If you could afford to, would you buy a house now, or rent and wait?

wibble68_2

ukbondraider wrote:

This way in the long term the odds are that you will still win as if there was say a 20-30% correcton in the next 5 yrs, you can bet that there will be a 100-300% upward trend in the following 20 yrs.

You can't win on a property until you sell it.

Because most people will only own one property at any
given time it could be worth 1 million and it would be of
no benefit to the owner.

The only people who benefit from high house prices are the
government and people in related industries.

For the vast majority of people high house values are just
something you can use to delude yourself that you're wealthy.

manhattan

wibble68 wrote:

You can't win on a property until you sell it.

Because most people will only own one property at any
given time it could be worth 1 million and it would be of
no benefit to the owner.

The only people who benefit from high house prices are the
government and people in related industries.

For the vast majority of people high house values are just
something you can use to delude yourself that you're wealthy.

i think they call it "paper money" ?

your not rich until you sell it(rich and homeless), or downgrade lol

tomstickland

I've been looking at prices in the area again. Sub £100K around Gloucester is viable for 1 bed Bovine homes and small flats. Below £75-80K they become too small.

A reasonable flat in the small town near where I work has been on the market for 4-5 months now at £95K. I'm considering going to have a look, mainly to judge how desperate they are to sell.

There have been a number of adverts at work with people trying to rent out property so I guess that there are a few BTL style things out there trying to find tenants.

I still need to do my personal spreadsheet to compare renting for 2-3 years with buying.

sarah_elton

tomstickland wrote:

I still need to do my personal spreadsheet to compare renting for 2-3 years with buying.

As a starter, there's a useful 'buy or rent?' calculator here where you can play with figures...

http://www.themovechannel.com/sitefeatures/calculators/buy_or_rent.asp

zag2me

I would buy a house in a second if I could afford it. People seem to be talking about houses as an investment not as something to live in. If you can afford it buy it, dont sit around waiting and hoping for a crash, it may come, but who knows when?. England is a very small country with very little land available. Its all about supply and demand (oh and low interest rates )

tomstickland

There's more to it than that though. I can afford a house but it'll cost me a larger proportion of my income than it would have done 6 years ago. Low interest rates are all very well, but I'd still have to borrow more money than I really want to.

ManAtHome

Think it's more about low interest rates and people not yet adjusting to low inflation. Unfortunately the low inflation is mainly about goods price deflation - services inflation has been running around 6-7% for the last 8 years and is likely to continue whereas wages are likely to be held below this - after all, if you get 3% that's above inflation isn't it?

ps - at 3% it will take around 14 years for salaries to double (and get back to 3.5 times salary to mortgage rate).

zag2me

I still think if you can afford to buy you should if thats what you aim to do. An old lady at work was telling me the other day how hard it was for her to buy a house 50 years ago and it took up 80% of their income or something. I just dont think ever is the right time to buy a house, but if you want it, and can afford it, take the plunge.

Bamf100

I would buy.

Yeah the market may slow down or stop, but I don't think prices will go down any time soon. I bought 2 years ago and have never looked back. Now someone else pays that mortgage (renters take heed) and I have used the equity as deposit on another house.

Yeah it's a risk, but what isn't? Make your money work for you, don't just sit and watch the prices rise.

Bamf.

tomstickland

That depends on whether you think prices are going to rise and by how much. The longer I wait then the more deposit I have saved. I've been talking to EAs about what I could afford to buy and what's available, but it's going to be a while yet before I do.