to think the current economic crisis is far from over

[Litchick]

I know that the Bank of England announced we were back in growth, but when I look around me things still seem pretty dire.

Two shops in my local town have shut down in the last month.
A friend recently closed her internet business.
The industires I know most about are in melt down. Publishers are ridding themselves of staff and taking on very few debut authors. DH tells me the city is dead and the start of 2010 has been the worst he can remember.

Do we really think there's going to be a turn around soon? Or are we in for a long hard slog?

we won't be selling our house for a bigger place - it's cheaper for us (in our personal circumstances) to rent it out when we do decide to move on. we can at least make sure we're not done dry by losing money on the sale of the house. we'll sell it when the property market is more or less recovered and after getting financial advice were told that won't be for at least another 5-10 years yet...until then letting seems the only way round, so we can make a profit. we are lucky to be in the situation of being mortgage-free, but we are both frugal with money and have made do with what we have.

abride Wed 10-Mar-10 21:20:05 - I could have written your thread - that is our situation exactly

abride Thu 11-Mar-10 11:48:31
You are me - exactly that is happening where we live. 40,000 houses to be built on farmland in the next 20 years...dosn't seem to me much building going on though as most of the sites have been snowballed..

IMHO it's the new builds that are causing the current decline in house prices because they are just so readily available and easily affordable for many families now (due to all their various incentive schemes).

'they are just so readily available and easily affordable for many families now (due to all their various incentive schemes).'

Are you for real? What planet are you living on?

Incentive schemes? Where? Affordable for many?

PMSL.

House prices devalued? Where?

MillR dh had a similar experience: every release would be one less than requirements to notify Government

Then they sold out to asset strippers anyway so it weasn't redundancies as such for the well known employer

All teh time DH was logging on each day to get emails about how wonderfully the company was doing alongside requests to come and get details of his payout

the part of Scotland I'm in, the plots are selling fast around the local area. They have been getting snapped up within a matter of weeks, so yes, there's obviously a demand for newbuilds in some parts of the UK. People are buying these types of houses it seems...

Definitely not in London.

I'm in the born in the early 80s age group. People just above me in age (those in early to mid 30s) can afford to, and do own, their own properties. People my age can't. The only people I know who are contemplating buying or have bought properties have either inherited lots of money or had their parents pay the deposit and guarantee teir mortgage. Most of us are white collar workers.

I work in the City and there has been an upturn in some areas. There is a lot of recruitment in my field at the moment (there were no jobs available a few months back) and lots of people are starting to move (in the last month I've heard of about 4 people in my department moving to new jobs).
Corporate Finance, for e.g., has changed from when I first started. when I started it seemed like every company and its mother was trying to list on the LSE. There have been practically no listings in the last 18 months or so (but it is picking up again), instead they have been trying to raise finance in other more stable ways (bond issuances for e.g.) or restructuring. M&A was pretty much just advising on taking on distressed companies at one point.

I do think there's some truth in it expat.

Near my Mum, there are hundreds of unsold rabbit hutches that developers built in 2008/9. Because they can't sell em, they have lowered the prices considerably (almost break even imho, to get some cash flow) and are offering new bathrooms/kitchen/carpets etc as part of the deal.
If you've got a little old terrace house up for sale you can't compete.

At the start of all this almost 2 years ago I was muttering about it taking a few years to get better, possibly improving when the olympics take off and London might perk up a bit. So it's still a long hard slog.

XP is over £30k in debt from a major high street bank on a salary of £20k, all frittered away on crap, no car or house to show for it. He's just been made redundant. I bet there are loads more like him in debt up to their eyeballs.

We're eating a little less, going to grow more food this summer and I will raid the NCT sale next week for clothes as they are even cheaper than primark. Thankfully the mortgage is small and fixed for another 2 years. But my local government job is at risk of redundancy for the second time in 2 years.

I do think the that PS salaries need to be looked at long term. Final salary pensions just don't add up...we (yes, my husband and I are technically signed up to one) don't pay enough in every month to cover what we will receive...in theory. How they get around this for people who are alreayd in them like us I don't know.

But the whole pension market in the UK is screwed anyhow, I don't think anyone will get what they paid in adding another layer of misery to this balls up a few years down the line.

thanks Litchick for seeing where I'm coming from! At least someone does...

It is true in this area I'm in, I went to see one of the developments two weeks ago and asked them what they could offer us. They have various incentives and yes litchick you are right, they're crapping themselves now because for ages these newbuilds were not shifting, no one was buying but now loads of people are cashing in on it, buying a newbuild, then selling it 6 months later to make a bit of profit. It's big business where I live anyway! And yes, they have had to reduce the prices here on the newbuilds to try and get more families interested. It seems to be working a treat for the builder companies.

We have decided against the newbuild idea for the moment until we re-evaulate our situation(DH possibly going to be at the picket line soon).

In general, house prices in our area have dropped 15% (according to three seperate valuators we've had round) in the past two years. Sad but true.

Well, we're career renters so tbh I couldn't give a toss what house prices are doing or will do.

As far as newbuilds, well, they're usually cheaper to heat and accommodate a family better than someone's crap old terrace full of damp and all sorts of problems, a dinky kitchen, no dining space and only one tiny bathroom.

They're as worthless as they should be.

If people paid inflated prices for them, more fool them.

Renting is definately the attractive option at the moment, I'd say. It's cheaper to rent than to buy from what I've seen.

some terraced housing isn't as you described expat although I couldn't help laughing at your description! newbuilds aren't exactly a great buy either. some of the rooms are very pokey, no room to swing a cat in.

'40,000 houses to be built on farmland in the next 20 year'

'We must all keep healthy to pay taxes'

Yup. Put down those chocolate biscuits, ladies, and do your press-ups. You're going to be working until you leave the office in a rectangular box so you need to keep healthy.

anyon who has read the governments planning directives on building on farmland will know how difficult it is to build on farmland, and that the kind of farmland built on is generally the lowest-graded kind.

the need for housing is driven largelyby the fact that people live fewer people per house, rather than population increase per se.

and people in the UK seem to eat enough..so far as can be seen!

400000 new households every year - only 85000 new dwellings built (fewer this year)

oh..and new builds i really don't think can be blamed for a decline in house prices (if there has actually been one) brought on by the lack of availability of credit, the fact people uncertain of keeping their jobs are unwilling to get mortgages, and higher interest rates on mortgages.....

there ar ehardly any new builds round here, there was still a marked decline last year...slight up this year but pretty much 2006/7 prices.

Oooooh I'd never buy a new build. Shoddy lightweight build quality, no storage, rabbit hutches etc etc. No offence to anyone who has one, they're just absolutely not my thing!

Anyway, that was completely off topic!

I like this thread

agree with abride too - retirement is a nice notion if you are rich but those days are gone. Healthy people retiring is a nonsensical idea IMO

Completely in agreement on that, MP. I've written as much myself here time and again over the years.

God this thread makes me think: this is it. This is the end. It will never get better.

Well I kinda agree MP but at the same time there needs to be a flow so youn ger people can get into the workplace; bad enough to have a alrge unemployed elderly population but a alrge one of the age of amrrying, rais9ing children etc? Devastating for society.

An endless working age only works if job creation is happening at the sme time, which it isn;t atm

It also ahs to depend of the job- for every desk bound person who could work until 75 ythere's a whole lot of jobs that would be far mroe difficult- physical labour or even things like nursiong or teaching where people need a lot of energy.

Having a work until you drop system may well result in people in those professions being caught in a gap between bieng not ill enough for help, but not strong enough to carry on.

(I do think the current retirement age is unsustainable though)