I did some further research over the Christmas period and wrote a brief article on Linkedin. (January 2, 2023)
Two publications particularly emphasise the timeliness of the Home@ix customer offering.
Last Time buyers ILMA
Missing Movers CML

p.27 Missing Movers.
The level of purchases by all-cash buyers is considerable and overlooked in most analyses. The Bank of Mum and Dad
is a force to be reckoned with and provides a pretty solid bottom to any downturn at the top end of the Market, which happily we are not particularly concerned with in our own Business plan parameters.
In the attached spreadsheet named Cash buyers mortgages and stock since 2011, the highlights are the still high but falling proportion of cash buyers but a dramatic falling off of overall market transactions, SUB 700k likely for 2022 compared to 900k for the years from 2012 -2021, the last time transaction volumes were so low was 2009-11 post the 2008 meltdown. I am still digesting the import of these simple ratios which simply do not figure in popular mainstream analysis.
Wishing you both a Happy new year and thanks for your continuing support and encouragement. Shall we try and do an update call on the uptake of Deposit Unlock in the next week or so?
That was on the 2nd of January.

I have been developing an investment strategy as we go into a stagnant at best period for both the commercial and residential markets.

I did this long Blog Yesterday 

My Update between Christmas and New year had already identified the as-yet unreported alarming slowdown in Residential sales activity for both New homes and the Established homes markets.

I will look to develop a defensive acquisition strategy and continue the discussion with our equity and debt partners.

I will continue discussions and continue to look at other emerging trends of interest.

The Stalling of our own opportunities was I think a function of the extremely rapid deterioration in the Market particularly in the second half of November and through December. Many of the Large consultancy firms and now many of the Housebuilders have been laying people off. In the last Quater of 2022, this process started very discretely, and it is now making headlines.

I sent the following note to investors rationalising our withdrawal from a major £30 m plus residential affordable housing development.

Real-Estate Land Development Limited <rlddevelopments@gmail.com>	Feb 23, 2023, 11:39 AM (9 days ago)
Real-Estate Land Development Limited <rlddevelopments@gmail.com>

Feb 23, 2023, 11:39 AM (9 days ago)

Hi xxxxx
( Black Rock and Blackstone both have property funds in trouble at the moment, if they are in trouble the rest of us have no chance.)
All Agents will be facing tough times this year Market activity in Commercial is as badly impacted as in Residential. The figures I flagged at the very beginning of January analyzing the raw data between Boxing Day and New Year are only now being reported in the press, already towards the end of December there had been quite a lot of discreet layoffs in the large surveying firms, Its that rapid deterioration in the wider market that derailed the XXX deal.
The situation has actually got so bad that what was a good potential run-off area for the Housing Associations to take up the slack has actually seen many of them now hitting the buffers as well.
After 3 years of hard work, all I can do is trim our sails to meet what happens next, I don’t think its possible to even start thinking about developing a strategy until after Easter and figure out if things are continuing to get worse or beginning to stabilize at some level?
I will get my thoughts into some sort of order over the weekend.
Best
Rog

Obviously being at square 1 with respect to having any birds in the hand has been a blow, that said ” needs must when the devil drives” and right now the Devil is driving pretty hard, those under the yoke of ill-considered badly bought assets ( Blackstone and Blackrock for instance) are feeling the whip rather keenly. When will central banks put a floor under the market? this remains to be seen. Something has to give pretty soon so we will find out pretty soon what the Strategy is going to be.

Is it still Going Direct? This policy is being implemented in Sweden, I think it is the policy rolling out across the G20.

• A practical way of “going direct” would need to deliver the following. This could deliver the following: 1) defining the unusual circumstances that would call for such unusual coordination; 2) in those circumstances, an explicit inflation objective that fiscal and monetary authorities are jointly held accountable for achieving; 3) a mechanism that enables nimble deployment of productive fiscal policy, and; 4) a clear exit strategy. Such a mechanism could take the form of a standing emergency fiscal facility. It would be a permanent set-up but would be only activated when monetary policy is tapped out and inflation is expected to systematically undershoot its target over the policy horizon.

• The size of this facility would be determined by the central bank and calibrated to achieve the inflation objective, which would include making up for past inflation misses. Once medium-term trend inflation is back at target and monetary policy space is regained, the facility would be closed. Importantly, such a set-up helps preserve central bank independence and credibility.

Typically countries that issue debt in their own currency can sustain higher debt levels and have more flexibility than countries that cannot. Yet countries borrowing in their own currency cannot completely avoid a surge in rates. If debt is on an unsustainable trajectory, the central bank can intervene by either increasing the monetary base by printing money or restarting QE. In the first case, runaway inflation would likely result at some point. In the second, it is important to realise that QE does not improve the government’s solvency: as the central bank issues reserves to buy bonds, the consolidated balance sheet of the government sector – including the central bank – is unchanged.

This proposed framework could include Bernanke’s temporary price-level target where the central bank commits to not only reach its inflation target but make up for past shortfalls (see Bernanke 2017 and our June 2019 work on inflation make-up strategies). Importantly, it complements it by specifying the mechanism – the SEFF – to push inflation higher. This is inspired by Bernanke’s 2016 proposal for a money-financed fiscal programme.

This approach improves on other fiscal approaches to providing stimulus when rates are at the ELB, we believe. Similar to Furman and Summers (2019) and Blanchard (2019), it argues for the use of fiscal policy – yet it does not rely on rates staying below growth for the entire time needed to stimulate the economy.

Our proposal stands in sharp contrast to the prescription from MMT proponents. They advocate the use of monetary financing in most circumstances and downplay any impact on inflation. Our proposal is for an unusual coordination of fiscal and monetary policy that is limited to an unusual situation – a liquidity trap – with a pre-defined exit point and an explicit inflation objective. Quasi-fiscal credit easing, such as central bank purchases of private assets, could be operated by the SEFF rather than the central bank alone to separate monetary and fiscal decisions.

A credible stimulus strategy would help investors understand what will happen once the monetary policy space is exhausted and provides a clear gauge to evaluate the systematic fiscal policy response. Spelling out a contingency plan in advance would increase its effectiveness and might also reduce the amount of stimulus ultimately needed. As former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson famously said during the financial crisis: “If you’ve got a bazooka, and people know you’ve got it, you may not have to take it out.”

This is one way to implement a credible coordination framework. In the next downturn, the loss of central bank independence and uncontrolled fiscal spending are risks. Any framework will need to put boundaries around such policy coordination to mitigate these risks.