are things picking up??

[Mammina]

just called an estate agent about a house that came on the market at the end of last week to arrange a viewing, and it's gone already! and they've just taken another 3 properties on...
the fact that there may be more to choose from is great but if people are thinking things are moving quickly we may not get the reduction in price on our next property that we took when we sold ours

I wouldn't panic just yet - lots of interest but estate agents I speak to say that it is not filtering down to actual sales yet for the mortgage-dependent classes .

lets hope you're right!

Things actually moving is GOOD news for those who want prices to fall further. The ones that are going are generally the ones priced a long way off the peak, and will be setting new price levels for areas. Complete stalemate is no good for anyone as prices just stick where they are and nobody sells.

Seriously, you have nothing to worry about. We've barely started the recession yet!

No, there are no 'factors' in place to cause a serious sustained pick up in the market- unfortunate for those who over-extended themselves to buy/are in negative equity/NEED to sell but good for those who couldn't afford/chose not to attempt to afford..

There HAS been a 'dead cat bounce' because of course there IS a fair bit of 'pent up demand' and a lot of people who didn't buy, saved- at quite reasonable interest rates over the past- what- 4 years? and are now sitting on good deposits and perhaps are jumping in now that at last prices are falling. This may be what you're seeing but I DO wonder how many purchasers will be kicking themselves next summer when prices have fallen a further 15% - ?+, or when interest rates are 12%! Others will hold their nerve to see where this market ends up.

In my opinion the things that need to happen are:

A flow of credit but SURELY we can all see that this won't be anywhere NEAR as generous as the crazy amounts loaned over the past few years

A stabilising of the economy so the fear of unemployment isn't so great

It doesn't seem like either of these factors are in place at the moment or in the foreseeable future.

faraday are you in the know? is this your field? i only ask as we are considering moving ourselves - estate agent coming out tomorow to value - looking to get something bigger but not sure if this is the right time or if we shuld wait another year like you mentioned.... if the new house is priced lesser than the peak price as our will be then surely there will be no difference to witing a year. I am a mixed up chick with twitchy moving feet.....

Jimmy & faraday what you say makes sense. We sold recently because we needed to sell and did so at 20% less than the original asking price, but were still lucky in a sense that we bought yonks ago so didn't go so far as negative equity, which must be a complete nightmare if you absolutely have to sell.

If you sold at -20% then, I would say, you have still shorted the market so are quids in. I really think things are going to get a lot worse in the short term (next 6-12 months). I also think it is unlikely that things will suddenly pick up after a horrifyingly steep descent - the bottom will be hit at some point (who knows when?) and then prices will bump along at that rate for a few months/years with just fractional fluctuations each month.

so if your already on the property ladder it shuld not affect you too much - yes?

The main problems if you are already on the ladder are the general apathy surrounding the market which makes people unwilling to want to move and therefore buy your property which means that you might be stuck in your old house. Then there is the lack of available mortgages so you may struggle to up your borrowing sufficiently should you wish to move to a bigger/better property unless you have lots of equity or a lot of savings.

Should have added that if you are in migola's position (already sold at more than the market has fallen and - presumably - now in rented) then you don't have to worry so much.

it hurts my head

hmm, we're wanting to move to a bigger property and up our mortgage, and it has been agreed more than once (by our current mortgage company), the last time being probably a couple of months ago (we sold a month ago, completing in 5 weeks), I just hope we can still borrow the same amount when we do finally find a house

You may need to borrow less if you wait a few months.

this is what i'm hoping..

I hope you have a 20% deposit though, that's the biggest issue.
We're still waiting for the penny to drop with vendors around here, but wait we will, they are already down 15% it seems which is more than I'd expected so soon.

yes we do for the price we can go up to, but even though the bank will lend us the money we're now starting to think it would be silly to overstretch ourselves with all the unemployment - DH is self employed and doing ok at the moment but a couple of months of no work would really put us in the shit.
fed up as I always told him we should go for something smaller that we are more able to afford & he always said we should stretch ourselves, but he's now thinking i'm prob right - we've let so many nice cheaper houses go that I was perfectly happy to live in but he thought they were too small and we'd grow out of them