Buying in London. Come here and share your stories

[Flowers2014]

So we are trying to buy in London and the market is crazy. Everything that we've seen has gone for 10%-20% over the asking price. Because of DP and his work we can't go too out of London which is making this whole process much harder than it needs to be. We have a good budget but in this market it's just not enough.

I'm tired by the process now so we are taking a break from it. We have until Nov to move out of out rented flat so we are going take the spring off and try again in the summer.

Anyone else in the same boat of trying to buy in London? Come share your stories with me!

I'm absolutely convinced that London is in a bubble at the moment. Houses are becoming unaffordable for people who earn a decent salary and who have a good deposit. The way the market is behaving (prices going up by huge amounts in a matter of months, sealed bids, that feeling that if you don't buy now you'll never afford anything...) is exactly like it was in 2007 prior to the crash.

'Crash' in London was relative though bananapie..there was a dip for sure, but prices rose back to where they were before that within 2-3 years....

Every time I think there can't be another mad cap way to keep prices high they come up with one. It needs to change I bought somewhere last spring and it's gone up £££. The whole economy is built on us drinking milky coffees and buying and selling each other overpriced houses

If you want a place good for the City and the Warf go for Herne Hill. It's about 12 min to Blackfriars and the East London line is nearby for Canada Water (and Shoreditch at the weekend)

Herne Hill is between Dulwich Village (known as Hampstead of the South) which is very nice / upmarket / beautiful parks, posh high street etc and Brixton which is very hip and trendy with the Ritzy ( indie cinema), Brixton Market for foodies, loads if clubs and bars and Brixton Academy for concerts. Herne Hill itself has cafés and bars, a nice park and the Lido.

Spend a few hours and visit Dulwich Pic Gallery (there is a Hockney exhibit on), Dulwich Park, the Lido and the Ritzy / Brixton Village and I think you'll fall in love :)

But there were cheaper areas still available in London Sleep (I know because I bought in one!) and now there doesn't seem to be any affordable areas. Even the shit holes / not safe to walk around after dark areas are racing up the charts.

OP you have to think about this, who will have the £600,000+ to buy your flat when you are thinking/needing to sell once they pull HTB?

There will always be areas in London that are unaffordable to most of us, but there should be others that are affordable and there just isn't anymore. I bought in 2011 and I wouldn't be able to afford to buy my own home now 3 years later. What's changed? Not much, and this is with with my salary having increased.

When we bought here (we are in SW London) we saw 3 bed houses for £230 - £270,000 - these same houses are now £350 - £400,000. THAT increase is not sustainable.

Herne Hill is lovely but hardly undiscovered. A 4 bed house there will be around £1m! Then they would all fall in love only to be disappointed.

I know Possum, it's scary. I just wonder, even with a crash, how far prices will really fall. I think the tax laws need to be changed, not just with the overseas buyers/stamp duty and empty properties but also the buy to let business, stopping mortgage interest being deductible before calculating taxable profit for example, that would change the game completely for many landlords.

We just bought a two-bed flat in Clapham, it's a basement flat which means we have bins outside our bedroom window and constantly have rubbish blowing off the street into our stairwell (not very glamourous!), but we do have a garden out back, which is fantastic! Asking was £510,000, and we managed to get them down to £495,000 (just because of stamp duty) but I think we got very, very lucky... We are the only people I know of around us who managed to get a place for under asking... Most places we looked at and the places our friends have purchased have gone for at least £20,000 over asking. We even had one open house that had a queue that went down the street and around the corner... Estate agents were acting as bouncers, "one in, one out"!

Estate agents reckon our flat has gone up about £70,000 in less than a year, and will only continue to go up. Commute-wise, you can't really ask for a better location, but you definitely pay for the convenience.

Never mind the price boom, I think there are still plenty commutable places in London where you can get a 2-3 bed house for under 300k and lead a quality family life. I am in one but I am sure there are other areas (possibly like Leytonstone or similar).
Agree that there may be another dip in prices, but in the long term they will only go upwards.

Forgot to mention the council tax in Wandsworth... Was a huge selling point in buying on the North side of Clapham Common versus South.

Sorry, meant to add, for those of you taking a break from purchasing... don't. It won't be any better in a few months time, and prices will only have gone up.

amandine - my parents are similarly horrified by our renting!

'You MUST buy!' they say. Well, you liked your house going up 10x in value in 30 years and then your current one going up by 3x in 10 years, and you like your investment flat too... They really don't get how that is just a Bad Thing for everyone that's come after them. No clue.

Little crystal There are properties for £300k - all in the South East - Welling/Plumstead
Woolwich/Bexleyheath/Eltham. Not the most desirable areas and would not appeal to those wanting to stay central.

Thereishope, there are also some in the north and east, in Waltham Forest and Redbridge, some in actually quite pleasant (if suburban) areas with good transport links (on the Central Line, Victoria Line or mainline).

Oh, and Enfield.

but littlecrystal is £300,000 for a two bed house affordable? I'm in zone 3 and 3 years ago 2 bed houses were around £200,000 here. Obviously not anymore.

It's not just London - we bought in 2011 too and our house is worth about £30k more now than it was then!
Madness (when you consider I live in the not very groovy East Midlands :))
London is insane though.
Mark carney et al can't do a thing about it either as it being funded by cash buyers and investors, not something the rest of the uk has to deal with.

The only thing that will change this bubble will be when supply exceeds demand (not likely in the near future) or when interest rates go up (which they will have to). When interest rates go up it's likely they will put in some kind of financial Instrument which will ensure that people in negative equity don't lose their homes, probably with long term leases to the 'owner'.

The other thing is to change the laws on renting which I think they are looking into at the moment - so changing to long term lets. This will be a complete game changer as the fast buck element of the property game will be eliminated. Renting will be a viable long term option and only when rents are viable will people stop chasing the ownership dream.

Eventually people will only buy what they can actually afford in a 3x income kind of way, like they used to and prices will come down without leaving people destitute and miserable.

When the UK councils start hitting mansions for price-related council tax we will probably see foreign investors moving out a bit.

I'm just really cheesed off that I can't afford to live where I grew up. You can't build communities when people are dispersed generation after generation. It's incredibly short-sighted to allow this to continue.

I'm also really cheesed off that I can't move anywhere nice in the country because there is no work there. This hasn't changed since the 80s.

Watching with interest.. Just seen a lovely house in our area has come up for sale and would be great if we could upsize as our house is a little cramped and no garden to speak of. I know we are incredibly fortunate as DH bought the house 12 years ago and it has gone up over 3x in value (SE London) so we can now afford a much nicer house than we would ever have expected to. Not sure whether to enjoy being debt free or to go for the extra outdoor space while kids are young.

Enjoy being debt free. If you are happy enough in your house then definitely don't take on debt.

There are houses in NW London zone 4 where you still can get 1930 3 bed houses for £300k. It's not fancy but safe with good transport links. £600k budget for a 2 bed flat? I think the main issue is to manage the expectations.

Silver, I disagree with london girl, if you can afford to get more space and a garden now then do it! it will improve your quality of life hugely and should gain more in value over the years.

I think if you want to stay at home with your children being debt free is obviously handy, depends what you want. When DCs are young, parks are the place to go, a garden's great but not essential. The suburbs tend to have both parks and big gardens and are relatively cheap.

Tulip fever.

Tulip fever helped along with a little Helptobuyitis.