to think all this nonsense about house prices being too high is just that - Nonsense!

[RazahFluffy]

DH and I have long been in the property game. We actually met whilst working as Estate Agents back in 1999!

I've seen a lot in my time as an agent - 2008/2009 were a bit of a blip, but overall, there's one thing I've always had faith in, and that's bricks and mortar and that prices always go up. They aren't making more land after all 😁

As well as working in property, we've got a few of our own. We started off as accidental landlords after we got together and kept both our homes to rent out when we decided it was time to move in together and find a place of our own. Over time we've added a few more to the portfolio.

We are lovely landlords. We let our tenants have our houses as their homes, and we like to do little things like send them Christmas hampers, and know their birthdays so we can send a card and usually a Pizza Express voucher.

Anyway, there's a lot of rubbish being written recently about interest rates and the economy affecting the market. Nothing could be further from the truth where we are!

It's still buoyant and the buyers registering at the agency are no different to usual - excited to either 'get on the ladder' or move to their next step towards their eventual forever home😊Vendors are still confident. They agree with us that houses are actually a bit too cheap, all things considered because inflation is quite high.

The one thing I'd have to say is if you can't afford a mortgage at the moment - think about your expectations. You might have thought previously that you could afford a 4 bed, but if you can only get a 3 bed for now is that really so bad? First time buyers especially I feel need to be realistic!

Property always goes up and it's no different now. We're really confident and having seen it all in this game, we really think it's time to believe in the market💪

It's sweet really. Like those duffers a few years ago who, on being told that "believing in brexit" was necessary for its success, thought that meant it would all work out ok if we all sat around believing really hard about it.

@RazahFluffy , you’re obviously a vile and tone deaf troll sent to wind everyone up.

Or you’re as thick as pig shit.

Which one is it?

Either way, sling your hook you moron. In the meantime I’ll take back the avocado I bought yesterday and hopefully have a few more pennies to buy a nice little flat in Wimbledon in the near future, yes?

In the long term OP, yes, property prices tend to always go up. However, in the short term, there may occassionally be price drops. This actually happened in the 1990s, when many people defaulted on their houses, due to increase in interest rates.
However, as far as I am aware, these days mortgage providers try to 'stress test' for affordability if interest rates increase, and the days of 100 % mortgages are also long gone, for this very reason.

Don't feed it guys!

The thing is even London house prices are not as high as in many American cities, Munich, Paris, Hong Kong, buying on the private market in Singapore. My dad thought my London flat was 'affordable' at £392k as there is no way you can buy that on the private market in Singapore (but most people live in government housing).

BUT our salaries are very low as a whole except in specific industries. Plus people tend to not live with their parents as adults. So therefore property prices are high compared to earnings and there is little flexibility with lifestyle if you are paying rent. In my home country, I know people who earn 6 figures but lived with their parents for 10 years after graduation. That was just the done thing as he wasn't married.
Of course they can afford a lot more than someone on a comparable income.

*someone in the UK

This is such a bizarre thread!
I cant understand why (if it’s not a troll) the OP would create this thread which has literally no point to it.. other than to try and install some confidence over housing market.. clearly that’s not worked but why bother!? So strange.

Op if the pizza express voucher thing is true.. please stop that’s so patronising and up your own arse. Give a months rent back if you’re that nice! I’d be mortified if my ‘nice’ landlord gave me vouchers for a restaurant and Pizza express at that 😂

Yes. Also, renting is shit in the UK. In a lot of places it doesn't make much material difference day to day whether you rent or own. But in the UK it really does in terms of cost, security, quality of accommodation, safety and so on.

I'm alright Jack, good for you. You were lucky enough to not be struggling to buy your first home now when prices are just so much higher than the average salary. Telling people to use their parent's pension to buy a home and sticking a 😊 at the end seriously. Piss off. Your smugness urgh.

The hint is in the name. Fluffy.

@Wichit Yes, I'm starting to wonder if Pizza Hut have skin in this game......................🤔

Laugh

Were you invested in property in the late 80s/early 90s OP or is that before your time?

Pretty sure you can type cunt on here without automatically being deleted

Unfortunately, not if it’s directed at a poster.

As an IFA, please keep your crap financial advice to yourself, OP.

You are wrong on so many levels. I hope no one follows your "advice"

Surely a troll! If not, I’d like to know where in the U.K. first time buyers would need to ‘settle for’ a 3 bed house.
Anywhere around here (outer SW London) a 2 bed flat in a non smart area can easily be priced at £500k plus. And even well before the recent panic over mortgage interest rates, rents were soaring.

Yep. I have an incredibly cynical view of those at HQ these days. There’s been a few suspicious threads of late and some with total cock ups in username, which have been strangely amended by HQ.

It must be so easy for them to start a goady thread, get a ton of web traffic, boost their advertising revenue based on the squillion of impressions they get, and then take it down with a note such as ‘sorry folks, the work of a PBP’ before their cover is blown.

I’m convinced this hasn’t been posted in seriousness or good faith, but I’ll bite.

on your insistence that people simply “adjust their expectations”, how does this work for people on 30k or less in cities like London and Brighton where the cheapest studio in the entire city is about 200k? They’re not going to be able to borrow enough to afford even a bed sit. If they’re renting, that’s probably 50% or more of their income leaving very little to save. Maybe they have a child and a bed sit isn’t suitable. Maybe they grew up in poverty and didn’t have the parental support needed to stay in school and go to uni, therefore have few qualifications to enable them to get a better job.

on that point, it’s all very well saying people can just try to earn more, but if everyone on a low wage did that, how exactly do you propose society would keep running? Who would do the cleaning, rubbish collecting, working in care homes, nursing, teaching, childcare, making your coffee, working the till in sainsburys? The problem is not people’s expectations. It’s that wages do not cover the cost of living, and houses that were 3x the average wage in 1995 are now 10 times the average wage. That is not an economy that’s working for people.

In London I don’t know any FTBs who are looking at anything beyond a one bed flat. how do you propose these people adjust their expectations? Sure, all care/hospitality/cleaners/baristas/classroom assistants etc could just move out of London to somewhere cheaper but society would grind to a halt.

the government has also left people in negative equity - I personally know several people - by artificially propping up prices with schemes like help to buy. I’m fairly sure those people, some of whom need to sell for personal reasons, are regretting their choices now. As energy bills and mortgage interest rates continue to rise, people will find themselves unable to afford to keep the roof over their heads. How is adjusting their expectations meant to help with that? You don’t seem to grasp the very simple concept that many people simply, physically, do not have any more money. It’s nothing to do with expectations.

Your posts are at best clueless and patronising and at worst incredibly offensive to everyone who already has lowered their expectations to subterranean levels because of the cost of modern living, has always worked hard yet has very little to show for it, and has consistently been screwed over by government policy that keeps the poor, poor.

sincerely, a homeowner.

My apologies, you are right but it now fits even better. OP is a pooh!

The OP has come across as someone who’s been handed a ton of opportunity money by others parents and is subsequently labouring under the misapprehension that her luck is somehow skill and savvy on her part. Like all those twatty 22-year-olds on Insta posing with keys outside their crappy four-bed new builds filled with mirrored dressing tables, preaching about how they ‘did it all themselves’, while neglecting to mention they lived rent free at their parents’ house while they saved their wages from their recruitment jobs, and were given a £50,000 cash injection by each pair of parents. 😆

Do you know, I didn't believe in this talk of a property crash until reading the OP. Seeing an estate agent with a property portfolio devote hours to talking up the market (with a rictus grin and lots of exclamation marks... a sure sign of protesting too much) I'm thinking.... 50% drop?

Oh, and the new build house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground and in an old quarry…

So don't do that obviously. 😁

You sound so smug! Let your tenants treat it as their home? Are you for real? It is their home as long as they are paying rent.

We actually met whilst working as estate agents back in 1999..."

This leapt out at me very early in reading your post- this is a scary time for many , seriously scary.