I think your main concern should not necessarily be the housing market but what's causing the underlying problems. For most of your life and for all of your "conscious life", you've lived in an era of cheap money. All this cheap money has led to extraordinary growth in the value of assets in all classes. That era has now come to an end.

These are the questions that I would be trying to answer if I were in your shoes:
How will this affect student pilots ability to secure funding for their training? How will this affect the flight training industry?
How will this affect the ability of the paying punter to fly for leisure or businesses to send employees abroad for meetings?

And the demand for your skills as a new pilot? How will this affect the training costs for airlines? How will it affect your ability to pay back that loan? What interest rate can you expect to be paying?

Remember that the banks don't want you to pay back the principal, they just want you to keep paying the interest as long as possible, your entire life if possible.

Some good info there.

I suppose it depends on the market price for pilots over the next 30 years. Eventually, there will be one pilot, entrusted to watch the computer, but that's around 15-20 years away. So aviation is still a good industry to be employed in - although there have been better times.

Funding for the qualification is a separate issue. If the property is in a nil or negative equity situation, the banks won't lend on the property alone. But they still have you to lend on. In other words, if you go to the bank and explain what the loan is for, the bank may well feel that it's an acceptable risk (although they'll still want that second mortgage over the house, negative equity or otherwise.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/gra...7/cccom107.gif


Above shows house prices related to wages. It is used alongside this article from Roger Bootle in Her Majestys Daily Telegraph today:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai...07/ccom107.xml


Below shows house prices with retail inflation adjusted for so is therefore often referred to as 'Real Prices'


http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/gra...d/homepage.png



You can clearly see that we are very much at the top of a very steep peak in the graphs. If history is any guide, and it usually is, prices will now fall to a point below the long term mean as it overcorrects. In the last house price crash of the early 1990s we saw a peak in July 1989 when the average house price hit £113,869. By Oct 1995 prices were £71,725.

The correction will be faster this time in my view. More perfect information due to the internet will counter the spin of the Vested Interests of the mortgage/construction/sales industry. More importantly the role of Buy-To-Let mortgages will prove disasterous. At the start of 1999 in the UK there were 58,800 BTL mortgages in existence.

The numbers rose in a sharp straight line up to the summer of last year when there were 938,500 such mortgages in the UK. 58 to 938 is one heck of a fundamental market shift. As these 'portfolios' of depreciating assets, assembled by amateurs with borrowed money, enters negative equity you will see them being offloaded or repossessed at a phenomenal rate.

This will be a turbocharged crash.

I expect the impact on the UK airline sectors to be worse than in the last recession of the 1990's as its bigger now, consists of more discretionary travel and lacks some of the protectionist rules that were in place 20 years ago.


As FTO's go bust the others will cut their prices to the bone to survive.

WWW

Price correction
 

I have to say that I find WWW's gloom & doom a bit hard to take and wish if I my post is not removed for disagreeing with a moderator to offer another view.

Hours prices particlarly in the UK have been over-inflated for years, this is due to the actions of estate agents, morgage company's and the british obssesion with making money from your house.

The fact of the matter is that it matters not one iota how much your house is worth if you don't intend to sell it. In fact for most people a downward price correction is a good thing after all less Stamp duty (govermment house buying tax), lower estate agent charges and lower morgage charges.

It is unfortunare if you have a just got a house at top of the market prices that is now worth less than you owe for it but remember the rest of the market has fallen so you will pay less for your next house.

The real victims of lower house prices are the Mr 5%'s YES the leaches you have to use to buy and sell houses that work the percentage game, these people have driven houses out of the grasp of first time buyers for there own proffit.

What we need is lower house prices this will eventualy result in lower morgage payments and more free spending money, it will free the british from a 25 year enslavment to the morgage company's.

I have no doubt that the aviation market will slow and that getting a job might be a bit harder for about 18 months but one answer to all this is to go down the modular route to trainning and save your selfs £20,000 in trainning costs over integrated route. After all you get the same licence at the end of the course and £20,000 is a lot to pay for for a bit of help getting a job.

The doom & gloomers on this forum are busy putting peope off spending money on trainning so the first to be hit will be the expensive integrated courses so in 18 months when the market picks up the supply of these people will dry up quickly and the airlines will drop the obssesion with "integrated" pilots like a hot potato when they can't fill the seats on the flight deck.

Since when do I remove posts that offer an alternative opinion to my own?

You have to understand that millions of people in the UK for many years now have used rising house equity to clear their annual 0% interest credit card debts. With this option now removed they face crippling costs leading to bankruptcy OR heavily changing their spending habits. Either is enough to curtail growth to an extent where a recession is entered.

The market is defined at the margin. With marginal falls in prices the market is going into reverse with estate agents desperately applying pressure to sellers to lower prices before the agency goes bust.

Take a look at http://www.propertysnake.co.uk/site/search and check your postcode. In mine there are 45 properties who have reduced their asking prices in the last 7 days alone..

You don't like my doom and gloom views. OK. But is that sticking your head in the sand, shooting the messenger or just a plain refusal to stare facts in the face? In aviation we always consider the risks and the worst case likely scenario. A House Price Crash and Recession firmly fits into the likely range of outcomes.

A V1 cut is unlikely - but we practice it every 6 months and brief it on every departure..

WWW

I agree that we have to look at all the likely outcomes of the current situation but you are taking a very pesamisitc view, in fact in aviation terms you are allowing for two engines on the same side failing at V1.

If you took this view then you would never start the take off roll, and this is what your advice may do for some peoples flying careers.

During the mid 80's I was working on the ground for a large airline, a large number of the pilots were into share dealing big time and most people thought (including themselfs) that they were very very clever with all the money they were making. One day it all came to a very sudden stop when the city crashed, you could smell the fear of these people who had got themselfs involved in something that they did not fully understand and lost a lot of money.

Since then I have not taken advice from "flight deck" experts on anything except flying, you are welcome to your opinions but that is just what they are opinions.

Some awful US airline traffic stats have been released for March...

United and Amercian (2 biggest airlines) posted declines of -7% and -5.9% respectively despite the early Easter break.
US airways also down 3.5%... US also cutting by capacity by 3-4%.
Other domestic carriers have also announced capacity cuts of up to 10% in domestic fleets.

Did someone say it was all about traffic numbers and these weren't going to be impacted?.... hmmmmm and its only just beginning... :uhoh:

Opinions shared by many economists and backed by some fairly strong statistical data and historical precedent though.

My views may be responsible for someone never persuing their dream to their lifelong regret. They may save someone from committing financial suicide and ruining their life. Its been said that timing is EVERYTHING in this industry.

Right now I'd have to say there is a grave danger that the time is for recession and airline failures.

Anyway, lets stay on topic and keep this to house price inflation/deflation and its outcomes for wannabes and for funding training.

WWW

I'll offer a more blunt opinion:

People are generally stupid, short sighted and greedy, I have seen hundreds of folk watch the value of their house rise and immediately go and get a conservatory built on the back. Last time I looked into the value this added, it was 10%, that's 10% the cost of the conservatory, not the house, so at 5k they have just spent 4.5k which they will not get back.

The next thing they must do is borrow against the house to get a secondhand, clocked, ex-fleet, silver 3 Series BMW on the drive to 'keep up with the Joneses'. (Older types will get a Golf)

Then comes the laminate flooring, and huge TV.

If there is any money left they MUST have a jet wash for the new brick drive and PS2, etc., etc., plus a mini moto, and other 'boys toys': All on credit cards.

It's a long story but I would come into contact with these types a lot and out of curiosity I would ask them if they thought there would be a house price crash. The answer, from just about all was no.

The credit crunch is more than a crunch IMO, it's the start of it and a lot of stupid, greedy people are going to lose their homes, some through not being able to re-mortgage and others through not being able to borrow more to live.

Borrowing money in the way we have been doing for the last few years is over.

Like I said people are generally stupid, short sighted and greedy.

Once again a bit more copy/paste

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live...N.html?sid=101

"At this current level, there's no such thing as a low-cost carrier," said Darryl Jenkins, a Virginia-based airline expert and aviation professor at George Washington University. "There's currently no airline in the United States that has a viable long-term plan for survival. Jet fuel is a killer category, and it's a desperate time for the industry."


Grass strip basher, it is interesting to read your opening post of this thread again, posted only two months ago. It is about 'high oil prices' of $75 and $85 p/b. Now everything less that $100 looks cheap...

To be balanced some "okay" traffic numbers out of the Big Easy this morning and Aer Lingus (although largely due to fleet expansion... thinnk load factor was down). But Easter in March may have helped Easy... April numbers will be interesting

BoE credit conditions survey released last week suggests banks are now really starting to turn the screw on consumers.... it is 3-4 months time that I think we have to worry about, but you are right the outlook has got a lot worse in the past 2 months if you ask me.

www thanks for the link to Snake - it's worse than I suspected near me. 15% drop in prices in the Cranfield area in the last 2 months.

plinkton yes and not only greedy but we now have a young tribe of property feeding predators that have been encouraged by previously cheap money too. Property renovation as promoted by TV as a hobby meams some of the gullible have also been trapped into thinking that property was fail-safe.

Things are happening faster than I thought possible.

This morning the Halifax (UK's largest mortgage lender) published its monthly house price survey results.

They have shown prices declining by 0.3% - 0.4% every month since September 2007.

For last month, March 2008, they report that UK house prices dropped 2.5% in the month. 2.5% in one month makes it the biggest monthly drop for 16 years since we were in the middle of the 1990's house price crash and recession.

Its really no longer a debate about whether there will be a HPC and a recession - its about how bad it will be.


WWW

WWW

Why do you post this stuff? I've never seen so many people in active denial, remind me what comes next - is it fear or panic?

Radio 4 'Listen Again' is a must this morning. Hearing the Halifax 'economist' and Mr Coogan from the CML is hilarious, both desperately trying to talk it up.

I post this stuff because:

a) Quite a few Wannabes are young and don't follow or read or consider the issues of broad economic conditions or the impact of a HPC on pilot jobs,

b) I find it easy to write as I'm actively involved in this field,

c) It is by far the most important thing for any Wannabe to get right, enter the industry at the right time and its Jets and Smiles all the way. Enter at the wrong time and its bankruptcy and regret and and a bedsit in Albert Square..


WWW

ps The next stage is Fear and within 3 months we should move on to Panic.

pps I agree - the Today programme was hilarious - it reminded me of Saddams spokesman in Baghdad denying there were any American tanks anywhere..!

Is this the chap who was talking up the UK housing market on the radio this morning??.... http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

A and C you took the words right off my keyboard! :ok:

The example of the conservatory is absolutely spot-on. I've seen so many people spending their equity, buying things they could never otherwise afford, completely ignoring warnings of a future house price fall. Someone close to me borrowed money to buy a car, spent that money on high-living, borrowed more to build a conservatory, spent much of that on other stuff, had to borrow more to finish the conservatory, and is now talking about getting a further loan to buy a TT...That person is a teacher and should know better :ugh:

There are a lot of ill-educated and naiive people in the world, and that's sad, but what angers me is the fact that itis all been fuelled by the money-grabbing irresponsibility of the lenders and the tax-grabbing antics of the Labour Government. As for estate agents, they have made fortunes out of the house price boom for doing pretty much nothing. I have no time for them.

So, I have absolutely no sympathy for people who are now crying about house-prices falling, negative equity, rising costs of borrowing etcetera. This was all entirely predictable. I've been saying it for awhile and have no economic training. :ugh: We bought a house at the tail end of last year despite the current situation because we worked out what we could afford irrespective of what the mortgage lenders were offering (three times what we wanted in fact). Unfortunately, we're probably the exception to the rule and those who borrowed enough to buy the ludicrously over-priced properties will be the first to go bankrupt.

The only thing that annoys me about the downturn is the effect it will inevitably have on the aviation industry if there is a recession.

I'm all heart me...:p

In my minds eye that was the chap the Council of Mortgage Lenders have hired to do their PR work ;-)

UK house price figured have already gone Year on Year negative, the average house price was:

March 2007: £194,094

now:

March 2008: £191,556
---------
-£2,538


The Halifax are reporting three month rolling average figures which are softening the blow.. It does however allow the various vested interests to use phrases such as "house price growth is slowing".

However this will change in a month or so times as even the massaged figures go Y-o-Y negative. Perhaps its happened already as The Sun wades in today (online - watch tomorrows paper for the print version) with:


House prices plummet

By SUN MONEY REPORTER
Published: Today

HOUSE prices have plummeted in the worst fall since the early-90s property crash, the latest monthly data from Halifax has shown.



Job losses in the City are going to hurt the Business and First traffic particularly on the London/New York route. Equity and inflation concerns will be hurting the middle class user of LoCos you enjoy several European jaunts a year. The bucket and spade working class Charter holidays may not get booked as the credit card is cancelled and the house repossessed.

Its going to hurt every airline. Badly. Which is what the shareprices were telling us months ago.


WWW

WWW.

Sorry didn't word my post very well, I agree totally with your point of view.

It seems like we are wrong though to worry according to Gordon Brown.

;)

Well on a lighter note, the new series of property ladder has started. Sarah Beeny telling us all how to be property developers :)

Schitzophrenic housing market
 

The underlying factors are completly different to the 1990s. Is it a bad thing that prices are flattening off - it isnt a crash or a slump, but it will be if idiots keep spouting about being experts and having crystal balls.

I am no economist but the underlying factors are completly different to any time before, market drop is no doubt caused almost singularly by the tightening of mortgage lending. Let things settle and maybe slump a bit.

It seems that it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy seeing as everyone seems to know the future, which in turn eventually cannot doing anything but downturn houseprices due to lack of confidence about the future.

Electrolysis of water - HHO gas hydrogen fuels are on the cusp of being turned into the fuel of the future - research it and find out more. The Hadron Collider is coming online - the future is bright and breakthroughs are being made all the time.

If you want to fly, get a PPL and enjoy yourself, do the rest later when the market has recovered is my suggestion.

House prices historically double every ten years - let things settle and find a sensible level - and lets not build anymore f****** apartments :ok:

Learn to fly - you can go at the weekends, touring holidays up the country, Europe? I do agree WWW that now maybe not the time to go 0 - ATPL. PPL, learn to love flying and get some valuable organic experience in, get some hours under the belt and then maybe after a 100 hours or so, then go for it if things look good, but i know it all involves the wonga.

If you cant afford a PPL and flying at weekends, dont go near an ATPL i would suggest!

This is what I have been doing for the last four years now and I'm not as optimistic as you are. Boeing definitely disagrees with you, and all the initiatives for alternatives are focussed on synthetic and bio fuels. Algae oil will be viable if oil is $800 + p/b, so this won't help much in the short term.

But I may have missed something. So when can we board your HHO gas planes? What is the cost of HHO gas? What is the role of particle accelerators? What breakthroughs have been made? Whoeoe, I'm so exited!

Hydrogen is the future
 

I have seen combustion engine running on it, self generated electrolysis, hydrogen production! Not rising - Hydrogen is the future:ok:

http://hydrogencommerce.com/

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...80403a_nr.html

http://www.intelligent-energy.com/in...econdlevel=809

Well.....amongst all the doom and gloom, i'll add my tuppence worth:-

On the house front - just remortgaged and valuation has risen 15% in the last 7 months.

On the job front(im a low hour fatpl) - a year of nothing and low and behold 2regional TP interviews in the last 10 days. 2 mates in a similar position, one started TR last week, the other has had 2 offers in the last 3 weeks.

Theres still plenty jobs out there just now.

Thanks for the links, but it has been discussed before.

From the Boeing link:

"Boeing does not envision that fuel cells will ever provide primary power for large passenger airplanes"

OK WWW,

Just about every post from you of late has been problems problems problems.

Do you have some solutions for the members of this forum as to how they might progress their career choice?...or is it just gloom and doom from now on?

The half full half empty scenario stated earlier by one of our members less prone to moderator hero worship is very apt.

I think your pilot come economist roll took a bit of a dip when you started quoting from the Sun!!

Has your very own airline not just quoted a massive increase in passenger numbers?

Have not both Scotland and your homeland not just seen an Increase (all be it small) in house prices?

Yes, it bad out there for the moment, but airlines are still hireing, passenger numbers are up and predicted to increase. OK margins may well have reduced and share prices may fall, but that will not be at the expense of pilot numbers. Both Ryan and EZY continue to add routes and the Biz Jet market has never been stronger.

Let’s just temper the pessimism with a bit of positive thinking.

People will travel…they’ve got used to it! Margins will reduce, shares will fall, over priced property in the SE will find It’s true market value and….we will not go back to the horse and cart1

Are you suggesting that Wannabees just give up or do you have some wise words of advice from the 90’s which you and the industry survived?

Finally some common sense in this thread.
Nice post Clearprop, sums it up pretty well :ok:

EZY has today closed the recruitment door and talk now is of reducing fleet size and headcount. Senior management have had their pay frozen. Hatches are being battened down.

ALL I can do is try to warn Wannabes about the storm that is approaching.

You say people will travel and they will. Maybe 90% of will travel in a recession. That leave 10% of airlines bust, hundreds of pilots out of work and all Wannabes as screwed as they were in the early 90's recession. Its really quite simple. Wannabes live and die at the margin of the industry. If the margin moves in slightly - they die.

Cirrus I am no economist but the underlying factors are completly different to any time before

You are right you are no economist. The underlying factors are exactly the same as before, namely, a rapid period of growth and lending leading to a house price bubble which stretches affordability far above the long term average. Which is where we are now with the average house costing 9 times the average income. Borrowing 5 times joint earnings means that 7% interest rates on mortgages feels just as bad as 15% interest rates did on 3.5 times single earnings in the last crash. This time the triggers may be slightly different, the underlying causes are not.

The airline industry is about to enter a major recession in Western markets. Get busy dealing with it and stop shooting the messenger.

I guess possible strategies involve training slowly, cheaply or not at all. Certainly do not rush into large debt and don't give up the day job is possible.


WWW

Its all encapsulated here today by a source as sombre as The Economist:


The bust begins

From Economist.com

Housing-market woes spread to Britain


FOR years the housing market in Britain has defied gravity. For a few months in 2004 and 2005 house prices moderated, before taking off again. But now, finally, tighter credit and overstretched household budgets are pulling prices down.


And particularly draw your attention to:


A period of falling house prices has been long overdue and may be welcomed by those who have been priced out of the market. But past experience suggests that it is likely to inflict economic damage by slowing consumption and GDP growth. When the market slowed in 2005 household spending rose by only 1.5%, its lowest since 1992. That augurs ill for Britain’s economic prospects


The 2005 housing market SLOWDOWN damn near drove the economy half way to recession. Just 3 years later its fairly obvious where the current much much sharper deeper slump will send it.


You know how sometimes its only your best friend that will tell you a horrible truth.....

WWW

Get our of your bubble WWW.

Zulu time might be centered on the Greenwich meridian but the UK is far from being the center of the world.

UK traffic doesn't even account for 5% of Europe's total traffic, so even if the UK does bad, there will be plenty of jobs available throughout Europe.

Ezy stopped hiring in early February already, this is old news.

You fail to mention that Airbus has received firm orders for almost 400 new aircraft in the first quarter and Boeing almost 300. At this pace, they're in for another record-breaking year with the upcoming Farnborough air show.

As said before, let's follow the Alitalia case instead, 3000 pilot jobs are at stake, which can be compared to the number of cadets OAA and CTC together can supply in 5 years. The last report said that they have over 200 million of cash and that they can hold for a while longer waiting for the next government to come up with more reasonable options.

The Ryanair Q3 presentation from a couple of months ago makes interesting reading. Every $1 on the oil price costs €12mn from PBT... there is also an interesting matrix on slide 14 that shows the impact of rising fuel costs on profits... if yields fall just 5% and the oil price stays at the c$106-108 range even this highly profitable airline may struggle to make much by way of profit. No wonder there is a management pay freeze at the airline... wonder what it does to the P&L of other airlines once hedges roll off over the next couple of years?

It never ceases to amaze me how some people on this website fail to see the bleeding obvious when it is staring them in the face.... record high oil prices.... falling house prices.... broad based inflation... falling consumer confidence... a dramatic reduction in the availability of credit.... US possibily in recession..... recrutiment freezes at several airlines and some on the brink (Easy, Thomson fly, Alitalia, pick a US airline).... maybe it is better to turn the question round on the optimists... what is so great about the outlook for pilot recruitment?? Which of the above is incorrect? What am I missing? Just because planes have been ordered can they not be deferred or cancelled?? I also never get the arguement "oh please stop saying nasty things because by saying them it may come true".... geeez well thats a reassuring arguement... the ostrich defence... bury your head and hope it all goes away!

The outlook to me appears the most sh*t scary to me for over a generation and I would love to be persuaded otherwise! I look forward to some optimistic well researched counter arguements (i.e. besides the "I work for a flight training organisation and think you should get into serious debt to keep me actively employed" brigade.... you know who you are). :ugh:

Oil quoted in USD and GBP is rising I agree, oil quoted in euro is rising but not at the same pace and it was lower in 2007 than in 2006.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/.../RES115A-1.gif

If their biggest customer, the US, buys less oil, the Sheiks will have to lower the barrel price.

I know what you feel people, everytime there's a recession all the media tells everyone that it's the end of the world, the banks start to panic and to merge or go bankrupt, etc... IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME THING. EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY SAID: "THIS IS IT". Shareholders trading meanless pieces of companies to make profits on the buy/sell difference are loosing money...so what?

On 9/12 everyone believed that all airlines would go bankrupt, guess what, it didn't happen.

No matter how the economy is, try to go modular people. Why pay twice the price for the same training? Even in the healthiest economy that is crazy!!

Shouldn't you have to pay to advertise your flight school on Pprune Nichibei??

... and here was me thinking loads of pilots got laid off post 9/11 and airline recruitment came to a grinding halt... and I thought many US carriers did go bankrupt.... but maybe I just imagined it though.... :ugh:

:} You never give up do you?

The Sheiks don't set the price, the markets do. US consumption was down 4% in Jan 2008 compared to Jan 2007 but Global consumption is still going up. India and China are becoming very big players, and still only 1% of the Chinese population has a private car.

I'm aware that I am talking about a small island off the coast of Eurasia (though Spain, Ireland and Netherlands are all in a house price crash and France and Italy aren't too far behind). You might concede that to the average Wannabe here the pilot market in the UK, Europe and the US is of primary interest.

EZY's news of fleet contraction and being over crewed was very much news to me yesterday. Trust me - if the lean mean orange machine is seriously tightening its belt then there will be a bloodbath as other airlines go to the wall left right and centre.

Your comments about Sept12th provide a lovely example of how timing is so critical. There were many who graduated in the year after that who failed to find a first job. A year on their IR needed renewing and they somehow found the £thousands to renew it. A further year on and the thought of throwing good money after bad after hundreds of rejection letters meant they gave up. Dreams shattered.

Your repeated attempts to talk up the market and encourage people to undertake flying training also provides a useful illustration. Just like and Estate Agent will always tell you "there has never been a better time to buy" so will anybody in flying training always spin the state of the industry. They DON'T care a jot if you get a job, just as long as you write the cheques and they can move onto the next guy, they will be happy.


I would estimate from my time as an instructor at an Integrated school that two thirds of self sponsored student were funded by mortgage equity release from their own or their parents house. With house prices dropping fast and mortgage rates and LTV's increasing sharply this source of funding will be drastically cut back. As few airlines will consider any kind of cadetship during a recession the large and small flying schools face a bleak market. I'd push for a discount. It happened in the 18 months following Sept11th. Usually in the form of nothing off the main course but freebie MCC courses to those cheeky enough to negotiate at the beginning.


Good luck,

WWW

I am following this thread with interest. I would note that Oasis Hong Kong have just suspended services, which is a great shame and it is a lot that I feel personally as I knew this airline well and even was on the first fight. I am in the middle of an ATPL theory course right now. The cost of maintaining the IR rating has been mentioned several times. How expensive is this? What about maintaining a MEP rating and CPL? I ask this because I intend to follow WWW's advice by training slowly and wait it out. My basic idea is to leave the IR alone for now and take advantage of the low dollar to build hours in the USA. I would appreciate any advice as to the best strategy.

Every other IR renewal can now be done on a simulator which roughly halves the cost. However the renewal now contains all the elements of the initial IRT. Plan on maybe 8 hours in the Sim at £150 an hour plus then the test time (about one hour, no more) and the examiners fee of around £150.

Then next year doing it on the actual aircraft work on £330 an hour... gulp.

WWW

Thanks, WWW. What about the cost to renew a CPL or MEP, is that likely to be expensive? If I could find work as an instructor would I still have to pay to take extra training or would these just "renew themselves."