To wonder wtf is happening with the London property market?!

[MeAndMine21]

Unbelievable. It's never been this bad.

Will it just keep going up?

[FishWithABicycle]

Yes it will keep going up. Unless legislation is brought in with punitive disincentives for btl landlords, hmo properties and non-resident overseas owners. Not likely before 2020 anyway.

[Packergator]

It's not just London, it's all of the South. I've written off property ownership as ever being an option.

Plus, it's only bad if you're looking to buy. If you own property in London and you bought at the right time then you're sitting on a nice fat stash of capital right now. My dad bought a bungalow (not London, but SE) 10 years ago for £80; it's worth £200k+ at the moment. Admittedly he's done work on the place but no more than £10k worth, max. He's talking about buying a camper van when he retires...hopefully I can have his house!

[Packergator]

Ha, that should be '£80k'.....otherwise that would be some impressive inflation!!! Even in the heady day of cheap houses and 100% mortgages I doubt you'd get a bungalow for £80!

[AcrossthePond55]

We lived through the US real estate bubble & subsequent burst in 2008. I also remember one in So Cal in the mid 70s. It seemed (both times) as if prices plummeted overnight.

Of course, I'm not familiar with the UK market, but I think if London prices are part of a bubble, they'll drop at some point. How much, who knows? The extremely pricy homes here didn't lose as much value as the 'regular family-type homes', so I expect that the £££££££ area homes will stay way out of reach, but hopefully a few more people will be able to find homes they can afford in other areas.

[MeAndMine21]

It's so crap

I'm moving to London for work soon and even though I'll be on a good salary, it's just going to be a drop in the ocean. Rent alone will eat up at least half of my monthly pay. Buying is a pipe (and frankly unrealistic!) dream.

I know others have it worse but argh! I lived in London for four years until relatively recently and witnessed the crazy prices go up and up and up.

It's becoming a soulless metropolis where the super rich live in their little luxury boxes and everyone else just takes what they can. I really think the character of the city is being destroyed... I'd imagine a huge proportion of people who live there are in top finance jobs so it's hardly a representation of the population - horrible corporate jungle.

[jay55]

It's not a bubble, it's a severe shortage of housing. Agree with above until there is a proper property tax for absent overseas buyers it won't change. London property is a commodity like gold these days, only with a better return.

[Quodlibet]

It is crap I agree.

Just on a practical note, if you are looking for rented, rental agent prices often seem hugely distorted to me (I have lived here my whole life) compared with what I know many of my friends pay in rent. There ARE landlords out there who will let reasonable properties to you at more reasonable rates (I've lived in a few) but they need a bit of searching out. Try advertising yourself as a tenant on Gumtree.

[Anastasie]

I think the government want it this way. And that, sadly means it's how it will stay for at least the next 5 years as someone else said.

Probably a better bet to buy outside London and travel in.

[hmmmum]

It is grim. Houses in fairly crappy areas near us are going for £80,000 above the asking price. And there are loads of buyers competing over each one. It's just wild.
It's also the fact that so few properties are being put on the market right now so demand is outstripping supply more than ever. I hope things ease up after Christmas or we'll never find anywhere to live!

[OneMoreCasualty]

London becoming a soulless metropolis is insignificant to the financial contribution London makes to UK plc.

Agree - best to commute in from suburbs.

[Savagebeauty]

I'm in the South and had house valued recently. I'm going to sell in 2 years and move north.

[hmmmum]

AcrossthePond55 It's not just in the expensive areas that the prices are out of control. In an area considered pretty rough and considered to have not very good schools, a 3-bed is priced at £530k and selling for tens of thousands more than that.
We've tried looking further afield but still within commuting distance for work /school but it doesn't really improve.

[longtimelurker101]

It's not a bubble sadly. London'so population has only just reached what was its pre ww2 hight of 8.5 million and the population is going to hit 10 million in the next 10 years. Massive demand and inelastic supply has led to this. It may plateu, but certainly.not.crash

[KathyBeale]

Our first flat was in Tooting. It was a nice, 2-bed Edwardian maisonette with a small garden - perfect for us when we were late 20s, just married, with one baby. We bought it in 2003 for £185k, and sold it in 2009 for £210k. I saw an identical flat advertised the other day for offers over £500k. We couldn't afford that now when we're 10 years older and earning more - how could someone just starting out possibly afford it?

It makes me feel a bit sick. Central London is horrible. I work in Soho and I love it but it's being ruined with glass buildings and fancy apartments.

[DorotheaHomeAlone]

It's becoming a soulless metropolis where the super rich live in their little luxury boxes and everyone else just takes what they can

This isn't actually true. Millions of regular people live in London and even own homes. It's just hard to buy now if you're not already in it. Unlike everyone else on this thread I've actually bought (a 3 bed) and sold (2 bed) in zone 2 this summer. It cost us a lot and we'll have a big mortgage for a long time time but were by no means 'super rich'. We just bought well 4 years ago.

Also, prices in our area have plateaued since last year after big rises in the previous years. This is a good thing but a serious crash would be terrible for us and lots of families like us. We'd be OK as this next house should last us through any crash but I think it's pretty mean to be so gleeful about the idea.

[DorotheaHomeAlone]

Sorry, just reread and realised how glib that sounds. We didn't just buy well. We're also lucky to have two decent jobs (though I'm now part time) and to have saved the deposit we needed before the boom got truly nuts. Luck and age are the biggest reasons some people own and others don't imo.

[AnonymousBird]

It is bonkers. My first teeny teeny 1.5 bedroom flat in Clapham, which DH and I bought 17 years ago for £120k, was just snapped off the market in under a week at asking price of nearly £600k. And it's still just as flippin small and all the decor and bathroom and so on is almost exactly as it was 15 years ago when we sold it!

[BlueJug]

Luck is a factor - no doubt about it - but so is how you go about it. I am not saying it is easy or even possible for a lot of people but it is more likely if you buy early, a small place, poor condition, outside the centre, grotty area. If you have no holidays and delay starting a family, rent a room to a lodger. Then trade up. No-one can buy a three bed house in a nice area to start with.

Again - not being glib - just saying that a lot of people did it that way.

[maybebabybee]

DP and I are just buying our first place. We earn over 100k between us and our max budget is 350k (and we have to stay in London) which you'd think would be a reasonable amount. Two bed non-garden flats are all we can get for that. Which is fine, we are way luckier than most, but it is utterly ridiculous.

[TheClacksAreDown]

It is your basic economic supply and demand - too much demand and not enough supply. Things seemed to have calmed a little where I am in terms of insanity (last summer seemed to be the height of the bonkersness) but most houses are still selling quickly and for very high prices. However a few owners appear to be really trying their luck and pricing well over market and they don't seem to shift.

[BumbleNova]

We made the decision to move out to Kent and I commute in every day. house prices are still high but not utterly mind blowing. We have good salaries but just couldnt bring ourselves to pay over half a million quid for a small 2 bed flat. its nuts. I have no idea how people do it.

[bookishandblondish]

But Bluejug, flats in zone 3 which are grotty and small are going for over £350k. So the idea people are only talking about nice houses in nice areas which are unaffordable is incorrect.

I earn well over the national average - I can barely afford a grotty basement flat in zone 3. Nice zone 2 areas are completely out of reach.

[m1nniedriver]

savage how far north we had this where I live. People selling their properties down south and moving up here pricing lower earners from buying. Thankfully that seems to have eased up now.

[ButtonMoon88]

I'm in London- we will buy here but will take some saving, I'm 27 and have been here for 5 yrs, me and DH earn ok, our rent is £1600pcm but have been pre approved for a £700pm mortgage- that's so frustrating. Our parents aren't rich so no chance of a helping hand for our £30k deposit but we will get there eventually!

[SouthYarraYobbo]

Agree it seems to be lucky timing. Dh insisted we buy 5 years ago when l didn't want to. We bought in sw London in an area every one said not to. And you guessed it, area has improved and our house is worth almost £100,000 more than we paid for

And yes, we couldn't afford to buy it now. Just glad we bought a house that we can live in for a while and extend if need be as we had originally thought about buying a flat.