Someone reassure me about selling/buying at this time

[Fritilleries]

Just that, house on market, we are in conveyancing stage of purchase on a 4 bed detached at 340 which needs work done over time. It's a "forever home" in a really nice area. But I saw something about house prices falling 24% next year and now I'm freaking out. Help. I need rational thought.

How much is your deposit?

if it's a forever home just ride it out, prices will always increase.

Honestly?

If it genuinely is a forever home and you can afford the mortgage now … and at 6% interest rates, I wouldn’t give it so much as a second thought.

Buying outright.

If you are buying outright and it's a forever home, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

House prices will recover.

The only thing that would put me off (and has recently put me off) would be mortgage rates as our deal is up in a couple of years.

If you're buying outright and plan to stay there, I think you've nothing to worry about. You'll ride out any fluctuations in the long term.

We're selling with plans to increase our mortgage for a bigger place. It's not the best market but once we've sold, we plan to spend years in the next place so any dips are irrelevant. We're ready to move now and don't want to sit for a few more years hoping.

This x 100

Not sure why no one is stating the obvious, OP dilemma is why buy now if she can spend 30-50k less for the same house in 12 months.

Because if it's truly a forever house, that price differential will be relatively meaningless in the long term and she shouldn't miss out on a house she loves on a great area???

The expectation is prices to fall 9% over the next two years - where have you got 24% next year from @Fritilleries ?

Don't remember where, I was scrolling either the Guardian or Daily cough cough

By my calculation the saving in holding out would be more than £80 000.

Do not make any financial decision based on the Daily Fail.

If house prices drop 24% the whole country will be fucked.

I think you have misread @Fritilleries - headline in the Daily Fail is prices expected to fall 9% by 2024...

If i was buying cash, no deposit id wait for prices to drop. Unless you love it or location is perfect. Prices will drop a little.

We are buying right now but with mortgage from April 3% so it makes sense for us to continue.

Not if interest rates keep going up, or even stay high.

I’m buying now (well attempting to…waiting for chain to complete…). It’s the perfect space in the perfect area for us. Last house I saw like this was over a year ago (offer accepted but they decided not to move and pulled out). So this is worth it for us. If it happens! If it doesn’t, I will of course tell myself it was a terrible time to buy 🤣

Think you’ll be fine OP

I can assure you prices will have risen in 5 years.....

The housing market will not crash by 25% and stay there forever.

Look back at the 90's when interest rates were at 15%. House prices went up and kept growing after a few years.

"If house prices drop 24% the whole country will be fucked."

No, just those with massive mortgages, the country will still function. Have you sold your existing house OP? because without that deal done you shouldn`t be getting fixated on a "forever house" IMO.

"Look back at the 90's when interest rates were at 15%. House prices went up and kept growing after a few years."

LOL, in many parts of the UK in the early 90s you could buy ex-council houses for 10k, and people had barely any debt compared to now, let me assure you that this mega debt bubble caused by 20 years of stupid lending (and an even stupider public) is NOTHING like the 90s, when this one pops it is gone for good.

I think perhaps you have forgotten just how much pension money is invested in property? I am not saying it is right, but we are where we are and a drop of that scale would a) leave many in negative equity and b) seriously impact other financial arrangements.

Property is NEVER a bad investment over the long term.

Many pension fund managers will have been scaling back the property investments for a while now, commercial property has been getting hammered (and bailed out by schemes like furlough) for years. Dont make the basic investing mistake of thinking that just because something is "bad" it cant happen, and the even more crucial mistake of thinking that government can or will bail out every bump in the road, a property crash would allow the banks to really get lending again to new borrowers and that would be "good" for UK PLC.
Be honest, how many people thought we would be where we are now on interest rates even 6 months ago, forums were full of people saying "they" wont let it happen blah blah, all complete nonsense, in investment and property ANYTHING can happen, look at the 80s/90`s Japan crash for instance, down 80% or something FFS.

I didn't say it couldn't happen, I said it would be bad.

The stock market is a better one, and it is also a liquid asset unlike property which is notoriously hard to sell in a downturn. Property really should be just for living in (as the Chinese premier is fond of saying, while having the biggest bursting property bubble in the world)