House Prices

[BradNaylor]

To be honest, I think the sweet spot is just before Media Attention. It's the time where the prices haven't gone crazy, but the mortgage market is free enough to give you what you need.

Good point.

The problem with trying to time your entry into the market at the very bottom is that mortgage finance is hard to come by and that at that point in the cycle the general economy will have been in recession for a while, making 'getting some cash together' a bit of a problem.

If I was a potential first time buyer I would currently be living as cheaply as possible and saving like mad in a traditional building society account. Then when the market starts to pick up again after the trough in maybe 10 years time I would be perfectly positioned to finance a good deal.

There's nothing wrong with raising kids in rented accomodation. In Germany the average age of a first time buyer is 50+


Cheers
Brad

 

[Russell]

The only problem in renting in the UK is it is often difficult to get a long term rental agreement so you lack security always worrying if the landlord wants the house back to sell.

 

[StevieB]

And yet this morning Nationwide reports a rise in house prices, the annual rate of fall is massively decelerating and is fairly confident they will be higher by the end of the year than at the start of the year.

Greed has not yet had time to wear off and buy to letters have yet to be sufficiently burnt to make this anything other than the start of another cycle, albeit probably shorter than the last one. Only the availability of funds is going to squash this one and I cannot see the banks holding back for too long if house prices start to rocket upwards again as they will still make money on reposessions.

Deja vu anyone?

Steve.

 

[ste_5150]

To be honest, I think the sweet spot is just before Media Attention. It's the time where the prices haven't gone crazy, but the mortgage market is free enough to give you what you need.

Good point.

The problem with trying to time your entry into the market at the very bottom is that mortgage finance is hard to come by and that at that point in the cycle the general economy will have been in recession for a while, making 'getting some cash together' a bit of a problem.

If I was a potential first time buyer I would currently be living as cheaply as possible and saving like mad in a traditional building society account. Then when the market starts to pick up again after the trough in maybe 10 years time I would be perfectly positioned to finance a good deal.

There's nothing wrong with raising kids in rented accomodation. In Germany the average age of a first time buyer is 50+


Cheers
Brad

Yes, I agree, but we're just tired of moving, and the difficult thing is that the rental market (at least in my area) is not very good. We're paying much more than we would for a mortgage at the moment, and if we found our way into the right price range rental-wise the property is either really badly maintained or in a dodgy area.

I actually do think your sentiment is correct, it just doesn't work for us at the moment because my girlfriend is going back to uni and we need to make sure we're settled to keep the bills steady, and make sure we can keep the little one in the same school etc.

And I think in the grand scheme of things we're going to lose a little on the value of the house in the next year or 2, but by the time the 5 year fixed deal finishes we should have increased the equity from our original deposit, so we should win, just not as big as we could've (though do we really win if we pay rent for years, rather than working into a mortgage - depends how you look at it! :roll: ).

I think after the next decline (I'm only 25[ish] so I should see that!) I may look into things from a business/profit perspective but for the moment I just have to make the decisions to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table! :lol:

The only problem in renting in the UK is it is often difficult to get a long term rental agreement so you lack security always worrying if the landlord wants the house back to sell.

Funnily enough, that's exactly where we are now. We've lived in a rented place for 1 1/2 years and the landlord's just put it on the market. That was what made us look to buy because I don't know how many more house moves we can take. She gets so naggy on moving day!!! :roll: :shock:

 

[mpooley]

And yet this morning Nationwide reports a rise in house prices, the annual rate of fall is massively decelerating and is fairly confident they will be higher by the end of the year than at the start of the year.

Greed has not yet had time to wear off and buy to letters have yet to be sufficiently burnt to make this anything other than the start of another cycle, albeit probably shorter than the last one. Only the availability of funds is going to squash this one and I cannot see the banks holding back for too long if house prices start to rocket upwards again as they will still make money on reposessions.

Deja vu anyone?

Steve.

This is the "return to Normal Stage" my wife thinks property is cheap now and we should buy but i think they have a lonnnnng way to go yet.

anyway im to old to wait until the next upturn to take profit.

Ill probably be dead by then :roll:

 

[MIGNAL]

And yet this morning Nationwide reports a rise in house prices, the annual rate of fall is massively decelerating and is fairly confident they will be higher by the end of the year than at the start of the year.

Greed has not yet had time to wear off and buy to letters have yet to be sufficiently burnt to make this anything other than the start of another cycle, albeit probably shorter than the last one. Only the availability of funds is going to squash this one and I cannot see the banks holding back for too long if house prices start to rocket upwards again as they will still make money on reposessions.

Deja vu anyone?

Steve.

1.3% up in 1 month. Heady times are here again. Quite a substantial rise considering that we are in a recession. Let's wait for the Land registry figures though. The rises may well be much lower than the Nationwide returns.

 

[ste_5150]

I get suspicious of these reports of price increases. I mean, what statistic are we looking at? Sold houses? Price of 'for sale' houses i.e. asking price? And how much of that is due to the buy-to-letters jumping on the bandwagon (will it be short lived as they pick up the investment properties in a specific price band)? And not only that, but there will be a tranche of people who wanted to move but waited until the prices hit some sort of 'reported' trough - they'll all jump at the same time, encouraging a short price rise. Personally I think any increase is going to be temporary and not a sign of market recovery, but short term effect of banks claiming that the recession is over. It's amazing the power the media have....

Also, with the level of mortgage approvals being so low, just a small number of high value purchases in a period of time will make the average skew.

A few weeks ago The Sun said that Nationwide's figures showed a 7.7% increase in house prices in May - I know that one of the above (probably a few high value purchases or a misuse of the 'asking price' were the reason). A mortgage adviser actually had the cheek to say the market is recovering and used that as evidence! Needless to say I won't be using that company for my mortgage! I work in a statistical database department area for a bank by the way....

 

[MIGNAL]

I think they take it from actual sale price. Asking price has little relevance other than being just a general indicator of how the market feels. The Land Registry figures are the most accurate or at least that's my understanding.
The autumn/winter figures are the ones to look out for. If the prices hold up throughout those months then I can see them holding relatively steady for a long time. I don't see that happening and I'm expecting further falls this autumn/winter
The 7.7% figure must have been a typo, surely?

 

[ste_5150]

I think they take it from actual sale price. Asking price has little relevance other than being just a general indicator of how the market feels. The Land Registry figures are the most accurate or at least that's my understanding.
The autumn/winter figures are the ones to look out for. If the prices hold up throughout those months then I can see them holding relatively steady for a long time. I don't see that happening and I'm expecting further falls this autumn/winter
The 7.7% figure must have been a typo, surely?

Sorry, missed a bit - it was 7.7% in Wales . I think the whole contry's figure was something like 0.8%

 

[Night Train]

I think that if I didn't have my house I would be tempted to buy some woodland and a large truck to turn into a mobile home/workshop from which I could 'work the land'. As long as I spend some weeks a year at another regular address, a short rental or with parents, then I think it would be achievable.

If I could get away with that I wouldn't worry about a owning a regular house.

 

[MIGNAL]

Here are the figures of both Nationwide and the land Registry for the months of March through to June 2009. I think these months are considered a good time to sell housing stock.

Nationwide: March, - 0.6%, April, -0.4%, May, +1.4%, June, +0.9%

Land Registry, March, -0.4%, April, -0.3%, May, -0.2%, June, +0,1%

According to the more accurate Land Registry figures, House prices have actually gone down 0.8% in those 4 months. Nationwide are predicting a modest rise in house prices during 2009.
Don't think so Mr. Nationwide.

 

[RogerS]

As ever it depends on the property. Many people are staying put and although wishing to move are not selling for what they perceive to be an unrealistic valuation of their property (rightly or wrongly). There are people looking to move and with cash but they are finding that quality or distinctive properties are few and far between and so these are holding their value if not marginally increasing in value.