WTB: when will you start looking?

penguine

If you're waiting to buy, when do you plan to start viewing properties? When do you think you might be ready to purchase one? What economic or personal factors might make you change your mind?

We're planning to wait till the end of the year at the earliest to start viewing again. That may not be the bottom of the crash, but we have a substantial deposit saved up so if we see something we like that we feel is affordable, we might buy early-mid 2010.

SGE1

Planning on starting to view in October, maybe buy by December? Though to be honest, it's all about the right house. If I saw one I liked now, I'd probably go and have a look at it, and do a bit of research around prices in the area. If I really adored it, I might put in an offer, but it would be considerably less than the asking price.

mramra

In about 6-12 months is my view at present. No great rush, looking to trade up the ladder somewhere near the bottom of the price drops, but while interest rates are low. Particularly of interest to me are 7/10 yr fix rates - if these drop below 4% that's when I will go for it seriously. At present just keeping an eye out but not actually making appointments to view or listing our house for sale.

PasturesNew

I was thinking 2010-2011, might leave it longer, circumstances depending.
I need a job first!

penguine

SGE1 wrote: »

Planning on starting to view in October, maybe buy by December? Though to be honest, it's all about the right house. If I saw one I liked now, I'd probably go and have a look at it, and do a bit of research around prices in the area. If I really adored it, I might put in an offer, but it would be considerably less than the asking price.

It's all about the right house for us too, which is one of the reasons why I want to wait until the end of the year at least -- I don't want to see something I really like before prices have well and truly dropped. I'm looking in the EAs windows at the moment, though not very regularly, and tbh there's not even anything I'm interested in right now. It seems like the same old properties that have been on the market for ages, and they've barely dropped their prices.

WTF?_2

Still planning to buy around Spring 2010 so will start seriously looking around the end of this year.

Though I have an eye on what will be happening on the 'quantitative easing' front. Once the dam breaks there will be a limited window to get cash into assets.

Cleaver

Nearly everyone on and off this forum (in the real world of real people - I know you're all made up in my mind in a Matrix stylee) who don't own a house seem to be all saying "I'll probably buy towards the bottom in very late 2009 or early 2010".

Two interesting points with this. Firstly, what if they just keep steadily falling, maybe 0.5% a month or so throughout 2010? Will people just keeping hanging on, even though they could comfortably afford a place? Will their plans change to maybe spending their savings on something else? Priorities may just change: is owning a property a dead duck that no one wants to do.

On the other hand, it'll be interesting if there are three months in a row, maybe at the end of 09 / start of 10 where prices just stay the same or even pick up a little. You might see one unholy rush to get mortgages, make offers, buy houses.

No real point to this post (no change there with my posts then), just that it'll be interesting to see how things pan out.

PasturesNew

A new build house I had spotted as I went through with Property Bee (I go through it most days just to keep it current) was on at about £230k. I noticed it on Property Snake as £157k. I looked and it had sold.

Did I feel I missed out?

Not at all... it's just proven to me that I was very wrong about where prices will end up. They'll be lower than I ever expected in the end.

slipthru

Probably spring next year, but we are looking to relocate so i guess it is more dependent on getting a job to pay the small mortgage we plan to take out.

penguine

Cleaver wrote: »

Will their plans change to maybe spending their savings on something else? Priorities may just change: is owning a property a dead duck that no one wants to do.

Interesting question. We wouldn't spend our savings on something else, as there's nothing we really want or need. If rental prices fell dramatically in our area we might look to rent a house and then rent out our flat. Rentals for 3-bed houses around here are currently over £1000 a month though, so it's hard to contemplate making that step at the moment when our mortgage is only £250 a month. I think there'd need to be some improvement in security of tenure too. I don't know much about it (haven't ever rented in the UK) but just looking at some of the threads over on the other housing board makes my hair stand on end.

Cleaver wrote: »

On the other hand, it'll be interesting if there are three months in a row, maybe at the end of 09 / start of 10 where prices just stay the same or even pick up a little. You might see one unholy rush to get mortgages, make offers, buy houses.

It could happen, and I know of a few people who are looking to buy right now or in the next few months just because they feel they're getting a good discount off what prices were before. That wouldn't change our thinking though. I wouldn't put in an offer on a property unless I really liked it, even if it looked like prices were about to shoot back up, and I wouldn't get into a bidding war with another buyer either.

LittleMissAspie

Not until we've got the 25k in my signature. No particular reason why I picked 25k, just seems a nice round number (and a very big number, to me). So that will be April 2010. We are in an AST until March 2010 anyway.

Lots of people saying they'll buy in the first half of 2010 though. Will this spark the start of the next HPI cycle, or will it be a bull trap?