To hope there is a house price crash this year

[blondieblonde]

I really hope there is, so we can buy somewhere. What are the chances?

Figment - why is it a pre-crash mindset (genuine question)?

or at least they didn't in the 2008 crash

wasnt really a crash though was it
and if there is one looking at previous crashes isnt necessarily a good guide to how things will pan out

Buy as early as you can in any area. It never doesn't pay off if you will own somewhere for 40 years as most of us will. Yes you might buy at the top of the market but in the last 50 years the market has never not recovered in areas where there are jobs - big cities and I write that as someone who even remembers the 1970s property crash.

suzanne - genuine question,, what would you define as a housing crash? I'd say that wiping away 20-25% of values was a crash (more in some locations) was a crash but I don't know if there is a technical measure for discriminating between a crash and a correction or a slump. It's true that it didn't last very long in property hotspots, partly due to interest rates being reduced to almost nothing.

Unfortunately, looking at what of past crashes is all we have to go on however unhelpful [smie].

what happened in past crashes

very true Lala, Im not sure if there is a hard and fast definition, one could call it a minor crash...but that sounds like a contradiction of terms:o

yes the past is all we have to go on and it is often referred to as if it were a reliable guide to the future.
It is easy to analyse in retrospect, to see that there was a sequence of events which appear to be ineluctable.
looking ahead is a whole different (crystal) ball game

me too

yanbu

The only thing I could buy round here is a 1 bed flat, needing renovation, in a very very rough area

You can afford to buy somewhere it just isn't a done up house in a nice area.

I have friends who live in a 1 bed flat in a crappy area with 2 children. it has never been anything other than a crappy area, they have lived there for a couple of years and now hope to move this year into a 2 bed flat so they can at least have their own room instead of the bed settee.

Everyone unless you have kind well off parents or a large inheritance goes through the crappy flat stage.

Sorry should say my friends could not have hoped to buy a 2 bed flat if they had turned their noses up at the 1 bedder 2 years ago. They wouldn't be able to afford the 1 bedder they are in if they had still been in rented.

I had the same experience as oliversmumsarmy, much more recently. I had colleagues look at me like a loony because I wanted to live in Brockley, in gasp! an ex-council flat and vomit one that had been on the market over a year. Now Brockley has a farmer's market, new builds and yoga classes a-go-go, you can guess what identical flats go for, and how long they stay on the market.

I bought there because I wanted a short commute, and I wanted a foot on the ladder. Friends who were renting in Shoreditch/Highgate/Islington, are all still renting, and now moan that areas like Brockley are unaffordable.

Buy as early as you can in any area. It never doesn't pay off if you will own somewhere for 40 years as most of us will. Yes you might buy at the top of the market but in the last 50 years the market has never not recovered in areas where there are jobs - big cities and I write that as someone who even remembers the 1970s property crash.

That is awful advice! Only worth buying something if your not planning on moving and have done the sums and are confident in your work situation.

I bought mine a few years ago, fully expecting it to halve in value. However it seems to have shot up 100k . Things can crash just as quick as they go up.

We've been used to price rises of 10-20% yearly. 10% Fall every year for 5 years could be possible. What's that almost 60% down?

This is an absolutely classic 'pre-crash' mindset.

Totally agree. Its terrible advice to buy a shitty flat in a shitty area.

Although my dad says he could of easily afforded a house in notting hill when he was younger. It can't of been that shitty the area around there? I mean its not far away from most places.

These days people talk of walthumstow as a trendy area

Notting Hill was an absolute slum in the 59s, 60s and much of the 70s - it was where Rachmaninoff built his empire. Read Alan Johnson's first memoir to get the measure of the place (and an idea of how hard it was to get a council house even pre-Thatcher sell-off).Living in central London wasn't very desirable in those days because people with money didn'tw ant to live near immigrants/associated city centres with poverty/ believed in the great suburban dream. Central London, excluding honeypots such as Belgravia and South Ken, was emptying out.

Its terrible advice to buy a shitty flat in a shitty area

Why? At worst, you do it up and it becomes a nice flat in a shitty area, and you accumulate some capital in the meantime.
Best case, it becomes a nice flat in a nice area.
What is the downside when the alternative is a lifetime of renting while waiting for the elusive crash.

And yes, Walthemstow is trendy. Because people bought 'shitty flats' there a few years ago and did them up.
Same in Catford, Peckham, Layton, Stratford.
There is no need for confused-emoji snobbery...
A decade ago, East Dulwich, Balham, Acton and Hackney were 'shitty areas'
Now you would struggle to get a flat for under £400k and wouldn't get change for a million for a house...

Thanks very interesting, I just can't imagine it now. I guess its the reverse of living in the suburbs when they discovered living out there wasn't all that.

YABVVVVU.

I finally got my own home a year and a half ago. I'd been dreaming about it for years and put every penny of my savings and inheritance into it, to think that people are hoping the housing market crashes and puts many people into negative equity so they can buy a cheap house is bloody horrible!

It is terrible advice because lot of shitty areas stay shitty and if prices do crash you will struggle to sell something in a shitty area.

London is a bit different now as its sold off to the worlds elite, as a result its becoming pretty boring with no where for creatives toblive or thrive. I've lived in several up and coming areas, like bow and new cross. They were still shit.

I've lived in blaham to (well totting bed side) and that was shit. I couldn't even ride my bike on the cycle path through the park as idiots were always walking on it. It had no edge, like so many of the once happening places in london.

Those saying FTB want a nice property straight away and aren't prepared to start at the bottom and move up the ladder - while I understand the logic, you have to take into consideration the increase in associated costs involved with moving - playing out thousands in stamp duty, solicitors' fees, moving van hire, storage if necessary, any admin costs involved by changing all your utilities and policies...it simply isn't feasible or affordable nowadays to move every 2 years just to climb the ladder.

Plus the fact that due to the price increases & lifestyle changes (such as more people spending 3 years plus in uni before they even start earning a full time wage) people are buying later in life.

So whereas if 20 years ago you bought your first flat age 20 as my parents did, planning to do it up then move to a bigger place 4 years later, then have dc1, then move again in 3 years to have room for dc2, and be in a nice catchment area, now if you're not in a position to buy your first place until you're 32 or older, then you're probably planning DC in the very near future (or already have them). You don't have time to get the tiny flat in a grotty area first, you have to plan for space for a full family, take school catchments, nearness to parents, etc. into consideration because these are things that will affect you in 3 years time, not 15. Similarly, if you're late thirties buying somewhere, you may need to be near elderly parents to care for them in a way you wouldn't if you are early twenties and your parents are barely 50. You're also more likely to be settled in your career rather than being able to move around to chase property.

Finally, as most people have a mortgage, the basis of being able to move up the ladder is a mixture of equity & pay - the idea being that your pay will gradually increase allowing you to borrow more. Except that many industries have had a pay freeze for years now (equating to a pay cut in real terms), so the bank probably won't lend you the additional money necessary to take the next step up the ladder.

No one wanted to live in Maida Vale when I bought my first flat their in the 1980's, it was dirt cheap, squatter s lived next door, and the building owners hadn't done any work on it in years. I still have it and its worth millions.

No one wanted to live in Kilburn in the early 1990s, squatters again as well as a rough reputation, we bought our house in '91 and we've worked at it for ages. Its now ts worth what a 3 story, (4 if you count the cellar) double fronted Victorian property with an acre of garden is worth in Zone 2.

So quite frankly your advice dyslexic is shit, buy, but buy to make a home, not an investment. Go for an area you can afford it will work out.

The foriegn demand makes up 3.3 % of London demand, the rest is the fact that we have a growing population and not enough supply of housing. Despite the fact that we have far more housing now than we did at the last population peak in 1939, the way people live has changed (e.g we no longer get our teeange children to share beds), we have more single people etc. We also have a huge number of people looking to get on to the market, loads of people aged 26 + are gunning to get in and are looking, not many properties last on the market more than a month, in any area.

Walthamstow is ace btw, it has easy fast access to Liverpool St, to the rest of central by the Victoria line, has the Overground link into the North West and East of the city, has busses that run into town too. The village is a nice area, the market is vibrant, there are a range of interesting palces to eat. Go to Eat 17 one Saturday lunchtime and just watch the world go by, you'll see how nice it is.

Yeah it would be a real bummer for those who took out a large mortgage and bought at the top of the market
Then again they'd have read the small print, property prices as with other investments can go up or down
Them's the breaks

Yup, and suzzanne those wishing for a crash so they can buy are utterly deluded, you'll never get on the ladder and a massive crash will effect so much economically that it will cause untold misery to millions, home owners, private pensioners whose pension values will crash, those made redundant as firms struggle to find cash and consumers keep their money in their pockets.

Yes misery for millions just cause I'm alright, Jack. We're fine, we're paid off, A 50% crash would mean that oh dear I'm still several hundred times abvove what I paid for my property, and to be quite frank I could buy more as I have a substantial amount of liquid, yet I'm not praying for it!

Silver the last 3 flats I have bought (in London) did not attract stamp duty. Not everything has stamp duty. Solicitors fees are not huge, especially if you don't mess people around and don't keep pulling out of sales. Maybe I am strange but I have only once used a removal company when we have moved. Usually a rented van and roping in a couple of mates paid for in a few pints down the pub later on. Also what are these extra charges to move suppliers. Never heard of them, certainly never paid them.

Friends who bought the 1 bedder with 2 children in a shitty area, which is still a shitty area might not make huge sums on the flat they bought but it should have made enough in the 2 years they have been there to move them up to a 2 bedder.
Judging by some people on here if they had sat down and costed out everything and wanted a family home with a garden they probably wouldn't have bought and would still be in rented. Their mortgage now is a fraction of what they were paying in rent and so they are able to save much more than when they rented.

DyslexicScientist
People blocked your path while cycling
Yes you are right. Despite having amazing transport links, aMAYzing schools, restaurants, comedy projects and arts, if someone once blocked your pathIt is clearly a shitty area. Avoid, wise people!

I didn't give advice. I just said that buying a shit flat in a shit area is bad advice.

Thats classic stuff to say near when the bubble is close to popping. Just buy anything!

There is no ladder, couples in their early 30s who have really pushed themselves financially to afford a shitty one bed flat won't be helped if prices go up as the next step is even bigger and if they fall they could be trapped in ne. Its a ponzi scheme that constantly needs new entrances into it to help those at the top.

Many people in london care very little for the city, they are just there to pump and dump it. I'd like to see some figures for this 3%. Seeing as most new builds are sold off plan to overseas investors who often left it stay empty to protect their investment.