Latest China devaluation (24/08/2015) and the affect on house prices in UK
No. There is no indication that the recent decline will have an impact on the house market in the UK. The reason(s) for the downward move these last few weeks are mainly due to: The last two points caused the Chinese government to decide to devaluate the Yuan. This in turn triggered an unforeseen panic attack among investors and speculators around the globe starting with the Chinese that are trading on borrowed money (not only on margin but also by using loans). The UK house prices are not influenced by the above factors, not even indirectly. The most important factors for house prices are in general: If you keep the above points in mind you should be able to decide whether now is the right time to buy a house in your area. Given that a lot of central banks (incl. BoE) are maintaining a low interest rate policy (except fed soon), now is a good time to take a mortgage. Sources used: I know interest rates are determined by the BoE which looks at the global picture to determine these rates but the main directive of a central bank is to maintain an inflation close to but not exactly 2 % as to spur on economic growth.  As such, the value of a company as valuated on the stock market is not or barely taken into account. The negligible impact is the reason why I stated that the crash in the summer of 2015 doesn't even have an indirect impact.  Also such a crash is very short lived. It's more the underlying reason for the fears that could cause issues if they drag on.
Contrary to Muro's answer which strangely shows a graph of the Fed's balance sheet and not the money supply, the supply of US dollars has never doubled in a few days.  This graph from Wikipedia shows M2, which is the wider measure of money supply, to have doubled over approximately 10 years, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Components_of_US_Money_supply.svg The answer to whether gold has a higher chance of experiencing big devaluation has to do with forces outside anyone's control, if a big new mine of gold is discovered that could affect prices, but also if the economy turns around it could lead investors to pull out of gold and back into the stock markets. The USD, on the other hand, is under control of the policy makers at the Fed who have a dual mandate to keep inflation and unemployment low. The Fed seems to have gotten better over the last 30 years at controlling inflation and the dollar has not experienced big inflation since the 70s. Inflation, as measured by Core CPI, has been maintained at less than 4% for the last 20 years and is currently coming off record low levels below 1%. One more thing to consider is that $1M today is not the same as $1M 30 years from now because of inflation.  Consider that just 30 years ago (1980) the average house price in the US was only about $69K and a new car cost around $7K on average.  When you retire, it isn't much of a stretch to assume that you could be paying $1.5M for a typical house, $100K for mid-grade car, by the time you retire in 30 years.  Of course, over the rest of your working life your salary will likely increase due to inflation too, so that will help. In 1980 the average US income was around $19K/year. So even though that number seems huge, it is because it is denominated in currency that has been devalued significantly. "The buy-to-rent investment bubble created (in some markets) a large number of new housing starts often exceeding the available demand.  Since people were investing in the capital gain, they didn't mind whether a place was rented or not.  Many places stood empty at the prices investors wished to charge. In the UK where building restrictions are so dire that few new houses can be built, new house production is less than market demand which keeps up rental prices.  There just isn't any stock. In the US, where construction is more liberal, rental prices can fall as new stock enters the market.  A driver will be where the sales market dries up and owners must rent to cover at least some of their mortgage losses. Or, as Joel points out, if a major employer which dominates a small town, leaves.  Many old industrial towns feature both low rentals and plenty of empty, low-priced property.  Liverpool, in the UK, features entire empty neighbourhoods all boarded up. If you're looking to track metrics on this simply look at migration patterns.  Where large numbers of people are moving ""towards"" prices (and rentals) will rise.  Where people are moving ""away"" all prices fall." So in a sense, I can think of the employees / option-holders as another investor?   That makes sense - but many of the examples I'm finding online are still confusing me. Based on the example above, it seems like option-holders would be paying the same exercise price as the VC. Per [Andreesen Horowitz](https://a16z.com/2016/08/24/options-ownership/) this seems uncommon:   &gt; The exercise price of employee options — the price per share needed to actually own the shares — is often less than the original issue price paid by the most recent investor, who holds preferred stock.    In reality, would option-holders receive, say, 40% (using example above) for their $6m in exercise value due to receiving common stock, with the founder being diluted to even further? Nobody can predict the affects of Brexit but it is wise to consider them. We saw the pound weaken after the vote to leave and it is possible the pound will weaken further after Brexit and this devaluation could be quite dramatic. If that happens it is likely to increase inflation, UK inflation has gone from under 1% around the time of the referendum to 3% today and it could well go higher. https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-inflation-rate If inflation continues to increase, the Bank of England is likely to put up interest rates, as it has historically done this to hedge against inflation.  We have been living in a world of artificially low interest rates since the global crash of 2008 as the BoE has tried to stimulate recovery with lower rates.  The rates cannot continue at this level if inflation starts to rise. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2387744/Base-rate-vs-inflation-chart-How-tell-things-really-got-better.html That in turn will put up mortgage rates.  So for example if you have a £100k mortgage at 3.92% (currently this is a reasonable rate to have) your repayments will be £523 a month.  If your mortgage rate goes up to say 7% then your repayments are £707 a month, if it goes up to 10% then it's £909 a month and so on. There is a mortgage calculator you can use to try playing with different amounts here: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-rate-calculator My advice would therefore be try to get as small a mortgage as you can and make sure you can afford it quite comfortably, in case rates go up and you need to find a few hundred pounds a month extra. There are other risks from Brexit as well, house prices could fall as people decide not to buy properties due to excessive interest rates! Overall nobody knows what will happen but it is good to be planning ahead for all eventualities. ** I am not a financial advisor, this advice is given in good faith but with no financial qualification. "Canadian bubble is in a weird place.  The problem with the market is it doesn't take into account the increase in quality.  I lived in one of the frothiest places on the north side of Toronto.  When I first moved their the same bungalow that sold for $1mm + was about 400-450k.  What they don't mention in those articles is that there is a fair amount of LAND, and that the new owners will tear it down the day they take possession, and build a really large home on it.  That is why you see single dethatched homes in Toronto outpacing condos by a huge margin.  (or one reason anyway.  we have our green belt/intensification issues, and in Vancouver, they have natural intensification issues thanks to the mountains and the ocean.)  All that said, I was pretty sure I had bought at the height recently, but lo and behold prices continued to rise.  I think the only thing that will ""save"" us is the insured mortgages.  I mean there will be write offs, but not like what we saw in the US, as Canadian banks/and FIs are much more conservative.  I think China is the wild card in the Canadian RE market, at least on the condo side.  We don't have any good statistics about how many investors are off Canadian soil." In reality here is what is going to happen.  Other nations will continue to distance themselves from the dollar. China in its arrogance will make a premature move against the dollar but at the same time the dirty little secret is they are dancing on the edge of economic collapse right now. Some countries will move towards China further weakening the dollar but not destroying it. China is going to have a real drop very soon (*probably along with the US and other large nations*) then everyone is going to panic and flock back to the dollar because they don't know what else to do. "Just to get the ball rolling, here's an answer: it won't affect you in the slightest. The pound happened to be tumbling anyway.  (If you read ""in the papers"" that Brexit is ""making the pound fall"", that's as valuable as anything else you've ever read in the papers.) Currencies go up and down drastically all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it. We by fluke once bought a house in Australia when that currency was very low; over the next couple years the currency basically doubled (I mean per the USD) and we happened to sell it; we made a 1/2 million measured in USD. Just a fluke. I've had the opposite happen on other occasions over the decades. But... Currency changes mean absolutely nothing if you're in that country. The example from (2) was only relevant because we happened to be moving in and out of Aus. My various Australian friends didn't even notice that their dollar went from .5 to 1 in terms of USD (how could it matter to them?) All sorts of things drastically affect the general economy of a given country. (Indeed, note that a falling currency is often seen as a very good thing for a given nation's economy: conspiracy theorists in the states are forever complaining that ) Nobody has the slightest clue if ""Brexit"" will be good bad or indifferent for the UK. Anything could happen. It could be the beginning of an incredible period of growth for the UK (after all, why does Brussels not want your country to leave - goodwill?) and your house could triple in value in a year. Or, your house price could tumble to half in a year. Nobody has the slightest clue, whatsoever about the effects on the ""economy"" of a country going forward, of various inputs."