House Prices

[purplepixie_3]

I just don't think that the new builds are worth the 5% deposit as they are so overpriced and small in size. Although alot of houses where I live are being reduced on Rightmove at the moment, guess will have to wait and see

They definitely aren’t worth it. The large estates are refusing to meet local authority requirements for road standards as it is too expensive. Instead they create “estate roads” which are maintained by a management company. The freehold properties pay service charge annually for the upkeep of the roadway (I’ve seen some from £100-£400 per year) also, when you sell or remortgage you are required to purchase their management packs which cost anywhere from £100-£500. Your purchaser will also need to pay admin fees of £60-£500 depending on the management company.

Government are on about bringing in set standards for fees but we will see.

Leasehold flats are teeny tiny and the service charge for those is eye watering. £1,000 - £3,000 per annum

It’s just money for nothing IMO

 

[Kim Mild]

I feel like it sometimes works at the other end of the age spectrum too. I have had colleagues around retirement age to still have to work to continue to pay off their mortgage. I have found these people to be a little resentful of their mortgage free contemporaries. Same with people who want to move up the property ladder.

Having said that, Home ownership should not be at the expense of any enjoyment in life.

 

[Lanavalentine]

The Sunday Times has an awful article today about where to invest for BTL, completely ignoring the potential second homes/capital gains tax changes and just making some silly assumptions that the places with highest rental yield the best places to invest.

This has really pissed me off! I loathe the whole culture of investing in multiple properties anyway, but particularly in current times, it just seems incredibly selfish and myopic, attempting to profiteer off other people’s misery and misfortune.

 

[Keiffers pipe]

Don’t do it. You need to look at it in person to check circuit boards and boilers and cracks, that you won’t see in a virtual tour.

I absolutely wouldn't even consider it.

 

[orange club biscuit]

I’d also be really fascinated to see how many of those London exodus buyers offering well over asking price in smaller towns actually followed through with their purchases?

This is anecdotal only, but I have been trying to buy a house in an ‘affluent’ area of a northern city since early September and have been out bid on five houses so far (all of our offers have been at or over asking price!) and recently have been noticing quite a number of houses we’ve viewed have ‘unexpectedly come back on the market’. I’d be so interested to hear if this has been others’ experiences too. The current house we live in was down valued by £10k but we had to go with it as otherwise we’d have lost our buyers. I imagine this is happening quite a bit elsewhere...

IMO (for us) extending the stamp duty break won’t really help. Tbh I am divided as to whether i’d rather pay hmrc or a vendor trying to start a bidding war and cash in on all of this!

 

[Yel]

I'm just watching and waiting for an inevitable drop

There will have to be some kind of correction to bring things back in line. But what form it takes is anyone's guess! Recent years have shown they get away with printing of money to devalue it even though it's theft of those with savings.

They did drop after the last recession in the UK and we're only just about to face reality with furlough and all that now being turned off.

 

[Hertfordshire_home]

It's so frustrating. Although it's a very mixed up world where owning is far cheaper per month than renting (and IR aren't rising anytime soon!).

It should have never been made so easy for people to never sell their house when they move and just switch it to a buy to let then remortgage that to use as the deposit on the next place. It's a pyramid scheme, but it makes the financial institutions a lot of money by selling these products and keeping prices sky high.

Taxes on buy to let should have come in decades ago, but many MPs (including Tony Blair) had bought a shed load of them to feather their own nest. So carried on brewing up toxic problems. Homes under the hammer and kirsty & Phil have a lot to answer for!

Not sure i agree about it being a mixed up world where owning is cheaper than renting. It makes sense to me. You pay a premium because you dont take on the risks/rewards of ownership for example. You also (sometimes) dont have to pay bills/council tax etc. You also have the flexibility to leave the property much more easily - you dont have to sell you just have to give notice.

Owning on the other hand might be cheaper per month, but that is largely because of the significant deposit that you need to put down first.

 

[KINGAA]

This is anecdotal only, but I have been trying to buy a house in an ‘affluent’ area of a northern city since early September and have been out bid on five houses so far (all of our offers have been at or over asking price!) and recently have been noticing quite a number of houses we’ve viewed have ‘unexpectedly come back on the market’. I’d be so interested to hear if this has been others’ experiences too. The current house we live in was down valued by £10k but we had to go with it as otherwise we’d have lost our buyers. I imagine this is happening quite a bit elsewhere...

IMO (for us) extending the stamp duty break won’t really help. Tbh I am divided as to whether i’d rather pay hmrc or a vendor trying to start a bidding war and cash in on all of this!

I’ve noticed this too, tons are coming back on the market in my area, even auction houses. I’m guessing they’re all being down valued with the mortgage survey and the sellers don’t want less so they pull out and put it back on but it’s a vicious cycle as the same will keep happening unless someone comes with cash or they get someone with a lender who doesn’t downvalue it!

Also, estate agents aren’t helpful.. they will value properties unrealistically in order just to get you to sell with them... they are all super dodgy.

 

[Moe]

Why can’t banks and building societies start looking at what people have been paying in rent for the last God knows how many years. They could see they have never defaulted and could easily afford a mortgage instead of paying someone else’s.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

Maybe with the garden she wants to recreate a natural ecosystem!

We had a bee garden but hers is just overgrown lol, huge bushes coming out onto the pavement or big enough that they’re now touching the neighbour’s car! It probably is good for the bees but I always just think fucking hell you’d sooner go move into one of these OAP developments where they do classes and socials every day, plus they all probably spend all day romancing and/or shagging, rather than being in some miso delapidated house so you can leave your kids who cba to visit windfall sums

 

[Yel]

Barclays has reduced its maximum lending multiplier from 5.5 to 4.49, others are said to be following suit. https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/barclays-lowers-maximum-income-multiple/

I've also noticed interest rates rising for many mortgage products by 0.1 or 0.2, which while small will have a long term affect.

I suspect the steam has already run out of the property boom, but reporting lags months behind this.

 

[JoeBloggs]

I work in property, I don’t think there will be a crash. People can not afford to lose money on their houses so either they will stay put and the market won’t move or they will hold out for the right offer. Negative equity does no one any favours!

I do think there will be wriggle room, especially if people are downsizing or selling an inherited house.

I know a lot of people may extend if they can’t get the figure now. We’ve made about £75/100k on our house in 3 years. We want another bed and bathroom and by the time you take into moving costs, stamp duty etc and the fact we love our area and neighbours we will probably extend and stay for the next 10 years.

I’ve been trying to convince my parents to move but stamp duty is stopping them even though they can buy bigger for cheaper where we are.

 

[JoeBloggs]

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

They do, it came in under new regulations in 2014. It is about 10% but I don’t know the exact figure. Despite this, I know many who would struggle with any increase.

 

[JoeBloggs]

To be fair, the scenarios you are describing are not necessarily common. Most elderly people sell their homes to pay for care, for example. The vast majority of landlords are in it by choice, not because it was their only option.

Personally I have a problem with the way our entire property and renting infrastructure is set up. I find it gross that so many people think of BTL as an investment for themselves only, when in reality, your property will be someone’s home. People forget this and the way some tenants are treated is beyond belief.

Let’s be honest, the amount of awful landlords out there far exceeds the number of good ones. Around half of private landlords refuse those on benefits for example, and 44% refuse to rent to non-British passport holders. Private landlords are far less likely to return full deposits to tenants than agencies. The general makeup of private landlords in the UK is 50+ white men who don’t believe in climate change! BTL perpetuates the existing unfair social hierarchy under the guise of personal investment.

In general it’s a very selfish way to make a bit of extra cash. It’s also not the cash cow people seem to think it is. I can see how if you’re desperate and you need that extra bit of money monthly, then it probably suits you. For most people however, investing in stocks, shares, financial products and your own home (if possible to add value) is probably more suitable and more lucrative in the long run.

I work in property management, I deal with landlords on a daily basis and I can say about 80-90% of our landlords are good ones.

In regards to 'Around half of private landlords refuse those on benefits', do you know why? Because many freehold insurance policies don't allow it. This isn't a policy the landlord has any power over it, it is issued by the land owner and they are obligated to pay and follow it. We have one in a block of over 60 flats and the policy states no DSS so what is the landlord expected to do because if they do and there is issue that their fault they are liable.

Can I ask where you got your data regarding white 50+ men being the majority of private landlords? I can say from experience this is not the demographic of most of our landlords and specially most of our 'bad' landlords are of a completely different demographic.

 

[navybluewolf]

Wood?!?! Is it a beach hut

It looked like a Butlins chalet. I know beggars can't be choosers but we have to draw the line somewhere...

 

[Anne1448]

A friend looked at buying a house on my street, literally a few doors down from me. It has gone for at least £70,000 more than I paid for mine 4 years ago.. even taking into account the average rise of house prices in our area of the uk, offers have gone way past that. I can’t imagine the mortgage valuation would be approved but even if it was I’d be terrified of ending up in negative equity. It really is madness at the moment.

My mom bought the land for our house at 30,000€ in the early 2000s and built it for under 200k. The same house and the others in the area now start at 1 Million. Which means that not a single original buyer in our neighbourhood would have been able to buy it. Pure madness

 

[Clairer86]

Yes! Nodded to all of this! The ~way people lived~ has changed dramatically over the last 100 years which is why you see such a variance between the style of house from Victorian to post war to new build. Each have their pros/cons but new builds are the only ones I’d say to never touch as the build quality is just fucked, plus there’s been a few financial scandals around part ownership, HTB, and bad ground rent (or block management fees for flats). Just major yikes.

When my bathroom was getting done they had to rush to an emergency where another customer had fallen through her bathroom ceiling into the kitchen, in a new build. It was a couple of years old (!!!) but they’d never fitted the shower tray properly so for years water was going through the floor (or whatever you call it) and rotted the beams and she fell through. We had similar in the flat we rented the shower was leaking out through the wall due to a dodgy fitting and the smell was foul, pretty much every flat had it so you could smell it in the halls.

Agree with Lana I’d love a husband who could do odd jobs around the house as often labour is the most expensive part (minus kitchens and bathrooms or floors!). Does he want to come round mine and put some pics and mirrors up pls

I had no idea how much things normally cost. He re wired our house and he said that alone can cost thousands. I say he is brilliant, but i have some GHD straighteners that are fucked and ive been waiting years for him to fix!! but he is just one of these annoying people that can do pretty much anything, but he is a good guy and will do anything to help anyone which has been really useful when we needed a plumber to come in and he just got one of his friends to do it. I am the complete opposite of him! im pretty much useless at anything other than my actual job!

I have loved reading this thread and finding out more about houses, and i also hate to have to admit to my partner that he is correct when it comes to council houses/ new builds!! lol

 

[JoeBloggs]

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.

They can and will if people keep paying the rent. There are not enough homes compared to people so it is supply and demand.

I'm SE, the couple across the road have just put their 3 bed house up for £475,000 and the new builds around the corner are going for another £100-150K!

 

[Yel]

Budget today!

The stamp duty holiday for the first 500k I expect is only one of the props coming out. With the job loses there will need to be quite a few tools used to bring stability / stop falls.

Hopefully some of the measures will look for long term prosperity , but not holding my breath.

 

[Yel]

Talking of tax rises of up to 2% to fund social care. Won't this mean the working poor who struggle with housing, secure jobs, pensions etc will be funding yet another thing while people's inheritance is protected? Would seem to be something that will ever widen the intergenerational inequality. Especially if it's NI rather than income tax.

Bombshell tax rise for social care – find out how much extra you'll pay
Manifesto-busting plan will see even low earners paying hundreds of pounds more a year

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