Can the last poor* person to leave London please take their kids with them.

[fakenamefornow]

WTAF is going on with house prices? I want to move to London but it seems impossible.

I think Surrey's going to be next to remove all traces of the poor.

• By poor I mean anyone on average income or below, so actually, just not rich.

Prices have gone up stupid amounts in prime central London, especially in the last year.
We bought a tiny 1 bed flat in a naice area years ago. The whole flat is the same size as just our kitchen ooop north and now they're worth about the same amount of money.
It's madness.

Yes Mary that is what's starting to happen BUT very quickly the sellers stop selling unless they absolutely have to, the market stalls for a couple of years, it doesn't 'crash' because people in London see their property as their greatest investments and they don't dump them unless they have to. A lot of people leave London to cash in and buy more space, if they can't cash in they don't move.

And the trickle down effect means that money not leaving London doesn't go elsewhere and house prices fall more strongly outside London. Its not a market in isolation.

Oh and the investors move in thinking its a better time to and buy and lo and behold there is no crash just a backwards slide to a halt for a while. The London property market is not for the fainthearted!

I saw a report which said foreign investors are buying property in London purely as long term investment and leaving it empty rather than having the hassle of tenants. Thats not going to help is it.

Its heading our way though as im in Berkshire and a Saudi investor has just bought an entire block of flats before its even finished.

Dont know how our children will ever afford to buy, it feels like we are heading back in time to the days when the rich owned all the property.

Depressing@Blue

I know someone who lives in Regents Park and is the only person in her row of houses who actually lives there. All foreign investors who leave the properties empty. Shameful.

I think owning/selling a house in London (and anywhere - but possibly not as acute) is like the 'beat the bong' game. People want to wait till the last possible moment to get the max price. I know people in London who want to sell and move out but their houses are going up by 5-10k a month so every month think, well we'll wait another month. And altho where they want to move is also going up - it isn't at the same rate so they can afford to sit on it for a bit. But sooner or later they will stop increasing, then start falling and then they will be saying well we aren't selling for that our house is worth £x (top amount at peak). (PILs are the same. Their house was valued at 1.2million at the peak but is now valued at £800k - not London btw - and they wont sell altho they say they are desperate to move because it's worth 1.2mil. Ummm it isn't tho is it??

Also it depends on where in zone 4 you live with your commute to London. West London zone 4 is miles out and when we were looking DH's commute would have been 1hr and 20mins (as was mine when i lived in SE25) which is horrible compared to his commute from Sevenoaks which is 40 mins (both door to door). Once you have a commute like that you may as well live further out and get more for your money (altho NOT sevenoaks which is also )

Koala prices are relative, show your parents what they can afford at the new price. Do it before they end up settled forever.

I am sure zones 4 and beyond are great for some people. But they wouldn't have worked for me. My job required me to travel all over London and the SE and all it takes is for one train to be late or one tube not to be running and I am screwed. The further out I was, the worse it would be and the less travel options I would have.

At least in Brixton if the Victoria line was down I could get a bus to Stockwell or Clapahm. Plus, if you want to meet your friends for a meal or whatever in the evening, most trains seemed to stop running fairly early or you had a loooong wait for the last one.

Its definitely horses for courses, but having lived in London on and off for about 20 years, If I am going to be in London I want to BE in London, not somewhere a train ride away. I can do that now!

But unless I win Euro Millions, zero chance of that ever happening.

My friends house has been valued at £1million. It's 3 bedroom in PECKHAM!!! OK so he has done the fancy kitchen extension and it is a lovely house, but fucking hell!

The London property market is not for the fainthearted!

This is such a big problem. So often all the talk is of the London property market like it is all about money making and speculation etc. And for so many it is.

But for so many people, it is just about having somewhere to live. All I want is somewhere to live.

I have to sit here at work and listen to my colleague manage his many "buy to let" London investments. Equity breeds equity. Meanwhile I try not be be resentful that he is one person who owns 10 London properties, and we are 3 people who are stuck in a one bed flat.

I agree with BlueSky it's all starting to feel a bit feudal. Wealthy notables buy up huge blocks of properties which we ordinary folk break our backs to pay rent on.

It's not really simple supply and demand, that's why it's not fair to just let the free market dictate things. There's a huge flow of investment money coming in from overseas that is massively distorting things.

Somebody said up thread prices need to drop about 70% in London, I agree. As long as interest rates stayed low and people could still pay their mortgages actually very few people would be worse off because of this, they might feel worse off but that's not the same thing, they'd still have exactly the same house to live in. The only people who might really be worse off are foreign 'buy to leave' investors who might choose to cut their losses. Good!

I remember in the 80's loads of big houses on Bishops Avenue were empty, except back then they weren't empty, they were all squatted, so people were living there. Now they are still all empty except they now have security guards watching them just to make sure nobody lives in them.

I have three btl properties (not in London) and three children, I see these as (almost) my children's only hope of owning their own home. If house prices fell they could buy their own home with their own wage that they earned themselves. This would benefit both me and them although I might feel hard done by to see my 'investments' fall in price the reality is that even I would benefit by not having to re-mortgage myself to help my children.

Also imagine if housing costs didn't eat up so much of our income. All that extra money could be spent in the economy, it would benefit businesses hugely.

But what about negative equity Fakename?

Be cool, the benefit cap will bite into the buy to let market soon which may bring rents down. Your colleague may be starting to get worried. Ask him about the new 3 year leases being proposed by labour. Ask him if he will be affected by an increase in interest rates.

Either that or the planning rules get trashed and homes become divided into ever tinier units.

fake if you sell your BTL's you could afford to buy one property in London.

You've chosen to do the BTL thing on one hand yet bemoan the fact you cant afford to buy in London because of the effect BTL (among other factors) has had on the housing market!

Your problem stems from you wanting it all - while so many other people are struggling just to have one place to live. I have no sympathy.

op, I am afraid that you are part of the problem. Low mortgage interest rates encouraged a lot of people into the BTL market and that has certainly helped to push up prices.

unreal - unfortunately PIL now have 1.2million in their sights and will not budge because it IS worth it. It's sad because MIL has cancer and FIL is struggling and if they moved nearer us they would have a much better life. But no, they will hold out and die there because of this greed which is bred buy encouraging people to look at their homes as an investment. I mean they have no mortgage ffs!

Hold on a minute

People talking about their parents living in decent houses in London and average jobs. My grand parents and great grand parents lived in east London all 7 of them in a room of a 2 bed house. It's just going full circle back to overcrowding and poverty.

We've been here before.

Barbiera, when the planning laws change London will be very densely populated. It's quite reasonable in terms of density at the moment compared to somewhere like Paris or Tokyo.

We bought our Streatham 3 bed Victorian terrace at the height (the OLD height) of the market in 2007 for £370k. Literally the month after we bought, it started to go down.

Luckily for us we haven't had to sell it as we moved abroad with DH's job in 2010 and so rent it out, but have had 3 DC in the meantime and will be returning to London at some point. An identical house on our road went for £560k the other day, and this is the arse end of Streatham too.

We want to live in Herne Hill, but no way can we afford that, even with the hike in our own property value. DH and I earn in 6 figures combined, and would have a decent 300k deposit, but we want our next home to see us out until the kids leave, so we want a 4 bed place with a decent garden. Not a hope of us getting that in Herne Hill now! But not sure I can live with Catford!

Spero - I feel a bit for you. Holding on your to your place would have you minted now! And such a lovely area it has become.

I wonder if Streatham will ever go the way of Herne Hill...

Boobz - Streatham has a food festival, an arts festival, an increasing number of excellent restaurants and chi chi and trendy cafes, some excellent schools (though you may not be in catchment for Dunraven if you are in th Vale area?)..it will never be Herne Hill because it has the A23, but it is absorbing many Balham and Herne Hill (for example) dwellers who cannot afford to upsize in those places.

Brixton is super expensive. IMO it is a great place for famillies - and plenty of family houses are being snapped up as well as flats. It has Brockwell Park, The Lido, The Ritzy, a great sense of community, street parties, a theatre due to open in a few years time, great transport, Brindisa and other swish food outlets.

don't worry about me! I had to move and I made enough of a profit to provide deposit for next house. some people never get that lucky.

But if house prices don't rise we ALL benefit. It wouldn't really have helped me to hang on to my 2 bed flat because I still couldn't afford to 'upsize' to a 2 bed terrace at £800K!

the only winners in all of this are people who bought a house and are happy moving to a much smaller place in a cheaper area.

Eveyone else loses.

CharmQuark - you make Streatham sound positively quaint! But that A23 and inability to get rid of all the fried chicken places just don't do it for me, still.

We are in the vale, and the best schools near us are all faith schools I think.

I know Balhamites and Brixtonians are being pushed to Streatham, but not sure that has actually made Streatham nicer yet - but then I visited last year so maybe it's changed a bit since then? I do love the Earl Ferrers at the bottom of our road - and I think the tescos has finally been built!

I would love to live in Brixton too - any of the roads hitting Brockwell would be good!

op, I am afraid that you are part of the problem.

Yes, I know I am. But my selling won't make a single bit of difference to the market, it will only harm my own children's future. What we really need is a crash. If we had one it might cost me dearly but I still think it would be cheaper, even for people like me, than having to help my children secure a home of their own. And what kind of world are we living in were a persons best chance of owned their own home revolves around whether or not their parents owned their home.

But what about negative equity Fakename?

Yes, what about it? As I said if interest rates stayed low people could still pay their mortgages so although it might feel like they'd lost out actually they would still have the same outgoings, and have the same house, nothing would have changed. This isn't to say it would be painless though. One group would would suffer would be people on interest only mortgages but imo these mortgages should be banned anyway because they are using property as an investment vehicle. I remember in the 80's crash there was a way for people in negative equity to still move house, I think they just took their negative equity with them.

Also another point about a house price crash, people scream about having to pay inheritance tax on the family home, if it fell in value, bingo, no inheritance tax to pay, family home doesn't have to be sold. Having said all this I know a crash isn't all good news.

inability to get rid of all the fried chicken places

I like the fired chicken places, personally I'd much rather have them than Tesco.