Russell Quirk calls out house price crash forecasters as ‘idiots’ whilst hosting national talk TV show

Russell Quirk, the outspoken property industry figure, has extended his opinions to the national airwaves.

On Saturday. Quirk could be seen hosting his own three-hour show on Robert Murdoch owned TalkTV. He has been a regular contributor to TalkTV, GB News, LBC and the BBC on property matters for a number of years but more recently has turned his hand, and his sharp tongue, to political commentary too.

In his 180-minute stint, in which he was joined by a number of property commentators, Quirk opinionated on the cost-of-living crisis, the absence of police on our streets which he contended is a primary reason for the ‘lawless Britain’ that we now face. He also discussed immigration and what he described as a start to solving the problem by simply removing the ‘open invitation’ on the government website that lists out the benefits that migrants arriving in dinghies at Dover can expect to benefit from – free accommodation, free money, free education and free health care.

After a stint discussing Formula 1 and Harry Styles (yes, seriously) it was not long before Quirk, the co-founder of ProperPR, turned to his ‘go to’ subject of the housing market.

In his last hour, he raised the question of an impending housing market plunge as had been reported upon by the Daily Express that day. It’s headline – “House Price Warning:  Dramatic Crash Incoming…”  The report here centred around the forecast of Nikodem Szumilo, Professor of Economics at UCL, who prophecised that ‘after a decade of growth’ he believed it was ‘…likely that the housing market would now face a dramatic crash’.

Quirk took issue with this in a long, unscripted rant that criticised countless experts over the last few years and their predictions of property price falls going back to Brexit, then the prospect of a no deal Brexit and then again at the beginning of the pandemic.

“These idiots forecast crashes consistently and they’ve all been wrong time and time again – and they are wrong now”, he said, citing relatively low interest rates, full employment, cultural tailwinds and stock shortages as the reasons that growth in values would slow but prices would not ‘plunge’.

Several members of the public called in to the show thereafter.

The full show can be seen here and Russell’s property rant starts at 2 hours 23 minutes.

SOURCE: Property Industry Eye | AUGUST 30, 2022 | MARC DA SILVA