UK house prices falling as property experts predict more gloom ahead

[qwertyflirty]

Continued from:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3250736-To-think-that-big-house-price-falls-finally-on-the-way?pg=1

As I predicted at the start of the last thread, two weeks ago, house prices are continuing to fall nationally month by month and in London and the SE we are now seeing annual falls.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-house-prices-property-may-nationwide-index-mortgages-a8376961.html

www.cityam.com/286273/london-house-prices-see-worst-annual-slowdown-nearly-decade

Experts predict these price falls will continue as sales volumes fall (which always precedes a dip in prices), given the interest rate rises on the horizon, low wage growth and increases in the cost of living.

The prices in the cheaper parts of the UK are still rising and I suspect those parts that didn't rise much or even fell in recent years will be largely unaffected. But logically, if your house price doubled in the last few years and local wages went up by say 10% in the same time, then those price rises are ultimately unsustainable.

It's definitely a buyers' market at the moment in London and the SE.

"London property experts say buyers are “sensing blood in the water”, with sellers forced to cut prices steeply"

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/23/uk-house-prices-fall-by-02-for-march-says-land-registry

Wait, So according to your link, from the official ONS figures, London prices fell by whole 0.7% over the last year? And this is major news? And this is the biggest fall since 2009?

You mean the cyclic downturn in London prices has happened again, we should all jump in before we miss it?

Stamp duty is like an effective 6% in London, 9% if it’s a second property - that’s whats going to cost money, not a 0.7% decline over a year.

Oh and wait. What’s anuual rent compared to cost of the same property in London? 4%? So if prices fell 3% every year, you would still be better off buying it than renting it.

Whether it’s true or not qwerty you are increasingly sounding like a non-homeowner who is absolutely desperate for house prices to crash so you can afford to buy. Can you not see how that’s how you sound?

Can't you see that this is a thread about house prices and not about me?

Feel free to start another thread where you play guessing games about what you imagine other random posters' lives are like/they look like etc.

Sure it would be most entertaining.

Meanwhile, it does sound like an awful lot of people are absolutely desperate to derail the thread.

Why do you think people might want to do that?

WolfMcWolferson

The ONS stats are about 3 months behind, so the picture they paint will not show annual falls until three months after the others. But even they, as I quoted, are now showing annual falls in London. For the first time in nearly a decade.

You may think that's unimportant - all the major national newspapers thought it was pretty major news.

But of course, an anonymous internet commentator is a far more reliable source.

AmazingGrace16 - sorry, no idea. Suggest you start your own thread on this? :)

So you've stalked me from thread to thread, you've posted non-stop personal attacks on me for daring to suggest house prices in areas that had risen a lot might also then fall - but you're totally financially secure

Eh, no I haven't. I've posted about three or four times across both threads. Mainly now. Because you're coming across as odd, with this repeated posting and research and attacking anyone who disagrees with you.

Curious that your only contributions to this or the previous thread have been to boast about how rich you supposedly are and to attack me for supposedly being poor

Eh, the only time I've commented on my housing or pension is now due to you making erroneous assumptions. I'm not attacking you for being poor, I am saying your motivation on these threads is because you are sick of renting, need to buy but can't do so unless prices drop. I think that's fairly obvious to everyone.

Not a dicky bird about the actual topic of the thread, mind

I commented on your very first thread on the first page and said house prices may dip slightly or flatline but would ultimately increase over time. That when people get spooked, less homes go on thr market and prices increase due to demand.

Honestly. what is it you're trying to achieve here? Do you want people to agree with you that house prices will drop substantially? What will that achieve? It's not going to help you to buy.

Where I am, comparatively modestly priced SE houses up to about £325 are selling quickly, more expensive say £500 plus are languishing, especially ones that have not been updated.

The new ‘landlord’ tax only affects individuals with borrowing, not companies or people who own outright.

I don’t want high house prices. I’d like them to drop so I can buy more properties to rent out. So called landlord tax doesn’t affect me as I don’t have a mortgage on any of them. However wishful thinking isn’t going to make house prices crash. As I’ve said on your other thread (I’m you’ll start another one, which I’ll see if it’s on this board as I regularly post here) I think prices will dip slightly particularly over brexit and then resume a steady upward pace. I’d be absolutely delighted with a large drop in prices but I just don’t think it’ll happen.

No one is stalking you btw.

The April RICS report isn’t all doom and gloom.

www.rics.org/Global/4.WEB%20April_2018_RICS_UK_Residential_Market_Survey_tp.pdf

The April 2018 RICS Residential Market Survey results show a steadier trend emerging for sales activity across the UK, with key indicators more stable relative to recent months. Nevertheless, prices continue to fall in some parts, with London and the South East in particular showing further weakness. While near term indicators are generally flat for both sales and prices at the national level, twelve month expectations point to a modest pick-up further out.

The surveyor’s comments make interesting reading - Brexit, stamp duty, government policy etc hitting the higher end of the market in London.

As I predicted at the start of the last thread, two weeks ago, house prices are continuing to fall nationally month by month and in London and the SE we are now seeing annual falls

But you haven't predicted anything. Some journalists have given their predictions and you have posted them.

I think I asked you in your last thread about doing your own research.

There is so much fake news about I tend not to believe everything I read.

Surely you must be seeing a trend.

You post some newspapers are saying that house prices are crashing .
People are looking around their area and seeing prices rising.

Agree withWhatthefoxgoingon about the slight dip then prices rising.

I’m missing a “sure” in that last post.

I haven’t bought a London property in over 15 years due to crazy high prices. I’d be very pleased if they went back to pre 2000 levels indeed. Sadly I just can’t see it happening without a large scale economic collapse (which doesn’t help anybody)

My area's increased by 7% in the past year. 4% of which is in the past quarter. Just saying...

The thing is OP, if there was to be a crash it would only affect those who are in a very vulnerable position. It doesn't affect those of us who have big 'forever' houses since we simply stay put and ride out the cycle. Those with spare cash might swoop in and buy up cheaper property to rent out.

Similarly those people who just fancy moving house just decide not to do so. They stay put and wait (or if they are upsizing they might decide that a 20% hit on the price if their house is well worth it since they'll save more than that with the 20% reduction on the house they're buying).

Investors on the whole have lots of cash. They have bought as a long term investment. They're not going to dump their properties when the market drops, that would be a very strange investment decision. They will hang on and ride it out.

For those in small properties with growing families who really need to move but don't have a lot of equity in their homes because they bought at the top of the market and could only just afford to move anyway it might no longer be possible since they might be in negative equity. So they stay put too but struggle with space.

The people who really suffer if there is a drop are:

Those who could only just afford to keep a roof over their heads anyway and can no longer afford their monthly repayments. These are the people who lose their jobs or become ill and can't work, can't afford their mortgages and end up with their house repossessed - good luck swooping in on those Ironically they are often those like you who have struggled to get onto the property ladder in the first place.

Those whose families are breaking up and they are forced to sell due to divorce etc - good luck with those too

Those who are elderly and need to go into care and are being forced to sell their homes to pay for care or who can't cope with their properties and are struggling to manage

etc.

But it's ok for you because you finally manage to buy your London flat from one of these groups of people (assuming of course that your job is secure and you can still afford a mortgage with the inevitable interest rate increases).

Do you see how people might get annoyed with you for wishing down the market and trying to worry people?

Cloudtree has very succinctly put exactly what I was thinking. I too am confused over the point of this thread.

You want to warn buyers before their biggest financial purchase - of what? The fact prices may go down as well as up? That we are on the brink of THE crash so so they should wait (by the way how much of a crash is big enough, assuming there are swathes of buyers who have a deposit but just not enough?)

I'm in the category of wanting to upsize, so actually a decent drop in prices would benefit us as we have a decent amount of equity. I'm in London and the market has stalled here, it's true. Prices are dropping by as much as 10% but properties still aren't selling. So what's happening is they either sit there or get removed from the market. They aren't just dropping indefinitely.

This means that even if we drop our price lower, there is nothing on the market for us to buy anyway. So we will just wait it out until there is some certainty. It's not going to help anyone get on the ladder if there is nothing to buy as people can't move.

Like Cloud said above, you'll only benefit from a crash due to forced sales/repossessions, or if those in the larger houses also accept a drop in price to allow upsizers to absorb their lower selling prices. Unfortunately this seems less likely as there is less incentive to move from the larger properties, especially if the reason is downsizing as they will be losing out more.

But, hey thanks for the warning! Remind me what I'm supposed to do now with this information?

Lots of interesting straw men and boring assumptions about me again here.

Not going to dignify the latter with a response; as to the straw men: no, I don't think everywhere will fall, no, I don't think this is likely to happen overnight, no, I don't think large falls would make it easy to get credit, no, I most certainly don't think prices everywhere in the country are currently falling! so am a bit mystified by random people telling me triumphantly that prices have risen by X% in their anonymous, unspecified part of the country, as though that somehow disproves my overall point (it doesn't).

If you're prepared to name your part of the country, we can at least discuss it - otherwise it's a bit irrelevant, as my thesis is that prices are currently starting to fall in London and the SE but are still rising elsewhere, as I have posted ad infinitum. So unless you live in London or the SE, you may be under the impression that you've pointed out a major flaw in my argument by telling me prices in your area have risen, but in reality, we are actually in perfect agreement. :)

Here's an article that I imagine pretty much all of us can get behind:

moneyweek.com/lets-hope-the-gentle-slowdown-in-house-prices-continues-for-a-long-time/

(well, except for those in denial that there is any kind of slowdown going on in the property market, obviously...).

I'm in the south east and there are definite signs of dropping. Not for the starter homes, but definitely for the lower end 3 bed houses. Despite the drop on right move houses don't seem to be shifting in either category.

No sign of them going down round me. They continue to rise all the time.

Friday - you can make your own decisions about what you do with information.

I don't see that not having the information somehow improves anything though. There are a lot of people for some reason very cross with me for daring to post that house prices in London and the SE might be falling. I don't really get why. If it doesn't interest you, don't bother to read the thread - problem solved.

TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince - where are you in London/the SE?

Otherwise I refer you to my previous comment: If you're prepared to name your part of the country, we can at least discuss it - otherwise it's a bit irrelevant, as my thesis is that prices are currently starting to fall in London and the SE but are still rising elsewhere, as I have posted ad infinitum.

Noqont - ditto, that is my experience here on the edge of London.

Very, very little shifting at the lower end of the market but prices slowly drifting down and stock levels drifting up. There are a third more properties on the market where I live than a year ago - inevitably this gets translated into lower prices.

Sometimes conversations here feel a bit like I imagine climate change scientists must feel after talking to Donald Trump: even though all the experts agree on the situation, even though all the data points one way only, he will not listen and instead makes personal attacks on them.

I find this dedication to ignoring facts in favour of the power of "if I want it it must be true" really baffling.

There is usually a drop about every ten years isn't there? I was rather expecting a bit of a crash. Would be alarming if there wasn't a marked drop in prices soon. But all the indicators are there. Ruse of sunprime lending, traditional lenders tightening lending criteria. But interest rates are so low. If interest rate rise that might cause a problem but then again having them so low in the first place present pitfalls of its own.

In my area they have already reached peak and the market has almost ground to a halt (almost half of what was on in previous years). Properties are taking longer to sell too. East of England.

Where I am things have stalled & dropped a bit (nappy valley). Thinking about it prices have been stagnant for about 3 years, the days of doubling your money in 5 yrs are over. I want to upsize so a drop would benefit me even if I lose some equity, prices are stupid.

It would be a lot better for the economy in general if so much money wasn’t tied up in mortgage/rent.