On a positive note....

Conrad

For a locality to be price immune, it would be effectively an economic island.
For the island to maintain it's prices it would require that incommers have the means to 'take a hit'.

Common sense would indicate people will move onto the island from other localles which have lost value caused by the restrcition of mortgage money being introduced.

The only method that would leave our super island prices unscathed, would be where the incommers having taken one monetary hit on thier sale, are inclined to subject themselves to a futher hit in the form of increased borrowing.

There is I suppose the possibility of foreigners keeping up the prices, but that is not the experience of densley populated Tokyo, Bangkok or other places when they had price crashes.
Persoanly the thought of being crammed together with millions of other farting, noisey Human robots would send me bi polar

RHemmings

pinkshoes wrote: »

And? It's just money!!

Seriously, there are FAR more important things in life. One day you might have reason to understand that.

Just because there are more important things in life doesn't mean that you should therefore just ignore money. It is possible to consider more than one thing at the same time, you know.

RHemmings

Premier wrote: »

Or perhaps it wobbles the other way and adds another £100K ... kerching!

Which is more likely at the present time?

Austin_Allegro

Unless Notting Hill has been declared an independent republic, like in 'Passport to Pimlico', I'm afraid it's going to be party to the same problems that are causing house prices to crash across the UK; namely, the end of lax lending and the rise in the cost of living.

London is probably lagging behind a bit because there's a lot of foreign money washing around (Russian billionaires etc) and there is always a relative shortage in London due to the constraints on realistic commuting distance, but I don't think this will stop London prices falling eventually like everywhere else.

Debt_Free_Chick

huntersc wrote: »

Here's my worry, although prices everywhere else are plummeting, areas such Notting Hill are immune and will continue going skywards. Is that likely and realistic? I hope not but intuition tells me that certain parts of London are completely immune from the issues we see in the property market.

My view .....

The statistics that are pushed at us are that property prices "on average" are plummeting.

To me that means that some places are crashing and others...... if not falling at quite the same rate, are maybe stable?

You can not possibly claim that anywhere is immune. NH might not be seeing 20% falls but it's still not immune.

What you are attempting to do is find the next boom or to time the market. No investor in any market (property or any other) has any track record in this at all.

By your own admission, you bought at August 2006 prices and sold at ....? .... October 2007 prices? But you expect those you buy from to average out the whole of 2006 & 2007?

If you were the seller and a buyer made that offer, what would you do?

I guess the answer is that you can do what you want - but you will only strike a deal when your offer meets the buyer's threshold

huntersc

Thanks for everyone's comments. I'm really finding this a tough decision. I know very well that the market is rolling down, I understand the issues and associated risks. I still have this little voice in my head telling me that prices are not dropping in every area, or if they are, then they are dropping less in some than in others.

I guess it comes down to which way I want to risk it. Do I jump in now and hope that prices do continue to rise, albeit slowly, in the areas I'm looking with a risk that the price actually drops. Or, as most people suggest, do I wait for prices to hit rock bottom and buy in a year, the risk being that although nationally prices are dropping there are areas, particularly in which I'm looking, where prices are stable or increasing.

Unless prices stay exactly the same then I'm likely to be down £100k or up £100k by this time next year. I guess I might as well flip a coin

neverdespairgirl

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Unless Notting Hill has been declared an independent republic, like in 'Passport to Pimlico',

a really good film!

neverdespairgirl

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Unless Notting Hill has been declared an independent republic, like in 'Passport to Pimlico',

a very good film!

huntersc

silvercar wrote: »

Did you buy it cheap from desperate sellers or did you improve it in any way? (Or did you spot a bargain?)

It was a bit of a bargain, the estate agent was a bit silly and marketed it as in a state of major disrepair. It really only cost £20k to put right, overboarding a few ceilings, stripping a few walls, plastering and painting. Got rid of the carpets and fixed the original floorboards, small bit of paving in the garden, new roof, bit of pointing, new boiler and electrics, all easy stuff. All in it cost about £20k to fix, including materials and fixtures and fittings.

ManAtHome

Positive note..? You've landed your progeny with a couple of hundred Ks worth of future debt - trebles all round..?