Will prices stagnate/fall?

[Bluexoxo]

Me and DH been looking to buy a house before covid . Recently put in an offer on 4 bed detached house which needs a lot doing to it it's already gone to final and best offers we didn't want to get into a bidding war.
We had a good budget, good choice and were looking for the perfect home now we are being priced out prices are going mad and houses that need a lot of work are going for crazy prices.
We are not sure what to do stay put until the economic situation becomes clearer or settle for a cheaper house?

No one knows for sure and it’ll be area-specific anyway.

Having said that, even if you buy and prices go down, you’ll be able to move up the ladder more easily as there will be less price difference (provided you have enough equity).

There’s also an advantage to getting a fixer upper. You add value by doing it up so if prices go down a bit, you still break even.

I think unless you have to move, it could be wise to see what the next 6 months look like.

We were planning on moving this year but we will stay put now for at least 12 months as I feel the market has to have some correction with so many job losses.

We are in Aus but I've been following our old area of SW London and things are definitely sitting unsold / coming back into the market now after a frenzy of SSTC.

I don’t see how prices are going to continue to rise at the same rate as they have done for last few months. My guess is some of those that have sold but not completed will fall apart because of mortgage issues.
But I doubt much will fall in price.

I think it depends where you are. London seems to have stagnated a bit, as people explore leaving due to working from home more.

I’m in the Midlands and prices here are going up still. There’s still employment here, not a lot of job losses as yet, and things still sell within a day or two of being on the market.

We’re torn between moving and seeing what happens, but we’ve seen a few financial advisors and they’ve all said to carry on and move.

Seeing loads of reductions and houses coming back to the market after the frenzy of a few months ago. I'm a FTB, just working my probation period atm so hope to buy in around 5 months time

Daughter has been looking for one bed flats in North London for the past month. They've been selling (STC) like crazy.
It seems that if the flat was half decent someone would have made an offer as soon as the flat was on the market.
She and her partner decided to buy now as the mortgage payments are the same as their combined rent.

London is a big place. In my area, decent houses are still selling quickly often with multiple offers. Flats, particularly with no gardens, are hard to sell and I think prices for those have dropped a bit with vendors keen to move up the ladder.

Op, no one knows, not even the Bank of England, because no one can actually see into the future.

Prices can rise, they can flatline or they can drop.

Sure you can wait it out. You might hit lucky and they drop, or they might increase and you miss out, meaning in six months you can’t even afford the cheaper houses you could now.

Go on any property forum, there is always a bunch of folks waiting for the next drop, people who lost out and can never afford to buy because they were always waiting for that drop,

It’s a gamble. Not one anyone can tell you how the cards will fall. And in my view you should never gamble what you can’t afford to loose.

Isn’t the stamp duty break fuelling the market at the moment? This ends in March, therefore I think the market will start to slow the end of the year. I personally don’t think that prices will drop massively but they will stabilise or fall to the levels of a few months ago. I live in an area where most houses are under £500k and the market is ridiculously quick at the moment and asking prices are going up and up due to the stamp duty break.

I've said it before but I'll say it again. In the long term, property always increases in value.

Op, I’m looking and wondering too. I was about to purchase, and then got notified I was being made redundant. That out the brakes on!!

Now I’m job hunting again and my broker advised that if I get a permanent role I will be mortgage eligible again in 1-3 months.

But like you it’s the market I’m watching. Coronavirus and brexit have yet to really show their full impact IMO. I’m forced to watch and wait as I haven’t got a FT job yet, but in a way it feels like a blessing. My broker said she is seeing a rise in sales but fears it’s the stamp duty causing the surge.

I’m living outside of London, east of England and commutable to London in 1.15.

We are selling and buying in London at the moment, except we cannot find anywhere to buy.
Partly because this is a "forever" move and so it has to be just right and secondly because there seem to be at least 10 others going for every property we like - we have been outbid on 2 houses and we saw another on Saturday afternoon, by the time we called yesterday morning at 9am to arrange a second viewing there had already been three asking price offers and they were going to best and final offers - the house isn't even on Rightmove yet, these buyers must have spent less than half an hour in the house before making seven figure offers. Madness.

It feels hopeless! So, we are going to continue our sale, rent for a bit and hope that prices don't go up too much and that our position will mean that we can finally have an offer accepted on a house we love.

I don't believe prices will drop massively - the government is clearly going to do whatever they can to prop up house prices and we are borrowing only 20% LTV and so I can't see lending being an issue for us as long as nothing else in our circumstances change.

Supply seems to be the issue at the moment, I hope it doesn't dry up after Christmas with the end of the stamp duty holiday and uncertainty with Brexit, as that is keeping prices high round here.

We've been looking for 12 months now (we had a purchase fall through due to Covid) and are currently buying a house at the moment. Since lockdown prices have shot up and we're close to being priced out of our main search area. We could have chosen to wait but the market is already slowing down - less and less desirable properties hitting the market. Prices are most likely gonna stagnate/level off soon but we wanted a decent selection of houses to choose from. If prices do drop, most likely only forced sellers will be marketing and they might not be the best choice of houses! I'd still imagine anything half-decent would be snapped up as a result.

I don't think anyone can predict exactly what will happen to house prices and it will vary depending on the area.
I know some people struggling to sell London properties at present and demand seems to be waning in my area but, equally, some people on this thread have said that demand is currently high in their part of the country.
Overall, the chances of some sort of fall/ stagnation are very high at some stage next year as the effects of the recession are felt much more widely.

@Bluntness100

Op, no one knows, not even the Bank of England, because no one can actually see into the future.

Prices can rise, they can flatline or they can drop.

Sure you can wait it out. You might hit lucky and they drop, or they might increase and you miss out, meaning in six months you can’t even afford the cheaper houses you could now.

Go on any property forum, there is always a bunch of folks waiting for the next drop, people who lost out and can never afford to buy because they were always waiting for that drop,

It’s a gamble. Not one anyone can tell you how the cards will fall. And in my view you should never gamble what you can’t afford to loose.

Totally agree with this, we were FTB in 2016 and everyone thought we were absolutely mad to consider it as 'house prices will crash due to the brexit vote' or 'wait until September, loads of properties go on then and you'll have more choice'.

Neither of these things turned out to be true. The house prices have increased where we are and come September very few properties that met our needs/were in our price bracket came onto the market and those that did started bidding wars.

People love to think that they know what is going to happen to the housing market, but it's nonsense - you only need to search on here for threads on 'house price crash' and you will find loads....