House Prices

[Boutros-Boutros Ghali]

I phoned to book a viewing but they said they had a few offers quite a bit over the asking so I just left it. I’m not in a rush so And I put an offer one one yesterday at the asking price but the sellers are waiting a few days to let others view before they decide

Be aware that they’ll say that to make people think they have to bid more than they’re comfortable with. I’d view anyway. If you like it put your bid in, let them know your circumstances and leave it there. Never be put off by what an estate agent in a shiny suit says to you…they want the highest price for the highest commission

 

[Kim Mild]

Wow, what an interesting thread. Its been really interesting reading all the posts here.
I dont know anything about buying a house. My parents were always in a council house, and my mum still lives in the council house where she raised me and my siblings.
My partner and I, have a mortgage. Our little house is an ex council house on a small estate that was council but i think its all mortgaged houses now.
I have always always always wanted to live in a new build! But my partner who is an electrician said no because he has worked on enough of them to know how they are thrown together and normally have loads of issues a year down the line. But i cant lie, i love New Builds. I dont know if its because im shallow and dont know about houses, or what.

Council/ ex council are usually where all the amenities are. There is usually a bus route and a local shop/ convenience store. Often there will be a nearby school . New housing development is usually on the edge of a town , and can be quite a distance from the houses to the main road. ( or at least in our local towns) .

 

[Homebird44]

@Homebird44 you with your burner phones!!!!!
just don’t ever have a takeaway will you, you won’t be allowed a mortgage then!!!

@Homebird44 you with your burner phones!!!!!
just don’t ever have a takeaway will you, you won’t be allowed a mortgage then!!!

PMSL. The last time we remortgaged the advisor in the bank went through every single transaction on our bank statement. She even asked what the Love honey payment was. Think she was just a pervert.

 

[Yel]

These people think they're so clever simply because they own a house that has tripled in value

This gets so tedious! If only people just admitted they were born at the right time to buy rather than patting themselves on the back and thinking they're a wealth management expert .

Even worse is the BTL people who remortgage to pump more unearned money back into houses, helping push up prices and outbid first time buyers and then they think they're some genius buisness man/woman. It's not difficult signing forms to take out mortgages!

----
And what happens after June and in September when the stamp duty cuts are gone completely?

The guardian is just as bad as the mail or sun at baiting for a reaction

 

[Bitofthebubbly]

Did some rough maths and worked out we’ve spent over £50k on rent the last 10 years. 50 grand spent on someone else’s mortgage, always on time, zero payments missed, with the knowledge that we can be given 2 months notice to leave at any time. And it counts for nothing when it comes to eventually getting a mortgage. It’s galling.

Fwiw my current landlord is ok, he was an accidental landlord so there have been some minor issues and our kitchen is dated and starting to get a bit thread bear, but on the whole can’t complain. I’m sure there are other decent landlords out there, but the system sucks. People are trapped renting and are exploited by those with wealth.

Shared ownership needs to be abolished. What a shit show that is.

 

[Kmacg]

Ive been actively saving for about 3 years, got myself out my overdraft, credit card and store card debt, and only have 5k to show for it. I reduced our shopping costs, shopped around for household bills and count every penny that comes in and out of my account. Meanwhile my partner is living his best life on 30% higher wage than me and we finally sat down a month ago and decided its time to look at buying. Weve paid 77k in rent in the 10 years weve been renting and I dont want to pay another persona mortgage anymore. Well it turns out he had 2 bank accounts (one is an ISA) that he 'forgot' about. Overnight we went from 6k to 18k. I dont doubt he did forget as he is shocking with his finances (he actually thought hed spent it all before we got together). But i was pissed that I have saved so hard for years and he magics up 12k like a Blue Peter presenter with one he made earlier!

So we start looking and my god the market is insane. We have estate agent friends telling us to wait until next year for it all to calm down and try and add another 5k to the deposit

 

[Yel]

It may work for some people in certain situations, but if you can avoid it I would.

I think there's been so many problems with the cladding scandal and people left hanging for years in unsalable property. The shared ownership has compounded an already very difficult system.

buy-to-let landlords

Buy to let full stop is a ghastly system, nothing more than a Ponzi scheme that allows people to remortgage and speculate on housing to push up values. Causing an untold amount of misery. But that's the dream for many - people farming. Exploitative.

 

[Lanavalentine]

I can’t see interest rates rising significantly anytime soon, although I’m far from an expert. Uncertain economy and low inflation means there is little impetus for a rise in interest.

However, saying that, I think anyone who is paying a mortgage should be wary. Although we don’t get any decent returns on our savings, we still save like mad, simply because we want to be used to not living on that money if interest rates were to suddenly rise and increase the cost of our mortgage. We are very fortunate to be able to do so.

I worry a tiny bit for anyone who’s stretched themselves for a mortgage while interest rates are low, as we’re moving into such uncertain times now. I don’t think anything will change, but like I said, I’m far from an expert and the type to always err on the side of caution when it comes to finances.

 

[Mamacita]

Yes… some don’t. Hence why (again) I said that what I am saying clearly doesn’t apply to everyone not quite sure how many times that has been said

Yes and those who don't clearly need to get over the fact they'll never own a home and they can just deal with being stuck in a renting cycle. The issue is the system is broken, if you have to work multiple jobs and not be able to do anything else apart from work and save to even dream of buying a property that's an issue with the whole system, not with people's priorities

 

[Hertfordshire_home]

Very judgemental, some people don't do all these things and still cannot save. Great that it worked for you, enjoy your lovely £425K home but it is not 'pretty easy to save if you want to' for everyone.

We can agree to disagree on that. Sure, it’s easier for some but it’s all down to choice.

 

[Yel]

Don't think this has been posted; Josh Ryan-Collins puts it pretty well imo.

In the long-term we need higher incomes, lower house prices and less household debt.

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...st-uk-gdp-house-prices-interest-rates-economy

 

[Bumblebee]

Someone i know brought a house less than 6 months ago. They put it up for sale as they said it was an awful place to live (south coast). They said constant smell of weed from neighbours, drunk people getting arrested outside, miles to nearest proper town and single roads to get to where they live. To be honest most stuff they were complaining about they would have known from viewing the property such as country roads.
They have sold it for £50k more than they paid just a few months ago!! Madness.

 

[Yel]

Well, at least those Twitter replies give me hope.

Buy-to-let mortgages are the scourge of our housing market. It’s one thing renting out property you own outright, but it’s quite another to use a buy-to-let mortgage to exploit people.

Amongst guardian readers BTL has always been a scourge of society. Other places are more "leave them alone it's just normal people wanting some money for retirement", "it's providing an essential service to those that don't want to buy" and "you sound jealous of the savvy investors" but slowly attitudes do seem to be changing.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

how funny. Id imagine they use pay as you go!! No i have kids and they have phones.

@Homebird44 you with your burner phones!!!!!
just don’t ever have a takeaway will you, you won’t be allowed a mortgage then!!!

 

[HoGi]

"most buy to let people only have 1-3 investment properties"

That's still 1-3 more taken out of the hands of owner occupiers! This multiplied by the millions of buy to let people is a fucking huge amount of the housing stock.

"If they tax buy to let more I might sell up and that's less homes available"

The house wont cease to exist if it's sold! It may give the chance for someone to buy it and feel like part of society and be more invested in the local area as they can put down roots!

"I didn't have a smartphone"

They didn't exist! The generation before you also didn't have access to modern recently invented things. Most cost a few quid a week on a and are essential these days.

"I didn't have fancy avocado toast, I had oats for breakfast"

Avo toast on sourdough costs about 50p a portion made at home. Porridge with some fruit isn't really that much cheaper

"I've worked hard for every single penny I have, other people could do the same if they weren't lazy"

When their house makes more money than they do each year and other people certainly could not do the same now!

I'll stop now

I stayed with some family a couple if weeks ago and the man of the house, a totally insufferable boomer of the worst kind, frequently told me how "the house is our pension" and even tried to tell me that occupational pensions aren't worth having (he lost that argument seeing as I work in pensions so had a come back for every one of his pathetic little arguements).

 

[hollowcrown]

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.

 

[Moe]

I was convinced the market would crash 2008/2009 but they started printing money and dropped interest rates. There are so many vested interests with property portfolios all in high places this government or their spouses and the last labour government. The labour mp who did a tweet about white van man her husband has a large portfolio.
I find it disgusting that some people own hundreds of properties and young people will never be able to buy a home where they were born.
I hope the market crashes but I’m far too jaded and cynical now.
Not sure if I’m allowed to say this but I used to enjoy housepricecrash back in the day. We got it so wrong it’s mostly tumbleweed there now.

 

[Yel]

What happens when people buy HTB houses and then sell the house within the first 5 years? Does the scheme pass on to the new first time buyers or end there? Sorry stupid question!

No it won't pass on as it's on the people that took it out, not the property so they'll have to settle it.

It's still shocking "help to buy" isn't well known for what it actually is - help to bailout the house builders and keep prices high. It's not helping the little people.

 

[Lanavalentine]

I don’t understand the hate on here for landlords. It’s supply and demand. People need/want to rent, therefore landlords provide this service. With investing people can make money investing in morally questionable companies. Yes people have taken advantage of a situation if they’ve been lucky enough to make money from their house. Don’t be bitter about it. I’m sure you’d be glad if it had happened to you, just, it didn’t.

Erm yeah, I could very easily become a landlord if I wanted to

It’s not about bitterness. It’s about not contributing further to an already skewed system that makes owning a property incredibly difficult for many people in our society.

 

[Yel]

Yeah, all the property TV shows have a lot to answer for.

It’s like everyone thinking they’re an interior designer now because they’ve slapped on some Farrow & Ball and bought a velvet sofa from Made.com and a berber rug from La Redoute. Got to start a new Instagram account to document it!

Agreed! It's been like the shoeshine boy metaphor for the last 15 years and people patting themselves on the back for being savvy investors as their speculation has paid off due to the money printing and loose lending that's perpetuated the asset bubble.

There was some landlord group spokesperson on the news saying how unfair the short term banning on evictions was as lots of landlords are shop workers on not very much money. Cry me a river, it's not a human right to be a landlord and get guaranteed returns. If you didn't plan for voids and non payment you shouldn't have got into it. Covid or no covid tenants can stop paying and at best takes 6 months to evict so contingency money is a necessity.

So many amateur landlords only could do this because they were born at the right time so could buy property cheap and then remortgage and outbid first time buyers with this unearnt income. It needs to unwind for the good of society.