First time buyer is it the right time now?

jenjade

Hi all,;)

I have bought a house in the past but i am now renting and looking at buying again. The house market really needs first time buyers at the moments and i was wondering if it is a good time to buy.

I have found a couple of houses that i like. one is £155,000 for a 3 bed ex council house. The women is the Esate agents said at the moments prices are more of a guide as the market is so quite low offers might be excepted.
What sort of price would you offer?

Is it a good time to buy? Can i get a bargain as nothing is selling? Are house prices likely to come down more if i wait?

Thanks for taking the time to read the post. i am debt free and have a job and some savings so i am in a good position to buy:o

downs523

i think now is a good time to buy if you need to move. bargins can be got now days. i have just had an offer accepted on a 3 bed house. was on market for 160k, hen was reduced to 150k. i put offer in for 140k and they accepted a week later.

jenjade

Wow that is great to know. i am in no hurry really. i am renting a 2 bed housing association house (£72 a week)

i have just been looking and the prices seem nore reasonable!

Thanks for responding

downs523

aslong as you have atleast a 10% deposit you will be ok. offer low, ou got nothing to lose have you. if there desperate they'll sell. has the price recently been reduced?, how long has it been on the market?

OfficeSpace

Unless it really suits you to do so I probably wouldn't buy right now. Nobody knows when the optimum time will be though as it depends on so much. Could be in 6 months after a further 5% fall, could be 18 months after 25%, better, or worse. Don't necessarily let people forecasting doomsday put you off, but certainly do not dismiss their opinions.

I will add i have just bought a house though. Found one I thought was a good asking price and knocked off 10%! It's also at 60% of it's Dec 2003 new price! I suspect I'll be living there still when we do all this again though!

If i was happy in a situation where i was paying £72 a month i'd stick it would a little longer and just keep a watch on the market.

bob79

Given your amount of posts on MSE, you probably already know this: 'some' savings is not enough nowadays. Your savings need to cover 10% of the purchase price, you won't get a mortgage otherwise. So if you're looking at around the 150k mark, then you need about 15k in savings. Such a 10% deposit gives you a very sub-optimal interest rate on the mortgage, a 25% deposit gives much better rates.

Asking prices nowadays really are only an indication of how delusional the vendor is. Look at a site with sold prices such as
http://www.houseprices.co.uk/
instead. Remember that on average we are 20% down from peak already and virtually all experts now agree that the average drop from peak will be at least 35%. This 35% drop is expected to be reached at the end of this year. The experts differ on what will happen from 2010 on (further drops, stabilization or mad increases again). Your area and the kind of property you are looking at might be different than the average of course, but the above seems a good guide.

If a vendor really wants to sell, then they will already now accept 35% from peak in the knowledge that buyers will otherwise just wait until this 35% from peak is reached at the end of the year. This of course again comes with the caveat of averages.

besonders1

I don't really know what the average is in your area but if its an ex council house I would checkout how it compares to the prices in the year 2000/2 etc and base your offer on that. I know that ex council properties in my area have risen to almost the same value as more affluent and they're are not selling. Athough they have been turned into palaces by developers and home owners, but at the end of the day they were built to be affordable not exactly the most desirable parts of town so I would expect a bigger reduction.

jenjade

Wow thanks for all your help i could get a 10% deposit but then if i could get the price down it would be 10% of less!!

I will have a look at what it was bought for when it was sold last how long it has been on the market.

Thanks for all your help and advice.

zaphod_beeblebrox_2

downs523 wrote: »

i think now is a good time to buy if you need to move. bargins can be got now days. i have just had an offer accepted on a 3 bed house. was on market for 160k, hen was reduced to 150k. i put offer in for 140k and they accepted a week later.

Why didnt you put in an offer of £120k and let them bid you up?

zaphod_beeblebrox_2

Are you sure you want an EX Council House?

brit1234

Don't buy for at least six months. Price falls are accereating. With a massive 2.5% fall last moth alone it shows the market has still along way to fall. When the price falls get 0.5% falls for a series of months then you shouldn't loose out too much.

We are likely to see a 25% fall this year alone based on the lending conditions and I would save hard in the mean time.