To ask about experiences of selling property in London now?

[gardenangels]

Conflicting reports from estate agents. ..

I think volume may well be right that it is unpredicatable as much as anything.

"Fingers crossed for a big price crash" - and negative equity for hundreds of thousands of people. How nasty can you get??

Property in London is totally unaffordable unless you earn a substantial amount of money. You need to be earning at least £50k to buy a crappy one bed flat.

There needs to be a correction as the prices are too high.

Assuming people buy a property to live in and not purely to make money on, there should be time for the market to recover and get out of negative equity while they still live there.

A year ago everything was group viewings on a Saturday and sealed bids on Monday.

Same in my corner of London, zone 2 SE. We're looking to buy. I check RM daily. Stuff is being reduced left and right.

We've also encountered some very greedy vendors, who refused multiple sensible offers (not just from us!) to hold out for some number the EA touted. I can only wish them luck.

Not nasty at all Temporary, certainly no nastier than hoping there is no crash and thus furthering the immense financial problems of non owners while owners profit at their expense.

If you buy a house that then goes up in value very sharply, that increase is not to your credit, and it isn't something you have created. It relies in part on a strategy of inflating away government debt and of restricting house building, among other local and global forces outside your control. It may go up in value in one year by a greater amount than your salary for a year, making it impossible by sheer passage of time for anyone who works or earns exactly as you do to buy a home. They will thus be suffering financial hardship, often paying more in rent than you would be for a mortgage, and getting nothing for that in the future. The consequences may well extend throughout their lives, especially into retirement. So by hoping there is not a crash you are only wishing hardship that is worse than most cases of negative equity would be upon these people. Why should they not hope your loss is their gain, when for years your gain has been their loss, and you want to keep it that way?

The only thing owners do which in some way earns them the value increase is take the risk....they invest knowing that prices may go up or may crash....that is the market. Risk, if you are lucky enough to have been able to buy before the crazy rises, and maybe reward. By that rule you can't complain if you see the flipside in a crash. Don't worry, you won't.

Here in SE London things seem to be very slow.

We are looking in zone 3/4/5

Property that we already viewed back in the summer is now turning up in my inbox, on with another agent and generally for the same price. I just explain that we've seen it before and still not interested.

Lots of price reductions since the summer, but still appears to be a high asking price.

For us, we've not found the right property for a number of reasons:

• very small space e.g. squared metres, and viewing not made it look any bigger
• lots of work/updating needs doing yet owners still wanting to sell for a minimum x price. I know this is mainly linked in to their onward purchase, but many seem to want x price but don't seem to have done any work/spent a penny on improving.

As a first time buyer we are looking to mortgage up to the hilt, for what are pretty mediocre properties, and with v little spare cash to make the improvements. No thanks.

I know there is this mentality of getting on the ladder at all costs, getting out of the rental trap- but even so, there comes a point where you need to draw the line and say it's just not worth it.

For now anyhow.

Out of interest I just looked for properties for sale near me, and I see quite a few have been reduced.

Not nasty at all Temporary, certainly no nastier than hoping there is no crash and thus furthering the immense financial problems of non owners while owners profit at their expense.

Well... if house price crashes happened in isolation, maybe. They rarely do. House prices can act like a canary in the coalmine. Market uncertainty leads to prices dropping, but it typically also leads to job cuts, stricter mortgage lending and lower investment. So the situation you seem to be imagining (of prices dropping in isolation, so those priced out can buy a home) is really unlikely, unfortunately.

Bollocks to that. There is a difference between your off-plan buyer who buys in an identikit high rise and means new builds are unaffordable, and families who stretched themselves to buy a property, work fucking hard to pay the mortgage, and now are at risk of being stuck and unable to move to meet their family's needs for a long, long time. Prices go up and prices go down and prices stay roughly the same - fine, that's the market, that's the risk when you buy.

But to rub your hands gleefully and tar every property owner with the same brush and actively hope joyfully for a "nice big crash"? That's a fucking dick move.

But to rub your hands gleefully and tar every property owner with the same brush and actively hope joyfully for a "nice big crash"? That's a fucking dick move.

Not really.

You are attributing way too much power to people who wish for this. If a housing price crash happens, it happens. It wont happen because people wished for it or hoped for it. No one has that much control over the state of play and they have no influence.

If a crash happened you would seriously be pissed off at people who hoped it did when they had no influence?

At least you have a home as they said, negative equity or not. Why does no one buy a home for a homes sake anymore, it is bought as a cash cow to earn money.

You want people to care that you might end up in negative equity for a bit and not be able to buy another home. But you dont give a flying fuck that most people are stuck paying rent for life with no hope of affording a home. That is a fucking dick move too.

When I rub my hands and say, yay, people being priced out of the market, that would be equivalent to what the PP said. That was my point.

Saw earlier that a flat in the house next door to my friend's (we were nosily looking at it on Rightmove a couple of weeks ago) has been reduced from £450,000 to £425,000
One bed, zone 2, NW London

Temporary, what I said was "Oh good. Well, fingers crossed for a big price crash."

Not, as you appear to have read it "Oh good. Well fingers crossed so that lots of people can end up in negative equity."

In my area, prices have gone up by approx 100% in 2 years. Not earned, not fair and actually, if prices did crash now, the numbers who would end up in negative equity are tiny. It would at most only affect those who bought in the last 2 years and in reality almost none of those, because my location on the edge of London means that the reason prices went up so much was the ripple effect of people selling small suddenly expensive flats in London to buy houses near me, which had been much cheaper. And most of the rest will have been BTL landlords, for whom I have not a shred of sympathy if their investment goes down.

You can have your back.

You really have no idea what you're talking about, if the worst thing you can imagine is being 'stuck' in a house you chose to buy. Presumably not being able to buy a house in the first place, despite being on a well over average salary for the area, is beyond your comprehension.

In fact, have another

See, if you'd explained yourself that way in the first place, you might not have come across as quite such a gleeful nasty piece of work in hoping for a crash that would fuck up lots of people and be indicative of a fucked economy.

(Although again, bollocks do you know that "only a tiny number" of people are affected. You don't know that, unless you happen to be in charge of the land registry for your area, of course.)

I wasn't talking about myself, btw - it won't affect me. But unlike you, I can see things from other people's point of view. It's not fair for lots of ordinary people if things rise or crash. To hope for something that will be bad for lots of people because it suits you = you're still queen of the biscuits, love!

I don't need to be 'in charge' of the Land Registry for my area. Are you unaware that nowadays ordinary mortals can view Sold Prices on Rightmove, Zoopla etc for free?

And what do you mean 'if you'd explained yourself that way in the first place'? I did. You decided for reasons best known to yourself to assume that I wished ill on non-existent people in negative equity rather than wishing well to people who can only dream of the luxury of being 'stuck' in their own home. :(

Here you go, biscuit lady:

Right, sure. So you've looked at every single sale in the area and know that only a tiny handful of people would be affected by your self interested wishes? Because Zoopla qualifies you to do that? Oh dear.

They are very bitter tasting, your biscuits, you know.

At least mine aren't poisonous, unlike yours.

Enjoy.

What do you do when you're not hurling insults at people who can't afford to buy houses because they've doubled in price in 2 years? Do you laugh at starving people after they've suffered floods or famine? Or do you go and cackle at war zones or round hospitals?

Can you read, dear? I said, it's not good for anyone. I see BOTH sides.

Not just my own little one!

No, you can't see my side can you!!

Hence all your nonsense posts worrying about non-existent people in negative equity.

You clearly don't give a shit about all the many millions who can't afford a home at all.

Bah, I'm done arguing with trolls. You can finish the biscuit packet on your own.

Personally I'm hoping for a "price correction" I'll put it like that.

Round here, even if prices fell 5% or 15%- owners would still make an impressive profit.

A lot of asking prices (after doing a quick check on RM) are many times higher than the prices paid by the owners, even barely 18 months ago.

At the end of the day, even with negative equity, you own your own home albeit with a mortgage etc.
At least you aren't throwing your hard earned money away in rent each month.

As a PP talked about working bloody hard to pay the mortgage, there are people out there in London (myself & husband included) who work bloody hard to pay the rent each month (almost £1600) and then try to scrape together a deposit from what's left over each month.

We're now looking at going down the route of Help to Buy London.
We don't have a hope of saving enough deposit, to get a 40% government loan is insane but it might be the only way to buy something that will suit our needs for a few years at least.

Oh and by the way I'm not hoping for a crash that would fuck up lots of people and be indicative of a fucked economy

Just a simple re-adjustment of prices back to vaguely non-insane levels

I realise there are homeowners who need to get the max price and more to enable them to take the next step up e.g. from a 2 bed flat to a 2 bed terrace or whatever.

But we aren't prepared (or able) to pay those prices- if first time buyers cannot get on the ladder, the whole thing tends to grind to bit of a halt.

That's my opinion anyway.

SW London - slow here. Stuff is taking 6mths to go under offer. Price reductions are happening but most sellers seem to be trying to cling on

Flowers, again, house prices can act like a canary in the coalmine. Market uncertainty leads to prices dropping, but it typically also leads to job cuts, stricter mortgage lending and lower investment. So the situation you seem to be imagining (of prices dropping in isolation, so those priced out can buy a home) is really unlikely, unfortunately.

Not really - when house prices dropped previously, once the market had bottomed out and prices were lower, then mortgages became available. And who wants to buy when prices are still falling?