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Debate House Prices
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London house prices fall 5.3% in a month
brit1234
Posts: 5,385 Forumite
London house prices fall 5.3% in a month
Guardian
Londoners selling their homes have cut thousands of pounds off their asking prices as the downturn finally arrived in the capital.
Asking prices in London fell 5.3% in August, according to the Rightmove house price survey - equivalent to a £21,000 drop in a single month. Prices in some of the most sought-after suburbs are falling much lower. The average asking price in Wandsworth fell from £522,000 to £481,000 in a single month - or 7.9%. Homes in Brent, Kingston-upon-Thames, Richmond-upon-Thames and Greenwich were down more than 6.5%.
Nationwide, asking prices tumbled by a record 2.3% in August. The property website said the decline took the average asking price to £229,816 in August, from £235,219 in July, the biggest fall on record for this month. Over the year prices are down 4.8%.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Full article below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/18/houseprices.housingmarket
It looks like after years of unsustainable house price inflation the country is facing a house price hang over to end all hang overs.
- Are there any bulls/investors out there who still think property is a good buy?
- Are there also any first time buyers who are still intending to buy shortly?
:exclamatiScams - Shared Equity, Shared Ownership, Newbuy, Firstbuy and Help to Buy.
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Comments
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From the article:
Shut it Miles and get it in to your head: If you ran a bank would you be happy to lend FTBs vast sums of money to buy in at these levels in market which has boomed 300%, has little reality to wages, and where the economy proper is faltering?Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: "The lack of mortgage finance is central to the problem, and perhaps that is where policymakers' attention should be focused, as the banks can't or won't sort out the mess they were instrumental in creating."
Course you wouldn't. Creditors always react to rising losses by curtailing lending, imposing higher qualifications on borrowers, and raising the interest rates on borrowers.
Policy-makers could provide limitless sums of imaginary funding and the banks still wouldn't lend it out to FTBs, and the bulk of the FTB market doesn't want to borrow at these levels anyway.
Banks have realised again they are there to make a profit and that house prices don't always go up, and FTBs can see a market under severe strain (crashing) and will continue to watch it play out.
If a bank banged out 10,000 new FTB mortgages the banks' shareholders won't be happy when the value of those mortgages drop 2, 5, 10% and more, because mortgages have a market-value on the books themselves... just like credit-card debt can be sold to other companies for pennies in the pound. It is non-profitable to write lots of new FTB mortgages in a market poised to fall hard, and when your existing mortgage book is already under downward pressures and needs £40 billion a year to keep in play.0 -
Prices are down 7.9% MoM in Wandsworth home of Nappy Valley - one of the most fertile places in Europe I believe if measured by pregnancies per (female) head of population and spiritual home of the Bugaboo pram. Of course these are asking prices not completed sales.
It's a great area to meet pretty young au pairs or at least was in my single days.0 -
The Great property Crash of 2008 is well under way now.. & will continue thus into 2009 & possibly even 2010 befor it levels off , & there is nothing anyone can or should do to prevent it ...0
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The Great property Crash of 2008 is well under way now.. & will continue thus into 2009 & possibly even 2010 befor it levels off , & there is nothing anyone can or should do to prevent it ...
If the latest straw in the air predictions of unemployment rising to 2million by 2011 are correct then it'll be a lot longer than that.
Given the need of baby boomers to retire and in some cases at least release equity from their homes to top up their pensions then I don't think we'll see house prices heading anywhere other than south for many years to come.0 -
Because London is the be all and end all of the Great British Isles:rolleyes:
A little bit of research will show you quite a few places north of the border reported monthly increases last month. Your 2 points raised are surely only in relation to the London housing market then?
It's simple, London house prices will fall the hardest as they have the furthest to fall. They were the most ludicrously priced to begin with.
And personally, No i would not be buying or selling for that matter at the moment, but where on these boards has anyone claimed that it's a good point at the moment to do either???0 -
mitch, i think because of the values/number of properties changing hands in London (more people more sales?) The london figures tend to skew all the others. So if london property fell 5% and Lincoln fell 5% london would have a much larger impact on "national" statistics, leading to more scary headlines that sell papers!0
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Because London is the be all and end all of the Great British Isles:rolleyes:
A little bit of research will show you quite a few places north of the border reported monthly increases last month. Your 2 points raised are surely only in relation to the London housing market then?
It's simple, London house prices will fall the hardest as they have the furthest to fall. They were the most ludicrously priced to begin with.
And personally, No i would not be buying or selling for that matter at the moment, but where on these boards has anyone claimed that it's a good point at the moment to do either???
More people live in London than in Scotland (8.25 mio vs 5mio). Especially when you take into account that virtually the entire SE of England is so utterly dominated by London that it is really part of the same entity (more like 20 mio vs 5 mio).
My feeling is that houses in places with little or no economy beyond Govt spending will be hit hardest, eg the North East. It is these places that have seen the greatest %age increase in price.0 -
Generali - "If the latest straw in the air predictions of unemployment rising to 2million by 2011 are correct then it'll be a lot longer than that."
Note that unemployment will rise to 2 million on the Labour measure (based on household surveys of people 'looking for work'). By that measure, unemployment in the mid-80s would have hit 5 million not 3 million.
On the Tory measure (claimant count), unemployment is still only 826,000. The claimant count was never under 1 million at any time under Thatcher or Major. It has never been over 1 million since 2001:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2008/aug/15/unemployment
So it's bad, but not very bad.0 -
My feeling is that houses in places with little or no economy beyond Govt spending will be hit hardest, eg the North East. It is these places that have seen the greatest %age increase in price.
Possibly, possibly.
However, you need to include affordability into the equation. I would agree, the towns and cities that have increased by the biggest % margins in the last 8yrs or so have the potential to fall just as equally as hard. Look at N.Ireland, prime example.
Cities in the NE, Newcastle/Sunderland and the likes are still much more affordable to live though when in direct comparison to it's capital. You could be earning a £50k combined income in Newcastle and buy a 3/4 bed SD/detached home with little ease. In London you would have to be earning at least 3x this £50k in order to get you the same kind of house. And we are not speaking about the Fulhams and the Kensingtons here;)
So it's of no surprise to me that we are seeing such falls in the capital. It is definitely required more so than anywhere else in the country due to affordability.
The genuine NE of the country is booming industry wise;)0 -
Generali - "If the latest straw in the air predictions of unemployment rising to 2million by 2011 are correct then it'll be a lot longer than that."
Note that unemployment will rise to 2 million on the Labour measure (based on household surveys of people 'looking for work'). By that measure, unemployment in the mid-80s would have hit 5 million not 3 million.
On the Tory measure (claimant count), unemployment is still only 826,000. The claimant count was never under 1 million at any time under Thatcher or Major. It has never been over 1 million since 2001:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2008/aug/15/unemployment
So it's bad, but not very bad.
The incapacaty list has gone through the roof though as has Income support figures. I believe at the last count there were 29m people employed in the UK out of a 60m population. Take the 0-16 and 65+ out of there and it still leaves quite a number of unemployed. I believe around 10m or so.
Unemployed means exactly that unemployed. It shouldn't just be determined by the amount of people claiming JSA benefit. Housewifes, disabled, sick, scroungers, footballers wives etc are all unemployed and should account in the proper unemployed figures.0
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