Sellers start to become more realistic

Smitty

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7766954.stm

"As the weeks go by, more and more sellers are re-pricing their properties downwards on the basis that if they don't then they simply won't find a buyer," said Daniel Lee of Globrix. "There is no doubt that sellers are becoming a lot more realistic around price - the penny really has dropped."

About time! The sooner this happens, the quicker we can all get along with things with reasonably priced houses

WTF?_2

Cheers for the GOOD NEWS Smithy. :money:

Great to see posters coming up with positive news in all this doom and gloom caused in the wake of the credit and housing bubble. :j

Lots of people who were priced out have a chance of getting a home and 'hard working families' who want to buy a home won't have to practically put themselves into indentured servitude to get a place to live in. (just using hyperbole to make a point there...)

IveSeenTheLight

Smitty wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7766954.stm

About time! The sooner this happens, the quicker we can all get along with things with reasonably priced houses

The term reasonable price house has been debated here many a time.
What's your view on the reasonable price and type of property for a FTBer?

ad9898_3

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The term reasonable price house has been debated here many a time.
What's your view on the reasonable price and type of property for a FTBer?

There is a lot of variables there to answer. But here is my view of how houses have got increasingly unaffordable, taking in all variables

I have 3 sisters, they all are educated to a similar level and had roughly the same type of jobs

Sister 1 in 1977 bought a 3 bed semi bungalow
Sister 2 in 1979 bought a 3 bed semi house
Sister 3 in 1983 bought a 2 bed town house

In the 2007 market if they had the same type of jobs they had then and wanted to buy ........ the simple answer is, they couldn't even buy a studio flat without a 30k deposit.

IveSeenTheLight

ad9898 wrote: »

There is a lot of variables there to answer. But here is my view of how houses have got increasingly unaffordable, taking in all variables

I have 3 sisters, they all are educated to a similar level and had roughly the same type of jobs

Sister 1 in 1977 bought a 3 bed semi bungalow
Sister 2 in 1979 bought a 3 bed semi house
Sister 3 in 1983 bought a 2 bed town house

In the 2007 market if they had the same type of jobs they had then and wanted to buy ........ the simple answer is, they couldn't even buy a studio flat without a 30k deposit.

It doesn't really answer the question as you add so many more variables i.e. what expenditure does each sister have and what is their family situation i.e. single, married, 3 kids etc
Other than house prices, it does not take into effect the higher levels of tax we are all paying since labour came in

From your answer, do you believe that a FTBer should be able to afford a 3 bed semi bungalow?

IveSeenTheLight

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Cheers for the GOOD NEWS Smithy. :money:

Great to see posters coming up with positive news in all this doom and gloom caused in the wake of the credit and housing bubble. :j

Lots of people who were priced out have a chance of getting a home and 'hard working families' who want to buy a home won't have to practically put themselves into indentured servitude to get a place to live in. (just using hyperbole to make a point there...)

Only yesterday you were saying that there is only a window of oppertunity to buy a house and that there is going to be massive inflation.
How long is this window?

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Do not assume that you can sit around indefinitely on your cash whilst assets get cheaper and cheaper. There will be a window of opportunity to get a house at a good price but once the effects of money printing hit, the barmy HPI of the last decade will seem like a gentle pre-amble compared to what will happen. Keep a close eye on the markets.

WTF?_2

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Only yesterday you were saying that there is only a window of oppertunity to buy a house and that there is going to be massive inflation.
How long is this window?

How would I know? It's as impossible to predict the exact timing as it was to predict exactly when the crazy HPI/credit bubble would collapse.

But once we see the 'quantitative easing' starting and the banks having their bad debt monetized and being ordered to hand out the resulting cash bonanza like it was 2007 again, I wouldn't want to hang around too long thereafter. Know what I'm saying?

House prices aren't going to reverse course overnight but as soon as the free money is there they will do so. Remember, the cheap credit will also be going to businesses so expect to see markets rebound first.

In the meantime, the lower prices go the better.

Kez100

Locally I have seen a few decent reductions....

485 to 469 (in August 2008) and now is on special pre christmas offer of 399. It was overpriced so I still don't think it will sell. Would probably be able to shift at 250.

I don't like to knock EAs but they need to realise how stupid they sound. Special 'pre christmas offer' . LOL.

Instead of talking prices up they need to get into the real world themselves and talk of 'bargain basement prices' and make people think they really have been dropped to proper levels (even if they haven't!)

ad9898_3

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

From your answer, do you believe that a FTBer should be able to afford a 3 bed semi bungalow?

Yes I do, she had just got married, were both 22 at the time, no kids and very average jobs.

She had her first child 4 years later and gave up work for 6 years, the only benefit available then was family allowance, no tax credits, no working tax credits, nothing. My brother-in-laws job was very average, nothing to write home about, yet they never struggled

That scenerio just could not happen today.

Smitty

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

The term reasonable price house has been debated here many a time.
What's your view on the reasonable price and type of property for a FTBer?

Many different approaches to answer this, here is one. If you remove the massive peak of HPI from about 2002 fuelled by people buying property to make money, and extrapolate the graph, you get about £135k (average house price by NW's figures) I would consider this reasonable.
NB, this isn't my estimate of how far prices will fall !

Smitty

Kez100 wrote: »

I don't like to knock EAs but they need to realise how stupid they sound. Special 'pre christmas offer' . LOL.

yeah you've got to laugh! Even after the gloomiest day of news, I can always rely on my local estate agent (who also wants me to buy HER house!) to tell me "its not as bad as everyone is saying, it will pick up soon, you don't want to have your cash sat in a bank at the moment")
I never bother arguing, I just smirk to myself One day I might flip and let her know it's probably a lot worse than what most people are saying...:eek: