House prices What is going on?

[flopseyR72]

I am looking to buy a house. Have been waiting since before lockdown. I’m in rented so not selling.the estate agent has just told me the marker where I am Greater London east ( golden triangle Loughton Chigwell to Epping and brentwood) is going crazy. I just don’t understand why people don’t seem to care about a imminent economy recession coming. Does anyone think I should just buy now or wait. I’ve been waiting a long time and wasting money on rent.

If you intend to stay for several years then a crash won't really matter as it will almost definitely build back up again. So buying now won't harm you.

Waiting will cost you rent, and you can't tell if you will end up paying more or less for the same house in 6 months as you would now. How much rent would you pay in that time?

If it is a house you will live in for a while, with no mortgage to service I can't understand why you are renting.

I would buy somewhere under budget a d save the remainder.

I'm sure you've been posting about this for a while?

Chinny reckon 🤔

The downside is if you buy you could be repossessed if you lost your job.
Some people are happy to take risks in life and others aren't. I'm not a risk taker so wouldn't be doing anything at the moment, nobodies job is safe.

If you have a deposit of 500k it is insanity to rent.
Depends where you want to live... You'll not get a studio in some areas, it all depends on location.
I'd rather have smaller in a nicer area Depends on what you want though.

I'm in London Zone 2. Houses in my area are selling not hot cakes. Flats are hard to shift. I think if you can wait 12 months then wait. Prices will fall a lot more than the stamp duty discount.

Well you want to buy. Why do you think it is unbelievable others do too?
We are going to put our house on market soon and then rent in a better area.
If there is a crash we will stay put, as will many others.

flopseyR72

Where are you thinking of relocating too and what sort of time frame? Is your NHS job transferable to the new location?

@flopseyR72 - I kind of get what you mean. We've also saved 350k for a deposit (worked abroad so no option of buying in the UK) and are now hesitating whether to buy or rent for 2k per month and see what happens over Xmas. And whilst a six-figure sum might sound massive, if you're a single-parent then it really isnt, it's basically just two average salaries. My impression is that some of the initial post-lockdown craziness has gone down and things arent snapped up as quickly as before. So you could compromise and wait until Sept to see whether there's anything still on. Equally, I dont think that borrowing 200-300K is unreasonable in your position and you should be fine.

The NHS will clearly be ok - but most of the well-paid office jobs that are apparently fine now might not be once Brexit hits (and we wont have a deal with the US - and might not even get one with the EU)......deregulation might help a bit but probably not enough.

2021 is going to be the year of double whammies.....Covid plus Brexit is likely to hit most of the economy in a massive way. But the NHS is going to be ok!

But I would strongly advise you to fix your interest rate for as long as possible - you're unlikely to get into negative equity even with a recession but might get hit with a hike in interest rates in say 3-4years time even if you stay in the same house. So buy now, fix it for 10years and just live your life :-)

At the very least - if you don't buy then realise that it's a renters market atm and everyone is renegotiating their rents due to the glut of flats on the market. Airbnb has essentially crashed in London and there won't be many EU students coming to study here like in the past so I keep reading that people are getting flats for cheap now due to the sheer amount of them.

OP you want advice on housing market so here it is:

• no one can predict it. people said it would fall for Brexit, it didn't. People said after lockdown it would fall, but it's risen.

-provided you don't plan on moving in 2 years, you will not be negatively affected.

• if an economic downturn occurs and your bank goes bust, you will lose the majority of that 500k if it's in one bank.

I bloody hope that money is in multiple bank accounts or I strongly recommend you improve your financial literacy.

People saying house prices will fall...maybe...but if people choose not to sell as a result, there will be no effect on the housing market. It's about interest rates, mortgage availability and supply and demand. It's currently a sellers market.

It’s not even two average salaries as the tax is much higher as a single person. Plus i pay all the childcare costs myself.

Thanks for those concerned it’s not all in one bank!

Completely depends on your area.

In my area, very little is selling, lots siting on the market for a long time. But new asking prices still high. So I'm waiting.

I'm on the edge of London, too.

So I think it depends on specific areas, and price points, how silly the prices are.

I'd expect things further into London to get cheaper as more people realise they can live further away and work from home.

What do you do in the NHS that allows you to save 500k?

I'm dying to know this too!

Around me, things are going mad. As soon as things are hitting the market they are selling. I have no idea how that many people are able to afford to buy but they are.
Things that were stagnating before covid (slightly more expensive than the run of the mill 500k) are now also selling quickly.

I just don't understand.

As a side note, i have heard a rumbling that car finance is having a wobble and lenders are getting twitchy. So if lenders start to pull the rug then it will cause the crash and economy issues, if the lenders keep throwing money around i can't see anything changing.

Name change fail, OP?

We have been thinking of putting our large house on the market for the last four years, its in a more expensive area than Chingford but about the same distance out in another direction. The prices of houses like ours in the area have languished if not gone down whilst the prices of smaller houses went up whilst the mid market and entry level flats have continued to rise. It was not as our agent said the time to downsize, he has the sense to be honest with our road in their long term interests as people tend to move here and stay long term to bring up their families. Most people here work in the service sector and there has been a lot of uncertainty so people have not been stretching themselves for that forever home, instead they have settled for the 3 bed (possibly with loft) mid market houses after starting out in flats.

It has now gone crazy. Massive interest in anything with room for a home office and a big garden, especially from families further in. Our friends very large detached house got four offers from four views after they had had the same experience as us. And stamp duty won't ake much difference at these prices. We can't sell just at the moment but I do think this is a blip. Home working is here to stay, I don't know of a service company that will not be shrinking its Central London presence, but once everyone who has a job has settled then the post Covid and possible no deal Brexit contraction will bite, especially in the services sector.

Having said all that I think our suburbs will do much better than Central London and the likely increase in buying power with £500k will probably not make that much difference balancing out the cost of rent and benefit of stamp duty

I rent now, but i bought a house just as 9/11 happened.
EVERYONE told me to pull out, I didn't. The flat went from £125,000 to £200,000 in a year.

If your going to live in the house for years, I wouldn't worry about it just buy a house you like and live in it. Its a long term thing not a short term flip.

I looked at buying in 2009 and should have done, but it wasn't quite the right time as we had been given notice by our landlord so all our money ended up swallowed in fees and moving. Within 1 year - 18 months we were effectively priced out and then unable to buy.

A neat trick someone told me - dont think of it as buying a house for X - think of it as buying a house for X-deposit. In your case, you're hoping to get a pretty nice house for 200k-300k which is pretty damn cheap!

The weird thing about houses/deposits - it's not really the price of the house but how much you need to borrow that matters...and in your case you're getting a cheap house no matter what.

My Dd2 friend put a flat up for 180 last week , they had a viewing day Saturday , offers were 180, 183, 185 & 188 . This is in a good area of Cardiff top third floor flat no lift , communal garden . Needs a new Kitchen & a bit of TLC .
I think People are putting their money in property because there is no interest on money anywhere.

Buy now. The London market isn't likely to dip and even if it does, it will climb again so as long as you're not planning to resell in the near future, the dip won't matter. You're much better paying a mortgage than rent.

You've posted about this multiple times and get the same response each time. It sounds like there's something going on to stop you buying, whether that's anxiety or something else, because you don't seem to be moving forward.