Will house prices ever come down?

[Summerdressandjellyshoes]

What do you think will happen with house prices.

I think the prices at the moment are completely crazy. They've been crazy for years but they are now beyond belief.

I love looking at house for sale and I was having a look at my parents old road where I grew up. It is quite a rough council estate and houses are up for sale now for 250k for an ex council small 3 bed terrace with no parking on quite frankly a not very nice road.

We live on a nice enough road I'm very grateful to live here, but it's not fancy by any means, yet 3 bed semis are selling for £385-£400k.

Prices seem to have risen sharply in the last 10-15 years.
Surely it can't go on like this.

[Rowthe]

Prices definitely need to come down

[A90neighbour]

Prices aren't too crazy where I am but have gone up a lot. It's supply and demand. I don't think they will go down again soon unless we hugely increase supply but hopefully they will stop rising.

[TomatoSandwiches]

It will stall ( already has in areas ) and plateau, small dips but I doubt a serious crash like the 90s is on the cards or even 2007/8.

[whirlyhead]

It’s just as bad in other countries. I’m currently buying in Spain and prices are worse than here!

[Andanotherone01]

I doubt house prices will ever come down. The most you can hope for is the current stall.

[onefinemess]

House prices are like anything else, over time they will always go up.

The reason they will always head North is because the vast majority of home owners are not interested in selling up, they want to live in their house and don't need to sell it at a loss. You can't buy something if the owner doesn't want to sell, you can offer whatever you like, whatever seems "fair" to you, but if a home owner doesn't need to sell, they won't.

Also, imagine this scenario, the mythical unicorn of a huge crash actually happens, prices fall 50% overnight. The home you could never afford is now for sale at a a price you think is reasonable, would you buy it?

Of course you would.

And so would I, but guess what, I am willing to pay 5k more than you, it's still cheap even then. But there's someone else who thinks 10k more than the asking price is still a bargain for the right location. All a crash achieves is a feeding frenzy at the bottom, for just a few short months, then prices are back to where they started.

If you're waiting for a crash before you buy a house, you'll be renting until the day you die.

[WB205020]

@onefinemess You have articulated this response perfectly, including your analogy.

House prices may stagnate for a short while, or drop by a few % but they will continue to rise as time goes by.

[Forgetmenott]

People don’t want to be in negative equity, so most won’t sell for less than they paid unless they’re forced to. Which means there have to be wider economic consequences forcing them to sell because they can’t keep up with the mortgage payments. Economic collapse, widespread job losses, massive inflation, etc. And if we’re in a situation where home owners are being forced to sell for less than they paid, most potential buyers are probably fucked too.

[GCalltheway]

No chance. Supply and demand. We have an acute shortage of housing that won’t be solved any time this decade.

[Summerdressandjellyshoes]

@onefinemess

House prices are like anything else, over time they will always go up.

The reason they will always head North is because the vast majority of home owners are not interested in selling up, they want to live in their house and don't need to sell it at a loss. You can't buy something if the owner doesn't want to sell, you can offer whatever you like, whatever seems "fair" to you, but if a home owner doesn't need to sell, they won't.

Also, imagine this scenario, the mythical unicorn of a huge crash actually happens, prices fall 50% overnight. The home you could never afford is now for sale at a a price you think is reasonable, would you buy it?

Of course you would.

And so would I, but guess what, I am willing to pay 5k more than you, it's still cheap even then. But there's someone else who thinks 10k more than the asking price is still a bargain for the right location. All a crash achieves is a feeding frenzy at the bottom, for just a few short months, then prices are back to where they started.

If you're waiting for a crash before you buy a house, you'll be renting until the day you die.

Not waiting to buy thankfully. Bought 6 years ago. I do worry about how my children will ever afford their own home though and that depresses me.

I wish I'd bought sooner. I could have bought a flat for 70k in my early 20s.

[GCalltheway]

Most children will be living with their parents for an extra ten years

[Absolem76]

I don't think they will come down but they might stop going up

[Summerdressandjellyshoes]

@GCalltheway

Most children will be living with their parents for an extra ten years

I find it quite depressing and sad.

Prices have risen so sharply there seems to be little hope for the next generation. Unless they come into some money or are very well off.

In the 90s houses sold on our road for 5-15k.

A lot of the property for sale is in an awful state too, hasn't been decorated since 1990 let alone a new kitchen or bathroom.

[TripleDaisySummer]

It’s just as bad in other countries.

You tube keeps showing up USA and Australia new items saying this - high rents as well.

Supply and demand.

This is the main issue - we don't and haven't built enough houses for decades and till the population drops housing will go down a bit but not really drop till something changes - either larger households become common or fewer people want to live in area.

[Theskyoutsideisblue]

They can’t come down much as would screw the generation who have just bought. So instead next generation screwed

[TripleDaisySummer]

I wonder how anyone affords London prices -

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/13/city-without-children-dystopia-new-reality-london

This would seem to be the outcome - families leaving for bigger or cheaper properties.


I think limits are being reached now and affordable pockets in UK we found are rapidly going up in price.

[HighFiveLow]

House prices have already been coming down for several months. Interest rates have just gone up yet again so this trend will probably continue for a while.

[Floppyelf]

Prices won’t come down as its one of the
few things feeding into gdp. Its the big scam to make us think our society is more productive than it is.

the tories have actually increased temp migration to cook the books as in reality we have suffered in real terms since Brexit. These international kids are paying 13-20k in student tuition fees alone to institutions where the degree certificate is worthless not to mention the massive increase in rent prices in most areas with universities. Legal migration has been allowed to be extremely out of control to hide the realities of brexit. We are not the same country we were in 2015. Once the new arrivals realise how bleak things will be, they will pack their bags to more welcoming places like canada and australia( in the last two years).

[Sunset6]

As long as the population keeps going up quicker than the rate of house building then prices will keep going up on average. Net immigration was 600K people in the last year, I don’t know how many houses were built but it will be less than 100K

[frozendaisy]

@Summerdressandjellyshoes

Not waiting to buy thankfully. Bought 6 years ago. I do worry about how my children will ever afford their own home though and that depresses me.

I wish I'd bought sooner. I could have bought a flat for 70k in my early 20s.

But this is part of the problem isn't it? You wish you had bought in your 20s, I am assuming, so you could have made money on that property?

Everyone thinks that their house price going up is the answer they feel rich. No one wants their house price to fall but want their children to be able to buy.

It would help if people just thought of their house as a home not endless increasing investment. But who is going to be the one who sells for much less, even if you bought for much less, to start the call rolling? No if next door sold for 300k you want at least 300k. So starter homes will be rabbit hutches unless you have £100k deposit per child to throw at them.

[HighFiveLow]

There is a lot of economic illiteracy on threads like this. The article below does a pretty good job of explaining why prices don't always rise and why they will probably (but not definitely) fall in the near future. If you look at historic house prices they once fell for about 70 years, during a period of population growth, so it's definitely not true that prices always go up, or that population increases are sufficient to guarantee house price increases.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/168889/economics/does-rising-interest-rates-always-result-in-fall-in-house-prices/

[GCalltheway]

I for one don’t want the entire county covered in small boxes and a county sinking under its own weight, and a population of hundreds of millions - which is where we are headed unless something drastic is done. If we continue like this we can expect a massive deterioration of living standards not just in housing, health, education, social
care implosion and communities that lack any connection.
We are already nearly there with capacity or exceeding in these areas in certain counties. This keeps me awake at night. I can house my children but I may not be able to revive them in a car crash or provide them with a safe environment if all services become too overwhelmed and lawlessness becomes more frequent. A house is perhaps going to be the least of their worries.

[Zipps]

There's been MN threads about house prices crashing since before Brexit. Over seven years ago. Around the time we were buying a house and that house has more than doubled in value. If it drops a few percent it means nothing to us as this is our last planned house move. People need to stop waiting for crashes and get on the property ladder as soon as they have a deposit.
Loads of young people will be able to buy with inheritances from the baby boomers and deposits from bank of mum and dad. Most of my DC's friends (late 20's) have had one or the other.
Because of this unlevel playing field it's just very hard for the rest that aren't receiving any handouts.

[BluebellBlueballs]

The sad thing is that the average house has 'earned' more than the average worker over the past 10 years. Of only i had known to buy a house as soon as I could ( a second one ad I'd have to have one to live in) and I needn't have got up and toiled every day at work since forever

[MintJulia]

At the moment, there are about 25 million dwellings in the UK, to house 66 million people. That isn't enough, given the large number of people who live on their own.

Until the number of adults reduces - when the population bump of the baby boomers works its way through - there will be too many adults chasing too few houses which means the price won't fall (at least not in the long term).

The baby boomers were born between 1945 & 1963 so they'll be 85 between 2030 & 2048. Maybe prices will stabilise then, because there will be a closer match between supply & demand.