Episode Details

Bitcoin to $200,000k anyone? Sterling to crash? The US dollar to 20 year highs? As for silver …

OK, folks. It’s predictions time.

As ever, the eternal conflict applies: the more outlandish the prediction, the more entertaining it is to read about - but the less likely it is to actually happen.

On these pages, we attempt to strike a balance.

Here are 15 things to look out for in 2025.

Here is a video version of this article, if you prefer:

1. The long overdue correction in the UK housing market finally begins.

“Record Boxing Day bounce,” says Rightmove. Read beyond the headline and you get this: “Our data shows a 26% increase in the number of new properties listed for sale compared to Boxing Day 2023, which previously held the record.” They’re trying to spin more sellers.

More sellers means more supply.

Meanwhile… houses are overpriced. The economy is not booming, so people have less money. Labour’s higher taxes also mean buyers have less capital to spend. Higher mortgage rates mean there is less money to borrow, and, thus, less newly created money to come into the market and prop up prices.

The rich are not coming to Britain - they are leaving, if they haven’t already left.

More supply of houses, but less money to buy them with.

Meanwhile, stamp duty is a massive deterrent to buyers. Never mind people choosing not to move because of it, anyone buying a second or third home - they’re as good as gone: who is going to pay 5% stamp duty for a second or third home? Not many people, I wouldn’t have thought.

More supply, less money, fewer buyers.

Then there is the general perception of the economy. Psychologically, people are not feeling rich, nor are they bullish about the economy, meaning fewer people will take the plunge.

What about investment from overseas?

See my earlier comment about stamp duty. The cost of buying drives away investment.

Moreover, the UK is not currently well looked upon. Rich Americans, for example (normally a good source of buyers), are not going to pile in given, one, the costs of buying and, two, how the UK is currently perceived over there.

Then Labour are going to loosen planning laws and build a whole load more houses - well, they say they are - meaning even more supply.

As if that wasn’t enough, 2026 is the year the 18-year-cycle in property turns down.

If houses don’t turn down this year, I’ll declare this market permanently immune.

2. Keir Starmer survives

His premiership is already looking dicey. It’s one crisis after another, and it’s difficult to see how he survives, especially with all the rape gang stuff.

However, I think short-term PMs became a bit normalised in the Cameron-May-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era. Cameron went because of Brexit. May went for the same reason. Johnson got his landslide, handed to him by Farage, but then Covid came along, and Johnson, under a lot of pressure from the Left, got the shove fro