To ponder house price growth

[Getout21]

So Im probably BU as this is very London centric but just wanted to gauge other people's opinion.

I know someone who payed 750k for a 3 bed terrace in NE London in 2012 did it up beautifully (100k extension etc) & sold it last yr for just under 1.3m. Somewhere closer to me in SW London had fixer uppers going for 750k in 2012 & after extensions, loft conversions have sold last year for 1.6m.

AIBU to think these days are over?

Well prices are dropping. There will probably bust a bust then the cycle will repeat.

I agree with Ttbb - prices are falling in London (although profits can be made) through a combination of unaffordability, a flatlining BTL market, extra stamp duty for investors among other things. It depends how Brexit goes but that could take the wind out of the property market for many years.

We probably would need to move in a year or 2 but I'm anxious that most houses are at their peak prices so don't want to pay over the odds. Plus our next home would not be our forever home so ideally we would need to build up some equity while we are there.

Ttbb there are defo a lot of reductions but I think some had crazy prices in the first place.

i think it is a market now for the long game and not the short. We got a very good price for our house and paid a lot for our new. We might not make any money if we sold in the next year or so, but in the long term I think we'll be ok.

We're not in London but in a strong house market elsewhere. Here at the 500k and more bracket people aren't really dropping prices but the speed of sales is slowing

Yes flown that's what I'm fearing. If we were buying our forever home etc I would not mind as we will be there long term it's just that we are at the in between stage.

Where I'm living in London the house prices certainly aren't falling. We've just had two houses, one in our road and one in the road next to ours break the ceiling price for each road.

I'd wait and see if you can avoid the middle house problem and stay where you are and add value. then move to forever home?

To be honest regardless of house prices buying a house in this country is so stressful even if someone offered as £££££ I wouldn't want to move again!

If you're upsizing then you're better in a falling market aren't you?

only if the market stops falling after you have bought, otherwise you get stuck in a house worth less than your mortgage

I actually think house prices falling in London is a good thing. It's absolutely ludicrous at the moment.

only if the market stops falling after you have bought, otherwise you get stuck in a house worth less than your mortgage

Yes true - that's a problem if you're planning to move again in the near future, otherwise not.

We've put our London flat on the market, we had plenty of interest and got our asking price within two weeks. I'd say if you need to move, just move, you could be waiting years for the house market to get to wherever you want it to be and it may never do.

only if the market stops falling after you have bought, otherwise you get stuck in a house worth less than your mortgage

Not if you had equity and yes it is usually cheaper to upsize in a falling market. If prices fall 20% and you move from a £100k house to a £200k house, before the fall it costs you £100k, after the fall it costs you £80k.

If you had £40k equity before the fall, that will be £20k after the fall so your mortgage will be £20k less than your new property value, even after price falls. And as long as you don't move again in the short term, this won't matter.

We are not in London and house prices are rising

Not London but huge increases here. Loads of people having work done and/or extending. Doer uppers being snapped up. One wreck nearby sold for £200k done up fetched £450k and sold within two weeks of being on the market.
One beds in our area fetching £180k.
We're thinking DC will need help with a deposit in a few years wherever she buys.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Consensus seems to be stat put if possible, so think I will look into a loft conversion.

If you are moving up you are better if prices fall really. I will live here until I die now in 30 years' time so even if the price halved I could not care less. My older children who have bought in London or near London will only ever move up or not move so again falling prices don't matter as the price of a more expensive place will fall even more than their current places. Falls will suit my younger 2 when they come to buy too.

My daughter moved in July and found instead of loads of buyers after her nice 2 bed flat she was buying there was no competition and she could buy it quickly. Yes probably will drop in price a bit but that doesn't matter as she's got a place she likes. There is never a perfect time to buy but stamp duty is so very high you cannot be moving very often.

House prices ultimately always go up, because the value of money goes up. A pound now is worth much less than a pound twenty years ago. People need to bear that in mind. If you are in property for the medium to long term you will win, the issue arises if you wish to play the short game, as that's more unpredictable or if you need to come out during a short term dip in the market.

Neither of which apply now, if you're in it for the medium to long term, move now. Any dip will recover, it always does. Your talking about staying put in the off chance the market might dip in the next couple of years, however it really could equally jump, and you find yourself priced out of the range you want. For all we know, we are in the dip now

The issue I'm having that currently we are in the catchment area of a v. good schools but short on space due to bonus child. We can't upsize in the current catchment as £££££ however we could upsize slightly outside it but again I worry about space & then we would be out of catchment for secondary schools. If it was just the jump to our forever family home I wouldn't be bothered as it would be long term but I'm worried by perhaps needing a step
In between it will leave us out of pocket due to stale market/stamp duty etc.

I don't see house prices in london falling anytime soon. It's business as usual.

I don't think that the property prices in London will fall, but I think in many areas they will stagnate, as first time buyers who bought in fairly nice or gentrified areas will want to stay in those areas, but will not be able to afford what should be their next property, and just be stuck in flats that are far too small.

In the non-gentrified areas, and many parts of the South and South East of London, I predict that the house prices will rise. I say this, as for London, there are still a lot of fairly affordable properties to be found here, and transport links are improving. I do not see how these areas will remain so much cheaper than the London averages whilst we are in the middle of such a huge housing crisis, and some will be able to afford places here and the prices will get pushed up.

First time buyers who bought in more gentrified or established areas, but are now desperate for a larger property would be far better venturing out to the S and S E of London - and would in many cases, experience a reduction in their mortgage for a larger property. It just depends whether or not they are like my DH, who cannot understand how people function without a Waitrose, Wasabi, Paul, Pain Quotidien, M&S, a gym and a tube station all within a 10 minute walk of where they live. I could manage, but he and many others simply refuse to, and so they miss out on some amazing property. I'd move there in a heartbeat if it was up to me.

We sold our last house in outer London at a loss in the 90s property crash but it did not matter as the next one where I now live has gone up since that time. I agree with Bluntness that if you are looking for a home (as most of us are) rather than a hold it one year and sell for massive profit money making machine then people tend to be best just getting on with moving rather than waiting for an ideal time.

However with the school issue for the original poster it it seems wiser to stay put and extend for now.

Arg, my son bought a house in Chesham and all those thnings are in a 10 min walk or less I think - certainly tube (although very much outer end of the tube) and Waitrose and I presume some of the others. 3 bed terraced £325k.

I don't think you can use the blanket statement 'London house prices are falling'. I think there are several markets within the London market. So we have just bought on the proposed Crossrail 2 route in the hope that it goes ahead and has the same impact as in Acton etc.

People have talked about London house prices falling for years, but the houses we were looking at this year (zone 3 London, around £600k ish) had all grown in value by £100k over the past 2 - 3 years.

We're buying at the moment and I think it's an interesting market. Some sellers want peak prices and their houses just aren't shifting. Others are more sensible and even with a decent price people are accepting under the asking as standard.

In your shoes I'd go for the loft conversion OP.