These people are having a laugh no?

[Pantone363]

£220000

Vaguely looking at the market but happy renting at the moment (and for the next few years if need be). But £220000?! The bathroom looks grubby and a tiny living room.

New to looking and £220000 is our max purchase, is this what we can expect for that kind of money?!

I cant see the pictures, but I am only down the road half way between Colchester and Chelmsford and a three bed semi here would cost you over £300k. Just sold my two up two down TINY and I really do mean TINY mid terrace for £195K.

Colchester is cheap as well as being a great town, we looked there but its too far to travel for work.

Pantone I know :( Houses just get swapped between boomers/landlords/people already in the market before the big rises around here. There are no real first time buyers. I have colleagues only 3 or so years older than me who bought houses like that around 2001 as FTBs - shortly afterwards the market went crazy and has never gone down again.

One of my colleagues bought a house just like that one near me for 147k in 2001 - sold it last year for 550k. No first time buyer could possibly afford it now!

I was expecting a house that hadnt been touched in 30 years! I think its a bargain but I have no idea how the area is.

Looks it needs is a bit of grout cleaning (not sure why vendors wouldn't have attempted to brighten this up) and new carpet in the living room. With just this done alone its easily liveable until you have the funds to do a complete rip out the carpets and repaint/plaster walls.

Only thing odd about that house is that they don't appear to have any furniture in the living room .

I know that all the relaxing/lounging about is probably done in the lovely kitchen diner, but why show a picture of an almost completely empty room. You would have thought they could have found a sofa and bookcase at least?

As a northerner, it looks slightly but not stupidly expensive, but you could probably pay that up here in the naice areas.

Agree about cleaning the grout and new living room carpets deraila, but it looks lovely otherwise. Redoing all the walls seems a bit unnecessary?

Cheap for both my bit of scruffy london - would also need half a million, and even for the town we look at moving too in Hampshire. Looking at the sales prices actually achieved the asking price may be a tad higher than it will sell for but that's often the case, I suspect £200k is about right depending on how it compares to the previous nearby sales.

I don't know if waiting is the best tactic, here I know we can't save faster than house prices are rising and many are finding they have waited and it's now too late. Lots of first time buyers get help from family or inheritance although a lot have really high mortgages, although rent is also really high so how do the mortage repayments compare with your rental? Buying a £250k small three bed house with a 10% deposit wasn't disimilar to the rental charge when we considered buying a second home to rent out our flat.

Mortgage repayments and rental would work out about the same.

But....last week the landlord had all new carpets fitted, a builder is coming to fix some mould and extend the shower room and I have a 3 year lease if i want it. All of which don't cost me a penny.

I think i'd rather stay. Prices can't possibly keep rising like that for the next ten/twenty years can they?!

The main difference between renting and owning is that at some point you stop repaying, and even so, it's an asset.
If you rent, you are filling the landlord's pockets, and owning nothing.

According to Nov 2014 stats from the Land Registry (published Dec 2014), the average price of a semi in the SE was £239,490 (not inc London), so that house actually represents good to average value for money, on the face of it. Average house price for a semi in Eng & Wales for the same period was £168,295.

Stats

Two 3 bed houses sold in that road for just under £200,000 last year (that I could find) so a bit top heavy price wise but could be in better condition or slightly better than those other two in some way. Or they could be pitching at that but planning to take an offer.

I think it's a perfectly nice house too!

Ah but I don't see renting as lining the landlords pockets, I'm paying for somewhere to live each month.

No I won't have a house as an asset in the future but its not a priority for me or my family.

How will you pay the rent when you're retired?

That would cost 350-400k around here (Surrey commuter belt).

Why won't house prices keep rising well above wages? The only hope for stability (or decreases) is if the government build more houses and supply meets demand. Another factor will be for more companies to move out of London and the Home Counties, but this isn't happening as much as it should so the SE is getting more expensive beyond national rises. It has weathered the economic storm of recession and minimal growth with prices rising despite wage stagnation. There were places we could've bought for £300k plus five years ago (two bed flat) and are now well over £500k - I don't want to look as we bought cheaper in a less nice area with far more modest price rises. Although we cannot bridge the gap between a two bed flat and three bed semi in this area.

I don't see any problem renting and think longer leases should be encouraged, homeownership can be a pain and very expensive. Although aside from an asset you will find your mortage repayments become far lower than the rent would be due to inflation/ rent rises.

I saw twigs but I was disappointed at the absence of pebbly shit, tbh.
It looks OK, needs a few plants in the garden and possibly new carpets. Not bad.

for twice as much you could get this is not particularly nice road in cricklewood nw London
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-48842909.html

I'll pay the rent with all the money i saved up not paying for maintenance on a house

Maintenance on a home doesn't have to cost a lot. Not as much as paying rent, anyway.

But if you retire at say 65 and live another 30 years until 95. Will you have 30 years worth of rent saved? Or do you have a high pension to afford to continue paying rent after your not working? Rents increase also. So it could be double/ treble what you pay now

I thought it was quite nice! I liked the kitchen diner.
The price for the space looks ok too although I don't know the area at all - my one bed flat (admittedly, in London) cost me £190k in 2006!

I'm in the NW - yes quite a nice part - and that's around what I'd expect my house to go for. Our layoutis very similar - we have a single storey ground floor extension too. Our bathroom is the same size, although we have a downstairs wc too. I think our back garden is a similar size but our front looks nicer. I think our master bedroom is a bit larger. But yes all in all very similar so I'm actually surprised it's so similar in price to mine considering that it is Essex & I'm NW - I assumed anywhere in the south was a license to print money.

I live in North London where you'd be paying that for a shed! (Little exaggeration). A 4 bed up north (towards m'boro) where I have family sold for 230. You would NEVER get that in this rip off city

Well, if marks tey is the Des res part of town, looks like you can get same type of property, there, for this price. So maybe it's Over priced.

Would barely get you a 2 bed flat round where my house is in the UK either (NW Surrey). It's not that bad, really. And sadly.