Can anyone remember what the housing market was like in 2006?!

[Cydonia]

Sorry, bit of a random one! I’m going to view a house at the weekend, it’s on the market at a guide price of £270 - 290,000. Been on since June, I think they have changed estate agents recently and dropped the price from £285,000. When I looked on previous nearby sales on Rightmove it came up, and had sold for £266,000 in 2006.
I know I’m jumping the gun a bit here as I haven’t even viewed it yet, but something about that doesn’t seem right? Wouldn’t you expect it to have gone up more in 14 years, leading me to think what’s wrong with it?! Or were prices through the roof in 2006?
Just wondered what other people more experienced in these matters would make of this. I don’t know if it’s the owner or the agent showing me round, but either way I’m not sure I can really ask them!

We bought a house in 2006 for 195k and sold in 2016 for 220k (West Midlands).

If they are both for sale can you dig around and see if there’s anything going on in the area? HS2? New building development? New bypass? Redesignated flood plain?

Hi OP...I was screwed by this...I bought at peak housing prices in 2006 just after my divorce, so I had very little money, two small children (not my ex DHs so no maintenance) and a tiny deposit...they were throwing 95% mortgages at people in 2006 😂

A couple of years later, the bottom literally fell out of the housing market and my house was worth 50k less than the mortgage...overnight! It took until two years ago for it to get back to the value that I bought it at...heartbreaking 😢

So yeah..that's what happened to anybody unlucky enough to have bought in the few years prior to that awful market crash 🤷‍♀️

We bought in 2006 and have just sold it. We added an extension in that time but the value went up by £170000 so if think your suspicions about 'something' going on could be justified!

You get a skewed picture on MN as it's so SE centered.
I live in NE and prices now are often similar to 2006. They went down massively in 2007/8 and have crept back up but not in the way they do in London.
Negative equity wasn't new in 2008. It happened in 1989/90 when interest rates were also sky high, 15% at one time. My friend bought a house at the wrong time and couldn't sell it as it was worth less than she paid and less than her mortgage.

The house we are attached to (so identical semis) sold for 150,000 in 2006, we bought for 100 in 2010. Probably just approaching the 2006 value now. That's in the midlands

Agree 2006 was the peak. We bought then In London and doubled our money (we were lucky with the area) ten years later. My parents moved the same year we did, but don't love in the SE - they bought a house for the same price as it had sold for in 2004. It's all area specific.

It does seem to depend on the area going from the replies.
If nothing obvious comes from the viewing I might have to do some digging. Can’t think of anything that would affect both the houses. Except perhaps increased traffic. It’s on a road that joins the main road ( though not an A road or anything that busy ) into the town with the estate further up the hill. Some more houses have been built up there, which may increase passing traffic but not that much? Perhaps it’s just an odd location. Bottom of a hill, just up from the main road, also opposite the cemetery gates 😄 I’ll put myself off at this rate!

Melonportal

In my areas of the North East prices were sky high in 2006, then the financial crisis hit and some places still haven't recovered. It doesn't seem unusual to me.

Agree with this. We bought in the NE in 2008 at the absolute top of the market and sold at the end of 2019. We were pleased to just about break even despite it being well maintained with modest improvements. Friends in the south wouldn’t believe it (as in literally would not accept what I was saying about local prices). They still maintain I was winding them up

Melonportal sorry do you mean they couldn’t believe you hadn’t lost money on it?

Massive slump around 2007 so prices dipped.

Likely they bought the house for too much in the first place

But yes 2008-2020 have t seen the crazy price increases that existed late 90’s and early 00’s.

The house I bought in 1999 for 55k was sold for 165k in 2006 (after work). These terraced houses now go for 175k 14 years later

It was booming, prices high. A development of four largish houses just down from where I lived, £495,000. One sold recently £485,000. My brother bought a house June 2007 it's worth slightly more than he paid for it.

We bought a house in 2002 for £100K sold in March 2007 for 180K By October 2007 everything was crashing my BIL who bought at the same time as us went into negative equity to the tune of 40K that year. The house we sold is actually on the market now for 250K.

According to The Move Market ( not sure how reliable that is ) it’s now worth £323,000! So perhaps it’s a bargain!

It’s only worth what someone will pay for it so clearly £320,000 isn’t accurate.

Also in the NE and we have a house we remortgaged in 2006 because we were young and stupid and we could and we’re trying to sell now and what we might get is only just enough to cover what that mortgage was in 2006.

I bought in 2006, prices were high. We had the house valued last year and it had increased by about 25%.

I recon they over paid for the property when it was bought 2006 and in addition prices have only just recovered from the slump

It was high in 2006. I sold my house in 2006 at a profit after quite a short time and bought another house. When I came to sell that house 10 years later I made a small loss because the market had fallen. I buy houses because I need to move rather than to make a profit so that didn't concern me (although it would have if it had fallen enough to trap me in negative equity).

The first house we bought for 152k in 2013 was previously sold for 160k in 2007. We then sold it for 197k in 2019 after some work(about 8k). It was a three bed semi in the northwest. Where I am prices have definitely recovered but there are patches near us that are less lucky. Also be aware of the street. Our old street doesn’t have a single house sold over the 200k mark while houses built in the same period with the similar layout and size next street along are selling for 20k -30k more. Our agent just said, historically it’s been like this.

We bought 2006.. Top of market... Couldn't make our money back despite significant work on house in 2010 so rented out. Made OK profit in 2014, should gave kept as could have now sold and paid off mortgage

2006 prices were high and peaked mid-2007 (I remember it well as I sold and bought then)

I think also that something might be 'wrong' with it, particularly as next door are selling too. Any searches will reveal whatever it is hopefully.

Our old neighbour bought in 2006 and paid £140,000. We bought in August 2008 and paid £123,000. Identical houses. Everything here (South West) went down and stayed down until about 2015. Both are now worth about £165k.

We sold in 2006, priced at £340-350k for 4 bed detached. Eventually sold at £320k, re-sold 10 years later for £420k still with 'awful must be replaced gas fire'.

Also in nw.