House Prices

[Mamacita]

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)

I think it depends where, I've hardly seen any properties come up for my search I had set up in the last two months, I'm also in Scotland. Could also just be the school holidays

 

[Holidaybobs]

If youre mortgage free or small mortgage in a forever home it really doesnt matter if prices drop. Youre going to live there for a long time.

Prices dropping is only going to be an issue if youre mortgaged to the hilt and your mortgage comes up for a renewal, likely your payment might go up. Or you plan to be selling or moving.

In our previous property our neighbour across the road put a double extension on, it was definitely more than the house was worth to do but they liked the area, was there forever home so why not. Once theyve paid off there mortgage its theres and it doesnt really matter.

Obviously unexpected things can crop up which means your forever home isnt no longer but if youve got a small mortgage or mortgage free a drop in prices isnt gonna affect you that badly.

Yes, I’m just talking in a generic way. Most people expect the value of their home to go up over time. Also, those I know who’ve moved don’t have massive deposits and plan on moving again in the future. That’s why I’m shocked they’ve don’t it.

Also, personally I couldn’t pay more than something is worth.

 

[JoeBloggs]

Banks trialed outsourcing years ago and it didn't work. My husbands job couldn't be outsourced as you need MOD security checks. Technology has changed everything, the only difference between me working at home and in the office is the chair I sit in. Meetings are online. Companies were moving to a more flexible work approach for a long time. No need to pay expensive train fares if you don't need to.



Thats what restructures and redundancies are for. No employer will keep paying staff for a job that isn't needed. Local authorities do it all the time.

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.

 

[idk2]

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!

We are in exactly the same position. Looking in a pretty affluent area in the Midlands and like you said, getting beaten on asking price and over and then the houses come back on the market months later. We've had 3 property's we viewed in August come back on the market this month alone after the agent said the mortgages fell through or vender changed their minds?!

 

[Kim Mild]

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.

If you're like us , you are buying a home to live in , and that means you'll get your money's worth with you day to day living, (if that makes sense?). It's not a risky business venture.
I would be wary of borrowing a lot to buy a house, (if people a needing to borrow to buy) especially at the moment, but people do need somewhere to live . I think lockdown has made people re-evaluate their house.

 

[JoeBloggs]

UK fertility rate is below replacement also now. Wonder why no one is having kids when you have to ask permission from your boomer landlord to have a child live in the house. Society is absolutely fucked, so good luck in the future when when have 20m working people looking after 40m over 60s.

Since when do you have to ask permission to have a child in a rental? Pets maybe, but not kids!

 

[Yel]

you seem to be really against BTL

Well yes because it's borrowing money to speculate and push up the prices of something essential. Lots of it is a ponzi scheme where those that were lucky enough to be born when they were affordable remortgage to stick it back into property.

You do realise that BTL is the only way for an average person to invest money with a return?

Er no it isn't.

I'm leaving it there now you're talking about food banks if people weren't allowed to people farm with BTL.

 

[Italy2]

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

Yes I can appreciate that some people might be interested and someone might have actually made an offer etc.. but the estate agents to just tell me on an enquiry that oh the house already has an offer and people are offering without photos etc is just typical estate agents conversations. They are not the most pleasing to deal with as I work on the conveyancing side and all estate agents do all day is ring people up to get an update (I'm sure they do more work so please don't have a go at me)...

It's just such a frustrating group of people to deal with who have no qualifications, so cocky and are on commission when a house purchase is the most expensive purchase and investment of most people's life.

The house that is on market is a very standard 3-bed semi house with 1 bath, nothing special and think it belongs to old people looking at the curtains from front windows lol. I think I'm going to wait and see how it goes.

 

[Lollipop2123]

If you're like us , you are buying a home to live in , and that means you'll get your money's worth with you day to day living, (if that makes sense?). It's not a risky business venture.
I would be wary of borrowing a lot to buy a house, (if people a needing to borrow to buy) especially at the moment, but people do need somewhere to live . I think lockdown has made people re-evaluate their house.

Yes exactly this! If i was buying to make an investment or a first time buyer I might hold off though admittedly. I can't wait to move now. Just hope it goes through.

 

[Mrs McCarthy]

Our friends wanted to start looking now, there aren’t enough houses down here (Devon). All the stock keeps being bought by people from SE, who can easily afford to pay more.
They have tried several estate agents, none of them have lots of new stock coming up, and when something comes up, it gets snapped instantly. One estate agent told them that they haven’t done a transaction with a local customer since July!

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

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.

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.

 

[hollowcrown]

Since when do you have to ask permission to have a child in a rental? Pets maybe, but not kids!

I'm genuinely not sure what would happen if I had a baby with a joint custody arrangement whilst living in a shared house. Not that I would want to live in a shared house with a kid but what would happen in that situation if you needed to look after a baby for a few days a week for some reason?

 

[hollowcrown]

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.

 

[Caffeine Fiend]

Bungalows are always in high demand as they’re popular with those with mobility issues. Developers rarely build them though as they don’t make sense, need more land for the same square footage as a 4 bed, so always attract a premium, genuinely can’t remember when I saw any new build bungalows (that weren’t a one off build by someone who had bought their own land)

Absolutely this. They use more land so cost more. 2 bed house will take approx 50% less footprint than a 2 bed bungalow.

Bungalows where I live have always attracted a price premium. Its unfortunate.

 

[kazizzle]

We’ve just been approved for a mortgage in principal and have started viewing houses the last couple of months that are within our budget, the main problem we are having is property developers coming in and offering a lump sum of cash and a lot of people that are selling property are accepting it so even if we put in a higher offer the cash offers are always being accepted first

My next door neighbour sold her house to a property developer for cash just last month. She didn’t even have anyone else come to view it, she just accepted the cash offer straight away. It wasn’t even on the market for a week.

 

[Pixipoppy]

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 mean, has anyone got one of those cards through their door and actually thought “you know what, I do want to move actually, let’s give Alan a call” in the spur of the moment? Like I say it’s probably a sore spot for me so annoys me even more.

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

Haha I used to get them ALL the time in my old place, and it would say how they’d sold in that area and how much demand there was for those flats. Few months after we started getting these leaflets my landlord did indeed sell I’m sure it wasn’t because of those flyers (cos we were getting them not him) but it was still such shit thing to happen.

 

[Holidaybobs]

I'm hoping so!

My neighbour put their house up on Saturday evening - around 4pm. At 6pm they had people driving past and looking directly in. Sunday was ridiculous with people driving past. On Monday a woman phoned and requested to put in an offer but, the agent refused and said they have to view it in order to buy. Not sure if this is a new thing now with the pandemic. But, just thought I’d let you know.

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Went to view a house today which I like but my parents are away I just wish they were here to come with me

 

[Hertfordshire_home]

Probably not a popular opinion but life is about experiences too. If you save every penny you make from 18 or whatever to buy a house and dont get to experience travel, festivals, lovely meals out, nights out with friends etc all because youre saving so much.

Id hate to think home ownership is all my children will focus on and their youth will pass them by.

Youre not going to be on your death bed and wishing you travelled less or seen friends less.

Yes exactly what I’ve said - it’s about what you prioritise which is completely fair enough either way. It’s the fact people say “I can’t save” when they’re spending all this money on other things - it’s not that you can’t it’s that you’ve prioritised something else, which is fair enough!

 

[HoneyBee29]

We’ve just been approved for a mortgage in principal and have started viewing houses the last couple of months that are within our budget, the main problem we are having is property developers coming in and offering a lump sum of cash and a lot of people that are selling property are accepting it so even if we put in a higher offer the cash offers are always being accepted first