Everything that's wrong with the UK Property market...

[cunningplan101]

... summed up in one answer phone message, which I received in my lunch hour today:

"Hi, this is Jenny from @@@ London Estate Agents, we sold you your flat a year ago and I'm calling to see if you want to arrange a free valuation to see how much it's increased in value in the last year"

I've owned my home for less than 18 months. It's a home, not an investment. Does this seem wrong to anyone else?

Sure, I could want to move for a change of circumstances - I'm not saying it's necessarily bad to move after a year. And I know estate agents are businesses and are in it for the money.

But this idea of revaluing your home after a year ... just to see what profit it's netted ... It just makes our society seem so, well, driven by greed?

They just want to keep in contact with you so you use them when you do sell. It's good business sense. And the turnover is so high in London, they'd be crazy not to keep in contact in case they miss the time you do sell, for the sake of the odd phone call.

Also, if you were on a two-year fixed, you'd have to remortgage soon, so possible business for their broker.

It's to see if it's increased in value so much you'll want to immediately sell it through that agent, not due to idle curiosity. They don't do it just to please people they did business with more than a year ago.

just to see what profit it's netted

That's not why, they are fishing for business.

To be honest, this wouldn't be that annoying for me. I thought you were going to say something really really frustrating, like you'd had an offer accepted months ago, had a full survey done, incurred solicitors' fees and then got to date of exchange when the seller backed out with no explanation (this just happened to a friend of mine). Personally I think that the fact that that can happen, with no redress for the potential buyer, is more irritating!!

Yes, they're trying to tempt me to sell and sell through them.

But the idea of tempting people to sell their home for profit after a year ... I just find it depressing.

Especially considering how inflated London prices were a year ago - can they really have increased? What on earth are FTBs meant to do? How are we going to have any kind of society left, if this is our mindset?

Laquila - I had plenty of that last year. Open houses and sealed bids and being ghost gazumped.

I don't know your situation but people's situations do change. So maybe someone was single and bought a 1 bed flat. Fast forward 18 months and they may have a partner and are looking to now buy a house maybe but haven't got the courage or cba to get it valuated. They would then get this phone call or email that may make you think oh perfect timing!!

Or it could annoy the hell out of you if it's your forever home.

But their not really trying to tempt you to sell it; a lot of people would say yes ok then, but not with a view to sell just to see how much it's increased (or not) by. They won't sell, but from the agents pov they'll get the resale when eventually it does happen.

I think there will be a crash or reduction at the least OP, so I dont worry personally about future ftbs.

Totally agree OP. The UK property market is Greed driven.

Much as many of us love our HOMES, the market is driven by pure greed.

I am a home owner (and British) but there is something really vulgar about how the Brits value their homes.

I was watching Homes Under The Hammer the other day (home ill) and there was a couple who bought a victorian terraced house that had been a Medical Centre with all the commercial strip lights, reception area etc ruining it.

The show started with the host and estate agents revelling in how many bedits and flat could be squeezed out of this house and even a pair of semis in the back garden or something. Anyway this couple, did an amazing job of restoring the house with all its beautful period features to its former glory. They left the garden as a garden. Left the house as a house. It was stunning and it was beautiful. Yep they did this to make a profit but they were not greedy. They could have made millions squeezing half a dozen flats in and building in the garden but they chose not to. The estate agents were almost choking their valuations out at the end of the programme, at the loss of potential greedy millions instead of revelling in a beautifully restored house!

I think there has to be a reduction/crash too. As I don't know how it can continue, otherwise.

We bought this place after sealed bids and I was pretty sure we had overpaid, but I was just tired of the process, having lost out on so many other places with more sensible bids. I was prepared for prices to stagnate or go down.

Houses shouldn't be profit vehicles like this. It's going to drive the young and creative out of London and the UK.

Maybe the agent is using sales tactics though, pretending prices have increased more than they have.

I know near me the EAs are desperate for business as there are so many of them and very few houses for sale. It leads to all sorts of crazy over-valuations as they just want to tie sellers in to a contract, they will persuade them to drop the price later. Sadly, so many either fall for it or are driven by greed themselves. Some houses have been on the market for months or end up going with multiple agencies, in a market where a properly priced house will go under offer in days. You also see reductions of up to 50k on 3 bed houses, it's nuts!

When I sold, I did my own research and priced realistically, at 20-50k under what various EAs promised. Sold for asking price in less than a week, to a motivated buyer.

Also, once my house was on the market, I had EAs chasing me for months afterwards seeing if I was still in a cooling-off period and wanted to swap to them. Foxtons were the most aggressive, I had to write to them to ask them to leave me alone!

They could have made millions squeezing half a dozen flats in and building in the garden

To look at it a different way, they had the chance to give many more people the opportunity to own a home but chose instead to let just one family have a home.

(Personally I hate seeing houses carved up into flats etc and gardens built on. It makes me weep.)

The agency wasn't KFH was it? I had a similar call this morning .

London is not the UK.

I completed on a flat and within a few days my financial advisor was on the phone telling me to put it straight back on the market as the price had risen......This was in 1985!!

specialsubject - I started off writing this with London in the subject heading, and then changed it to the UK as doesn't this apply to an awful lot of the UK? In how many places can a couple of FTB with young professional salaries - young doctors or young teachers, etc - afford to buy a three-bed family home without help from their parents, and that's even with rock bottom interest rates that can only go up? If there are such places, are there many jobs nearby?

ThruUlike - after that at least there was the crash of 89, so maybe they'll be a repeat

news to me that in other areas houses go up so much that it is worth reselling after a year, give all the costs.

and yes, there are places such as you describe - I live in one with affordable housing and jobs (not just teaching and medicine) Nice spot too,decent weather, loads to do and see, good schools. Can't be the only such place in the UK. But, shock horror, you can't commute to London from here.

you do have to work hard and cut back on the spending to get your mortgage round here - but that was always the case, even in days when interest rates were much higher.

obviously it is much more difficult, in fact almost impossible, in the bottom right hand corner; but that's supply and demand for you. And there are much higher salaries available there.

Well I know that my relatives in Newcastle and Manchester have just as much difficulty - houses are cheaper, but jobs pay less.

The average house price in the UK according to Zoopla is £290,000. So that'd mean, if an average home-owning family had a deposit of £40,000 (not sure how they'd have saved that up while paying rent, but still - let's imagine they have), then they'd need around a £70k joint income to have a vaguely sensible mortgage. How many young couples do you think have that kind of joint salary? And what happens when one of them is on maternity/paternity leave?

"you do have to work hard and cut back on the spending to get your mortgage round here - but that was always the case, even in days when interest rates were much higher." - this is just not true

I don't think it 's really worth talking about averages because, as special has said, affordability varies so much not just in terms of local prices for an "average house" (say a three-bed semi which are extremely rare in my area of London and therefore carry a premium) but also for the type of property. Generally, even in areas of reasonable affordability, FTBs aren't buying "average houses", they are likely to start with a flat or a small terrace and try to move upwards. So when commentators come out with shock headlines such as: "In London, the average buyer needs a £150k deposit and has to earn £200k a year" or whatever, it doesn't take into account that many Londoners will be buying a much cheaper than statistically average property as their starter home and they may well be buying it as part of a couple/friendship group and so the earnings threshold is diluted.

I agree with special that there are vast swathes of the country where buying isn't beyond the means of the privileged few - my in-laws live in two such areas which are lovely, have reasonable employment and facilities but house prices aren't scary.

so the mortgage we got two decades ago at 10% (or something, can't remember) was just given to us?

I don't think so....not with the overtime it took. Admittedly then you got paid for overtime.

that average price is badly skewed by London, which has lots of houses and lots of expensive houses. Decent two bed semi round here; £120k or less. That's with insulation, heating, double glazing, parking, garden, reasonable size, liveable area, work. Three bed about £140-£150k. Your £290k here buys a detached with a big garden/land. Somebody mentioned Newcastle, I had a look in the one area I vaguely know (which seemed quite pleasant) and that £290k buys big detached new houses.

not London. Not the SE.

not good at all in London and the SE but no idea what the answer is.

I agree with you. We saw a stunning period house recently where the owner had decided to knock down the garage and replace it with a development of flats. He had divided the garden in two as a result and there was no off street parking (not to mention the prospect of building work next door for months). It is such a beautiful house but he will make thousands out of this development. I doubt the house will sell at the price though.