To think that the future property market won't perform as well as it has previously?

[flashbac]

Seeing posts telling OPs to keep property as it will increase in value like the property they bought in the 90s did. I think that ship has sailed now that everyone knows about it. Plus, being a (good) landlord is not as easy as people make out.
But what do I know!

I think you are entirely, wholly wrong, given the housing crisis.
But what do I know!

And the top two posts show the craziness of trying to predict the property market

I think you can twist the argument either way to suit what you would like to happen.

@SoniaFouler

I think you are entirely, wholly wrong, given the housing crisis. But what do I know!

True but will that mean the same sorts of gains we have seen over the last 30 years? House prices doubling or even quadrupling like they have in the past? Over the last 30 years we've had: Record low interest rates Quantitative easing Open borders Buy to let becoming mainstream

The most sensible thing is to just buy a house to live in rather than make loads of investments that will probably make a return, but not necessarily. It has to peak at somepoint, who knows when.

I see your points OP but in an ever-desperate scramble for home ownership in this day and age, I just don’t think not keeping property as opposed to keeping property is a bad decision and a money-losing one.

There’s no way to know.

I’d bet that the governments will do all they can to keep property as valuable as possible, for economic reasons.

But it’s a bet. Even the economists and statisticians can’t agree. It’s predicting the future, and so you have to be aware of all eventualities… theres been masses of people preparing everyone for a crash that hasn’t come for years and years. There will always be people selling property as a get-rich-quick idea that will sucker some people in and lose them money, too.

I’d bet that it’ll keep going up; but there’s no way to know.

Property prices haven’t increased at the same rate across the country. And to be honest property prices in this country have not done anything out of the ordinary when you compare against G20. In fact we have seen lower house price growth than many other countries. The problem is not mostly property prices - just bear with me. It’s low wages. We have a low wage culture in this country propagated by government subsidies for the low paid. Tax credits is when all this started. And housing benefit is also part of this. Wages would have kept up with inflation if this culture of subsidizing low wages hadn’t become so prevalent in the late 90s and early 00s.

@Ricetwisty

The most sensible thing is to just buy a house to live in rather than make loads of investments that will probably make a return, but not necessarily. It has to peak at somepoint, who knows when.

Commodity prices can never peak until the number of people on the planet stops growing. Supply and demand.

I don't think there will be a crash but the returns won't be as good. That, coupled with headache of being a landlord, may mean investing in a tracker or similar might be better, especially if its tax free.
Also, people are forgetting about capital gains tax. This could take 20 to 40% of any gain.

@sst1234 I bought in London and I could not afford to buy in Tel Aviv, Munich, New York, San Francisco as well as many other cities.

The gains have been going on a lot longer than 30 years, in London at least. My parents bought the London townhouse I grew up in about 50 years ago.

There had been a boom and houses in that area had trebled in 3 years: from £5k to £15k.

The person they'd bought it off, paid £1k for it. So that's going back probably at least 60 years if not more.

It's now worth at least £2million. (Shame they don't own it any more, though!)

We may well reach societal collapse at some point, given how poorly governments are tackling the major problems of today, and then the property market will be meaningless. But until then, it'll keep going up I reckon,

I think the bubble will burst soon. Whose going to buy you're ever increasing expensive property? Gen Z who are earning what, £20k a year?

Didn't the government also recently say people are going to have to get used to a renters economy, so you're gonna end up being a landlord most likely which is a lot more work than just selling the property.

House prices can't inflate indefinitely.

@NekoShiro associate salary at JP Morgan/other comparable banks is 80k. Not even counting the other professions who pay well..plus inheritance. DH's friends in north London all got gifted deposits. It will just be very unequal. Most gen Z would be very poor and rent, but a minority would be able to afford big properties and many BTL if they wish. John Lewis are also getting into the rental market, they may start buying up properties in addition to investing in build to rent. Foreign investment. There is the demand for housing.

Property will always go up in the UK, we are an increasingly crowded island and millions of people are desperate to come here still that won't change m

@NekoShiro

I think the bubble will burst soon. Whose going to buy you're ever increasing expensive property? Gen Z who are earning what, £20k a year?

Didn't the government also recently say people are going to have to get used to a renters economy, so you're gonna end up being a landlord most likely which is a lot more work than just selling the property.

House prices can't inflate indefinitely.

This and the threshold for repaying student loans is about to be decreased. There’s an entire generation that won’t be able to afford to buy. BTL isn’t big enough to buy all the property in the first home bracket. I personally think prices will fall, slowly at the bottom initially and gradually impacting the rest of the market. It’s happened under previous governments - just ask anyone who went into negative equity in the 90s.

[quote onlychildhamster]@NekoShiro associate salary at JP Morgan/other comparable banks is 80k. Not even counting the other professions who pay well..plus inheritance. DH's friends in north London all got gifted deposits. It will just be very unequal. Most gen Z would be very poor and rent, but a minority would be able to afford big properties and many BTL if they wish. John Lewis are also getting into the rental market, they may start buying up properties in addition to investing in build to rent. Foreign investment. There is the demand for housing.[/quote]
So only privileged people will be able to buy housing basically. That's not sustainable I know there are high paying jobs but I'm thinking about everyone within the UK.

Earning £80k would put you in the top 5% of earners in the UK. www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/22/factcheck-earning-80000-or-more-top-5-of-uk-earners-labour

@Naughtynovembertree

Property will always go up in the UK, we are an increasingly crowded island and millions of people are desperate to come here still that won't change m

I think the new energy efficient measures will have an impact on the value of older properties. There is already talk of banks not lending if the property doesn't reach a minimum standard.

So only privileged people will be able to buy houses basically
Well when I was a child in the 70s everyone I knew lived in council houses. Home ownership wasn’t for everyone, you didn’t assume you would own a property. It was totally normal to rent for life. But of course we had council properties in those days - but then the “right to buy” came in I guess it wouldn’t have mattered so much but they basically stopped building them, they didn’t replace what they were selling!

30 years ago mortgage rates were about 12%.

@MissyB1 I can quite imagine future generations renting rather than owning. It may even become affordable to rent in retirement if there are rent controls (and there may be in urban areas). And what may happen is due to retirement age increasing, people may find themselves working until age 70 plus, at which point they may have saved enough to buy something small rurally for cash or enough for rent for the next 20 years until they need a care home which would be paid for by the state.

I own my home (in London) but I don't foresee myself retiring before retirement age and I am only 29. Sometimes I think that if renting was more pleasant with longer term tenancies, it would make no sense for me to buy in London as even in my 20s I have enough equity in my home to buy a terraced house outright in Yorkshire and while yorkshire may not be that cheap when I retire, I think if i saved invested my deposit instead, i would probably still have enough to buy a small place up north outright when I retire and so will have a place to live rent free. That may be a better option than buying a home in London and having my money tied up in my primary home for all those years. But the fact is, renting is quite unstable at the moment so I bought. But that could change for future generations.

On the one hand people think there's not enough property to go round, ie to buy, so prices will always go up. But on the other, a reasonable proportion of this now is BTLs, eg in the hands of private landlords who are not emotionally attached to that property. As soon as prices go down, eg if interest rates go up and there are economic troubles, then those BTL owners will all scramble to sell and prices will start to go downwards.

I say that as someone who's old enough to remember when prices could never go down before, until they did. So I think YANBU

@Poetrypatty prices can go down. It may crash.

But that doesn't mean that in the long term, property ownership would not become harder or that house prices would not continue to be high relative to income/average's person ability to get a mortgage.

Yes that's very true onlychildhamster It won't go to what it once was.

Sadly op the rental market is littered with people who thought Like you. Always waiting for it to crash. Always being priced out.

The truth is the value of money increases. Forty years ago a packet of crisps cost approx 6 pence. It’s now ten times that. Bricks and mortar long term is Always the safest investment.

@MissyB1

So only privileged people will be able to buy houses basically Well when I was a child in the 70s everyone I knew lived in council houses. Home ownership wasn’t for everyone, you didn’t assume you would own a property. It was totally normal to rent for life. But of course we had council properties in those days - but then the “right to buy” came in I guess it wouldn’t have mattered so much but they basically stopped building them, they didn’t replace what they were selling!

It was a deliberate policy by the Tories to get rid of council housing.

They not only brought in right to buy, they actively banned local councils from reinvesting the money in new housing. Selling council housing would be fine if more was being built to replace it.

If we had a social housing scheme fit for the 21st century, it would save the tax payer so much money, plus be an investment in society and community.

I don't know why people think council housing is a hand-out, when the rent money comes into the system, and for those on benefits, it's money going round in circles within the system, rather than being syphoned off to private landlords. getting rid of council housing IS a handout - to private landlords.

Well I do know why people don't see that, it's the result of PR on behalf of those who want to exploit us.

When are we going to get some decent political leaders who will actually say this stuff out loud? Labour is an embarassment at the moment IMO.