It's a Buyer's Market: experiences in 2023/2024 ?

[wheretolivehelp]

Just wondering what other buyer's experiences have been like on this side of 2023? Any horror stories? Issues with sellers? Guzumping? Guzundering? Problems with EA?

There's a few threads with Seller's experiences on MN (many saying their buyer can't afford the mortgage for their (overpriced?) property and so re marketing them).

What good and bad experiences have you had as a buyer?

Hope this thread will be useful to the buyers of 2023 and 2024!

I'm sorry to read about your mum. I hope she is doing okay? How are you doing too?

Germany sounds really ideal and it's so great you've lived there already. I did German for GCSEs lol and barely got my B grade, so I feel for your partner :) I find the language quite difficult too, but beautiful, and agree that the directness is great.

Portugal for us was really fun and we love the culture and people are quite easy going. Catalonians have a lot of heart and we respect their history.

We also considered NZ up until recently 🙄nd afor the same reasons as yourself dismissed them, hence why I didn't even list them. Wishing NZ luck and hope they get a better 13 years ahead than the past 13 we did ha!

apologies, I misread, just realised you meant your partner lived in Germany, but I am guessing you spent a lot of time there :)

@wheretolivehelp mum was dying, that was clear pretty quickly after diagnosis, hence him moving back to support me. She did pass away, thankfully quite quickly (in as much as it didn't slowly kill her over many years - it was 11 months and she barely had a clue what was going on for six of them). But she lived in France and the travelling between Germany and France was very difficult for him (he was in a job with an unlimited leave policy at the time, which I am so thankful for), so he moved back to the SouthEast and the journeys to see her together from England were a lot easier.

Thanks for asking. We are holding it together. Just.

I hope you are in a comfortable home as you seem VERY determined you are going to wait things out until you get a suitably good quality home. I have been admiring the strength of your replies.

I am very very sorry for your loss. I am glad you got to see her a lot more given the distances, it must have been hard. Your partner seems very supportive and I wish you both ease. Please take care of yourselves and each other.

We are still looking for home and yes, very determined to find the right place. It doesn't have to be perfect, but in essence, a place to raise our children. I hadn't mentioned it in earlier posts, but I just want them to be somewhere they will be and feel safe, secure. Part of that is not handing my hard-earned money to sellers and EA whom many I regard as Parasites (a bit like the film). I don't work hard for other people's retirements. I work hard to secure the future of the next generation, my children, and as my parents taught me, not rip people off along the way.

I truly believe in Karma.

Anyways, I am wishing you so much goodness. I hope you and OH find home wherever that may be :)

@wheretolivehelp have you ever considered self building? I am finding this thread helpful, we are first time buyers but waiting it out a bit and considered building.

As an American who grew up in New England where they are plenty of houses from the 1700s, the discussion about wooden houses not being sturdy is making me chuckle.

Back to the point of the thread, I think the issue with box rooms is less that older houses have them (there must have been a reason they were the fashion at the time), but more that developers are still building homes this way even when it doesn't really suit modern lifestyles. Some friends recently bought a 4 bed detached home and the downstairs living space is tiny (4th bedroom is in the loft). There is a small porch that you can barely fit a coat rack in, and then the door opens directly into the front room, which is so narrow you have to walk between the sofa and TV to access the rest of the house. The "kitchen/diner" goes across the back of the house yet isn't deep enough to fit a kitchen table. And this is a 4 bed detached that is being sold for premium prices in that area. We could see next door's garden from the window and it was such an odd long and thin shape I don't know how they could use it as a garden.

You could make the same argument with extensions. Sometimes people do a loft conversion, expecting to charge a premium for an extra bedroom, but the downstairs is so small that it's not really enough living space for a family that really needs all those bedrooms. It's fine if you really needed the extra room and couldn't move at the time so decide to extended for your own needs, but be realistic that a house that is very unbalanced might not command as high of a price as you were hoping. The same goes for having a very large downstairs extension but only having 2 bedrooms and a box room upstairs.

I think there has been a mentality of "you can't go wrong with property" for so long that people have accepted anything, thinking they will just sell it for a profit and move to something better in a few years. Hopefully the market change has provided a much needed reality check and people start having higher standards when it comes to housing, especially new builds.

all of this!! 👏
agree with every single word!! thank you

hello there, I'm glad you're finding it useful! and yes! I consider it every day haha. It would be my dream, but I don't know anything about land and land plots. If the right one came up and I understood the process, I'd go for it if the price was right as we could make the numbers work. Unfortunately, we are going down the "used home" route (I'm kidding haha).

It's something I hope to look into a bit later if the market is just not producing the right house we are looking for. i just refuse to buy a craphole while the seller gets rich. nope.

Actually @wheretolivehelp my Dad did it, no where near as complicated as you'd think to be honest. Might be a good idea, I think when you feel as strongly and passionately about something as you come across then you're at risk of forever chasing the market down. It's in a fal now but will it ever be low enough for you not to feel aggrieved at buying a first home from someone selling?
Self build you can manage yourself and have it exaclty how you want might suit better. There's lots of ways to control cost as well you can really spend on the things that matter and scrimp on others (not structural of course lol I mean the finishes)

Yes, we are seriously looking at self building now :)

@itsallnewnow that's so great that your dad self-built. I don't know anyone that has, but I was a Grand Designs addict back in the day. Before I moved into my current/actual profession, I wanted to be an architect but decided not to in the end. That's the main reason why I always wanted to build my own home.

I'm not really waiting for a crash tbh, i'm just waiting for the right house and the right price. We've just seen crap on the market that's overpriced, but lots of reductions on rightmove in the areas we are looking in. We aren't looking for a big house at all, we want to live modestly below our means and just somewhere that has enough space for the family. We don't want a large house at all, I'm not very good at cleaning lol.

I will definitely look into self-build a bit sooner, perhaps. If you ever have time, I'd love to know what your dad's top tips are. I wouldn't know where to start.

Thanks for sharing as well :)

Amazing! I wish you well with it. Who knows, we may join you in a year or two.

@wheretolivehelp it was not like grand designs way more down to earth, essentially he bought and that had former farm/outbuildings on the planning permission was largely In the same shape size etc. He was very on top of it with other contractors (he's a plumber so did that stuff himself) was particular with who he used and had good recommendations. Bought a decent static caravan to live on site and save money. Wouldn't have been feasible renting at the same time

He's also handy with DIY so was happy to do all the decorating etc and finall bits himself

Buyers, here is an excellent article by the Financial Times - please see below.

UK house prices drop 13.4% from peak in real terms

According to the article, current homeowners with a mortgage who bought since 2015 have lost a lot of value on their property.

Personally, I believe the higher interest rates are here to stay for a long long while. I'm not sure why some people think they will magically go back to 1-2% especially with recent world events and oil prices. Negative equity is still a real concern.

https://www.ft.com/content/3effe9ea-19ba-4239-af04-0ecb80a6e532

Does anyone think interest rates will go back to 1-2%?

I literally don't think I have heard one person on Mumsnet say that.

I don't think anyone sensible thinks they will drop back below 4%, I haven't seen anyone say that at all.

Just some of us don't think the crash will be as steep as you and a few others (Crashy) seem to think that's all

You both don't need to "say" it haha, it's written all over your comments. Yes, many people are sitting around hoping interest rates will go back down - they've been waiting since Truss lol. They're dreaming.

4% is reaching. Most people who are looking at 4% need at least 40% deposit, not many people have that lying around just waiting to spend on a 4% mortgage lol. Even if they did (I only know one person who does have that money!), they're not investing in property right now because that would be high risk.

Buyers now are looking at real value loss over the next few years, the data points to that. If you bought a house after 2015, it seems your house has depreciated quite a bit. Negative equity is already an issue and will not make most people want to buy any time soon.

What's the point in buying a house if it only puts you in further financial strain in a few years, and when a lot of buyers are families who probably want to stay in that house only about 5 years. Not everyone is looking for a forever home because they can't afford it - most are in the position hoping to upgrade their home in 3-5 years by using any increase in the value in their property to facilitate that move... but that won't happen.

Lots of job loss already this year, which should make everyone think twice too. It's sad times. I think people should be cautious with their money, but if they have no financial issues, they are the only ones okay to buy i guess.

I think it's irresponsible of anyone to act like all is good and well - it's important people are careful and protect their hard-earned deposits. Just wondering, are you both from the few benefiting from the economical problems, and not from the many who are desperately struggling?

You’re wrong if you think you can see it written all over my comments that I expect interest rates to return to 1-2%.

I’ve never said that because I don’t believe it. I do expect them to drop to about 4% maybe slightly lower but definitely not as low as 2% or even 3%.

OP and anyone else reading, unsure if you are aware of this. Sometimes a developer will find a small plot and just build two or three homes on it, and the build quality and floor layouts are far better than the big boys. Also, the gardens are usually less overlooked. If you want a newish home it is worth looking at ads from small developers or doing a streetview to see if there are only a few houses on a secondhand new build advert.

In my part of West London, 1930's semis, with 3 bedrooms, being 2 doubles and a single aka box room around 1,000 sq ft, are the staple.

In an ordinary market they go like hot cakes, but they're certainly not fit for modern family living if you have 2 or more DC.

I bought mine a year ago, and initially planned to do a loft conversion to add a big master and 2nd bathroom (not en-suite as I'm not a fan) and kitchen diner extension, however could only spend £150k for both, and with quotes I've received that's pushing it, the way prices for building works have increased.

I'll probably not end up doing the works, so will be on a thread similar to this in 4 years time when my fixed rate runs out trying to squeeze the price of my next purchase down, though as I had a decent deposit can afford for mine not to have increased significantly to be able to move on.

I'm seeing prices locally hovering about £30k above where I bought mine, though they don't seem to be coming down any lower, possibly because we have great schools and a lovely community which perhaps attract a premium.

I can't recall if anyone's specifically said rates will go back to 1-2%, but there's a lot of comments about sellers keeping their homes on the market until they get the price they want, or taking their home off the market and trying again in 6-12 months when the market is "back to normal".

In a rising market it's fine to put your house on at a high price and wait until the market catches up to you but that doesn't work when the market is falling. Also, while buyer confidence is a factor in the falling sales volume at the moment, the biggest issue is the massive change in affordability due to interest rate rises. Buyers are not suddenly going to be able to afford 30-40% more in a year's time unless interest rates drop, so I'm unsure what people mean by "the market going back go normal" unless they're talking about low interest rates.

Thanks for this. So helpful! I got a little curious and increasingly interested last night after a few lovely people suggested self-build.

Do you remember that programme on TV yonks ago. It was about a few families who worked together to self-build. They kind of built each other’s houses somewhere in England J think. They were lovely homes, not Grand Designs fancy, just.. home. I think they did it relatively cheaply too.

for me this route still feels a little hazy and where to start?? (That’s the daunting part). But I think it might be a good place for all Buyers to look into - even out of curiosity- and consider as a possible backup plan.

My comment was specifically about the implication that people have been suggesting rates will return to 1-2% and I don’t think anyone on Munsnet has suggested that.

Gosh not at all profiting lol our family and extended family have been hit really hard, we are currently supporting my DM financially.

I'm not sure if you're mixing me up with someone else @wheretolivehelp or apologies if it wasn't me you meant but I'm not at all saying 'all is well'. I think rates will stick around 4% for about 5 years. I think house prices will correct/come down. BUT I disagree with the apocalyptic predictions of people like Crashytime that's all I'm saying.

The link you posted saying they're 13% down on the weird Covid peak is a different kettle of fish to down on the pre Covid prices if you see what I mean.

I struggle to see what you're saying about the 2015 point though. That's when we bought our ( very average mid terrace) and we're not in negative equity at all or even close. If someone bought in 2015 and has been paying for 8 years On a repayment mortgage even if they put down a smaller deposit they're unlikely to be in negative equity.

Prices are objectively higher than 8 years ago in every area I've looked at.

I fully appreciate that with inflation etc you could argue they're way down in "real terms" but that won't have put people into negative equity!