Listen to the experts DAMNIT!!!!

whathavewedone

The housing market has always gone in boom and bust cycles. There will always be a demand for houses because people need to live somewhere, plus we have a home owning culture in this country. There will come a point when prices are so cheap that hordes of people rush to buy, prices go up and up and panic starts about missing the boat and there we have another bubble.

Everyone with children wants to live near good schools - there must be loads of parents waiting patiently to be able to afford such a house - and hoping to sell it a few years later for more than their actual house is really "worth" because "it's just round the corner from such and such school don't you know".

There are lots of things that can make a standard house worth more to people than the 10% deposit , 3.5x average salary. Even during the boom 3 bed houses were available in some parts of the south east for that kind of money. Trouble is not that many people would want to live in those places even though they had 3 bedrooms and a garden.

I think the idea that after the recession people will be able to buy family houses forevermore for a 10% deposit and for 3.5x the average salary (which is 24k apparently?) irrespective of area or attractiveness of house is a bit of a fantasy.

30 years ago most people who earned the average salary (whatever it was then) didn't own houses.

Tulips, classic cars, fine wines et al are all things we can do without. We all need shelter, however.

I do think house prices have a lot further to fall and people who have enough cash to buy outright/with a small mortgage will make a fortune in the future (assuming they don't keep on releasing equity).

Dithering_Dad

Here's my prediction, for what it's worth... Prices will fall, then bump along the bottom for a while and then gradually start to rise.

You heard it here first. I've been saying this all along but no one would listen. Well, I'll show them, I'll show them all!

*DD shakes his fist at 'them'*

JonnyBravo

chucky wrote: »

Geoff - funny that you call it propaganda when it suits...

You just posted the below thread full of quotes from estate agents (Douglas & Gordon and Knight Frank).

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1376427

I'm not saying that they are right or wrong but what I am saying is that you can't say it's propaganda when it doesn't suit your point of view.

Either it is propaganda or it isn't but you can't use estate agent quotes to suit you and the criticise when it doesn't.

Yep, you see this type of thing all the time. One minute a source is rubbished, next it's the new topic starter as it now suits the preconceptions of the poster.

Funny how it seems to be the same half a dozen with their VI's who start this. Of course they usually decry the "poor" articles as being biased because of a VI..... more precisely it's simply a different VI to theirs.

All good fun though.

mewbie_2

C'mon Chucky, Johnny - you're just spouting propaganda now. It's really so simple. Bear news is the truth, bull news is propaganda. Once you accept this as being the facts of the matter, then you will be much happier. Otherwise we will have to send you for re-education in our 'corrective' unit, also known as the Moneysavers Arms. I'm sure you will come to your senses in time.

JonnyBravo

mewbie wrote: »

C'mon Chucky, Johnny - you're just spouting propaganda now. It's really so simple. Bear news is the truth, bull news is propaganda. Once you accept this as being the facts of the matter, then you will be much happier. Otherwise we will have to send you for re-education in our 'corrective' unit, also known as the Moneysavers Arms. I'm sure you will come to your senses in time.

:T

Oh absolutely.
I'm more than happy with the slant of the propoganda in my posts.
I have money on a falling market yet own houses. :cool:
I lose whatever happens!

As for your threatened action of the Moneysavers that really is a chilling threat. I ventured across there during the great post moving war and it wasn't a pleasant experience.... so many cliques to deal with.... nothing like over here......

oh....


er....


:rolleyes:

mewbie_2

JonnyBravo wrote: »

I ventured across there during the great post moving war..

Ah yes. Which regiment were you in? I was in the MSE Heavy Bears Brigade, mainly hush hush stuff though, don't like to talk about it.

the_ash_and_the_oak

While dithering dad is correct I think its good to remember that the default body of opinion was not "prices will rise and at some point come down again". It was that prices will never come down, that people must get on the ladder asap, that people would 'miss the boat'. I always found this a little irresponsible

JonnyBravo

mewbie wrote: »

Ah yes. Which regiment were you in? I was in the MSE Heavy Bears Brigade, mainly hush hush stuff though, don't like to talk about it.

Didn't enlist.
Took it upon myself to start some saboteur action, dangerous stuff, behind enemy lines and all that.

(Apparently my actions have me up for a (Gorgeous) George Cross, one of the highest honours available to the powers that be in the House Price forum.)

mewbie_2

Obviously there will the usual rewriting of history in time, but here's what actually happened. The Bulls unleashed a new type of weapon, the 'moderator', which wreaked terrible havoc among the Bears, I myself taking several direct deletions. However, to follow up on this temporary success they then brought in the Mongolian hordes (from the Moneysavers Arms), who being largely untrained were fairly easy to deal with. We Bears simply bored them to death and they retreated in disarray.

It was a glorious victory, although much coffee was spilt, and many fingers remain damaged to this day through frantic typing. During the main battle I was unfortunately awarded the Ironing Cross and had to leave the fray under wife's immediate orders.

Dithering_Dad

the_ash_and_the_oak wrote: »

While dithering dad is correct I think its good to remember that the default body of opinion was not "prices will rise and at some point come down again". It was that prices will never come down, that people must get on the ladder asap, that people would 'miss the boat'. I always found this a little irresponsible

I guess it depends on when the 'Don't miss the boat' advice was given and how far back house prices fall. If someone told you in 1998 that you should buy a house because 'you will miss the boat', then they were bang on the money. If they told you this in 2007, then they were deluded.

I do remember some people STRing as far back as 2001 "because house prices can't continue to rise", they waited a further 6 years for their predictions to come true and will be waiting perhaps another 4 years before prices are back to 2001 levels, where they can buy their house back at the prices they sold it at 10 years ago. :rotfl:

In reality, given the costs of STRing (estate agent, any redemption fees, legal costs, rent costs, etc.) and the fact that for those 10 years the person would have been paying down his mortgage, it may well be the case that prices would have to fall to 1995 levels before they make a profit.

In my book STRing, provides as poor a return financially as BTLing.