To wonder wtf is happening with the London property market?!

[MeAndMine21]

Unbelievable. It's never been this bad.

Will it just keep going up?

Colindale has lots of 2 beds available quite reasonably, is on a tube line

Colindale is f ing miles away though! What's the commute from there into the wharf? An hour and a half?

Most people I know don't mind living in 'undesirable' places in terms of lack of 'naice' coffee shops, but living within a reasonable distance of work shouldn't be too big an ask.

whois
Then look at Layton or Plaistow or Bromley by Bow.
Chiswick is probably also an hour and a half commute to the wharf. Doesn't mean it is automatically a terrible area. Just that it's the wrong side of town if that's your commute.

55 mins with a change at Waterloo whois, if you commute to Canary Warf , look somewhere along the DLR lines.

In E16, near George V DLR station, Canning Town etc there appear to be loads of properties, 3 beds for under £300 k!

See, its easy if you look.

Also many people have a commute of an hour, or more in this city.

Again this leads me to think that people are actually just unrealistic.

Everyone wants zone 2, close to work, near the tube, naice area, its why the prices in those areas are so high!

Canning town is horrible though. Really rough. I wouldn't live there if you paid me. Dh works there and wouldn't walk through the town in the evening.

See, point proven, there are properties out there, you lot just turn your nose up at them.

Its not that rough about by King George V DLR station and there are loads of properties there.

You can commute from Enfield to Canary Wharf in under an hour, there are lots of options.

People who are whining about lack of properties would probably never have bought in Kilburn, Finsbury Park, Hornsey, or anywhere else back in the day. You'd have all complained that you couldn't live in Kensington, Muswell Hill or some other places.

It definitely is due to overseas investment.

We're "lucky": bought in 2011 a 2 bed maisonette in what was a rough area (West Norwood - not rough, perhaps - but not naice either) for £220k. Sold it in 2014 for £330k after owning for 2 years and 8 months. That is insane. We then bought a three bed garden flat further east just north of Forest Hill for £500k (though have been stung for £24k roof renewal not disclosed at point of sale, and will need to do some work on a minor damp issue). We now have a 25 yr mortgage at 3.5x joint salary - but we are approaching 40. The only reason we've been able to do this is a) we're both fortunately higher earners than the London average and b) we don't have DCs so don't have the associated expenses. The worry of the mortgage makes me sick and leaves me sleepless - we have savings which could cover us for some time due to a bereavement but it's a very high outgoing every month. At least we have good transport links so if we needed to get another job the commute wouldn't be awful.

What worries me far more is what will happen to my 14 and 16 yo niece and nephew. How on earth will either of them afford to buy? How on earth will we have nursery nurses, firefighters and healthcare and social care staff living nearby their work, which is necessary for service continuity, in five years' time when the Tory cynical plan to get rid of all social housing will have taken full force?

DH and I are seriously planning a move to Canada as we think we'd have a better chance at a decent quality of life over there, though the market in Toronto seems almost as bad as London, and Vancouver is if anything worse.

But those waiting on a crash will be out of luck: 65(ish)% of the electorate are home owners and no government will bring about changes, or fail to prevent, a full scale crash as their parties will be unelectable for decades. Not going to happen...

I agree with longtimelurker- there are a lot of property snobs and areas just disregarded. I live in hackney, I have lived here for years. When I first moved here my work colleagues would look at me with sympathy but low and behold the olympics happen and now it's so trendy to live in the east near the flower market or near to lower Clapton where there are artisan bakeries and real ale pubs and restaurants galore. It's london, constantly changing constantly developing if you buy anywhere it may be tough around the edges for a short while but it will soon boom and then you will feel like a right hypocrite for being so judgemental about it. Peckham is the new up and coming area, as is Walthamstow. If you want to buy here bad enough, you will

Seriously button, people look at me like I'm a loony when I suggest properties like the ones I've mentioned in the past. Or if you suggest they live in ex local authority flats (tend to be slightly cheaper and we'll built).

Lots of the younger folk at work obviously think they should be moving into victorian terraces in the now trendy and desirable areas, but able to do so at 1980s prices. Oh ... but the 80s prices are only when they're buying, they want massive price rises once they're on the ladder.

I think that's unfair, most of my friends (in our thirties) have compromised on area, we've all rented in zone 2 but now have bought/looking to buy in zone 3 or 4, Norwood junction, plumstead and Sydenham etc.

How I'd love to afford Peckham

Also not snobby about ex council if it's decent, we put an offer in for a 3 bed ex-LA in woolwich which resulted in a bidding war and we had to pull out, that seems to be part of the problem., every house we go and see has an open viewing with 20 people looking round who all end up bidding more than the asking price.

People are shocked that they have to adjust their property wishes, I know I was initially. I had come from a small town where you could buy a four bedroom house and large garden for £250,000, and actually if anything I bet that price has gone down. It still does make me sick when I hear of friends buying houses for 90k but then I wouldn't want to live there so I had to suck it up and buy somewhere less desirable, now I'm in a great area, great flat and those that scoffed at hackney are now pretty impressed

Of course buying in London is expensive but it's not personal, you could find somewhere cheaper, it will of course be higher than national average but it's London, if you didn't expect that then your a fool.

London market is always the same.

Easybway to become a millionaire IMO.

I have a buisness woman friend, who bought one flat, remortgaged when it increased and carried on doing this. She now owns over twenty properties and retired at 40 and is now living in each flat for a free years so she can sell off tax free. I think well done to her. Other people should be thankful for buisness people that invest in flats and allow them to be rented out as a service to people that want them.

Yes, it's always been about expections. I have the hour's commute although these days don't do it every day and I live in zone 5. That is not unusual. I used to work with law firm parnters who commuted from Brighton, Cambridge, Kent, Herts and that is decades ago. This is not a new issue. Which areas are most expensive and most grotty varies from time to time of course. My daughter bought ex local authority in zone 1. You just have to take your decisions if you're lucky enough to be in work and able to save up a deposit and live accordingly.

1954 : Betjamen was writing about "Elaine" commuting into London from Ruislip etc

"Middlesex

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Tas and Pardons
Daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station
With a frown of concentration,
Out into the outskirt’s edges
Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium – rural Middlesex again.

Well cut Windsmoor flapping lightly,
Jacqmar scarf of mauve and green
Hiding hair which, Friday nightly,
Delicately drowns in Drene;
Fair Elaine the bobby-soxer,
Fresh-complexioned with Innoxa,
Gains the garden – father’s hobby –
Hangs her Windsmoor in the lobby,
Settles down to sandwich supper and the television screen.

Gentle Brent, I used to know you
Wandering Wembley-wards at will,
Now what change your waters show you
In the meadowlands you fill!
Recollect the elm-trees misty
And the footpaths climbing twisty
Under cedar-shaded palings,
Low laburnum-leaned-on railings
Out of Northolt on and upward to the heights of Harrow hill.

Parish of enormous hayfields
Perivale stood all alone,
And from Greenford scent of mayfields
Most enticingly was blown
Over market gardens tidy,
Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney singers, cockney shooters,
Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters,
Long in Kensal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone."

I'm not sure it is unfair lemon. Even on here people have been aghast at suggestions of Colindale or somewhere on the DLR.

People who get on the ladder compromise, it has almost always been this way. Very few have been able to afford to move into their dream area, I would have loved St John's Wood, but got Kilburn.

Lots of folk on here have expressed negativity when told that there are affordable properties in other areas if you look. Ha, bet loads would say that my area isn't that great either.

And mine is not everyone's cup of tea either 60%+ not white, 25% hindu etc etc. .I have no problems with the racial and religious mixture and my son is the only white boy in his class but I am sure a lot of people won't live in my outer London borough because they'd rather live with posh white people like they are or they move out to Luton, MK etc to find the white working class who moved there often through "white flight", just as the jews moved steadily out from the East End through to Hampstead and out to Stanmore etc. Tehre are fascinating issues to study about where people live in London and where they start (sometimes just near Heathrow air port for example because they landed there) and move elsewhere bit by bit as they grow more prosperous.

From talking to the younger folk at work, they would like to live in houses and flats like their parents bought, but now, not when their parents bought!

Do you remember what places like Finsbury Park, Islington, even Crouch End etc were like in the 80's? In fact to the person who said they wouldn't buy in Canning Town... Canning town now is what all of the above listed places were like back then. Massively diverse, a bit rough round the edges, but with affordable property.

It's not a bubble, it's a severe shortage of housing. Agree with above until there is a proper property tax for absent overseas buyers it won't change.

it's a way for the government to hide how shit the economy is. For some odd reason, house price inflation is a sign of a healthy economy. Well, it can be, unless that inflation is due to a housing shortage.

Tax overseas buyers. Double stamp duty for empty homes and of course build some damn houses.

It's criminal what this and previous governments are doing. They are ruining the lives of an entire generation.

Love the post from raranah that we should all be so grateful to land Lords for providing a valuable "service" easy to tell who has btl on this thread!

I love the Middlesex poem, brilliant!

There needs to be a huge mental shift in presuming that everyone is entitled to buy.

What is that supposed to mean? Its a free market, lots of people dont went to buy and and landlords provide this service.

lots of people dont went to buy

You mean they can't afford to. If I could have bought instead of renting for the last 6 years, I can assure you I would have done!!

It's a free market

Ok, I'll bite. Of course it isn't rigged in any way, oh no. Artificially low interest rates, help to buy, overseas buyers who transfer the deeds to foreign tax havens etc. Currently it's the opposite of a free market.

It is certainly not a very free market although I suppose when I bought the state not the independent bank of England set interest rates (so less free) and there as a residual mortgage tax interest relief ( so low by then it was worth virtually nothing in London however). Stamp duty was lower too. It has shot up since we last bought in 97 although now down again since the very recent changes in England and Scotland for homes under £1m.

The biggest problem for most borrowers is building up a deposit. If we could return to 95% mortgages that immediately woudl help. They could buy the £200k places in the outer bits of London the rest of us slum it with and if they don't their loss for being so entitled to want their family home right away. 5% x 200 000 is £5k for each person in the couple - not impossible to save if you don't eat out etc and are in a reasonable professional job, teaching etc. As soon as you need 25% it's impossible for most people. So that's been the biggest problem in the SE. My other daughter was one of the last to get a buy to let loan for her first place and only then because I provided the 25% deposit and let her live at home for 2 years whilst she let it out. Now you can't get buy to let loans as your only property as they changed the rules. Before it was a way in if your salary was not quite high enough to get an ordinary loan. So it is market interference which is at fault. In the old days the lender had latitude to say whatever the state says I know this family, I know this person is a lawyer etc whose income will treble over the next few years so I will lend to them. Now they have to say ticking boxes you must provide massive deposit, you spend a lot on a pension so we wno't lend to you etc even though common sense dictates that the 20 something saving into a pension is likely to be the better mortgage risk than the 20 something putting money into alcohol