House Prices #4 Property market, buying and selling

[Yel]

People have lost touch with personal responsibility - perhaps it was the Covid pay-outs and the winter fuel bill pay-outs that have changed our mindsets. Its no ones responsibility but your own to pay your mortgage. Rates go up, rates go down. If you had eyes too big for your wallet and took on a bigger house than you really needed when the going was good - well more fool you. Are there people truly foolish enough to believe that interest rates would have stayed that low for ever?

Lots of people need to be saved from themselves. But this should be done by regulation rather than bailouts when the shit hits the fan.

Anyone buying a house should be shown in large font that house prices can go up and down and that interest rates can go up and down. Also that people do not own a home until the debt is repaid and it will be sold if repayments can't be made.

So many have bonkers expectations that they can do whatever and someone will be there to bail them out. All of these bailouts have got us into this shit situation.

 

[Folkevermore]

Of course, it’s not everyone but you do see some people complaining about it and there’s two of them living in a huge house. It should have only ever been allowed for starter homes!

Didn’t help to buy have a cap based on the price of the region anyway? Where I live you’d never have been able to get more than small two bed within the price cap (I believe it was around £260,000, average two bed new build is £280,000 here)
I’ve bought a 3 bed home and have had lots of judgement about how I should’ve got something smaller, but my partner and I are in our 30s so buying a small “starter” home would’ve been a waste of money

 

[WeepingCassandra]

Has anyone here made the decision to forgo going up the ladder? Did you ever regret it?

Long story short myself and husband did some dull retirement planning and discovered that if we stayed on our current mortgage we could potentially save enough to retire by the time we’re 50. The idea is very appealing, but the house we’re in is tiny and cramped with no room to extend, we’ve been looking for the next step up but now I’m considering a sideways move to a larger house in a worse area. I can’t decide whether we’d regret it or not, hoping to hear from anyone who has made sacrifices in this area for their thoughts

I would absolutely not move to a worse area for a bigger house.

We sold my OHs house in a dodgy area for our (slightly larger in footprint, but same number of bedrooms - but it was bought with combined incomes) current home and living there was absolute hell. We had a prostitute opposite us who would do most of her work at 3am on a Friday and Saturday night. Both our cars got egged every other month. Next door had several feral dogs and cats that they let out into the back gardens from dawn to dusk and ignored their howling/scrapping. Next door but one had a drugs bust twice in the 2 years we lived there. We would regularly be woken up by police cars or be unable to get our cars off the drive because a police van had blocked it.

Obviously a bit extreme and potentially you're thinking of an area that isn't as bad as that but if you're used to a quiet existence amongst friendly, dare I say, middle class neighbours in a nice neighbourhood and thinking of moving somewhere that is less appealing then it is potentially a very big mistake.

Houses can be done up, rearranged inside, made bigger on the outside, they can't be moved and location is ultimately what sells.

 

[jojida]

Completed this morning at 11. For told we’d have keys by 1 but just waiting now for the sellers to finish tidying and drop their keys back! How long is reasonable to wait before I ask my solicitor to call again?

 

[jojida]

Can you get on experian or similar and have a look at your credit rating? Should tell you if it's likely to be a problem.

So my credit rating tanked the day after posting this but I also managed to get in contact with the lender who has agreed that as it was a one time thing and the credit account has now been settled, they'll strike it from my record as a gesture of good will. Fingers crossed my score gets back up to what it was quite quickly and we don't hold up our chain too much!

 

[Shinythings]

We have a viewing later, please send good vibes for a good offer

If nothing comes of it we're going with a price reduction which we don't really want to do but our agent says he's finding at the moment that price reductions are often getting a better result in the end.

 

[CelinaRoger]

We have just gone for 5 year fixed, we figured that it was better having the longer stability of knowing what our outgoings were, even if the rates were to come down, we wouldnt begrudge it as we kept to the lower end of our affordability to make sure a 5 year fixed wouldnt feel like a big burden. plus the mortgage process has been so stressful I didn't fancy going through remortgaging in 2 years time

 

[andreaoid]

No one wins if prices fall except cash buyers. The only way for young FTBs to achieve progress is to demand better wages. People are constantly rooting for house prices to fall instead of putting energy into pressuring government into increasing wages. We are still paid the same as people in early 2000s but everything (and not only houses!) got more expansive. Not fair!

 

[Yel]

I’ve bought a 3 bed home and have had lots of judgement about how I should’ve got something smaller, but my partner and I are in our 30s

Anyone being critical of that is an idiot.

The whole idea of there being a ladder is fantasy. If someone in their 30s buys a 2 bed flat and prices keep increasing then it becomes increasingly hard to go to the next step. It might have worked in the past if you by a wreak and do it up to then buy another wreak.

 

[Pinhead Larry]

Can't believe it, house went on the market on 21st July and I've had loads of viewings and 2 offers, asking price and over madness. I am slightly concerned if the best and finals go much more over, as the banks might not value the house at as much as they're offering but still great!

 

[Beyondthebrink]

Yeah, they will genuinely just blitz a room and put everything that's not bolted down in boxes. Well worth the money and not normally that expensive (I think ours was £750 for a 3 bed house in 2019).

This is about the same as we were quoted earlier this month for packing up a 3-bed house. We decided to save the money and do it ourselves.

As somebody who has just spent 30 minutes packing mugs (literally one person in our house drinks hot drinks - WHY so many mugs?)....let's just say I'm regretting my life choices.

 

[101d]

Urghhh!
Just got an email from our solicitor about fixtures and fittings from our buyer.
Basically we had originally said we would leave the washing machine however it broke and we had to replace it.
I informed our solicitor and buyer that we would no longer be leaving it due to it breaking and was informed that they have a second hand one so it wouldn't be an issue.
Now they have emailed their solicitor complaining about it.
I'm not sure where we stand with this as, whilst it was included in the fixtures and fittings, we have written messages saying it isn't a problem that it isn't being left.

Tell them you'll leave the original, broken one if they wish

 

[Jellycat369]

Just got our home report through and it's £50k less than we were expecting based on the conversations we had with agents over the summer It's not even in line with the pricing of homes with the same number of bedrooms that are smaller and in the same area! Also found out that we aren't eligible to get government funded hours for our son's nursery until August because his birthday is two weeks too late for the earlier cut off. Think we're going to have to pull out

 

[Shinythings]

Some sellers are nuts. Seen 2 houses that we want to make an offer. One they've said they will consider it but only after we've sold (fair enough). The other we actually offered asking price as thought it was fair for the house and comfortably within budget but they've rejected it. The agent came back to us a bit baffled and basically said we're the only offer they've had at asking price and property has been on for 3 months but they're still rejecting it as they want significantly more than asking price. So we've pulled that one off the table, you just know they're going to be an absolute pain in the arse if they did procede.

 

[Shinythings]

Survey results back. He's advising a complete roof rebuild either before completion or within a year as bordering on dangerous. This is due to poor roof maintenance and previous insulation being removed badly causing damage.

Urgh.

 

[Beyondthebrink]

We exchanged today, too! Move day is 25th. Eeekk!

 

[Notworthy]

I think even with renovations, the main issue is that houses aren’t being built in line with population growth, which is driving the house price rices.
I definitely agree though, there needs to be more restrictions around how landlords operate

Come to Croydon. Ridiculous number of properties built/converted but most bought off plan hy the Chinese and left empty. If Councils put covenants on new builds that they had to be owner occupied and sold to Citizens/residents the issue would resolve quickly

 

[Megansnarkle]

My husband was a “failure to launch” of sorts, he avoided any and all financial responsibility until his mid 30’s, so unfortunately he had zero equity or savings of any kind when we met, and it’s set us back quite a bit. We’re a single salary household so the range we can borrow is limited, and whilst equity in my home is very healthy it’s a drop in the ocean compared to prices in the area (200k equity, average house price 1.4m) we’ve seen a place further afield for 650k that we both love, but borrowing 450k on a single salary is already pushing it, I’m not sure if we can take away another 30k for all the fees we need, plus reno

I'd be very wary about taking on £450k of debt without an emergency fund and only one salary even if you could pull together all the costs. Sounds way too risky to me, particularly at current rates. A few years ago and you'd be looking at less than £1500 a month in repayments, now you could easily add £1000 to that. That's a lot of money to have to find if the main earner were to lose their job for whatever reason.

Unfortunately you might find you need to stay put for a while and build your pot.

 

[margaretta]

I think people are quick to mock/judge these people with large mortgages but for a lot of people there’s not much option? Take out a large mortgage or pay even larger rent - you’re fucked each way.
I think compassion for people who a struggling financially after the rate rises isn’t too much to give.
Where I live the average house hold income is £45-50k but the average house is £290-300k. A two bed house in a safer area is easily £240-250k, so you can see why people had to borrow the max income multiplier

I’m with you on this.
When interest rates were higher or going up, the cost of everything else wasn’t going up too (council tax, food, energy bills). This is what is compounding the misery.

Any spare cash people had in case of a mortgage rate rise is going on trying to maintain a basic standard of living. Pay rises of 2 to 5% are barely touching the increase in outgoings, excluding mortgage rates. So blaming people because it feels like every single item has gone up 1/3rd seems rather unfair.

I can’t remember another time like this when everyone is being hit on all sides, not only mortgage rates.

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

We’re saving up and we are about 30% there. Living with my boyfriend’s parents. God I miss our own space. Think we have a while left and we’re debating just renting instead my mum said she also thinks we should rent because it’s so hard to get a mortgage now and we’re not overly happy in our living situation.

Would anyone advise against this?

If you hava the opportunity to reside somewhere with lower payments Id really try to suck it up.

Save as much as you possibly can. How long will it take you to save the other 70%?

I presume with 2 wages and living with parents yoh can save quicker and easier so focus on how quickly you can do that.