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💪

I think they are probably thanking their lucky stars that the billionaires are not interested in their spot. I live a 10 minute walk from bishops avenue and I can tell you that no one local likes the fact that there are all these empty huge houses there...

I am sure Chinese investors are aware that if China invades Taiwan (which is a matter of time), they would want their assets invested with a more 'sympathetic' country. I mean, places like Singapore also have the rule of law and the British legal system but are far less likely to confiscate any property in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan (despite being western aligned). The Ukrainian invasion has shown that the UK government would not tolerate dirty money from rogue states to a certain extent.

Guilt will do that.

Yep, I literally don’t believe this.

More & more frequently are there threads on here that are just too out of touch to possibly be real. I’m calling either calculated clickbait, or a shoddy journo post.

So ... you can just about manage to perceive that some people can't afford to buy a house. Not even a starter home. Yet here you are, cheerfully tone deaf, preaching at people that all will be fine, they just need to buy something with fewer than 4 beds?

I call goady fucker.

@RazahFluffy

"My point is there is no investment better than property, so just do it!"

You're wrong. Look at how much a McLaren F1 has appreciated.

Bless, what a hero.

My money’s on a 25 year old SPAD/PR doing the night shift. Like Ollie Reader without the kudos.

And 3 - 2 - 1 incoming, stand by for the faux indignation.

I remember people losing their houses in the 80s when interest rates were really high. I remember my aunts mortgage being something like 15%. Our first mortgage in the 90s was fixed at something like 8% iirc and we had a real bargain.

The property rising in value long term isn’t much use if you can’t afford to pay the mortgage you took out 5 years ago. There will be a lag on the impact as fixed deals come to an end

I’m all for a goady thread now and then. I find it interesting the lengths they’ll go to in order to come up with ways to infuriate people. But why are they so shit at them 🤣

They’re always OTT, they never seem to get it right with regards to tone etc. Must be frustrating to not even be any good at being a plonker.

I’ve just read more. Unsure whether it’s a piss take or a Tory ‘get on your bike’ hard of thinking type.

I don’t believe a damn word of this. The language is more than a tad off.
If it’s true you’re a rude and patronising poster with an attitude and a half.

I bought my first tiny 2 bed home, in a pretty dodgy location, for £38k with a 10% deposit in 2004. My salary was c.£19k.

The top of the salary range (and i've just checked) for the same position is £26k now but a house in that same terrace sold in June for £120k, and the area has not improved in that time.

A mortgage calculator tells me that I could borrow £101k, based on those updated numbers, so to buy that house I would need a 15% deposit to do so.

I'm not saying that I couldn't, as you suggest, lower my expectations and buy a 1 bed flat instead of 2 bed house but that itself isn't an easy task because of competition for entry level property (two buyers vs me/landlords building their portfolio in a student town etc.) and prices still soaring beyond home report values combined with the cost of everything else going up, so the chances of me being able to buy anything if I were in that position now, are pretty slim.

Oh dear. Asking your parents to sell their pension to help you get on the property ladder is probably one of the worst bits of advice I’ve ever heard from an estate agent (and I’ve worked with a lot over the years). You should be ashamed of yourself if this is genuine advice you have given prospective buyers. Talk about suggesting anything to make a sale. Where are your morals?

@Kezzie200 Try late 80s where there was a housing price bubble. Prices fell by 20-30 percent.
Big issues for remortgages that valued property and had high interest rates. Big issues for those who had to sell. Repossessions everywhere.

Yup. Been there, got the T-shirt.

In 1981 mortgage rates were 16.5% and settled at the end of the decade at about 10%.
I lived on a new estate at the time and just about every other house was rented out because young couples were on negative equity, and had gone back to live with Mum & Dad. Loads were getting repossessed.

OP is right. Some people have 'champagne taste and beer money'.
My 1st (ex)H was an unmitigated snob. He refused to buy a terraced house so we bought a semi and we over-reached ourselves. I was paying the mortgage and he paid the other bills. We didn't have 2 halfpennies to scratch our backsides with and didn't have a holiday for 4 years.

He wanted to swap from a repayment mortgage to an endowment mortgage but I disagreed. We didn't and that was just as well because some people ended up at the end of the term without enough equity in the policy to pay off the capital.

I can't work out if OP is a very sophisticated troll having fun, or is genuinely just incredibly self centered?

She's on a wind up. The exclamation marks give it away

You are right @miraveile I think I gave her too much credit with the word sophisticated.

I do agree houses do go up in price if you are looking at them from a 20 year window.
But in that 20 year window they go down at different points. It isn’t a steady upward trajectory.
It isn’t just a case of go and get a mortgage.
You have to have a deposit, mortgage arrangement fees, stamp duty, solicitors costs and surveyors fees, a perfect credit rating, be under 45 years old and employed with an income that can cover the mortgage payments.
When interest rates go up. Mortgages disappear.

You bought your first home when you must have got a bargain.
We sold a year or so later and we were still in negative equity.

The reality is that the original poster here could buy a house X number of years ago perhaps because a) houses were cheaper, b) she had a good salary, c) lived at home rent free for a few years to save a deposit and possibly d) got help from the bank of parents. Or perhaps it was a combination of these.
She met her husband and he had a home. They became accidental landlords and then they bought some other properties.

The original poster here was lucky but she is coming across as a smug individual. It easy when things worked out well for you in the past to come on and tell people what to do in order to buy a place. About 23/24 years ago one of my friends bought a house but her parents gave her the deposit. Meanwhile at the same time I was in ok job and renting in a major city.
I now live in a mortgage free home owned by my family. It not an expensive house or in a great area but I know I am a better position than a lot of people. My close friends know this but I never talk about my situation with people I know casually.

I think that long term most people would prefer to own their own house or apartment and are willing to make sacrifices to get this. Its hard when houses are so expensive and it not just that people want a big, fancy house as a 1st time buyer. At the moment people can't borrow as much to buy a house as they could 6 months ago and mortgage payments have gone up a lot. A lot of people are hoping prices will fall so they can buy a home but then some people just want prices to keep rising.

OP I would advise gaining some empathy otherwise you sound patronising, even if that is not your intent🙂

Anyone who says (like the OP) "They can always print more money as needed!" is either a.) a troll b.) an utter airhead with not even basic understanding of macroeconomics, let alone the housing market.

Right?!? 😂