20% drop in house prices in next year

[WeeBitWobbly]

Did anyone read this in today's paper.

What do you think?

No, I was just checking in case I'd offended you!
I know StA is expensive but sh'e right that she gets in quicker by being further out. I was quite surprised that there was quite a few who travelled from further out such as MK. DH actually travels up from the S Coast. Mind you, going from London to MK may be a step too far!

There is that. Really don't want to leave London as well, but of course we would be willing to for long term security.

Just so fucking fucked off that we can't buy a home. I used to be ok with renting but am increasingly fed up with it. And the irony is, if we had been able to buy five or so years ago, we could have got a house on half the income we have now. I really think essentials like housing, food And gas etc should be protected from speculation.

Anyway. I'm going to sit in the corner and feel sorry for myself, so just ignore me!

Fruitsalad, we couldn't leave the south but couldn't afford to buy (this was 10yrs ago) so we continued to rent down here and bought a shit hole in Manchester which we rented out. It made no money for 5yrs but eventually it did and we sold it and bought another, bigger one which we also rented out for 2yrs. After this, we had enough of a deposit to buy somewhere small down here.

Everyone said we were mad but a few of those friends just continued to rent never managing to get on the ladder. I am so glad we did it otherwise we'd probably be in the same position as you and many of our friends. (we were just out of uni at the time)

If you currently own a house, here is a good basic test of whether you think it is a god investment or whether you just have an emotional attachment.

Ask yourself whether you would today buy your house at the price you think it is worth on a 100% interest only mortgage and then rent it out to someone just like you at current market rents.

If your answer is NO then by definition you think your house is a bad investment and should sell it to someone else and offer to rent it from them.

The problem is as shown on here that renting isn't getting any better. As the Tories have thrown out plans to improve the rental sector for tenants, it will continue to be a frustrating option for many forced into it long term.

Serving a Section 21 notice when you sign rental contracts doesn't seem to be unusual btw - just another way to make you feel insecure while you pay your landlords mortgage for them (or fund their next 4x4/foreign holiday)..

Seriously, I know there are some good landlords out there but unless it improves for long term tenants as on the continent, people will continue to buy even if the market does go down.

You can sign rental contracts that specify a term of greater than 6 months. We always do.

If you sign a contract that states you can be asked to leave your tenancy after 6 months then dont be surprised when it happens. If you want to stay for 1 year or 2 years or ten years just find a landlord that wants a stable long term long tenancy. Many do. They hate void periods.

people will continue to buy even if the market does go down.

And they would be the smart ones !

If you can find a rental property in the first place BeenBeta! Problem is that in some areas rentals are in such short supply as everyone is renting atm. This seriously restricts your choice of property and bargaining power. If the landlord wants to get rid of you when the urge takes him to sell he won't want to give you the luxury of a long term tenancy!

I know what you mean. There are landlords who won't sign more than 6 months. They are a waste of time. I often think agents push 6 month tenancy contracts too so they can get renewal fees.

However, we signed a 2 year tenancy some 18 months ago and it runs to July. Maybe we will have trouble renewing.

We're renting too and I flippin' hate it.

My head tells me to carry on renting and wait for further price drops, my heart wants to buy so I can build our nest and settle once and for all ...

It's not a ladder.

It's a market.

My experience is people are still asking silly money. We looked at a property recently, last sold 10 years ago for 40,000 now on the market at 120,000. Considering average price increase over the last 10 years is something like 100% we expected this place to be in really good condition so were surprised to find it half decorated/renovated. It's been on the market since July, the owner is moving into rented once it's sold, I wonder how many of these people who are just hanging on for the right price will end up losing even more.

And I want to scream when people mention housing shortages. There is no shortage round here, there's hundreds of houses waiting to be built but developers are just biding their time to control the supply, 10% of housing stock in this district is sitting empty. There are two properties across the road from me, both empty for more than 2 years, and I'd love to have a chance to buy them but people can obviously afford to have them sit empty

Yep tyler, people are still asking silly money. Agents go along with it to get the house on with them, rather than a rival, then try to lower the price...all very silly, and time wasting, IMO.

tyler80, if they are genuinely sitting empty, there's legal stuff you can do to force them back into use; have a look at this site

mrsravelstein I want to hold your hand!

You sound like you are in our situation. I posted a new thread 'I want to moan about the current market...' because I am so sick of the whole process. We have our house under offer to a cash buyer and the people we want to buy off won't bulge on price either despite being overpriced as it's the only property left in that price range in that area. We have offered just under 6% off the asking price and they won't take it. Despite their agent agreeing their house is overpriced (Uh, whose fault would that be?!!!! For setting unrealistic expectations!), we are in a very strong position and trying to persuade the vendors to take our offer as they have not had one offer close to ours in 3 b**y months. The difference between you and me is that we can't actually afford to increase our offer anymore without being very, very skint for a while... And we need to move to get DS1 into a primary school for next year...

House prices: All property types 'dip in value'

The problem is Angel, that even though you and the agent are saying it is overpriced, if they don't need to sell they won't. If you could afford a little more, you would probably pay it just to be settled for school. They are obviously holding out hoping you will do that or someone else in your position will instead.

We had friends staying for the weekend and they are hopping mad that the house they offered low on has come off the market. They were making me laugh by saying it was outrageous that the vendor wouldn't drop or accept their low offer. Yet now the vendor has taken it off the market to sit it out and they are gutted to have missed out on a house they really wanted. I'm not saying they should have offered more but they can't blame the vendor for not accepting it.

I have no real opinion on it either way though there does seem to be a lot of people saying that vendors have a duty to sell their house at low offers and are being unreasonable to sit it out. Surely they are only being unreasonable if they really want to move themselves? If they aren't bothered they are reasonable to hold out or take it off.

The people we bought from had dropped their price once already and had been on the market for 6m. They were over-priced but elderly and didn't need to sell. In the end we did knock them down some more - she told me later that she was waiting for the right people and she liked us . Problem is that no matter how 'over-priced' a property is, if you want it more than they want to sell it, they aren't going to budge.

Ballarat I fully understand what you are saying and we haven't made a low offer (it's just under 6% of asking). By all accounts, our offer is way above the others that have come in. And the vendors want £10k more than our highest offer. And £10k in the scheme of the price of that house is really small (less than 2%) but they are still holding out. We spoke to them and they want to move as their daughter is due to go into secondary school and they want to move to that area. I can understand if we have made them an offer 10% or 20% under asking but we haven't.