House price bores this way, please...

[southutsire]

If you would like to discuss and pointlessly speculate about the housing market, please post here, so that I don't ruin dinner parties and every conversation I have in RL by boring everyone to death on the subject.

What do you think will happen in the next months and why?

NR's problem was loose lending in part. It grew fast on the back of pushing money out of the door aggressively, sometimes lending more than 100 percent of the value of properties.
See this

Noddyholder - I wonder if you might be one of a very few people to have correctly called the top of the market!

I just wish there was some way of reaching all the potential first time buyers and counter acting the mail and express propaganda that they need to borrow 8 x their salary or they'll miss the boat, if only they all stood firm and refused to pay the silly prices normality would be resumed. I fear we'll never have the luxury of paying off our mortgage that our parents have,

In the area i work house prices havnt come down at all.......they have however become stable.

We have a lot of investement buyers which make it hard for 1st time buyers to purchase properties which is a shame in my opinion.

I hope prices do drop a bit so 1st time buyers have a better chance of getting on the ladder........even if it does mean less commission for me!!

I dont however think there will be a big crash like we had in the early 90's
interest rates are high now, but nothing compared to the early 90's...... we are however very pleased we took out a 10yr fixed rate mortgage last year

I'd like a bit of very specific house price adjustment in my area, so that the gap between three beds and four closes. I can only dream of affording a four bed, it's at least £200k more than a three bed. I doubt it will ever work that way, sadly.

£200k for another bedroom is mad. It seems to be £100k per bed in a lot of places

I am firmly convinced prices will go down and I will be able to buy a mansion for a song

Well, I reckon we'll be able to buy something nicer than if we bought now.

Am in bed nursing a sore throat so I thought I'd have a look at some of the local estate agents threads. We were going to sell before the summer and I had kept an eye on what was available before then. A lot of what was on then is still on, some of them have been on for months now. And a couple of the agents have hardly any properties marked as sold.

There was a bit of a flurry of activity back in June/July as people were trying to get on the market before HIPs I think. I personally think that was the top of the market here, but time will tell. We are on the Dorset/Hampshire border so further from London and the salaries are low compared to house prices.

I fear that where we are (Canary Wharf area) could suffer very badly in the next year or two. Prices have been rising fairly rapidly but the rise is at least partly driven by bonus payments, and it looks as though they are going to be much lower with the current lack of confidence in the financial markets. Also there are so many new apartments being built the market is going to be flooded with them for the next year or so.

I really mean a lot, within about a 400m radius of ds's nursery there are 5 building sites, one of which is going to be the tallest residential building in London. I would say there are at least 1,500 units being built between the 5 sites. And there are probably at least 10 more sites in the Canary Wharf area, some of them huge with office space and shops and appartments.

I think prices here could really take a bad hit, especially if there is nothing special about them (river view or less than 5 mins walk to CW).

On the other hand we are planning to move to Dublin in a couple of years where the house prices are even crazier. Dublin has the same sort of financial pressures as London so hopefully if prices drop everywhere we will gain more from the Dublin drop than we lose in the London drop.

have arrived here on www's instructions from debt thread - we are considering a move to a new area, will have equity to bank so we are thinking of renting and pocketing the interest whilst things are a bit unstable. Since our mortgage is currently fixed rate we will see a massive hike in a year or so once it expires. Is this a dangerous move?

Hideehi - I so agree... dh's work colleague was saying last month as she was considering buying a 1-bed flat at some outrageous price, "But if I don't buy it now I won't be able to afford anywhere by Christmas". When people are panicking like this you know it is just around the corner.

Some bloke on Sky News this morning predicting a 40% drop. Didn't catch who he was, though. (But clearly as he's on Sky News he must know what he's talking about )

InaMF will you have to pay a fee to end your mortgage before the fixed rate ends?

I think if you have to move anyway it wouldn't be a bad idea to rent for a while first. I don't think prices will move out of your reach in a year or two, if they do go up I don't think it will be a rapid rise. I would also give you a chance to get used to the new area and decide where you want to live, and get a feel for how much you should be paying for a new property. When you do buy you will be in a very strong position as you won't be in a chain.

The downsides are that you will have to move twice, with associated costs and stress. If your children are school age then they may have to move school again when you buy your new house. In many areas renting costs more than the equivalent mortgage payments for the same sort of property, although the difference is likely to be reduced if mortgage rates go up. I think you will also need to be very strong about the equity from your current property and not spend any of it.

We did this last time we moved house, we rented for just under a year and it worked out very well and gave us time to look for exactly the right property. I think we ended up with a bit of a bargain because we were in such a strong position to buy.

I have developed 6 houses in the last 8 yrs and sold up and completed two weeks ago after the last one went up a ridiculous amount in 15 months.The agent who sold it said if we were putting it on now we would have to put it on at about 50k less to even get viewings ! We have been in rented for 3 weeks and alresy 4 or 5 houses we have viewed have dropped their prices so we are hanging on now as we really want a 'home' and not a project.Hope things drop enough to make home ownership without debt slavery a real possibility because at the moment we are chained to our houses for life and can't really live

good points bran, I think we will have a fee to pay, will check it out, also good point about schools, DTs are due to start next Sept so by then we will at least know what we're up to!

that's interesting noddyholder. £50k, hmmm. We've been sent details from estate agents recently and they're chasing us and leaving messages, 'hi, we sent you some details, wondered if you want to view' - makes me think hmm, vendors are starting to panic a bit plus we're proceedable hence we're being chased.

DaphneH - are you still there? You mentioned ponce-tastic areas where house prices definitely will not fall...

We live right on the edge of a ponce-tastic area. Will we go down with the sinking ship or will we get saved by the fine-meshed net of the ponce-tastic??

I think house prices will go down in the short term and rise in the longer term. Sit tight and don't worry.

thought I'd said this on this thread allready but perhaps not. Heardthis a while ago!
High property prices are not good for society as a whole they transfer money from the poor to the rich and the young to the old.
(off to watch the yout ube one now to chear myself up!)

Guarudan

IMO London has the biggest bubble and will fall the hardest. All those diminishing city bonuses... According to the Rightmove figures published this week London prices have dropped dramatically for the first time since their survey began, along with the rest of the country.

Love poncetastic. Will try to use it as often as possible.

wicked water witch......... as estate agents, it is our job to keep people informed on property we have available, and to chase them regarding details we send out, to see if its the kind of thing they are looking for or not...i cant speak for your estate agent, but we do that all the time and always have, its nothing to do with the current situation

We are also really busy at the moment, i have sold 3 properties in the last 6 days so not really sure what to make of all this property crash to be honest........and as for a 40% drop predicted by sky news... i would be very surprised if that happened

The bloody hips packs have had a big impact however, more work for us and more money for the government

Estate agents are a hated profession but we arent all bad

How is HIPs more money for the Govt? Is there a tax involved as well?

yes, a tax goes to the government