House Prices

[Yel]

You are wrong in saying that 90% of people who rent want to buy. Do students want to buy a place in a city where the are only likely to stay for a few years, for example? No.

Eh the students and short term people are within the 10% that don't want to buy.

I didn't say 100% want to buy

 

[Clickbait]

If something is ‘over over’ does anyone have and advice of how much over to offer? I don’t know if it’s worth viewing as my limit is only 5k over really I could go ever so slightly over that

Honestly I would view the place if you like it and then make an offer accordingly. Even in these crazy times, something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I’m currently in the process of buying a house which was offers in excess of a price. We saw it and offered under. Eventually we had to offer asking price which was accepted.

You may have other things on your side that are worth as much as extra money to some sellers - a short or no chain, a willingness to move at speed or wait for the sellers pace. Good luck!

 

[Moe]

So a house went up on Rightmove for sale last week with 2 photos, one at the front and another of an overgrown garden. I rang the estate agents today to ask whether they would be putting more pictures up soon so people can have a better idea. The estate agent told me that they won't be putting any more pictures up yet because the house is cluttered at the moment and they have the keys for a viewing. Apparently they have already had an offer on the house but it's under negotiation because it's too low. I asked her how can people make an offer without pictures in a week and she said oh they have viewed the house. I think they are just lying. Why do estate agents lie so much!?

Their ability to lie is one of the requirements for the job.
If I were you I would just go ahead and view the property as long as you keep in mind it will be a shit hole but look past that and imagine what you could do with it.

 

[Nebbymoo]

I dont know what it's like outside of where we are but in my town there is plenty of available houses, it's just that they are in such run down areas where drug use is sky high, derelict areas full of fly tipped rubbish and generally litter strewn everywhere that you just don't want to buy because you know you'll never be happy there or be able to sell on in future.
Theres also a lot of houses in states of such poor repair, local scum have ripped out lead and generally just destroyed the house or it's simply been left to rot. And it's such a shame that these cant be forced to be sold instead of letting them sit there empty for 20 years. If you cannot afford to or have no desire to maintain a house then the council should have the power to force you to sell so that it can be done up and lived in by someone who will look after it in my opinion.
We had a meeting with a mortgage broker yesterday and found out that we could have x amount. It was slightly more than I would like to pay out for a house to be honest but at least things are moving along finally and we seem to be making some progress. It been an eye opener how long everything seems to take I thought it would be more straight forward.
Also already seeing more and more houses being put back up for sale that we was refused a viewing on because sales have fallen through.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

 

[JoeBloggs]

We had an very honest estate agent who we bought our house through, there are some! We’ve been there 3 years and did a full renovation and had it valued at £400k, a house down the road that is smaller than ours, isn’t as nice has been renovated by a builder and he’s had it on the market most of the year at £525k. No chance he’s going to get that in our road!

I also agree not to buy new, a friend sold her last month at a £5k loss than they bought it for in 2017.

I find conveyancers are the slowest part of buying a house.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

I paid for my own phone at uni- do her kids have jobs at uni like I did so I could afford to go? If not then I’m entitled to my opinion that this is an example of unnecessary spending IF owning a home is important to you and you say you can’t save.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

This idea that inheritance should be a right to pass on I do find a bit odd. Especially as lots of it isn't even earned income but asset appreciation.

Agreed completely. Also agree with other posters, especially the statement about it opening up a whole debate on public funds, and the quality of healthcare in this country.

Tbh I’ve gone through the same but different, I inherited a sliiiither of a family home in another country. I debated buying the whole thing & doing it up to keep in the family as a means of having a connection to the motherlandTM but especially for my baby to? I decided against it especially as the property market in that city is so fucked because of Airbnb / English people doing exactly that. Fast forward and for reasons at the end of the probate process it’s now going through a government investigation for overpayment of state pension as she had always underspent, but needed to declare once she reached a threshold? Which just feels ridiculous because you’d be constantly stop / starting the claim?! It’s had a few big profile cases in that country with families contesting this so fuck knows what’ll happen but I’m gutted as we’ve lost the house as a family now and my siblings are likely to not get any cash (I don’t care about my portion as I’m okay tbh and this was hugely unexpected as I’m not from money). So I do get how shit it feels when you’ve done the right thing and it costs you, but maybe it’s a privilege to not be upset by that? Idk. Sorry for the dear diary xoxo entry! x

 

[rainbowlemon]

It's £950k for a 3 bed semi around here. Just an ordinary semi detached. I've lived here my entire life, and we're having to leave and live elsewhere because house prices are so ridiculous. It just feels, unfair somehow?

I can't afford to buy in my parents area either.

One home 1/2 a mile away and currently listed for £1.275 million. Just a standard 4 bed.

2020	£1,230,000	+81%
2008	£680,000	+48%
2004	£460,000

At this rate I honestly would rather move to Liverpool and get a nice 2 bed house for under 60k instead.

 

[JLXRD]

House prices are crazy we just sold our 3 bed terrace for 248… close to beach but not a great area, we are buying a 3 bed 8 miles away with better schools for 425k I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is in Dorset.
We got our first flat 135k at 24 with our own money, we didn’t go to uni just went straight to work with a 90% mortg sold for 155k & got this home for 189k. We will have a big mortgage but need to be close to work & good schools .

Just read the other comments & might delete this now

No need to delete it - literally nothing wrong with what you have said. I don’t think anyone was meaning there was a problem with having an expensive property in general.

I live in Dorset too and the last year things have gone absolutely nuts with prices - they were already pretty nuts before!

We sold our 2 bed flat recently for just under £240k and it had the worlds smallest kitchen, a girl in her early 20s bought it and I felt almost guilty that she had paid that much because honestly, it is a fairly standard flat - just happens to be quite near a very nice beach.

We bought a detached 3 bed further away from the beach to be near good schools and because we want children soon. I dread to think how expensive houses are going to become here. My younger siblings are being priced out of buying here at this point.

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

Lloyds Bank aims to be a large UK landlord with 50,000 homes

Bullish internal targets contrast with cautious public comments on new rental business

www.ft.com

So the government has mismanaged the economy so much that property is now a more lucrative investment than...investment banking.

It’s just so gross. Actually knocks me sick. Shouldn’t be allowed to just buy 50000 houses.

 

[Italy2]

Anything re: prices is pure market speculation, no one can say with any degree of certainty. Personal opinion is: remember recessions aren't all the same, all recession actually means is two consecutive quarters of decline it's just hard to disentangle from the catastrophe of the last one (or ones before that for people who were cognitive then). The factors causing this (inevitable, imo) recession are so very different I think we'll see a faster recovery & house prices will largely remain unchanged. It'll be the market itself that undergoes a few months of weirdness where people are scared to sell/buy, the UK already has a housing supply problem though so nothing really that new there...

The one thing I will say is lenders have already reduced their risk appetite and apparently they've already revoked most of their 95% LTV products. I've heard of people even having credit card limits reduced (!!) so it may be worth re-mapping your savings goals?

Oh and those awful HTB / new build schemes will be even more fucked I suspect. Those houses are already overpriced + shabby so best to avoid anyway, but I imagine they'll have to reduce their prices but that'll just be to reflect their true value tbqh??

Help to buys are so scary and dangerous. I know some friends who bought houses through the scheme and don't really understand the financial implications of the repayments of loan after the initial 5 years!

 

[justbeingnosy98]

There does seem to be a drop in properties being added to rightmove over the last week or so - maybe the market is slowing!? (I’m looking in Scotland)

 

[Boutros-Boutros Ghali]

Sorry to be like a toddler and be why why why, but then what happens when these people inevitably can’t afford the SVR? This is coming from a place of privilege and not talking about people on min wage or struggling but the number of “comfortable” mums I know who’d love to drop a day but can’t afford to because of their current financial obligations shocks me, that’s 20% of their salary - assuming pay parity between husband and wife 10% of household income, more likely to be between 5-10% really. So when rates rise or something like this happens what are the Telegraph Money gonna be writing about their beloved demographic?! Had to get rid of the Land Rover lease cos of Rishi?

Allegedly the affordability calculations the bank do are based on the interest rate rising to about 9% (someone will likely correct me on the exact figures) but that would literally leave most people paying their mortgage and having very little to live on. People have got used to a certain standard and it’s very difficult to adjust

 

[JoJo76]

Prices where we live have gone absolutely nuts. There is no way on earth we could afford our house now, we paid £380k in 2015 and they are selling on our street for £600k +

Such a pity that my daughter and her boyfriend will never be able to afford here, you can't even find a 2 bed flat for less than £250k. This is in the North by the way.

Both us and her boyfriends parents have always said never rent. Stay at home and save. They are 22 and just about to finish Uni, so it will be hard for them to adjust to full time at home after having found independence but at least they can split their time between houses. We've also given her the biggest bedroom in the attic and had the en-suite done up, plus I've made one section of the basement into a second living room for them to use if they want to be away from us. With rent prices around here it's the only way they'll be able to get a deposit together, and even then there will be help from the bank of Mum and Dad.

 

[hollowcrown]

Landlords absolutely cannot keep pumping up rent prices. The government is trying to end work from home in order to keep people buying overpriced sandwiches and living in expensive cities and keep the property bubble growing.

 

[Boutros-Boutros Ghali]

A puff piece, they "intend" to do something long before they've got FCA clearance.

It all sounds very wE'Ve gOt aN ApP based on hot air, who wants an app for their mortgage? It changes so infrequently a yearly statement is quite enough.

Back to the economy I do wonder what state it will be in come next spring. I know lots are celebrating not going into the office again and thinking screw pret, but I already know one person in a tech company where they've all been given a 20% pay cut. Once a lot less money is sloshing around these "unaffected" people will very much become affected. It was very apparent not long into covid that the Swedish approach was the best.

What is the future of the south east if people will forever work from home?

I read an interesting article the other day (can’t remember where from now) about the future of the square mile. I worked around there for years and loved it but hated it all at the same time. So many businesses are based on having workers in the city. I think people are expecting it to eventually come back to normal but the article mentioned that the government hadn’t taken into account human behaviour as part of the recovery, the fact that people are enjoying not spending 3 hours plus a day travelling to work and spending £20 on a sandwich for lunch....it’ll be difficult to ever go back to what it was there and as you say I think the fall out will take a while to filter through but it’ll definitely be very prevalent in the South East....glad to have got out when we did

 

[Yel]

I'm giving up for the moment, a couple of times in the last year something decent has come up. You call to view and they say it's already had 50 requests to view in the hour since it's come up and it's going for sealed bids. Then they make you jump through hoops to have a few minutes to view.

We're still in madness times at the moment and I won't overpay during a frenzy where I feel rushed.

Stock levels are so slow, I expect many people are waiting as they keep seeing prices rise. Once things become more stable it will be better for everyone.

 

[Anne1448]

New builds are an absolute pain. They look beautiful with their brand new interior. However the bedrooms are now so small that you can only put a dresser. Dining rooms don't even exist anymore, people have to eat in their kitchen. And don't get me started on the walls that are so thin that you can hear everything.

My friend is a property developer and he told me to never buy new build but older houses.

 

[Lanavalentine]

This is the worrying thing really. I know a lot of people jumping into buying houses as soon as they can with new partners when they are jobs that I know pay far less than mine. Either they have the secret "help" which no one likes to speak about on social media or they are not prepared for interest rate rises at all.

Yes, I see this sometimes too. It’s like our society & media has elevated the idea of home ownership to be the ultimate goal, when in reality, a fair percentage of people right now would probably be better off focusing on pensions and emergency funds first. (Although I’m aware it’s probably very easy for me to say that as a home owner)

Also, I certainly hope the “just work harder and spend less” crowd are well prepared for potential interest rate rises too…