N Ireland house prices down 18.6%!

Witless

tara747 wrote: »

Can I ask all the homeowners here how much they paid for their houses in terms of income multiple?

Thanks in advance.

Good question - I can't really remember exact gross salaries but these are approximate

1st house (1985) approx 2.9 X net annual (single) salary
(further top up mortgage for renovation (central heating etc); resale price 84% increase on purchase price, 53% 'profit' on outstanding mortgage)

2nd (& current) house (1994) approx 2.6 X net annual (single) salary
(90% mortgage, renovations (dual system central heating, PVC double glazing, rewire etc) carried out with profit from previous sale)

Remortgaged 2003 due to projected shortfall on endowment; 15 year repayment mortgage approx 1.75 X annual (joint) salary.

rjh090384

1st house was 5 times salary (single)
2nd house was 5 times joint salary

is there a house price sneaky tool like the english have to look at the fall in prices of certain houses?

leftieM

I got an email about Zoopla.co.uk. I haven't checked it out. I think it must use data from the Nationwide or other sources to give estimates. There's no public land registry record here unfortunately.
It's incredibly difficult to estimate house prices here at the moment. The sources I use are the Nationwide, Halifax (both of these are based on mortgages agreed by them), Department of Communities and Local Government (based on data from the CML) and the UU/BOI report (based on data supplied by EA's). There are other sources too for the uber-nerds like me to monitor the market but none gives you the price a house sold for.

ricoman72

Try these 2 websites:
http://www.treesdontgrowtothesky.com/
&
http://www.propertysnake.co.uk/

both use asking prices to chart data, its not perfect but it's better than nothing.

I've been looking to buy a house with my partner for 2 years now and thanks to some good fortune and greed on behalf of some vendors & estate agents we decided not to buy last year or were simply priced out of the market. We were looking for something in the South Belfast area, basically 270-300K for a semi detached during the Spring/Summer 2007 bonanza. It just didn't make sense to us but of course you feel compelled because lots of people were telling us that if we didnt buy then such properties would be out of our reach, we put offers in, (2 were rejected because they were 2k under the asking price of about 270K - these houses have subsequently sold for much less) & one we pulled out off in Sep 2007. Having agreed a price of 275K based on an asking price of 287K, upon reflection we decided that we were overpaying for a house in a market that's starting to slide, this was before the credit crunch starting taking a firm grip. Of course the estate agent told us we had taken bad advice, that we were making a huge mistake, that we were crazy. The same house is now on the market at 225K - Still over priced in my opinion. There's been a lot of talk on message boards & irresponsible Headlines about how prices have bottomed out or people asking how low they will go. Well, its only my opinion but based on what people earn in NI I think property has quite a ways to go. The AVERAGE salary is around 27K with something like 15-20% of the working population earning in excess of 35K. If these stats are anywhere near true then the math is simple - 3 to 4 times your salary with at least a 10% deposit if you want a mortgage. If houses are going to sell then the ratio to prices to average earnings has to drop. Why some Est Agents are continuing to over value properties is beyond me. As an example just look at prices on Carnbrae Ave in the Four Winds area of Belfast. House prices on this one street vary from 199K to 290K - try to make sense of that. Do these guys have a business model for selling in this market? Unfortunately alot of people will suffer financially & will be paying for it for quite some time, alot of agents will go to the wall or be bought over but in the end if prices across ALL levels of property do not fall then a market which has relatively speaking ground to a halt will remain stagnant for the forseeible future.

leftieM

The Nationwide quarterly report is out this week or next afaik. Should be interesting. Today the Beeb reported that the number of UK mortgage approvals was down by 70% compared with a year ago. So I think any figures we see now will be based on such low sales volumes that they will give false hope to vendors, and that the level that the majority of people will buy at is way lower than the average prices feeding through would suggest.

leftieM

The Nationwide report came out today. House prices have fallen by 29.8% since the beginning of the year according to their data. I wonder how many mortgage approvals they based the figures on? It can't be many.

Artofdookie

Mate tried to buy a house last year but they were asking £395.000, sealed the deal on the same house for £281.000 on Tuesday..

dmaher1

ricoman,

You are absolutely right about price of houses in Four Winds. they are still overvalued by that estate agent. Friend bought house in last few weeks which needs work done for 170k. I live there myself and got house for 120k mortgage 2.5 yrs ago. I'm stretched financially at that and I'm on the average wage. Once you add a few loans and bills to your £800 mortgage it leaves you with very little. Unless people are getting money from elsewhere its not affordable.

tara747

rjh090384 wrote: »

1st house was 5 times salary (single)
2nd house was 5 times joint salary

is there a house price sneaky tool like the english have to look at the fall in prices of certain houses?

Wow. 5x salary mortgage eh? That is truly scary, I couldn't sleep at night. Sorry, I really don't mean to offend.

Artofdookie - well done your friend!!

leftieM

tara747 wrote: »

Wow. 5x salary mortgage eh? That is truly scary, I couldn't sleep at night. Sorry, I really don't mean to offend.

I nearly went that way myself, borrowing loads. Luckily the vendor pulled out of the sale. The day she called us round to tell us that she'd changed her mind, she showed me an article in the Independent saying that house prices were due to fall and not to worry. That was January 2007. I was despondent at the time but, man, did she do us a favour! And she was right!