SURVEY : As house prices are falling how many of you are seriously tempted to sell, wait for the big fall and then BUY BUY BUY when market reaches rock bottom???

[drosophila]

Seems the logical thing to do but still I am not inclined. Interested to hear other views......

Gambling with your home is a very bad idea, I think.

I doubt many people will do that as it costs so much money to move, and finding another house that you love can be a right pain.
We're FTB though, and we're definitely waiting to see what happens to the housing market. Houses in our area have already decreased in price by the amount of rent that we pay annually.

It is too late to do that!The top was last summer if you sold now you would be chasing the market down as houses aren't selling really,I sold last summer for top £ BUT have spent the last year in a really stinky damp flat waiting to buy so its swings and roundabouts

In lots of places you're already too late. We went to put our house on the market to sell in March in order to sell & rent, and it had already begun to dry up. Round here the market has seized up completely now, because everyone in our area has done the same - we have even seen some houses being reduced in price after just 3 weeks. People will start getting panicked into taking really low offers and it will all just spiral.

Best option now is to sit tight and take comfort in fact that although your house is falling in value, so is the one you aspire to trade up to so you are relatively OK if you don't need to move

I have just put an offer in of 480K on a house on at 630K. She is considering it.

Agree with the others, it's too late.

Well we kind of are. Our house is falling in value and will prob be worth less than we paid for it by next year and will continue to drop. However, we paid a big chunk of mortgage last year and plan to do the same later this year so in theory when its bottomed out we should still be in a good position to snap up the family home of our dreams.

In the meantime we're getting the loft done!

Dh wants to do this but we won't be! Rents are going up, too much upheaval and loads of stamp duty on next house. Also, what to do with the money? If put on fixed deposit then reduce flexibility for buying a new one - if in instant access toooooooo tempting...

you'll be lucky to sell TBH...

I think it's only really worth doing if you are intending to move anyway, and then only if you are pretty sure that you can get decent rental accommodation in the area that you want to move too. Otherwise it's probably not worth it if you take into account all the moving costs, fees and stamp duty.

We will be moving to Dublin either next summer or the summer after. If we go next summer we will probably rent at first and then look to buy a house in spring 2010. Financially it will be the right thing to do, plus if we buy somewhere that needs work we can stay in the rented place while that is done. I would rather just move into our final home though as I find moving stressful and I worry that if we rent in one area and buy in a different one that ds will have to move school, which would be disruptive for him if he's only been there for a year.

aren't there any estate agents / money people to tell us what to do? I always post advice on the gcse maths questions so its only fair

I agree! Share expert knowledge.

We have sold our house and we are going into rental because we can't find a decent house to buy. If I'd found my dream house I would have jumped onto it. This is the second property I'm selling and the previous one sold in a dodgy period too. If you sell and buy again you won't lose, but don't buy anything too much above your means and pick good areas, house prices are not going to crash in good areas. The media have been going on for years about price crashes. I suggest you check the price of this dream house on www.houseprices.co.uk and see how much it was bought for originally. Houses have been growing 10-12 per cent per year in the past few years, if that dream house has grown by more than that I suspect it's a bit overvalued. My dh works for financial institutions and that's how we measure if a house is worth the money they are asking for.

if you wait a couple of years til house prices start rising won't the house that you want be all expensive again too?

What is the disadvantage of an interest only mortgage? Is it worth switching to one whilst on maternity leave / part time work whilst credit crunch is on?

Problem is - with maths there is a right answer (which is why I chose to do a level maths ) - all this is merely opinion. DH is extremely pessimistic _ almost pathologically so at the moment. I am so elderly that I remember candles, power cuts, my dad on a three day week, shortages of toilet rolls and bread, strikes every five minutes, and so even if that all comes to pass again, it is survivable.
And (I do bang on about this a lot) we are all extremely privileged in this country - even the poorest are fabulously wealthy compared to most of the rest of the world, and for those of us lucky enough to have healthy kids and be musing about whether/whe to sell up - well lucky us. The rest of the world is and will be suffering a hell of a lot more.

that's really interesting goldenpeach - just done that sum for the house we bought this year (we had to move as had three children in a two bedroom house and were going nuts!) Suffice it to say I'm very happy with the result

house prices are not going to crash in good areas .this is a fallacy this time round and don't expect any estate agents to acknowledge a falling market as its their business and they aren't going to talk it down.

that sounds a very poor idea to gamble your home, but perhaps as a limited side investment or for fun if that's your bag.

my father bought, bought, bought a few places with my aunt when things really dived in houston a few months ago.

but they didn't have to sell anything to accomplish this.

he and my mum bought the home they live in now in 1972. and my mum's sister has enriched herself quite well by marrying 5 progressively richer men.

you're right mrsguy. thank you

cosima in IO mortgage is a bit like renting from the bank umless you have a payment vehicle in place to pay off the capital,You only pay the interst and at the end of the term you still owe the balance.If prices fell and you needed to sell quickly you could be in trouble but it is good in the short term if you need to lower your payments for a while

Just an added bit, my partner says that the 10 per cent per year is exceptional, normally it's around 6-7 per cent a year, so after a few years of 10 per cent plus we are experiencing a readjustment. Saw a programme on TV which confirmed that if you don't overstretch yourself financially you can weather a dodgy period and even a crash.

You can ride it out if you are already in a home and you can afford it and don't need to move or sell quick but it is a bad time to buy if you are taking on a big debt at high multiples esp interest only.

We are gutted because our horrible neighbours were selling up & have withdrawn their house from sale

Offer accepted - 150k off!