When will it become a "buyer's market"?!?

[PropertyProblems]

I am looking to buy my first house.

But seriously, every house I like the look of seems to be bought by psychic househunters 5 minutes after going on sale.

Why are there so many people buying at the moment? Is this market likely to change soon?

No crash is coming

Far too many people want to buy property.

There are dips eg what we’ve seen with flats in London as people want to work from home but in the UK as a whole, no

Half the baby boomers are still working age and, even if their kids have left home, quite possibly can't easily downsize because they need to stay close to a workplace, transport networks and/or have enough space to be able to WFH.

Plus, families live further apart these days - my Mum has downsized but still has 3 bedrooms and 3 reception rooms because me and my DB live several hours away and so to visit we have to be able to stay over. The retirement village type developments have tiny rooms in v small flats or bungalows without much storage and may have a 'guest room' type thing somewhere in the development but how much competition is there for it and is it big enough to put up a couple and their children?

The houses we've viewed that have been downsized from are from much older people (80s and 90s) who can no longer manage the stairs or to maintain the garden, and for whom house maintenance seems to have gone out the window about 15 years earlier judging by the leaking windows, bathrooms/kitchens from a certain era and dodgy looking electrics we've been seeing. Quite happy to replace all of those but it does seem to mean only very limited houses are coming on the market.

I shopped for 3 late 80s/early 90s neighbours in the first lockdown and have an elderly relative in the same age range. All of these have now downsized from longterm home that was 3-4 bedrooms, 2 reception rooms, biggish garden and garage straight into supported living/residential or nursing home care. So no inbetween stage. And after probably 10-15 years of needing more help at home to cope from cleaners, gardeners, carers.

If you are FTB I wouldn't recommend waiting too long. We are waiting to upsize we thought about in late 2019 early 2020 but other stuff came up it was a lot calmer at the time with lots of 4 bed detached on sale and reductions if people overpriced. Our first two houses we bought there was no bidding wars etc this is an overheated market and it won't last. I'm not willing to buy any old house until we actually get a choice of properties.

We have 18m more people in the UK than when I was born and very crowded. Add to that when I was born there tended to be few single mothers due to religious and other issues arising from that and less divorce so you did not need so many houses and people were more prepared to live in cramped conditions than now.

Stamp duty is having a massive effect in preventing people moving particularly in the SE where you might spend £150,000 on stamp duty just to swap from one house to another with rates up to 12% (and 15% in some cases and 3% more if it is a second property). So people are much much less likely to move due to that. Even in 1997 when we moved here I thought my stamp duty then were ridiculously high and very unfair.
It is always hard to know when to buy however and currently there are few houses for sale as people are staying put.

DMIL moved from her much loved home because she went into respite care two weeks before the first lockdown to give DSisiL a break, and eight months later, we sold her house because she clearly couldn't manage home alone with dementia and limited mobility, and her savings were drained. She's much better since she has been fully cared for by professionals, and the downsizers who bought her house are about the same age as when she and DFiL moved in. Both the area and the type of house are very population with retirees.

But the huge increase in population and number of households that Xenia refers to are also big factors in keeping prices high, ditto housing starts and overseas buyers, who see the UK as a safe haven for savings.

It's a shortage of supply issue, which means its a long term issue too. Don't sit and wait for the market to shift, you might be waiting forever