lab Seats 9-4
Lab votes Con seats 33-1

I'll keep their overrounds in this time as we are checking for value:

54.5%  Con Seats Con votes
33.3%  Lab votes Lab seats
30.7% Con votes Lab Seats
2.9% Lab votes Con seats.

So we can deduce  Con Seats Con votes is the best price at 5-6, and is very marginally value if you believe the seats and votes markets are correct.

Otherwise none of the other prices are value, or you might want to take the 33-1, but it's sketchy. The sum total of Con seats comes to 57.4% which means you might want to take both.

The Labour prices, particularly the Con votes, Lab seats is abominable and all the overround is there on this analysis. The Lab votes, Lab seats price is horrendous too.

You may also want to look at this article: http://www.ncpolitics.uk/2014/12/the-skew-aka-electoral-bias-which-party.html/ for another perspective on the "skew" too.

Labour most votes at 2-1 might be worth a punt if you aren't involved, or Labour 7-5 for seats. But definitely not Con votes, Lab seats at Paddy's prices ;)








 

Will naming the Lib Dems help them out ?

So - is this http://may2015.com/featured/introducing-the-new-statesman-political-index-lib-dems-to-win-at-least-30-seats/ comfort polling or are the Lib Dems going to outperform all expectations in May ?

Up against the catastrophic ratings for the Lib Dems in the national polls are the seemingly almost invincible "local" candidates - but are they... probably not.

I'm taking a mixed view on this - and also noting the constituencies MISSED in the report, and there are two big ones from a betting PoV

Wells & Somerton and Frome.

Wells could just be an omission, but given the selection problems in Somerton & Frome surely this confirms by omission that the Lib Dems are dead here.

Anyway it was slightly concerning to see Solihull in that list (I can well believe given what I've heard anecdotally that mentioning her name gives the yellows a boost...) Do I think she can hang on... No. The Green party standing there lessens her chances too imo. Nevertheless given my slightly high exposure there I've decided to take some stake back by rebacking the Lib Dems at 10-3.

Somerton and Frome has no such incumbent MP advantage and despite the slightly higher majority enjoyed there looks more dead than Solihull to me, so I've topped up slightly on the CONs at 4-11.


Note I believe they'll both fall, but its a question of odds and so I've acted accordingly.

A randomly found General Election result.

Some food for thought with a randomly found General Election prediction spreadsheet...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KQxY1NQVHUPR4ezte23z_zz3LscUrDY21NLQMubeK6w/pubhtml#

Some of the results look eminently sensible - Torbay for instance, but the predicted 35.2% for Lib Dems in North East Derbyshire looks other worldly.

Anyone care to own up to this GE prediction :) ?

Hello,

And welcome to my blog. I've been endlessly spamming up my Facebook with political betting tips and am a regular contributor on politicalbetting.com. So I've decided to create this blog as a repository for my political thoughts and perhaps a few tips.

Anyway here's my first post regarding two parties who are seemingly going to suffer very different fortunes at the General Election.

The Lib Dems and the SNP:

It's unfortunate for the Lib Dems that the only people on the centre/centre-right who may well notice that they have broadly been a good egg and decent partner in Government are the very same people who may spot their underhandedness in the boundary changes. Yet if those boundary changed had gone through they could be facing almost total wipeout rather than the expected 27 odd seats or so.

Perhaps, in the same way the referendum could only end up with the SNP winning, as 45% is an awfully big base in a FPTP election,  the Lib Dems always were on a hiding to nothing.