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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think thank god the London property bubble is looking like bursting

290 replies

lexiepix · 26/02/2015 20:20

www.property-time.co.uk/news/Featured-News-227/articles/Latest-Index-Shows-London-Housing-Bubble-Has-Burst-111171.aspx

Its been long overdue and the lr figures for the last few months show that pretty much all of inner London is falling. I know some will have pain from this, but its been waiting to happen for ages and the longer it inflates the worse the pop will be.

For what it's worth I don't live in London, but I think when they do pop the whole country will be better off. When I was working in London most of my older workmates were on about the UK average pay (22-30), but living in property worth between 500-800k, and calling a 300k one bed flat "cheap" Confused

OP posts:
Damnautocorrect · 28/02/2015 14:06

The 2008 crash caused the changes to the lending we see now. I know we tried to get a mortgage in 2009/ 2010 the figures stacked but no one would have us as no one was lending to the starter homes then with 10/20% deposit

happybubblebrain · 28/02/2015 14:10

London house prices are so over-inflated. Why are people so unwilling to live an hour away by train? Public transport from zones 3 and 4 often takes more than an hour anyway. Plus, London isn't a nice place to live, in my experience. It's fine to visit.

Even though it doesn't matter either way to me personally I would prefer there was a crash, London is far too big for its boots.

Draylon · 28/02/2015 14:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

noddyholder · 28/02/2015 14:29

What is a property finance thing Bigpaw?

noddyholder · 28/02/2015 14:30

Banks do lend in a crash

TheMaskedTurnip · 28/02/2015 14:31

Mumsnetters being analysed and discussed here:

www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?/topic/203505-another-mumsnet-thread-about-london-property-bubble/#entry1102678115

noddyholder · 28/02/2015 14:32

Agree with draylon 100%

Bowlersarm · 28/02/2015 14:33

Housepricecrashers are bloody obsessed with Mumsnet and what we say. Should be flattered I guess.

Barbarella · 28/02/2015 14:59

Omg at that 1.1m in St Johns Wood - that's bonkers

I think everyone's veen saying 'it'll crash" for YEARS and so far, it hasn't. I remember 15% interest rates though. If rates rise plenty of people will struggle.

kwerty · 28/02/2015 15:33

£1.15 MILLION for that flat!!! Why would you? I live in a lovely part of leafy Warwickshire and could get a small manor house for £1 million, leaving £150,000 for season tickets for the 55 minute commute from Coventry station which is about 12 minutes away... well, it will be again if Tollbar Island is ever finished.

MN164 · 28/02/2015 15:42

There is a shortage of affordable housing in London for a large number of key workers, manual workers.

Pumping more money into the system was a mistake, with "help to buy" schemes that any amateur economist called out as wrong. If you want to reduce prices you don't increase the amount of money available to buy things in limited supply. That had the opposite effect.

There is also a temptation to "intervene" with landlords and property rights or to try to redistribute wealth wholesale through asset taxes. I don't like this kind of intervention as it strikes too heavily at the fundamental principles of "property" and begins to stray into "theft".

The solution to house prices is so astoundingly simple it beggars belief that all parties don't agree - build more houses.

More supply will lower prices in the face of demand. It's that simple. Anything else is manipulation that will suffer the "law of unintended consequences". My vote is not so easily won Draylon. Wink

TalkinPeace · 28/02/2015 16:04

There are half a million empty homes in the UK

There are a million second homes in the UK

Housebuilders are choking supply by land- banking and not getting on with the 400,000 homes they have planning permission for

GibberingFlapdoodle · 28/02/2015 17:02

Going off on a limb here,if there's a reduction in the London bubble, does that signify a reduction in foreign investment in britain? And since that is all that's keeping Britain afloat, with its humongous current account deficit, is this another sign that it's all about to blow up in our faces??

Housing prices have been going up and up for 20 years and no one gave a damn until recently when even the (to me) rich middle classes started being affected. Hey middle, you'll be with us lower groups in the shit when it kicks off, shame you didn't support us earlier isn't it?

Damnautocorrect, those are excellent points about the real impact of not being able to own your own home. I get so sick of (invariably) home owners telling me to put up and shut up because home ownership isn't the major thing in the world, especially if they then start up with the myths about high continental rental practices (myths except in the golden land of germany).

camaleon · 28/02/2015 17:30

I read somewhere that 80% of houses bought in central London were 'cash' transactions. So I cannot see how an interest rise would impact the 'bubble'. It would have a negative influence on everybody else though, and will result in even less 'normal' people being able to afford anything in London.

Pipbin · 28/02/2015 17:30

It drives me mad that people who don't live in London get so excited about the prospect of those of us who do failing.

No we don't, people outside London don't get excited about you failing. We just watch London house prices with shock, like circus sideshow.

My question though is what can be done about this. £1.1 million for a bollocks flat is madness. Is there the space in London to build anything else? Can they build new flats that can't be bought as second homes or investments?

Oh and those from HousePriceCrash reading, we can, and often do, say cunt, fuck and other swearwords all we like.

TalkinPeace · 28/02/2015 17:32

Housepricecrash blocked me from posting on their forums because I questioned some of their maths.

BertieBrabinger · 28/02/2015 17:45

Pipbin it is madness if you compare London prices with prices outside the M25 (apart from Oxford and to some extent, Cambridge). But London is another country now and people will happily pay £1.1M for a small flat in St John's Wood. Because crashes, bubbles etc., come and go but for the last 40-50 years the general rule of thumb in London is that within Zone 3 your property tends to double in value every decade.

One of the reasons that first time buyers are down in number countrywide is because lending criteria have changed so dramatically since 2008/9. (Some of the changes were wise, to be fair.) But in wishing for a London crash, you are actually wishing for a countrywide crash as that is what will happen, as it did the last time. The difference is much of the North has still yet to recover and now rather than affordable housing, getting a mortgage is harder than ever.

I can see how it is a circus sideshow to some, but if you have lived in London for 15+ plus years and have been on the property ladder it's just business as usual. Once Crossrail is up and running, it may take some heat out of the central prime prices, but all I can see it doing is sending places that weren't that well connected before through the roof. Once wages catch up it can only fuel this further.

Like someone said upthread, people were warning of London property crashes in the 70s, 80s, 90s and London just keeps on going. Like New York, it is a world city, and people always have and always will want to live there, whatever the cost. Moreover, it is worth remembering that we always end up with a London centric government full of people careful to feather their own nests - they will do their utmost to avoid a London property crash unless it means they can speculate and make another fortune once they see to it that prices go crazy again, as they always do.

I understand why people think they want a crash. But after crash always comes boom, and nature and bankers abhor a vacuum.

Draylon · 28/02/2015 17:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Draylon · 28/02/2015 17:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

lexiepix · 28/02/2015 18:01

Bertie that's just stupid, no way can prices keep doubling every ten years while wages stay the same. It will all fall down eventually.

The last couple of decades mean jack shit for this up and coming bust as its like never before. Never before have rates been so low, or have they printed money and this is the worst recession in most peoples lifetimes.

With technology I see more and more jobs being done remotely anyway so London won't be as important as it used to be.

OP posts:
TalkinPeace · 28/02/2015 18:02

draylon
Its also about rebalancing the risk and reward status of London property.

The fact that the annual charge on a £20m London property is only £2400 (council tax) compared with £50k in countries with proper land taxes

and there are no penalties for keeping property empty

and stamp duty and CGT can be avoided using offshore ownership LLPs

all need sorting

adding council tax bands I to Z would have little impact on the rest of the country but would rebalance the investment class called high end London property

Pipbin · 28/02/2015 18:07

As someone else has just said, there are loads of empty and under-occupied houses throughout the land! My recently deceased mum rattled alone around a 3 bedder on a road of 20 odd largely 4-5 bedders, all bar two being very, very under-occupied, widows and OAP couples, all!

I bought my three bed house with the hope of starting a family. I now know that will never happen. Are you suggesting I should move as I don't need three bedrooms?

TalkinPeace · 28/02/2015 18:10

Pipbin, less that than people like my family member who is the sole occupant of 9 bedrooms and 7 reception rooms

BertieBrabinger · 28/02/2015 18:35

lexiepix it may sound stupid to you, but that is exactly what has happened. In some areas, less than a decade for values to double. And as far as I know, since 2008 most non self-employed people I know have had wages frozen or tiny increases of 1% per annum. And still prices go up. I don't understand it, but it has happened.

It doesn't make it right or mean that it makes any sense though. But I do think that the last crash - if you could call it that, it didn't feel that way in London - seems only to have driven prices up and chances of a mortgage down. So I definitely don't think a crash is the answer at all.

More housing yes. But as long as London councils sell off their land to private developers and the measly 'affordable housing' provisions continue with this weird housing apartheid in developments I can't see London being any more affordable.

JillyR2015 · 28/02/2015 18:36

I was talking to one of my teenagers about interest rates and house prices a little earlier. If you are offered just over 2% mortgage interest rate as one of my daughters just has been on a remortgage on her zone 2 one bed London flat is that worse than the 12% or even 6% we all used to pay on houses which cost half the value they now do? Someone could do a chart. 30 years ago we were paying 12%.

We certainly could afford 30 years ago and now to buy in central London so bought in zone 5 and did the commute.

People have always done the maths over where to live. I remember pretty well paid law firm partners with whom I worked commuting in each day from Brighton, Kent, Herts 30 years ago as it was too expensive to live in Central London. Plus ca change.

As for if we will have a craash which results in prices being much less than they are now and staying that way for the 30 or 40 years most people own somewhere it is very unlikely to happen. I know we are in interesting time which some banks charging to hold money for some investors (and my pension has just reduced the interest rate for cash balances up to £100k to zero) but most people buy because they need a home and it is best just to get on with it, give up your holidays and meals out and tolerate some dump and commute in and at least you own the roof over your head. Still makes sense.

Oh and near where my grandfather was brought up there are houses like this for £30k. In fact here's a £19k - auction
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-50708042.html
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49981361.html

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