To think house prices need to go down

Reports from the Association of British Insurers and the Pensions Policy Institute estimate that the proportion of pensioner households renting will rise from 21% to 36% (one in three) by 2044.

People over 50 who rent face double the poverty risk of outright homeowners. Renting from a pension increases likelihood of exhausting savings and needing government help with rent.

I think we're stroing problems up with high house prices - from delaying adult milestones in younger people to more older people needing help to avoid poverty.

its just going to keep getting more expensive for young people wanting to move out of the parental home.

It will be, but on the positive side, if they’re working then they’re hopefully in a position to save aggressively for an increased deposit, which will mitigate to a degree the high interest rates (when they do buy). If they are high then.

House building is now very expensive. Who is going to build them if they aren’t making a decent profit?

There are already masses of unsold new build in London, and immigration numbers are massively down, not sure what you are talking about TBH.

I don't think that's true. Only people who are down sizing or those who inherit a house to sell benefit from high house prices. If you are somebody moving up the housing ladder, then your property might have increased in value, but the houses you might want to buy are more expensive too.

They have actually gone down in relative terms quite a bit recently. Unfortunately so many other things have gone up in real terms during the same period!

It’s expensive due to planning regulations. The length of time it takes to get a property approved (all the while the developer is invested in the land), the tree surveys, the affordable elements, the new over-the-top safety requirements, the requirements for a dual aspect view.

People aren’t buying new build as mortgage rates are too high. It doesn’t mean people don’t want to buy them.

Pensioners often hate the thought of houses falling in value as they see house prices as a reflection of how ‘well’ they’ve done in life. It’s really sad for them to feel the need to judge themselves in this way, but hey.

Thought I had replied for a moment 😀

As the Boomers start to die off, their Gen X and Millenial offspring will benefit from large inheritances (from inflated house prices). This generational wealth will be the main driver in the housing market moving forward widening the gap.

House prices are coming down.

Trouble is, interest rates are going up.

It's not going to improve affordability.

Affordability and wage to price ratios are better measures of how expensive things are than house prices tbh.

As in, because the children will spend the money on housing? I wonder if that's as true as it used to be, actually. Kids who've never got on the ladder or really need a 3 bed instead of a 2, yes. Those people will still be buying/upgrading with their inheritance. But I also think we'll see some impact as the inheriting cohort move towards state retirement age of 68 and away from the best pensions. People who already have a home will be more inclined to sock it away for retirement than they used to be, because those people on average will have worse and later pension provision than the cohorts who've inherited lump sums over the last couple of decades.

We stand to inherit big amounts in the future but it will be going straight to our kids who’ll need it far more than we will.

Well yes of course. Where did I say that people don’t want to buy them?

Tbh, I don’t think the price of anything is going down anytime soon, at least not on paper. I can hear banks money printing machines whirring up. Get ready for inflation on everything…

They needed to go down 25 years ago. Even better, they needed not to quadruple in less than 3 years around the year 2000 mark while wages did not move at all.

I don’t think they will keep going up hugely now, for one simple reason: the baby boomers are now outnumbered. They can’t keep finding buyers among the impoverished later generations. But we could do with a nice gentle fall back to a normal wage/ price ratio: we can’t afford a huge collapse either.

House prices in our area have decreased a lot, and houses on the market aren’t selling, and yet they want to build new houses in the area. Ludicrous!

Not entirely true, I'm sure many with pricy homes would benefit from lower inheritance tax.

I still think high deposits and mortgage costs are the true barrier.

Get on the ladder earlier and at a lower, long term rate and it would be fine. If you aren't on the ladder you'll be paying the same or higher in rent, so the monthly cost will exist regardless.

IMO the best option is gov to bridge the gap for people moving out, and it's the deposits which are the killer, because they're based on needing a percentage of house value as the deposit. 10% of 250k is 25k, which is huge, but tacked on as a few extra years is negligible. Could do something similar to help to buy.

The ladder is a myth, it is a debt ladder, easiest way out is a price crash.

The ladder was more of a thing when a flat was a popular choice as a starter home before there was broad awareness of the problems with being a leaseholder and before Covid. Now, flats all over the country are languishing on the market for ages.

Raw materials are expensive. Land is expensive. Wages are expensive. A fall in house prices would disincentivise the major land builders from building as there is increasingly little profit in it for them and increasingly to much risk. As it is they get cropped by having to provide affordable homes, planning costs and possible judicial reviews into planning etc. The Gov does not have a pit of money to invest in a large house building programme.

Also a significant fall in house prices would cause a bank crash and a recession that we have not seen in a lifetime.

Many people would not even keep their jobs.

I think people being older when they can buy also messed up the ladder.

My IL bought very young and traded up till Dh was late teen he'd lived in four houses. They seemed very put out we were buying a family home as our first as we were early 30s with two kids.

Definitely. It's another reason the ladder concept isn't there like it used to be anymore. If you're not buying until well into your 30s, a one bedder is less likely to be practical for you.

yabu because it’s never been easy to buy a house. When I’m bought (90’s) wages were far lower, no minimum wage, you could only borrow 3x your salary, and you could generally only afford a tiny flat in a not nice area at first. My dd has just bought, same age as I was, but she bought a house

You've missed out the much easier bit in the middle. There were 100% and even 125% mortgages available in the 00s! Then even when they went, a decade of zombie interest rates.