Hey Property Doomsayers! "House price downturn worst since slump of 1990s, surveyors report"

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here, The Times today

houses are selling on my street and better fecking had continut do as ours is going up next month

so piss orrrrf with yer doom and gloom

(at least until I have my mitts on my equity)

don't sell unless you have to this year!

no sign of anything dropping here
some stuff is taking longer to shift but doesn't seem to be going down in price

Taking longer to shift is a sign of a downturn adn asking prices are set by the vendors and agents and it is the surveyors and banka that are calling the shots now.There is a bit of a stand off because people can't accept that their houses aren't wotrh what they were but it will happen soon

I need my equity to feck off out of this dump

don't forget your kerb appeal oo

man is decorating as we speak

In yesterdays budget alastair darling said that his main purpose was to keep inflation on target between 1 and 2% and he would be writing to the bank of england to verify this.The only way to do that is to raise interst rates and I think this will be the next step for this govt.They did nothing for homeowners at all and I fear they have accepted the inevitable

inflation is the hardest to control, well, because it can be influenced, but not really controlled - like in the way interest rates are.

Well dont see much sign of it. Ours went within a week and the mortgagee and surveyors are holding things up because they are "so busy".

We had our house valued this week, we bought it for £250,000 in July last year. We have had new bathrooms,kitchen,flooring etc and it is now worth thr grand sum of 260,000!!!

We want to move to a bigger house but are fortunate in that we don't have to sell to move, so hopefully we will be able to get a good price on the house we have seen.

The downturn is good news for first time buyers and as they help keep the market bouyant it must be a good thing

Assdoc, if you are still here do NOT despair! I put a flat (SW London) on the market the day before going on a week's holiday @ half term - assumed it would languish there for months. When I got back a week later the agent had left several messages - had had a number of viewings and an offer at the asking price by a cash buyer. The price is what others sold for last August which seems to have been the peak, so prices do not seem to have dropped here. Maybe this is because there are no other similar on sale at the moment, so it appears that a shortage of properties are keeing the prices up.

That's excellent news MrsGOG. I'm oop north however, so fear that things may not look so bright here.

We have already bought our next property so have no upward chain but also need to sell relatively quickly to avoid too many months of mortgage payments on the new house. That's the worry.

The house we've bought was a fab opportunity for us to buy at a great price in a great area, just at the wrong time for us in terms of having our current home sold or at least on the market!

Estate agents are due round to value next Weds and Thursday so fingers crossed.

In Scotland more houses are going on at fixed prices, until recently they were all offers over which could be up to 25-40% over the asking price depending on how much somebody wanted your house.

When the very chatty surveyor came around to do a valuation on our house a week or so ago he said that they were very busy but mainly because the banks are very concerned about their lending and are wanting to realy be sure that houses are going to be worth their mortgages given the downturn. He said the days of drive by valuations are gone. As a result he was here for about an hour doing a simple valuation and had to go into the loft, take photos and all sorts of measurements, sketch floorplans etc.
Thanksfully he said when he left that he had no major concerns about our sale but he also said that there have been a number of properties in the past few weeks where he has reported back that the houses aren't worth the values put on them by the agents.

When we bought our first home, a flat in London, the bank were amazed it came back valued at what we were paying for it. 1993. They said many valuations were coming back below agree selling price - and this was post-crash (otherwise we never would have got onto the property ladder).

The most inflated price paid for that pad back then in the heady days of 'let's buy a place before double MIRAS relief disappears' was £120k - we bought at £67k from the person who paid that. It was a 2 bed flat and a one bed in the same block is currently on the market for £340k.

Nationwide figures out today. A nice little graph for wickedww:

Oh yes, this line is definitely about to level out at zero

So when people talk about the housing market stagnating, you know they mean the same way as a brick stagnates when dropped from a great height.

Nationwide pulling lots of offers and raising trackers won't help.There are virtually no mortgages out there unless you are v credit worthy with a huge deposit.The market will be flooded which can only push prices down too.It is about time we saw a return to affordable houses for more people I think down 20% from last summer by teh end of this year.

I'd say that about 50% of the property details I receive from EA's are of empty properties. Are these repossessions or buy to let landlords bailing out?

On a second point:
What sort of offers would people put on a property currently on the market for £319k? Estate Agents say that it was on for about £340k a few months back, but that he had informed the vendor that this was too much. He's also pointed out that he thinks the vendor will accept an offer on £319k. I've looked the property up on property spy and he bought it for £285k 18 months ago.

Still going up in our road...but it is an area where people who need more space come because they get more for their money than in more expensive pockets of london, so never was in the ludicrously inflated zone.

285 was probably the top .Wait a bit longer and offer about 275.It will be worth 250 max next year but if you really love it and can afford to ride out teh ups and downs go for it!

Noddyholder
Do you reckon £250k next year could be feasible? If so, might be worth waiting to avoid having to pay 3% stamp duty as well.

Can't really afford to ride the ups and downs. Am already dependent on help from mum who would invest in it, as well as having to rent out a room. Not having to do either and avoid the 3% would be ideal.

If you need all that help Wait!!!!You may find it is worth it esp with the stamp duty

Would love to be able to wait, but the rented accommodation I am in at the moment is awful and have promised my DD that our next move will be the last.

i'd still wait, if i were a FTB.