House Prices

[ladymary86]

DP and I are hopefully going to be buying a house together soon.

We are both teachers so have a good income and we have a very healthy deposit also.
We have been renting a 3 bed house for 2 years now at just under £1k a month. This is ok for us and we can still afford to do other things.
In the process of looking and considering properties (we will probably buy a new build) we noticed that there is so much out of our price range and it got us thinking - who CAN actually afford them?! I know we are not the highest earners but we are certainly not anywhere near the lowest. We are looking at around £295k for a 4 bedroom house which will have us paying roughly the same a month as our rent just now.
I am just being nosey really, but AIBU to ask - what's your mortgage a month? What kind of home do you have?

I just bought and new builds are crazy! I think the developers are pushing the prices up because of help to buy.
I bought a 4 bed detached for £290,000 unfortunately it was a very very tight timeline so I had to buy before I sold. The extra stamp took up a lot of money so I had to go to 90% LTV so mortgage currently is £840 a month.
One tip with a new build check the council tax!! Mines £130 as the house is 11 years old but all the new builds were £250+ as they are top of the band.

You would have to be pritty mad to take on any debt in the current economic climate, we're about to hit a recession with a possible financial crash due to the Corona Virus, worldwide Markets have crashed in the past couple weeks, alot of UK companys are at risk of bankruptcy, plus loads of unemployment, bank of England just gone to zero interest rates, I could go on and on. I would ask around friends and see what they think

Do not buy this year.

House prices are about to tumble and we could be in for a massive financial crisis.

Take the point about possible financial crisis etc. and it is something we are considering but it doesn't really answer my questions

That's good value compared to where I live, we paid £295k three years ago for a 3 bed semi that needed completely gutting, £35k in and still work to do having done a lot of the basics ourselves

Our mortgage is around £850

Use a mortgage calculator.

Don't buy a new build, most lose a fair share of their value once they're bought and take a while depending on the market to get back to the original value.

Sorry misunderstood your Op I retract the mortgage call comment

Around £1,350

3 bed in unfashionable part of London

Depends on the builder and the area. Red row for example might drop or go down a little in ‘paper value’ in the first couple of years but their houses tend to be sellable as they have useable space and build in desirable areas close to public transport links - I don’t know anyone who hasn’t made money on a redrow property even within the first 5 years. A persimmons home may present a totally different outcome.

Depends where you live, if you're not a cash buyer then your deposit, term length and interest rates make a difference - we bought a 3 bed new build in Bucks for £375k with £90k deposit and pay £900 a month ish

I grew up with both parents teachers in the Thatcher era and we were pretty well aware we were not at all wealthy.
We had a tiny, tiny house.

Now I have a 4 bed attached home and mortgage is around £2k per month. South east.

350k house 2 bed
We pay 1100 pcm

Hi OP I think teaching is a good solid salary and I think houses are almost out of reach for normal first time buyers who can't call on the help of the bank of Mum and Dad. I think a house is always a good investment if you are wanting to live there for some time and not under pressure to move. Run your figures through Money Saving Experts mortgage calculator and see what a difference even small over payments make to the amount of interest you pay and the length of your mortgage. Our mortgage is $400 for a 3 bed that is slightly too small for us. We are over paying to reduce the term so we don't have to worry as much about job security.

Oops should add we are up North in a non desirable area!! Haha! We like it!

We certainly moved up and up and up the property ladder by selling and moving several times in a time of rapidly rising property prices. Not so possible now
Then we cashed it all in and retired back to my roots ( considerably cheaper )
In our pretty village ( cheap East Midlands ) all the big expensive houses are bought by people moving up from London and the south east.
Local GP , teachers etc all told us it has given a much better quality of life for their families and a house they could never have afforded down South
Sadly this has also led to recent house price rises in our area

2 bed garden flat (450k) in London zone 3. Our mortgage is £730

New builds are sold at hugely inflated prices due to help to buy and often do not hold their value.
I work in conveyancing and ALOT of people are still buying. I’ve had 8 new files this week.
I have a tiny mortgage but I pay just over £300 a month for a 2 up 2 down in a nice ish bit of manches

We are early 30s so in the unfortunate place where house prices had already rose ridiculously before we bought, same as yourselves, so moving up the ladder isn’t as feasible. We bought our forever home; a 3 bedroom semi with a large garden in a village for £180,000 2 years ago. We pay £600 a month but are overpaying to up it to £1000 a month so it should be paid off in 10 years. Our take home is £4500 a month after tax so we haven’t really pushed ourselves. We are in the north where prices are generally more affordable

We are in Scotland and it's a Bellway home.
They have been building at the site for a few years and it's close to a train station that gets you into a major city in 15 minutes so I doubt the value would drop significantly when I actually think about it.
The houses that have been up for a few years NEVER come up for resale. While persimmon, Taylor wimped etc on the same site are up all the time

we are just about to go into a global recession , CV is going to have a massive effect worldwide
buy a house now it will probs be worth 20% less in a year

It depends very much on what you want to buy. A lot of people want to go straight into their forever home rather than starting further down the ladder with a nice starter and there's nothing wrong with that but obviously it is a lot more expensive. Our 3 bed semi that we bought 3 years ago was £182,000 and our mortgage is £635 a month but we overpay by an extra £200 a month. It is small but it's perfectly lovely, easy to maintain. We are now expecting our first child so it will suddenly feel quite a bit smaller I think over the next few years but it's still perfectly adequate for the time being.
My husband is self employed and on paper wasn't worth very much according to the mortgage advisors so we got the most house we could for our money but actually this is a very affordable place for us and means we can still have a nice quality of life on top of paying the mortgage.

£295k is amazing value...

We bought a 4 bed here and it was £535k two years ago!

We could only afford it because I'm a freelance contractor in the City and contracts pay about £650 per day.

I do have a fairly stressful job with long hours but in no way is what I do worth that compared to say an A&E doctor!

just under 2k a month, 3 bed semi in a nice part of the NE. 39% of our take home pay.