Is corona virus effecting the housing market?

[Didicat]

Just the above really? Opinions both ways.....

Job stability is a concern so yes not so sure now whether to proceed or not with the house purchase.

I see, so they’re a first-time buyer and don’t want to commit to a mortgage then? Otherwise I can’t see why moving from house another would be risky.

from one house to another

Higher mortgage, increase debt, housing slump or negative equity, Jin loses or reduced hours on a bigger mortgage with bigger bills.

Yes I suppose we could assume any one of those things. Maybe that poster will come back and tell us so we don’t have to guess!

Though I’m not sure what a Jin loss is ...

I see, so they’re a first-time buyer and don’t want to commit to a mortgage then? Otherwise I can’t see why moving from house another would be risky.

In this particular case they were looking at getting a bigger place so a bigger mortgage. Plus they’d pay stamp duty. So a financial stretch and their earnings now look likely to be smaller than hoped due to coronavirus. Not exactly unusual.

Thanks - the extra details have made it much clearer.

There is a lot of upheaval going on this year, too many scenarios that are difficult to predict. I would definitely not add to the stress of 2020 with a house move.

I think the housing market might take a fall this year, but people will always need somewhere to live.

We are exchanging today and competing next week on sale and purchase. Our new mortgage is £300 higher and we both work for the same small family business, which involves selling furniture to people on a good wage. I can’t say I’m not worried about it, the business couldn’t survive more than a few months without staff or customers and our outgoings are going up. I’ve worked the figures and we’d manage but it is nail bitingly tight. I also feel concern at buying now at the “peak” if a recession is coming. We aren’t planning to move again for 10yrs+ but it’s still a concern.

Wondering the same thing.

Currently in process of buying an investment property. Will have a pretty big mortgage on it, and we will be quite stretched. We are having second thoughts and considering pulling out. We would have been living there for a few months, then renting it after, but if the rent isn’t going to cover our mortgage, we are buggered.

Thinking the same, although we are hoping the mortgage rate will reflect the latest interest rate slash. We might go back to the vendor to renegotiate after survey.

I'm getting quite worried, though I'm prone to anxiety. We have exchanged contracts and are due to complete in a couple of weeks. I'm worried it might fall through if we go into lockdown.

Falling through might be the best thing, I’d probably be worried about negative equity!

I honestly can’t see anything terrible happening to the property market, there just aren’t enough houses, interest rates are low and too many people need somewhere to live. If things go quiet then it will only result in an upsurge once confidence is restored as everyone will have been waiting.

If it affected economy getting worse, unemployed rate rise, people lose confidence in economy recession, the house market will be hit just like 2009, average price dropped 20% compared with peak time 2007 &2008.

Nobody can predict how bad consequence would be. But I noticed from rightmove, compared with the same period last year, not many houses come to market which showed no matter seller or buyer both hold back for so much uncertainties at the moment.

We were about to put our house on the market, estate agents booked for the weekend to value. I called them to cancel due to CV, they agreed not a great time to sell, vendors concerned about viewings due to Cv, potential vendors like me cancelling valuations. We are going to stay put, until CV is over. Of course, CV will affect sales already in process, people are anxious about job security, banks could withdraw mortgage offers, the stock market has been affected, it’s a global issue.

Can banks withdraw mortgage offers once issued?

They certainly can.

Ok so nobody knows exactly what is going to happen, but my point was exactly that people decided to “stay put until coronavirus is over” means there will be upsurge again. People need to move, they will just delay it and then there will be more wanting to move at the same time.

We are trying to sell our house. We had a flurry of viewings last weekend but it’s been absolutely silent this week. I’m wondering if this could be down to CV? If we weren’t relocating I would probably put off moving too until after the virus, but unfortunately for me I really need to sell this house and relocate.

Same here really. Not a dickie bird since it went on the market a week ago. Of course I don't know whether it would have been so if the virus hadn't occurred.

We seemed to be having a post Brexit rise in sales and prices here (South East). I have three friends all with property on the market and all with one member of the family with underlying health concerns. They have all taken their property off the market this week, as they just felt uncomfortable with ‘inviting in the virus’ as it were.

We will be ready to exchange on a house we are buying in the next week or so. Probate sale, needs lots of work but we are able to stay in our current house while the work is being done. Current house will go on the market soon after. Architect drawing up plans in parallel for submission to planning authority. I’m wd that if we go into lockdown we won’t be able to get our planning application approved, won’t get a builder, can’t start the work and then will be left paying the mortgages on two houses for longer than we budgeted for, Are considering whether we need to pull out....

We're in the same position as a few other posters in that we're due to complete soon and we've no idea if it's going to happen. I'm trying to force myself to see the bigger picture and 'not care' if it falls through - but I'll be gutted really.