House Prices

[idk2]

The only thing I’d say about that is let’s see where they’re at in 6 weeks time. They may have had an offer accepted, but that doesn’t mean they’ve completed. My offer was accepted back at the start of the year and it’s just been a mess since then

We were told this as well! I had my eye on a property that needed to be gutted but otherwise ticked all the boxes with area, land surrounding, schools and was decently priced. It went for massively over what it was worth but they haven't changed it to SSTC yet so I phoned estate agents to see if it fell through and if we could slide in but they've said that its still in the process a month later and will get back to us if it does fall through. They said a lot of property sales are falling through as most were first time buyers who had 5%-10% mortgages which cant be processed anymore. I imagine a lot of mortgage in principles won't be valid much longer.

 

[Kim Mild]

I am so impatient to move house. Houses where we are looking seem to be selling fast but we haven't found the one for us yet. I am worried about whether the market will crash ,but I'm buying a home ,not a business venture. Although I do worry if we wait , better houses may become affordable.

 

[Columbo]

The beggy little cards and letters estate agents put through my letterbox piss me off so much. We rent so maybe I’m over sensitive to it but obviously we don’t want the landlord selling as that could mean we lose our home, from a tenants perspective it’s just so thoughtless. I also hate the assumption that everyone owns where they live, like hello tenants exist in the world too. I wonder if anyone has ever responded to those cards or if they’re pointless, I can’t imagine you’d get one and suddenly be like “let’s move house” it’s usually something you think about for a while and then seek out an estate agent yourself. Like I say it’s probably a sore spot for me so annoys me even more. I just want them to stop hounding us and reminding us that this house isn’t really ours tbh.

I can’t look at house prices in my area right now, they are actually disgusting. It makes me sad.

edit: wording

Yes to all of this. My head is spinning at the price of houses where I live atm. My sister in law bought her semi detached for £130k 5 years ago, the house next to her (identical house) sold for £220k before it even had the chance to hit the market. So many tenants around here being evicted as landlords want to cash in supply vs demand is a massive problem.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

7 years is usually what they check but not 20 no. Banks dont always keep records that long either. I think in work the most we can request is 7 years. Some banks may have older records but not obliged to provide them.

We’re currently going through this in Ireland & they go back 9. I believe in the UK you & your accountants have to keep everything for 6 years as HMRC can review you at any point but for deprivation of assets it’s a 7 year viewback from death, but I can’t help but suspect they’ll look into something as substantial as transferring a house regardless of time elapsed? Assuming these time frames have been set to consider the manpower it takes to trawl through years of bank accounts versus the payoff from these investigations, but with something as huge and as documented as a house transfer surely that would always be of interest? I’m ridiculously risk averse though, I wouldn’t be able to sleep for fear they’d be coming for me!

 

[Universal]

Can you access a copy of the lease to read? What to expect from the freeholder and the terms of extending the lease should all be in there - its basically the contract between the home owner and the freeholder and so all of the obligations for both parties will be in there.
Its good that the council own the freehold as they usually fulfil their obligations and you have a route to go down if they fail and you need to complain. The only issue would be if the council then resold the freehold to someone else (as they are all stretched in the current climate).

I would contact the council (the asset management team) in the first instance and ask if they have a policy of selling the freehold or not - they might be able to give you more information as they will have a team who deal with this.

If there is a way of getting it to me without outing yourself I would be happy to have a look for you.

 

[Mrs McCarthy]

I have seen prices in my area go up 40k in the last year alone. Regarding house prices and the recession, 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.

1. COVID-19 allowing people to work from home, therefore not needing to live in London and not needing to commute. Therefore wanting to buy places with more space and land.

2. Stamp duty being cancelled, therefore making people who have been wanting to buy do it sooner to make the most of the saving. Also it makes buying more property v attractive to people who already have property, but want more for buy to let / property portfolios.

3. Lack of good quality housing stock. There are new build estates popping up all over the place, but majority arn’t built to last. Demand outweighs the supply for quality housing.

I’m no estate agent or expert, but that is just my two pence!

We have a friend who is a mortgage broker, and they are crazy busy. However, the stamp duty thing only works if it’s your one and only property, whether you are a FTB or not. So if you are trying to get a BTL or a second home, you still need to pay.

 

[Yel]

I think the agent made a error of judgement listing it as low as she did . I wouldn't have been surprised if the asking price had been more than we offered

With estate agents it's nothing logical or skilled, they want as much as possible. Just a sales job that requires no qualifications. They just got someone to offer more, and probably used your offer to encourage it.

 

[Boutros-Boutros Ghali]

Isn’t there a whole thing about leasehold houses , I can’t remember the ins and outs although am sure Google or someone here will know, but they have so many problems and not going to be allowed anymore

 

[Moe]

I’d imagine it’s probably someone with the cash / resources to quickly turn it around and rent it out so they don’t really care what it looks like as it’ll never be their home, they’re probably happy enough to proceed knowing it’s 3 bed/1 bath and avg rents down that road are £xx.

We’ve had it with 2 properties down ours, one of them has massively backfired on the bloke who didn’t do any of the work needed on the property (which is disgraceful really, it’s a nice road and the house sticks out like a sore thumb because it’s not been touched since the 70s - previous occupier died). He wanted the most money he could for it, so rented it out to “unhousables” who’d been evicted previously or summit (his words, not mine!) for bounty money off the council - he is charging them an extra 40% on what my neighbour rents their nice modern house for. Somehow they’re not paying him rent though, but obviously no one can get evicted due to covid, and he’s now on the brink of bankruptcy apparently as he has a huge mortgage on the thing

Serves him right then I can’t stand slum landlords.
I see this practice happening more and more renting out to undesirables for top dollar rent via the council and no thought given to nearby residents.

 

[Italy2]

This is so interesting to read - I had no idea people were genuinely ignorant to it? I guess it’s not that surprising when most people struggle with personal finance as it’s never taught or discussed, and most of us are taken for a ride by banks chucking overdrafts etc at us as the clock strikes midnight on our 18th birthday...

I just can’t believe they’ve managed to swindle people into having all the pitfalls of home ownership with literally none of the benefits - it’s outrageous. I can’t imagine any one ever does staircase either because the properties I’ve seen require SO much work to them you wouldn’t have a spare penny left to buy more equity.
It’s sad cos most the people who “own” them would be eligible for council housing anyway so could have a comparatively secure letting agreement with people to do repairs etc for them.

What happens to these properties when an “owner” dies in them out of interest? They always have quite short leases of like 90 years, so say mum dies owning £70k of a £140k property with 40 years left on the lease, does kid own the remaining 40 years on it? Could kid them sell that, but surely it wouldn’t sell for £70k it’d be pennies to the pound like those odd flats you see every now and then or those retirement deals where a house is 1/3rd of market value cos you’re leasing it for 20/30 years?

I think most people who do not read and understand the agreements they sign up for have a few reasons. Firstly, some people are not that educated or possess the ability to understand unfortunately to be able to read and understand the leases etc. Secondly, leases for example are not the easiest read and it requires alot of training and special expertise to be able to read and understand a lease but obviously there are certain clauses that anyone can read and understand for example, tenant should pay rent to the landlord yearly. Thirdly, it is unfortunately alarming how many people simply don't care enough to learn. They may be young and too excited to have bought their first house and don't bother reading the obligations and responsibilities that may come with it.

Mortgage lenders prefer a lease to be at least 75- 90 years term and anything less may not be considered a 'good lease' so it is recommended that when your lease reaches the stage where you have less than 90 years left on it then you should extend your lease.

If you have 40 years left on the lease then you would have to extend the lease. In order to extend your lease you have to pay a premium which is like a deposit/money to the landlord to extend the lease for 99/999 years. Now lots of people in this situation may not be able to afford the premium and they may also not be able to afford the charges and bills the house comes with.

This is one of my pet peeves when grandpa's or parents leave their hard-earned assets like houses to children who don't earn enough. For example a grandmother who has worked hard all her life to be able to buy this house and didn't enjoy her money which she could have if she sold the house. Anyway so the grandmother leaves the house to her grandson as a gift and grandson doesn't have a job or doesn't earn enough, the grandson may not be able to pay the house bills and rent which would make him go in debt. If he owes the landlord debt for charges payable under the lease, then the landlord can take very serious actions against the grandson including possession of the house. It happens all the time and it's so heartbreak to see! Wish grandparents would enjoy their assets and money they work so hard for rather than leaving it for grandchild who can't afford those houses! Such a shame!

agree with all of this!

Also on remote working, I think that’s a distant dream for a LOT of companies as they simply lack the infrastructure or the ability to tbh? Experienced hires 100% but midweight and under needs the support, which in turn means their managers need to be about as a point of contact?

Most big companies have had some degree of remote working (as desk space is a constraint) anyway but expect you in the office 3 days a week so there will always be demand on London / commuter belt housing. If jobs were to go fully remote it’d be to Eastern Europe or India where it’s a third of the cost, not a 10-15% discount to a bloke in Hull.

I know more companies are encouraging remote working now but there are still thousands of companies who don't encourage remote working especially in the legal sector. For example I know so many places who wouldn't even allow remote working for Corona if the government didn't rally for it as much. If given the chance then my employer wouldn't allow remote working either. Our company is a national law firm and we have a zero remote working policy except few senior managers and the rest of us have only been allowed it because of Corona and lockdown.

 

[Lanavalentine]

I have to say, this temporary “boom” that EAs were reporting I always felt was just the natural effect of two things - people who were planning to move anyway but had to wait due to the pandemic (I and everyone I know who has bought a house post-March fall into this category) and those who decided to chance it as they’d had enough of their small spaces after Lockdown 1.

I’m not convinced stamp duty cuts really came into it, beyond having a few chancers who ultimately did not actually move. Without wanting to sound incredibly harsh, I think anyone who was only able to buy a house due to the stamp duty cut probably shouldn’t be doing so. Too financially precarious.

I can only see a further fall now. I agree, everyone who wanted to and was financially able to buy a new house has done so.

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?

 

[Pixipoppy]

My daughter's house is up for sale and had an interesting conversation with her estate agent yesterday. He said that banks have withdrawn 95% mortgages and are now only offering 90%, so first time buyers who have saved a deposit now don't have enough. If they can't afford to buy them the next lot of people can't sell and move up, so it's just stagnant

We’ve been told they’re only offering 85% mortgages at the moment! With a lot of lenders only doing 80. Think they did introduce 90% back a few weeks ago then withdrew them again. We just about had enough for a 10% deposit but now we’ve got no chance - house prices still extortionate for awful properties that need a lot of work. Spending so much more on rent than we would on a mortgage but it’s just the deposit we can’t get - and that’s with a generous contribution from my parents too. Don’t know how people do it tbh!

 

[rainbowlemon]

This is interesting. We are landlords and rent through an agent who do regular inspections , every three months as part of their contracts. We had tenants who are careless, filthy to be honest and basically didn’t know how to keep a hosue. When they moved out we had to spent hundreds cleaning g their mess things that were not picked up during inspections be sure it was things like inside thr oven, behind the sofas, skirting boards, they also managed to damage two washing machines in two years. If we didn’t have inspections I’m sure it would have been Much worse . Isn’t it reasonable to have the property checked to keep it in a decent state? I rented when I was younger and had no issue with a quick walk through Check, it’s not invasive and is arranged discreetly ?

I don't mind the pre announced visits announced well in advance as I know they do them every year. I would actually try to be out when they came over to check as it made me more anxious. I hate the random checks (door frame inspection the last time ) and created a fuss over those even if they had the tradesman right there with them too.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

Personally I think everything should be a level playing field, stamp duty, tax, care, inheritance tax. But I think that’s another debate.

Agree re another huge debate, one I didn’t mean to start on this chat so apologies. My point was more around intergenerational wealth than care - and how much having grand/parents that either owned & downsized or remortgaged or pass it down or equity release to give you a sizeable deposit (or just had the cash as cost of living was lower back then ) with property gives people such a huge advantage in life. And as Yel points out it’s very rarely from good old Tory hard workTM it’s just by chance these houses have appreciated in value SO much. I find it harder to have reverence for or defend their right to maintain large sums of money someone has by complete chance/as the result of a broken housing market, than money they saved from work?

I don’t agree with private schools and don’t want to start that debate either but we were looking into all our options when the time comes & I said to my husband tbh unless you’re going to a school of note I imagine having your house deposit fund boosted with the fees in cash will give you a better quality of life and disposable income long term. I see it all the time at work & even on Insta in the influencing community, very few people that attended these minor private schools (obvs am aware for the super prestigious ones it’s an entirely different ball game but have no idea, we’re not from that sort of background) can afford to now send their kid(s) to one. They’d have far more of a head start/unfair advantage (lbr!) in life with their savings topped up by £20k*however many years you’re at school.

Home ownership is the real divider of millennials & subsequent generations and I can’t see how the government is ever going to help fix it.

 

[Tublet83]

Yes when we moved in 2016 it was based around a 10% increase as part of your affordability assessment. We lent nowhere near the maximum we could have. I don’t think I could sleep at night if we had done!

 

[hollowcrown]

The motivating factor for anyone renting out a second property is to make money. Often they do this by spending the bare minimum on decoration and maintenance, appliances etc. because “it’s for the rental market” so no point in making it nice because it’ll only get trashed. Sadly because it’s all worn and run down, some tenants can have the mindset that it’s not worth treating nicely.

The worst landlords are the ones who try and scam you for any minor or perceived damage just to keep your deposit and use it to either fix a pre-existing problem, or in a lot of cases just line their pockets and try the same trick again. I used to take photos and document every issue then email the landlord with them at the start of a tenancy. Saved me from losing my deposit when the worst landlord I ever had to deal with tried to keep our full deposit to replace the kitchen floor because of a cracked tile that was there when we moved in.

Tbh if the houses were in a nicer state then I would treat them better. When you move in and there's paint missing from the walls, dusty carpets, a dirty oven and oily hob and cheap Ikea furniture covered in marks and you know you're only there for a year then you don't really want to put in hours of time making it "nice".

Gosh I could not scroll past this comment. This is so ridiculous. We all depend on people in low paid jobs. The pandemic showed this and it's a shame you haven't realised. Supermarket workers, cleaners, waste removers, carers, etc etc. Do they not deserve to own a house? What would we all do then if no one wanted to do those jobs? And this is the thanks they get. The delusion is insane.

This is why the housing market and economy will eventually crash. Landlords will raise prices so much that people can't afford to live in their overpriced rooms, birth rates will plummet, corporations won't pay any more, we'll have a bunch of multi-generational households of people in their 30s and 40s still living and caring for eldery parents, and governments will keep opping up housing prices and eventually no one will be able to afford anything.

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

I didnt have to put a deposit down to secure my current house but your offer is legally binding as far as I know but in the current climate I cant see anyone taking you to court if you drop out as there are so many people queueing up behind you.

We actually only got our current house as the highest bidder dropped out and we were next in line. Here though your offer is accepted and thats it or it goes to sealed/closed bids. So slightly different to England where it can see saw back and forward pushing the price up and up.

So its hard to say if 20% over is reasonable or people are panic bidding because they know 20 people have viewed the house and 9 have put in notes of interest.

I wonder if people with remote working are moving here for more property for your money / more access to green spaces etc.

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

Shared ownership is a massive scam

That’s what I think to be honest. I can’t fathom having to pay rent and a mortgage on one home, even if overall it does work out cheaper than renting. You don’t seem to get the ‘benefits’ of renting i.e not responsible for repairs. Surely if the council or who ever own half or what ever percentage they should split costs like that? So weird.

I know a few people who have, personally I wouldn’t. My best friend did, she’s been trying to sell for over a year. She works for the housing association in another department and they have been nothing but trouble.

Yeah I have heard they can be really hard to sell if you want to move. People just don’t want shared ownership, especially if you already have a mortgage on a home you fully own. It’s a silly idea, imo just another way to say they are building ‘affordable housing’ but with a catch. A scheme cooked up by some rich person to make them richer and keep the less well off in their place.

The new builds always end up occupied so there’s obviously a demand for it, or maybe it’s people desperate to own property/have some security, even if it’s just a portion of it? Wish the whole idea would get in the bin and we could stick to you either own a home or you don’t. It’s confusing enough as it is buying somewhere.

 

[hollowcrown]

Also, a lot of parents are funding their kids purchases. Which creates a situation where tons of people with rather large disposable income are engaging in bidding war. The average amount of money given by parents is 20k in Ireland. Which is enough to fight during a bidding war.

Most definitely this. Changes the game really. You're only "You only need £10k for a deposit" and then over the time I've been saving that's gone up to £20k (deffo still doable for me) but in reality you probably need £40k or more and a good salary so...

 

[Italy2]

Hiya

We are thinking of buying our first house this year. We have saved up a 5% deposit and have checked our affordability with different banks online. We have also previously obtained a mortgage in principle but the sale fell through. We both have full-time employments and stable jobs.

I am wondering whether house prices would increase or decrease post lockdown? We are continuing to save but just worried in case house prices increase drastically later in the year.

We are happy to wait until the economy is stabilized..

Is anyone else in a similar situation? Do you guys think whether house prices would increase or decrease?

Thank you