Fantastic news – UK house prices to soar by 21% over next 5 years!

[NotAnotherNewNappy]

I was just leaving the supermarket when this headline for the Daily Express caught my eye. The paper is all in a tizz as a report has been published predicting house prices will increase by a fifth over the next five years, taking the price of an average home from 215k to 260k. You could practically hear the editor rubbing his palms together and singing 'ch-ching' as he typed.

I couldn't help thinking who is this 'fantastic news' for, really? Certainly not all the young families who are struggling to get a deposit together/afford to repay a mortgage while simultaneously struggling with university debts and the rising cost of living.

TBH, it feels more like a smack in the face than fantastic news

[mousymouse]

what is fantastic about never beeing able to afford more than a shoe-box size flat

[castlesintheair]

Doesn't sound fantastic to me either. It means we will probably have to move abroad

[noddyholder]

Just watching economist who says all house price increasing news is PR driven and that prices need to drop 30% for people to be able to buy comfortably. The banks are under pressure to lend ridiculous sums to people who already are not well off and in some cases have credit card debts etc. I really feel the prices will fall this time with no quick recovery a la 2008 when ridiculous interest rates and quantative easing kept it all going

[Spero]

It's fantastic news if you own your house outright and want to downsize. For everyone it is a complete and utter disaster. I can barely afford a two bed terrace house, andi earn a decent wage. God only knows why my daughter will do in 20 years. Still be living with me I guess.

[flimflammery]

Don't worry, it's complete bollocks. It's more likely that the UK, Europe, Japan and the US are going to experience economic collapse (if that cheers you up).

[LawrieMarlow]

Good news for some (like my mum and dad who have paid off their mortgage so any rise will be good).

Bad news for me who fell off the housing ladder and will now be unlikely to ever get on it again.

[NotAnotherNewNappy]

The only people who could possibly think this was fantastic news are those who built up a propterty portfolio and can now sell/rent without having to buy again to house themselves. Surely this must be a tiny minority? Do all of them read the Daily Express?

Obviously being in negative equity must be awful and those people will be hoping prices rise. However, I understand in areas where that has happened there would need to be more than a general increase to actually lift prices - i.e. more local employment.

I don't know what I want to happen. DH and I are renting. We have slowly been scraping together a 10% deposit, meanwhile while the bar has moved and we now find we need 15%. It seems churlish to wish for a crash, perhaps just for prices to stabilise at a sensible level?

[narmada]

The Daily Excess (and Daily Mail) are forever peddling attention-grabbing headlines on the subject of house prices. I think it's their default 'slow' news day story.

The Evening Standard also used to wheel out regular (often contradictory) headlines about house prices that always made me and DP laugh.

[Thromdimbulator]

Well, there's nothing to stop Daily Express readers putting their houses up 21 percent. They won't sell of course, but DE readers are probably not bothered by minor details like that.

[noddyholder]

I am looking to buy atm and lots of reductions coming into my inbox even in the nicest areas. I think the silly prices are over. I have been renovating houses for years and every time they fall there is a similar feeling in teh air and the same sort of houses and flats appear to let and to buy. And it is like that now. Our purchase fell through and we have had to rent but the agents have all been saying we will be glad come xmas as we are due a correction. A lot differnet from even 6 months ago

[Thromdimbulator]

Interesting Noddy. I'm not too far from you. Any more insight? Stand-off between buyers and sellers seems to continue here.

[noddyholder]

Well I went back to view one that was well over our budget two weeks ago. Today it is 11% less and agent says she will take an offer. Everywhere I viewed is either still available or not sold. The one we were buying was taken off the market. We offered her 15k under budget it was a wreck but we loved the road. She decided a day before exchange that she could get more with another agent and despite seeing our survey etc she took it off. That was 2 weeks ago and she has had 2 more agents round who valued it 10% less than we were paying! Now she has asked one of them to contact us but I said no she as too much of a pain. The agent who sold ours said he has a friend with buy to lets and shares and he usually gives him the info and he says prices are going to come down sharply and he is already offloading all his student places. It can only be a good thing in the end. I usually take advice from a guy who used to write in the telegraph re economics and he has always been right and had an email from him in May saying the party's over but I think the govt will drag it out.

[TheCrackFox]

I really can't see how prices rising at all in the next 5yrs more likely they will go down.

[INeedALieIn]

I can't see it happening. But in some ways, if it did, it would benefit everybody as the government is a major share holder in banks which rely on the housing market as they have issued many mortgages. The bank share price going up is dependent on the housing market recovering. If the share price goes up the government is quids in and will have more money to spend or be able to reduce taxes.

Similarly many pension funds are invested in companies which are intrinsically linked to the housing market. While these companies perform badly, so do our pensions.

[SybilBeddows]

The Daily Express house price headlines are hilarious!

It can't happen. People simply don't have the money.

[Thromdimbulator]

Thanks. Hope you end up with a better deal 'thanks' to your nightmare seller. I'm so confused. Landlord has just hiked our rent £100 per month (again). Sick off renting but think houses are way over-valued. Am obviously not alone in this because everything I liked at the beginning of the year is still for sale. Downsizers finished paying the mortgage years ago and just don't need to move. Too many agents giving sky high valuations to win business. Once unrealistic expectations have been set, vendors just don't seem able to come back down to earth. I want it to change - before I retire!

[MillontheFloss]

hmmm...i have several friends who were ftb just before the crash about 5 years ago in- 2 beds in fairly undesirable areas who are now in serious negative equity and unable to move to bigger houses in nicer areas in advance of lo's starting school. on the other side of the coin i have slightly younger friends who can't afford to get on the ladder.

buy-to-letters have had an easy ride making money out of a basic human right to shelter and pricing those who merely want a home out of the market. and i speak as an accidental landlord (redundancy forcing area move with house in neg equity)

[mylovelymonster]

I think it smacks of trying to maintain a feel-good factor in the market. Are wages going to go up that much? Don't think so. How are these further increases going to be supported? 50 year term mortgage?
Think I'll be shipping out too.

[MillontheFloss]

my poor sister is currently negotiating a 30 year term on a mortgage for a 60k house on a dicey estate in our hometown. and she is on a middle management salary. the disparity between wages and mortgages is pretty heartbreaking when it forces people into insecure rented accommodation. i think a well regulated social housing programme is needed like those in germany and other parts of europe.

[SybilBeddows]

I think a change in the law so more tenants have more secure tenancies, would be a good start too.
AFAIK the relative lack of security for tenants here is one of the big differences between here and the countries where most people rent.

[Spero]

Ineedaliein - but how does that work??

If houses not only remain overpriced but go up in value, there will be very few mortgage applications because none of us will qualify!!

I have been earning a very good wage for ten years now and have impeccable accounts, but because I only have a 10% deposit, I can just about scrape together a mortgage for a 2 bed terrace.

How many people have more than a 10% deposit? For a house in my bracket that is £25K, then stamp duty on top... so I really need about 30K. I could get a cheaper house round here but they are not very nice and still about £180K so still a substantial lump sum needed.

I really don't see how rising house prices have been anything other than an unmitigated disaster, save for the lucky few who bought and sold at the right time. And that won't include anyone under 25 now.

[Ormirian]

Yeah, totally fantastic. More people who can't afford a house, or to move to a bigger one. No-one benefits apart from people who buy property to make money.

Why the bloody papers all get so excited about it I don't know.

[osd]

We need 80k for our house its 2 bed and in the north, but we want to upgrade to a four bed as we have 3 and 1 on the way, next size up for us in our area is 250k roughly so no I have no idea who this could help.

First timers can't buy my house as mortgages and jobs are non existent and if prices are set to rise its just fueling profits for people in big houses who usually need to downsize and are mortgage free is just annoying.

[tyler80]

We just got off the rental treadmill. Too many forced house moves coupled with a drop in house prices locally mean that buying made a lot of sense for us - our mortgage payments are quite a bit less than our rental payments. If secure tenancies existed I'd have been more inclined to keep the flexibility that renting affords.

[survivingsummer]

same here tyler80. We would have carried on renting long term if we hadn't have been kicked out with our children by idiot LL's one too many times! We bought a house purely as a roof over our heads - it was not really a lifestyle choice to own property.

I'm just pleased housing is hitting the headlines as it means the long overdue debate about the serious housing crisis may now happen. We were scrabbling around for rentals years ago due to lack of supply and although talk of house price rises are IMO dreamed up by the VI's of the housing market, something does need to be done to help FTB's.