House Prices

[Yel]

I've noticed the same this week actually, although some of the reductions are pretty small and pointless.

Now the money taps are being turned off things seem a bit more logical. Although I'd probably still wait until early next year.

 

[Tublet83]

We are hopefully moving house within the next couple of months. I've sold my current house for more than what it was up for in January. We are desperate to move somewhere bigger and stamp duty cut is a welcome saving of over 10k for us. Maybe I'm super naive but I want to move house and I'm not putting my life on hold any longer. We've not over stretched ourselves and are buying a property that is reasonably priced (based on the last 12 months of sold figures). I am happy with my choice and am not willing to wait any longer.

Sounds fantastic. And you are right if 2020 has taught us anything make sure to seize opportunities whilst you can!

 

[fireflies]

Nothing not already leaked in the budget.

I wonder if they now do want house prices to have some relationship to earnings as the have-nots is a rapidly growing segment?

Tbh i dont think it make massive difference.
Our house was 240k we paid just over a couple k stamp duty.
It wouldn't have stopped us buying a house.
I understand if you buy house nearer 500k its 15k saving .
But if you can afford a 500k house then you probably not that skint anyway 15k is livable.

The houses prices right now locally are crazy totally out of line with wages.

Banks being more fussy who they loan to and want bigger deposits.
I always thourght banks liked you work same employer for a while or have a stable job.
I would say many UK jobs im tourism leisure or even retail not too stable right now.
Many would have lost their jobs during pandemic so they probably no rush buy a house even if they did have savings and the banks wont be hugely keen lend to people in unstable sectors.

Currently mortgage breaks are up to 6months.
Not sure about rental evictions possibly same.
Many will be made redundant once furlough ends.
I can see a massive correction and decreasing price some areas in 2021.
So any sensible buyer with half decent deposit and offer of mortgage would best wait to 2021 to buy stamp duty not the most important factor.

The vouchers would been more boost to economy than propping up stagnant house market.

 

[Yel]

BTL is no longer profitable for an 'average person' without setting up an Ltd. The amount of tenant rights (hurray!) and landlord obligations are slowly making it not lucrative as an investment. Younger generations invest in stocks & shares which bring the similar ROI without the hassle of taking care of tenants/properties.

Exactly. You can go to your local financial advisor and be pointed in the direction of a fund that will provide similar if not better returns over the long term.

The BTL people seem to want an investment with a guaranteed return. Either you risk it investing or stick it in a savings account. It's not surprising that evictions are banned during a pandemic. Tenants not paying and the government bringing in legislation to protect tenants is such an obvious risk it's embarrassing that people complain about it.

They had some good years with the loopholes that made it lucrative and the free flow of money that caused an asset bubble. But it was never going to continue forever. It's a very illiquid asset and easy to tax.

In general it’s a very selfish way to make a bit of extra cash.

Yep. I'm not surprised so many people defend it - the average person is pretty selfish so the idea of someone else having to go out to work to pay their mortgage is very appealing.

I think most people are aware that the majority (45%) of private landlords only have one property they rent. I’m not picturing someone who owns 100 bedsits with no hot water.

Agreed, the vast majority of people think BTL people are someone with 1-3 properties that watches the BBC daytime schedule full of it's property porn. That's what creates the problem when your average person can easily become an amateur landlord so it's flooded with millions new of people.

 

[Yel]

If governments do not push property prices back to a healthy level they will deal with low birth rates, an insane homeless population and increasing poverty.

The problem is that happens in the long run and governments only cafe about the next few years.

I expect once the demographics change and people realise all these "help" schemes are actually screwing them over and only helping house builders and financial institutions then their priorities will change.

 

[justbeingnosy98]

Thanks everyone I’m glad it’s not just me being a nervous Nelly!

I am in an unusual position - I sold my flat in England and moved to Scotland (Edinburgh, crazy crazy prices) and back in with family. So I can wait a bit but I would like to get back into my own space! I might give it 6 months and see if I want to buy or maybe just rent for a bit.

 

[Hertfordshire_home]

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

Yeah I would or you’ll get called a Tory

 

[Hertfordshire_home]

Clearly some people have taken this as a personal attack when I was simply making a point that a lot of people who say they can’t buy couldn’t if they really prioritised.

Everyone is different and has different circumstances so what I said of course will not apply to everybody. However I stand by the fact that if people want to buy, a lot of the time they can (after saving hardcore for a few years obviously). Whether people want to prioritise this over the lifestyle they currently have is a completely different argument and that is down to each person, I can completely understand both points of view on that one.

Not going to reply on this topic further as people have taken it as an attack when that wasn’t the case, so apologies for any offence caused on that.

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

If theyve 1.5 mill in the bank they wont get free care in Scotland. Also they do check back years if youve gifted it away. My grandmother had to use savings / sell her property to pay for her nursing home care.

 

[Kim Mild]

If they're still paying for their mortgage in their 60s then they've remortgaged a lot. Id love to move to a bigger house, id love a driveway and a garage and a utility room. Id get all that an hour up the road but I'm in a stupidly expensive area and I'm happy in my 3 bed terraced. I've been here 20 years and I'll happily stay here, I know I'm lucky compared to some but others will look down their nose.

They were late 50s , I think but still stuck in the rat race to pay mortgage, rather than going to 1 income or part time. I just mean it's not the getting the deposit and paying for a few years, it can seem an incredibly long time.

Also , sometimes houses are in negative equity, redundancy happens etc.

I agree with you , id rather live somewhere modest than stretch myself for the rest of my working life .

 

[Homebird44]

And the perks for businesses too, my friend works for a well know brewery. Their job can be done at home and she will only ever be expected in for a 50% of her working week from now on. Her company reported a monthly saving of £17,000 just because it didn't need to supply milk/coffee/tea while everyone worked from home.

Yep, parking, cleaners, rent, vending machines. My place pay for all of this and will save loads of money.

 

[Pixipoppy]

Jesus this thread... difficulties buying even with a 25% mortgage ... I can’t even fathom how you can save that much, average house prices in my area for a 25% deposit I’d need over £50k... even if I was living rent free that’s not even feasible. Would probably take me another 10 years to save. Was feeling pretty happy with the £8k I’ve got now till I read this Unless we can get a very least 80% LTV mortage or do help to buy we’re not going to be able to get onto the property ladder in the foreseeable. Both on decent £30k + wages with good credit... so unfair!

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I don't have a great deal of experience with it, other than at places I worked where we had to use agency workers because the part timers didn't want to increase their hours during peak periods as they wouldn't be any better off. Which is ludicrous.

Me either so we probably sound like Jack Monroe’s fabricated dinner party guests. I know the cost of childcare makes it really difficult for women to return to work, I don’t know how the funding works for that but we should look at what Nordic countries do with social childcare as it provides much better outcomes for all kids (not just those who come from homes where they can pay £x per day) & mums too.

Tbh can’t help but feel a huge part of this is salaries just aren’t good enough for the cost of living and moving around the scraps left after the mammoth social care/pensions bill is like playing with shrapnel uno?!

 

[Yel]

If you have a large amount of cash / equity it makes sense to carry on now as inflation quite likely counteract any falls and it's better to just get it sorted.

If you're borrowing hundreds of thousands to pay back over several decades it probably is wise to wait 6 months.

I do think lots of people think they're unaffected because they've carried on working from home without much change. But even those in industries that you'd think are safe will quite likely find out they're affected by all the knock on affects that will rapidly start over the next few months. We've not really seen anything yet.

 

[kev1974]

I live in north east England and trying to find a flat to rent at the moment. There’s hardly anything coming up on the rental market which I can understand at the moment but when properties do come up they are such a poor standard and prices extortionate. £550+ a month (expensive for northern England) for a 2 bed flat with 1980s decor and 30 years of grime ingrained into the bathroom tiles, they’re all tiny with no parking... We went to view one rare nice flat.. 7 other applicants and it had been on for less than a day, of course we get outpriced as landlord started a bidding war for who could spend the most per month.. nothing else in the pipeline at all now after being rejected for that one. It’s so depressing. When you work hard and don’t want to pay over the odds seems like you get punished and have to live in poor quality housing. Can’t get onto a council housing scheme as earn too much/we’d be waiting years, which I get as there are people with greater need. But yeah feeling super down with it all. 3 years ago when we got our flat now we got it straight away and it was decent quality, no competition for who could pay the most we paid the asking price!

I'm not surprised, the government has repeatedly whacked landlords over the head with a spade in recent years with extra taxes, fees and unnecessary regulation that just hammers the good landlords and does nothing about the scum landlords that ignore the law at every turn anyway. And then utterly thrown landlords under the bus during coronavirus by suspending all the legal procedures, which has given carte blanche to less moral tenants to just stop paying any rent at all; and offered "mortgage holidays" which in reality do absolutely nothing but just shove problems a few months down the line ... those mortgage payments still have to be paid in full, just a little bit later on. And mortgage holidays do sod all for service charges or letting agent fees which all still need paying.

I'm not at all surprised at any landlords just giving up on it all and being happy for properties to simply sit empty for six months till things are a little bit more back to normal, it's just not worth the risk right now.

 

[Consumerism_fatigue]

Out of curiosity does anyone here has a new build house and what do you guys think of it? I know so many people have bought new houses in our social circle and they love it. Some of them have bought them on help to buy and some have as their forever home because they are nice and clean. I know they are more expensive than an old house but they are clean and no one has ever lived there before. What do you guys think of them?

A few years ago I had a new build house with my ex. The pros were: choosing everything from where the switches and plugs would be to the bathroom and kitchen tiles and fittings etc. Getting to see the house be built from the mud upwards was very cool. Real sense of community as all your neighbours move in around a similar time and you all want to see the bathroom and kitchen styles you chose. It’s a real blank canvas as everything is painted white! It was also well insulated and had solar panels etc. I come from an impoverished background, so to have EVERYTHING be new was an amazing and weird experience.

Cons: smaller overall footprint, smaller rooms and most new builds have tiny windows. The garden soil was FULL of building debris (we got the builders to come round and crawl through it picking up nails and sharp items), the garden also wasn’t able to be dug deep enough at the edges for soil and plants to actually thrive (There was concrete too high in the ground which created drainage issues). As some houses were still being built, we had construction workers and the noise from 7am every day and I was ready to throttle them Also the roads can take a long time to be moved over to the council, so parking etc can become a problem as there are no markings. The snagging process is partly great but also very tedious.

Overall, I’m not sure if I’d buy a new build again. They’re fine and have great points, but I love the character and history of older buildings more I think.

 

[Be creative]

Lottery is once in a lifetime opportunity where 1 in a million people ever get one. There are hardly James and Charlie winning the lottery up and down the roads in council state homes. How many people do you know who have won a lottery and given up work? I don't know any! My point is that people shouldn't grow up with the mentality with finding shortcuts to obtaining things in life. There is no shortcut in life. If you want an apple, then you have to go and get one, it just doesn't fall in your lap.

I have read of many people who have won the lottery or euro millions etc who have given up their jobs. fairly regular thing I believe.
And the lottery is exacrly what you’ve just said doesn’t exist, a shortcut in life.

But to clarify, your exact words were

Also the mentality that who wouldn't want to earn money without doing anything is disgusting and greedy to say the least. You should always have to work hard to earn things. Why should anything be free?!

so on that basis, people who win the lottery are greedy and disgusting too? As they didn’t work hard to win millions.

I feel rentals fall into the same bracket as lottery wins. If you’re lucky enough to be able to purchase one, why shouldn’t you earn money off it? it’s no different to a company making profit off essential items for example and it’s exactly the same as if you win the lottery, why shouldn’t you be able to do nothing and live off your winnings. Doesn’t make you greedy or disgusting tbh.

 

[hashbrown123]

I live in north east England and trying to find a flat to rent at the moment. There’s hardly anything coming up on the rental market which I can understand at the moment but when properties do come up they are such a poor standard and prices extortionate. £550+ a month (expensive for northern England) for a 2 bed flat with 1980s decor and 30 years of grime ingrained into the bathroom tiles, they’re all tiny with no parking... We went to view one rare nice flat.. 7 other applicants and it had been on for less than a day, of course we get outpriced as landlord started a bidding war for who could spend the most per month.. nothing else in the pipeline at all now after being rejected for that one. It’s so depressing. When you work hard and don’t want to pay over the odds seems like you get punished and have to live in poor quality housing. Can’t get onto a council housing scheme as earn too much/we’d be waiting years, which I get as there are people with greater need. But yeah feeling super down with it all. 3 years ago when we got our flat now we got it straight away and it was decent quality, no competition for who could pay the most we paid the asking price!

 

[Yel]

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!

Help to buy was only ever helping the house builders to prop up house prices.

I'm pretty confident they will fall, but we're going to have rampant inflation with all the money printing like last time so the fall might be masked somewhat by that again. In 2008 they had lots of tools in their war chest like lowering IR but this time we're coming into it at near zero interest rates.

House prices are way too high, but the banks have all these overpriced assets on their books. I think they'll try to keep them high for long enough so that inflation eats away at them and most people can service their mortgages with such low rates. It's a bit like a spinning plate trick. If you have cash and can buy at an auction you might very well get a property for significantly less in the coming months. The three D's - divorce, debt and death will no doubt be increasing so there will still be people selling.

 

[Yel]

It's way too early for house prices to fall, 9 million are being paid by the government not to work and there was always going to be a mini bounce with months of pent up demand. The stamp duty cut fueled it more.

The rise of last month just counteracted the fall the month before, so they've not risen in the last few months. Asking prices have risen as some sellers want to pocket the stamp duty savings. But what gets through and accepted is another thing, I've started to see things fall through and go back up for sale.

I wouldn't buy until spring next year. But I doubt "smart rich people will buy up all the houses" as houses don't perform that we'll compared to other investments and it's something that will be all too easy to tax. Buying houses is the investment for people that don't know anything about investing.

I think they may stay the same or drop in London, but outside of London I don’t think they will drop due to other factors to consider.

We're entering the biggest recession in memory, far far bigger than 2008 and they fell significantly then. Just seems unsustainable for house prices to be so out of sync with wages.