Are house prices falling in London?

[MoonfacedMilksop]

I’m in a tourist town in the SW and over the last couple of months property sales have gone insane - houses going within minutes of being on the market for 20% more than asking price. My uncle had his house on the market for the last 3 years and only had a couple of viewing. Then suddenly l, about 6 weeks ago he received 7 offers in one days and it sold for £270,000 despite asking price being £199,000.

In the last 2 weeks I have had countless leaflets through my door telling me to sell my house and have now just had a third estate agent turn up at my door asking whether I was planning on selling and telling me what he thought I could sell my house for - over 1 million when I purchased 5 years ago for £425,000. I’m sure he’s over egging it somewhat but it’s bonkers. A guy who owns some land near the edge of town has been parcelling it off, sticking a £5k shepherds hut on there and selling for over £120,000 an acre with no water or electricity. He’s been trying to get rid of it for years and had ‘offers over £60k’ for 23 acres with zero interest.

Is it like this in all touristy towns now? My town doesn’t have a train station, is a good 5 hour drive from London and in summer it’s generally impossible to get out of town by car.

I’ve been looking at house prices in London as my exh works there and rents. It doesn’t look like anything is actually cheaper though. Has it just stopped being quite so crazy? Is it all just from people realising they don’t have to go to the office every day?

Much of the UK housing market is down to confidence, plus the government are committed to propping it up by any means possible.

The other issue is the desire to move out parents and get your own place. In the 60s you lived at home paying board and saving hard until you married plus housing was relatively much cheaper compared to average income.

I would rather take the hit and my property drop in value to make it all more affordable.

Thanks @kirinm. We’re still heading our heads around it tbh. I’m hoping they’re small, quiet and looking forward to sharing a room for the next 18 years .

Prices in south west London have gone up around 5% where I am looking. I think it's the low interest rate which is allowing people to take larger mortgage and stretch their budget. Current work from home culture won't become permanent from what I hear from DH who works in the city. It's too competitive at work and people who don't show up in office will lose out long term in career growth. So people who make impulsive decisions right now will have to rethink in couple of years.

In the process of buying in SW London and the market has been red hot - houses going under offer in a couple weeks. The ones that hang around are overpriced or have idiosyncratic issues. Where I am it appears as if prices have jumped up, but if I took in to account all the improvements I've done over the last 8 years compared to if I'd just left it as it was with just market forces increase, I'm making a loss.

@DblEspresso I agree re: the working in the office, mine and a lot of my clients offices are opening end of April and we’re expected back. Part of the week to start, but I imagine it’ll go up to full time again before the year is out

I would be so happy if they did fall. We moved out to a Herts commuter town and I miss my “real” home so much. It’s only 3 miles but it feels like a different world. I’d move back in a heartbeat. Houses locally have gone up, I suppose everyone wants more space.

We're in the SW and experiencing the same. However, an estate agent friend has advised to sit tight as the demand will almost certainly drop off once things reopen and people realise that they miss the London lifestyle (theatre, concerts, museums, wide variety of places to eat out etc) and the novelty of going to the beach wears off.

Also in the SW near the coast. I'd like to move. So hooray my home will get snapped up. But.... I'm not sure I can face the price battle for the new one!

If house prices do fall that means the house in which we/you currently live will be worth less so it makes little difference. It would be helpful for first time buyers of course and I'm all for that.

'The housing market is in a ....FRENZY' ('The Times website, tonight).

'On March 23, more sales were agreed than on any day in the last ten years'.
'On March 24, 9.1 million people viewed Rightmove....6,300 every minute.'

Sunak's 'stamp duty holiday', and the '95% guaranteed mortgage' scheme - which started on April 1st, is causing this....'frenzy'. It is utter madness....the 'housing market' does not need artificial boosting by the Government.

Where I am SW London (zone 3) houses have definitely gone up in price. I don’t pay any attention to flats but houses are way more than what we paid 2 years ago.
I do reckon many large workplaces (Im in the wharf) will look to have half in half out in the longer term. No doubt many people will think they will get ahead by being in the office full time. My husbands small workplace has already said everyone back full time in June, my very very large workplace has said “hybrid” and much more choice for employees with much hinting they are looking at 1-2 days a week in the office.

I’ve just sold a house in London and it was snapped up at a good price. Small and medium family houses are going fast. I paid a little over the asking price for the house I bought (also in London).

And there were 3 other bidders for my house.

We are currently selling in SW London, (around Balham) house not flat and prices have fallen in the last couple of years. London doesn’t seem to be as attractive to buyers as it once was.

We viewed a house in South West London which was advertised at 650K. Was a town house with 4 bedrooms and garden. Agent said he was super busy with back to back viewings and huge interest. We didn't offer as it was a rental house and required 40-50k of renovation work. House was sold in couple of weeks of listing.
Now I have checked the land registry records for Jan sales and see that the house sold for 617K.

So the reality of prices is not what rightmove shows. Check actual sale prices on land registry records to get an actual sense of prices. Easy to get mislead by what agents say and property agency sponsored news articles in mainstream media.