Sold house prices post Sept crash - London

[housingplanningquestion]

I'm trying to figure out what house prices (in East London / Walthamstow in particular) are going for. I can see Rightmove SSTC, but those houses might have had lower offers accepted. I know Rightmove takes a while to update sold prices. I've seen a couple of more up to date sold prices on The Move Market. Any other good sites? Am I right in thinking that prices for houses sold post September's financial Trussonomics and consequent mortgage hikes, should be coming on to Rightmove now? So most sales before that may not reflect more recent lower prices. Or what are you noticing about big houses selling? We are looking at 3 beds with potential to extend, or 5 beds finished. Thank you.

Right move takes a while to update. Land registry updates first so try there. You can’t see pictures on land registry though but you could go back to rightmove / google to look at the house.

I am in wanstead and find family homes post sept are still going for much more than they were listed for on rightmove. Family homes in very high demand here! Not sure if the same in walthomstow but obviously we are close geographically.

I'm not sure about sites that you can use (as I use Rightmove bit the delay between selling and appearing on the site can be frustrating). I live in South Woodford/Wanstead now and I keep an eye on the sold prices of Warner flats near Lloyd Park, I sold mine at the end of 2015 when I moved out of Walthamstow. I was surprised that the economic situation does not seem to have had an impact on the sold prices of the flats around the park.

We are looking at 3 beds with potential to extend, or 5 beds finished

Specifically re your above comment I saw 2 x 4:/5 beds round Wanstead that I had my eye on (I’m on Mat leave so spend too much time on rightmove!) sell Nov / Dec for c£200k above their list price. It was a desirable road though! I assume it was a bidding war.

More recently in the last month I’ve seen a 4 bed house up and go sstc immediately - I can only assume it went for it’s asking price or more

As above not sure if the same in walthomstow I can’t comment

Truss blip didn’t affect house prices that were marketed in Sept/October, just the mortgage side.

Land Registry sold prices
Zoopla sold prices for photos / adverts

However Land Registry are very behind so you probably won’t get recent prices yet (including on Zoopla which is fed by LR I think)

It’s quite hard to get indications for specific areas for a while after an ‘economic event’ that might impact house prices because first of all people won’t reduce their prices straight away. Then it takes a while for the sale to go through, and several more months for the house sale price to get onto the land registry.

Your best bet is probably to apply the Halifax or nationwide house price index as that’s based on mortgages agreed so more closely related to the time in which houses were sold. But these haven’t exactly crashed yet.

Zoopla sold but it takes ages! The Walthamstow/Waltham Forest market doesn’t seem to be slowing much tbh. Our neighbours sold for 1.1m at the start of the year, we don’t have a loft (but easily convertible) but a lovely extension and bigger garden and have been valued at 975k - 1m. Still a steady stream of buyers from Islington, Hackney and Stoke Newington but proof will be in the pudding after viewings I guess. We’re looking in Watford and the market seems snail pace for anything top end.

Watching this area too as just about affordable so not altogether good news from pps! But it's flats rather than houses which seem to be sticking/being reduced.

There was no “crash” in September, we are now seeing reduced affordability than then.
The center of London has now officially crashed this month. 15% down year on year in Kensington and Westminster I believe. This is not the end of that fall either. These declines will take time to ripple out across London and the U.K.
I would say further reductions to come.

We are in Redbridge and agree the Wanstead Leytonstone area doesn’t seem to be slowing in terms of prices sold. I’ve read it’s because this side of London is obviously more affordable (ha) than west London. But agree with other pps I expect it’s a watch this space as I think less people will put their place on the market over the next year or so.

Agree with this too. Flats here (east London) still hanging around but family homes selling straight away so I’d assume selling for asking price!

Having been saying that since 2001, No Doubt 🙄

No, look at the data. Annually we are already 5% down nationally.
Interest rates are continuing to rise and will further dampen affordability/demand, taking 1year minimum to see full effect in the sales market.
We are in a buyers market, only at the beginning.

Google houseprices.io it seems to be a lot more up to date than RM or Zoopla. About 2 months fresher for my area, reporting for May compared to March on RM.

It also gives you a handy percentage rise/drop in price between the sold prices for that house.

I think we are a long way off seeing a crash in East London, we get a domino effect of more money coming in if people can’t buy in zone 1&2. You sell for a million in Hackney and can’t buy there, so you come 2 miles east and pump a million into a nice house in Leyton. Maybe a few years down the line you sell for 15% less in Hackney, but you still bring that money plus a mortgage (because you have a big deposit) into zone 3 and 4.

I don’t think prices will rise anywhere near as much as the last 5 years though, but get a longer term house and you’re pretty secure with a gentrified area :D the additional tricky thing here is there are lots of cheaper houses that need a lot of work, 5 years ago that just needed some bravery but now it’s unaffordable to do big projects. So bad houses that are overpriced won’t sell as well, but finished expensive ones do.

Thanks, that's all been interesting. I think the smaller / unfinished houses are being slow to sell, but the bigger and especially the nicely done up houses are going quickly, at fairly high prices - not sure if they were the same prices a year ago as we weren't looking then.
Particularly thanks for the house prices .io recommendation @TheNoonBell , that's exactly what I was looking for. But everyone else please keep up the Walthamstow house chat, it's a bit of a big lonely task this trying to buy! Especially as I'm quite happy where I am in Bethnal Green, but we don't have enough bedrooms where we are now so it's a bit of an enforced move. Albeit with minimal time pressure (but ideally before house prices start increasing again).

What sort of budget are you looking at? We obsessively watch the market and have done since buying in 2015 so have reasonable grasp of east London! 😅

@otherstories That is very kind of you! We are looking in catchment areas for Walthamstow School for Girls (so basically .75 miles from E17 9RZ). We really want 5 beds and a decent garden, ideally near the tube or train station, with a decent square metre footprint. Not asking for much hey?! Can spend up to 1 million, maybe 1.1. I generally don't like a lot of recent renovations by developers, too grey and shiny. I'd really like one that doesn't need structural work but needs new internal renovations, and is priced accordingly. I've been interested in these recently:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134626736#/?channel=RES_BUY
but it's overpriced, needs loft and side return doing

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136307375#/?channel=RES_BUY
Also overpriced - needs more loft doing but probably not a side return - we'd turn the basement / kitchen into a bedroom and bathroom - but would end up with a smaller kitchen opening onto the garden. Great location though.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136596257#/?channel=RES_BUY
I'm currently quite attached to this one, I reckon it needs £150k spending on it but it's huge, nice garden etc. but currently in a bidding war, latest offers are £880. Agent says its not worth it, mostly because of the area and it's on a main road - not sure why he's trying to put me off though (developer mates?)

Please share your wisdom!

I don’t envy you!! 5 beds will always be tricky. Agree both 1&2 are expensive, they need an endless bucketful of money to sort out. I don’t think that was a big flood area as uphill but cellars fill me with fear. If you can face a year of expensive work I don’t think 900/930k is mad given their size. Personally I’d look further south, the other side of the village. There are some slightly bigger period properties on some of those roads esp around wingfield park.

House 3 is a really crap location. Palmerston still feels quite rough despite being next to Lloyd park and central. It’s an interesting house though.

I wouldn’t rush into any of these tbh, your budget will only get a bigger than average Victorian terrace wreck in Walthamstow but these are especially poor. Finished beautifully they’ll be worth a lot but need a huge Reno budget. I guess anything more finished is going for £1.2m at least. Most of E17 is small Victorian terraces so it’s a small pool to start with.

Where do you need to commute to? If you are confident with 0.75 distance for WSFG, and that’s higher priority than stations I’d push out of central Walthamstow. You’ve just missed this beauty that was undervalued massively and has accepted above asking: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134007248

Further east from WSFG is also forest boundary and lovely, a longer walk to stations as not served by buses unlike ^^
not period but a solid house https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136239956

We’re only a 3 bed with great extension and not in e17 and on for £975. A big living space and decent garden is very rare, and more so in e17 without spending much more!

Good luck 😬

At @otherstories And @housingplanningquestion

Interesting updates! (I’m e18/e11 and I didn’t realise e17 was so expensive! I thought e11 was bad enough!)

I think the EA is just being realistic with you about property 3. It is on a main road and looks like a money pit that will take more than 150k to sort out.

Main advantage is it's huge. Most likely it's in a bidding war because it has the potential to be converted into flats.

You keep saying properties are overpriced but I think the real issue is that you can't afford a nice 5 bed in that area, to be blunt. I think you would find a much nicer house if you settled for a large 4 bed house.

London isn’t a single house market it’s a series of them. Eg Stanmore seems to have had a renaissance- someome I know just sold her 5 bed for 400k above asking! In Birmingham and Leicester it seems there hasn’t been any material change to the areas that were already popular. To get the most accurate results you really need to speak to local agents and view lots of houses.

@otherstories Thanks - I've been checking out the flood maps and cellars make me happy as extra storage space for tool storage etc, means we can have fewer garden sheds. I also saw the Fulready St house after it was sold - gosh it's so beautiful, the styling and the shape of it are right to my taste.

My original thinking on moving to the area was to be close to transport, as I'm sad to be moving further out and getting into town for galleries and theatre is important to me. So being further from the tube / away from buses doesn't sound great, but maybe I need to think about where I'm going to compromise. I'll look into south of village then. I did see a place on Chestnut Avenue South - but it still needed the side return doing and a concreted garden ripping up with no rear access and I couldn't really face it, too many compromises. ground floor was 56sq m, hadn't gone into the loft - selling for around 850 I think. Maybe I'll see the second property you mention - it's heading a bit more suburban than I'm comfortable with, but I need to reconsider all the parameters.

I'm currently working in Whitechapel and Mile End (NHS) but that might change; partner is in Camden but cycles. Tbh I'd probably cycle too. We have friends Blackhorse Road side.

I get that Palmerston Road is a crap location, but struggling to let go of the massive size, convenience of the structure of the property and huge garden. Having it done, even at a cost of £200k, (so say 1.1million in total), it would be so much bigger than equivalent 1.1 millions. 205 sqm. With a massive double garage on top of that, and potential for a loft extension. And we'd basically use the Elmsdale Road side entrance rather than the Palmerston Road front door. If the value isn't worth it, it may be that it just is to us because it meets our needs. But unfortunately it does also have development / flats potential written all over it.

@Twiglets1 when I'm saying they are overpriced, I don't mean 'more than I want to spend', I mean that the cost to finish it would cost more than other finished equivalent homes on the market. E.g. the Stainforth Road property (on at 925), an architect friend suggested it would cost about £450k to make good (incl loft and side return). Which, at £1.375m, prices it above similar properties I think, and you'd have the hassle of living there / elsewhere / managing it. Perhaps evidenced by it not selling. The cost of structural renovations has increased massively. Mind you, I guess that's what I'm considering with Palmerston Rd, so it may be worth it for someone (with fewer children than me perhaps). Plus that has no structural / building work. But we are open to 4 beds if we can stick a home office in the garden.

So I used to live opposite Leytonstone tube and thought living somewhere 20mins walk to the station would be a nightmare but it’s honestly so easy here. There’s 3 buses to leytonstone - about 12mins - and 7 buses to Walthamstow - less than 10mins when I go before 8am, about 12-15 if traffic is the worst. Or 22mins walk through quiet village roads. I can walk to wood street station in less than 10mins so have 3 fast journeys into town. Each bus goes about 3 times an hour so they’re like Tube frequency.

Location overall is a tricky one. For me, in Zone 3, it’s more important that it’s a nice place to live - no antisocial behaviour, good community, pleasant to walk through/to/from. Walthamstow and north Leyton are a great 20min neighbourhood, you can get everywhere quickly especially if you cycle and with mini Holland. So I wouldn’t buy a massive plot in one of the only remaining shit parts. You will be battling gangs and drugs and drunks and that is completely miserable. Walthamstow is still a borough of two halves unfortunately and the rapid gentrification has split the divide more.

Is the 5th bed for a child, or a study? Do you need 4 beds for bedrooms at day 1?

You’d get a lot more Blackhorse Road, St James St way but suspect out of WFSG distance, secondaries def more tricky here. They’re the last up and coming areas really, Markhouse road another option but I think less hipster money pumped into that area.

Are you viewing the big houses? You have nothing to lose with cheeky offers if that would make them doable. Just knowing that building work is insanely expensive atm would put me off.

I’d put a property alert on Fulready road, Eatington road and forest view avenue - they do come up sometimes! It’s a fab little
bubble :)