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💪

Who do you work for?

If you are a real person rather than someone working for the government, you’ve made an awful lot of money from the increase in property prices. You were lucky. I’ve been a landlord myself to avoid frittering my divorce settlement away but I think the system is totally unfair. Do you really think that you can keep raising rents to cover the huge increases in your mortgages that are on the way?

But I don’t believe that you are a real person. Do you really think we’re going to believe your patronising rubbish?

Don't need to scrap. Cap rents, stop no-fault eviction, enforce energy ratings and have a progressive tax on more than one dwelling. As the BTL is progressively squeezed out government/council/housing associations become buyers with the tenant as the first choice at below market value as a distressed purchase. The asset has value and continuing income stream and this can be financed by long-term bonds at low rates and is probably at worst fiscally neutral all it needs is the political will. If private-sector orgs (such as John Lewis who are already going into the space and partnering with public bodies all the better). If the current BTL landlords can make a profit and wish to continue under this regime then they are more than welcome. My builder friend mentioned upthread has massive equity and social conscience and would probably stay in.

Yeah...property! Ain't property BRILLIANT??!!!
You like get to like, buy it, and sell it and rent it out and make loads of money off it, and if you want, you can even live in it!!!
Property!! BRILLIANT!!!😂

@DonNotKeith i wouldn’t worry too much about paying for Civil Service pensions for much longer. Civil Service salaries are barely keeping up with inflation, so at this rate, there’ll be no one left in the CS, and you won’t have to worry about paying their pensions.

Sorry for being facetious, but our taxes go towards all sorts of important things we wouldn’t necessarily choose to pay for (NHS, road upkeep, education etc), and civil servants work for vital public services that keep the country running, so is it really that unfair for a tiny proportion of your tax to go towards their pension?

They’re not real and as for quoting Robert Maxwell with regard to pensions they’re either totally unaware of what he did, or just plain awful. Oh and it would make them pretty ancient too!

OP is either trying to convince herself or create a buble for others to believe in this incredible market of cheap houses.

Oh dear OP, you’ve confused the game of Monopoly you’re playing with real life, easily done. Good thing no one believes your nonsense.

Your posts read like property rampers buzzword bingo.

House prices only go up.
You can't go wrong with bricks and mortar.
They aren't building any more land.
Foreign buyers will snap them up.
Renting is dead money.

Also some questions :

Do you have an exceptionally large clock mounted on any wall in your living space ?

Any arrangements of twigs in vases ?

Any ornaments spelling out commands such as "LOVE","HOME","COSY","PETS" in any part of your house ?

Any furniture 70% of normal size to make the rooms look bigger in photos ?

People saying 'I couldn't afford the house I'm in now if I had to buy it today', sorry but this is just classic rubbish. You're in the house?! So you could afford it. It's the same for people today, they just need to adjust their expectations.

The stupid is strong with this one.

When I was going through an absolutely horrific divorce my stepmother offered to use equity release to enable me to buy a property...I have never declined so fast in my life. What sort of an immoral scumbag would I be to have accepted?

Yet you seem to think this sort of thing is to be encouraged. And you obviously don't know a fucking thing about pensions as drawdown is NOT always an option with pension pots

they just need to adjust their expectations

Absolutely. Just move away from your DCs schools, their friends, your jobs, your child minder, your friends and families and you too will find a house to buy

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/britains-worst-house-could-yours-23525380

People saying 'I couldn't afford the house I'm in now if I had to buy it today', sorry but this is just classic rubbish. You're in the house?! So you could afford it.

I stand by what I said, I can't afford to buy my first home now if I had to buy it again. What's being in the house now got to do with anything?

@DrBlackbird

In London that would probably go to sealed bids for £500K+.

Swathes of foreign investors would be flown into Heathrow in order to start the bidding process.

These statements stood out for me too, a bit manic or just a throll.

I couldn’t afford the second house I bought now. It was a three bed terrace in St Albans. I paid £80k for it, Zoopla informs me it’s worth around £800k now.

Then the government needs to do something about this instead of blaming landlords. They aren’t providing stock and sold pretty much everything off in the 1980s. Had they replenished and not sold so much stock, we wouldn’t be in this crisis. Home ownership as a percentage of the population would probably be lower.

Margaret Thatcher told us we should all own our homes then government policies have made that impossible to happen. Private landlords didn’t really enter the sector until a good decade later and provided the service the government was no longer in a position to provide. Notably this will have been the time when the next generation wanted a council house but there were none to be had.

What we actually need is purpose built affordable apartment blocks and houses built, rather like in Germany and France, run by companies and offering shares to the public.

Isn’t estate agency one of those jobs some* people who fucked about in school fall into, because they get to wear a shiny suit and drive a branded mini and feel like they’ve made something of their lives?

*in case I get lynched.

The average salary for an experienced estate agent is above the average salary for a graduate if I'm not mistaken.

Yet imagine if the population put some of that money into the stock market- you might have a functioning economy! Right now the UK economy seems to depend on vacuums and wizards mostly.

I’m glad it’s upsetting. Maybe you can learn from that.

Don't forget the unicorns grazing on confidence in sunny uplands.

OP, in estate agent parlance, your understanding of economics is ‘in need of modernisation’

Are you economists?

I feel your post could be very misleading to some!

You should not be encouraging people to continue to buy houses at their current prices when the media states that properties could be over priced by up to a third.

Caution is the way forward. Nobody wants to commit to a property that costs, say £450k today but could be worth £300k in a year!

It's hard to get into. Aside from using copious amounts of hair gel and driving mini convertibles, you need to master the following stock phrases/activities :

i) "Hurry up I've got 10 other buyers to show round".

ii) "It's a feature of modern living" said in response to anything that the prospective buyer might say in terms of criticism.

iii) Hands on hips and massive sigh, followed by "is this the first time you've done this?"

iv) "I sold 17 like this last week, the market's hot".

In addition you need the following formal qualifications :

GSCEs : zero.
A levels : zero.
Degrees : zero.
Industry licences/Qualifications : zero.

I live in an expensive part of the South East. Round the corner from me, a 2-bed ex-council house has just sold that has no room to extend, a tiny, concreted over garden and needs full renovation as has had the same old person living there since the 70s. It sold for £395,000. So even if you had a £50k deposit, an experienced teacher or nurse would need 10 times their salary to afford to buy it, let alone renovate it. I think prices have gone mad. I would absolutely hate to be trying to get on the property ladder right now.