To thing some homeowners are taking the mick

[headlic]

A house on our road was sold for £600k in Dec 2021 & has been put on the market for £735k. The house is exactly the same inside and out aside from a lick of paint and new furniture. Are housing in the south east increasing as such a rate? I thought house prices were going to stagnate for a few years.

I am really disappointed. Our children are looking to buy a house and increases like this make it seem completely impossible. I thought they would be able to get something decent, I didn't account for a 20% increase for house prices.

The previous owners of the house were a dinner lady and a bus driver. The current owners are a dentist and an accountant in their early 30s. Lovely couple but just an example that home ownership is going to be impossible for so many people.

But when you factor in inflation, in real terms the value has increased less than 2% over 6 years...

We are in the North, alleged executive houses, and they’ve all dropped in price since built. It’s very sad for us 🤣

Either someone will buy it or they won’t.

You arnt being unreasonable to be disappointed but you are being ridiculous to think your kids would pay prior prices for a house they buy in the future

Houses prices almost always go up if they're not actively crashing/in a controversial area (as in something big that would make it hard to live there not just a bad reputation)

Yes, there is a house for sale which is exactly the same as mine down the road. All they have done is converted the garage and called it a 4 bedroom and they have put it up for £680k.

My house is worth around £500k.

The house has been on sale since November unsurprisingly.

What does Zoopla (or similar) say the price should be? It sounds surprising it has gone up that much, maybe they got a bargain when they bought, seller desperate to sell and they could complete quickly, or they are flying a kite (delusional) or a bit of both.

Zoopla is hopeless. OK when there are a group of houses/flats almost exactly the same i.e a fairly large new build estate but other types of house especially ones that are all different in a road are almost impossible for Zoopla to price up.

Better to look at the sold prices on Right Move for the road concerned and look very carefully to ensure that you are comparing like with like. Late parents house was in London and were on a long street of terraced houses. Some had been converted from 2 beds into 3 which made the pricing very different

The banks are the ones laughing. Let's face it, without people being able to borrow huge sums of money, now up to 6 x income at such low rates for so long, house prices would never have spiralled in the way they have. It is in the interest of the banks for house prices to keep rising. Everyone else just suffers.

See what it actually sells for. Apparently prices in south wales have dropped 20% so it's not the same story everywhere

Um no. Where did you read that?House prices In wales overall dropped 6 percent year on year, south wales are stable year on year.

My new house was bought by the previous owner in 2021, and sold 3 years later for £35K more.
Granted though, they probably did put that much into it. New kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, electric garage door and new garden.

They probably made a loss with all that work.

We live in row is semi detached houses on a road where most people have very upmarket houses, indoor swimming pool kind of stuff. Ours were built when a stables was sold so developed a long time after the original houses.

Next door, 40 years in the house are two factory workers, next up is us at 25 years, worked in higher education. Now we have a young couple next door, he is assistant CEO of a company and she is a chartered engineer in charge of very big projects. The other indicator of increasing wealth in the road is also the rise of fancy cars in peoples drives. There is no way a factory worker could buy a house in our road now. To be honest we bought ours just on DH wage, couldn’t do that on a junior lecturers salary now.

So you think they shouldn’t get as much as they can for their property so that your children can afford to buy?

As you live in the area, OP, what not sell your house for £750k, buy a tiny flat and give the proceeds to your children so they can get on the ladder?

What are you supposed to do if you're renting with two children? People can't put their lives on hold until they can afford to get on the property ladder, so this is the reality for many.

It's a choice. If you decide to have children first, of course it's becoming pretty much impossible to buy your place, it has always been the reality for many.

Children are hugely expensive, and your earning potential goes down a lot. You are no longer available for all the over-time or 2nd job you could do before. Children also need a suitable environment. Many of us started with a crappy place, it's fine for an adult, not possible with kids.

So it is a choice.

Possibly yes.
It was an older widowed lady, whose husband had died unexpectedly when they lived abroad (they're English). She moved back here very quickly and "settled" on a property that wasn't quite right for her. But did her best with it, did it up nice etc. But I think once the trauma of losing her DH subsided, and she got back on a more even keel, she was able to see that it wasn't actually quite the right house for her.

House prices are rising again.

Only way around it is for a government to commit to building social housing. Which won’t happen.

What Breezy said regarding choices! Wait to have children, get a higher paid job, get some additional qualitifcations, move to a cheaper part of the country - these are all choices that you can make.

No one is entitled to say a 3 bedroom house because they chose to have 2 children and dont want them to share a bedroom or because the want a spare room for guests.

As I stated I started off very small with a partner to share the mortgage with. We never had any children. He wasnt the right person for me so we split and now nearly 40 years later its fine. I have had my children, still with DH after nearly 30 years. Mortgage paid off etc but these are all choices. we had some inheirtance and I could have blown it on a luxury holiday and then complained I still had a mortgage in my 60's. Some would have done this...

Yes, I know some people get some bad luck but we also all get a run of good luck and its often what you do with that luck that defines what the future holds for you.

Encouraging any house building will add to the supply and ultimately reduce prices.

Expecting the tax payer or developers to subsidise "social housing" will never produce sufficient numbers.

As fast as you save for a deposit the rise in housing price negates it. basically, you can’t save fast enough. And more so when renting as rents are rising too.

That's about the same sort of increase we've seen here.

A drive on social housing building will go a long way to solve this. The money will be circular with housing benefit going back into the council purse instead of landlords.

But who pays for it?

Tax payers. ultimately it’s tax payer paying for temporary housing, and lining the pockets of private landlords. this may still exist but councils could apply directly to the government to borrow money (like a mortgage) to build council housing.