What is is with old ladies and their houses?

harrup

lostinrates wrote: »

LOL, my nmother thinks her house is worth more than I think it is too. I think a lot of my parents generation have been lucky enough to make sales in rising markets and expect it to always be that way, maybe?

Very likely.

My MIL once bought a house in...oh, in the mid to late 70's, perhaps. Beautiful house. HUGE. Acres of garden. Views to die for. They paid just over £ 30 000 for it. She sold it for around £ 75 000 in the eighties after my FIL passed away and the kids had grown up. It was last sold for close to a million quid ( 2007) .......

These eldery guys NEVER had a large mortgage, never experienced negative equity and their own house routinely doubled or trippled in value in a decade. And so they stick to what they know.

Bad news for us, though. Still, I'm still baffled that a house costing £ 30 000 in 1975 can fetch nearly a million 30 + year later. It's not like we had a population explosion since then.

Floxxie

My M-i-L was completely the opposite. Was given 3 valuations which varied by £30k. She went with the lowest valuation (as she could not believe that the agents had got it right). There were so many bids that the EA suggested a sealed bid. No, she went for first one in, which also happened to be the lowest.

Since then she has moaned about how she gave her bungalow away and was left with no money to do up her wreck!! She was also fuming that the new buyer practically took the bungalow apart to have it modernised. She now talks about selling her bungalow to move to a village where my son goes to school. She doesn't get the fact that she would need 3 of her bungalows just to buy the same sized bungalow in this location. I'm just hoping that she does not go ahead with the plan as I think she will be one of the old ladies being discussed above!


Floxxie

lukekelly_2

Once you take into account inflation that's average annual growth in the order of 2.6% per annum.

harrup

lostinrates wrote: »

Do you KNOW my mother? Because that is HER you are describing!:D

Hehe...

I call it the "double standard generation". These are the people who go in EVERY shop stating most loudly:" gosh, isn't THAT dear", thereby making me cringe. Doesn't matter what it is.

Fine, I appreciate that the article may have only cost six pence in their hey-day. But then they invariably develop a rapid sense of what things SHOULD cost when they are in the sellers seat! And THEN it's as far removed from shillings and sixpence as can be imagined.

We are doomed wanting to buy from them....

Doomed.

Sigh.

John_Pierpoint

harrup wrote: »

Very likely.

My MIL once bought a house in...oh, in the mid to late 70's, perhaps. Beautiful house. HUGE. Acres of garden. Views to die for. They paid just over £ 30 000 for it. She sold it for around £ 75 000 in the eighties after my FIL passed away and the kids had grown up. It was last sold for close to a million quid ( 2007) .......

These eldery guys NEVER had a large mortgage, never experienced negative equity and their own house routinely doubled or trippled in value in a decade. And so they stick to what they know.

Bad news for us, though. Still, I'm still baffled that a house costing £ 30 000 in 1975 can fetch nearly a million 30 + year later. It's not like we had a population explosion since then.

REMEMBER INFLATION - you have to multiply 70's money by 12 - 15 times to get to today's purchasing power, then add a stupid property bubble that doubled prices in a few years and your 30K well on its way to 1,000K

My dad's house was worth 11K in late 60's and sold for 700K in 2005. The buyer knocked it down and replaced it with a 1,250K house. I wonder how deep the owner of that is in negative equity?

My daughter a right run around from one old lady who was determined to sell her house to a "nice couple with children".
Problem is that foolish "nice couples with children" have got the horse in front of the cart and could not afford to buy her house. We had to dump her, when she tried for the second time, to use my daughter as some sort of long stop, she could use by saying
"I've had an offer at the full asking price".

harrup

lukekelly wrote: »

Once you take into account inflation that's average annual growth in the order of 2.6% per annum.

That was a really interesting link - thank you for that.

Except....can their figures be accurate? I just typed in "30000" for 1970 and it gave me a figure of "110000" for 1980 and " 360000" for 2009.

Hence, her old house should have sold for £360 000 in 2007. But it was close to a million.

Similarly, we paid £65000 for our house in 1986. Your converter shows inflation to £ 140 000 in 2009. Our neighbour bought the identical house to ours for £ 285.000 in 2007. Which is mad.

Or....this doesn't apply to house prices? Obviously not.

harrup

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

REMEMBER INFLATION - you have to multiply 70's money by 12 - 15 times to get to today's purchasing power, then add a stupid property bubble that doubled prices in a few years and your 30K well on its way to 1,000K

My dad's house was worth 11K in late 60's and sold for 700K in 2005. The buyer knocked it down and replaced it with a 1,250K house. I wonder how deep the owner of that is in negative equity?

Gut wrenching, isn't it??? We should have all held on to properties. But who knew!!!!

Not sure I entirely understand what you are saying about todays purchasing power and inflation - economics not being my forte! :rotfl:

Most people I know don't earn quintuple of what they earned, say, 20 years ago. And with the exception of house prices, I don't know of any other goods which have quadrupled/quintoupled in price either. So why did we accept it for houses?

As I said....I'm new to this house selling/buying kerfuffle and thus suitably naive. It just all seems totally absurd. Silly prices and silly money.

b0rker

harrup wrote: »

That was a really interesting link - thank you for that.

Except....can their figures be accurate? I just typed in "30000" for 1970 and it gave me a figure of "110000" for 1980 and " 360000" for 2009.

Hence, her old house should have sold for £360 000 in 2007. But it was close to a million.

Similarly, we paid £65000 for our house in 1986. Your converter shows inflation to £ 140 000 in 2009. Our neighbour bought the identical house to ours for £ 285.000 in 2007. Which is mad.

Or....this doesn't apply to house prices? Obviously not.

I think it just takes 'standard' inflation into account and not housing bubbles and other things that increase house prices like desireability etc.

MrDT

milliejo wrote: »

I suspect that there are some children expecting a share involved in the price setting

Place doesn't sell at joke price, old giffer pegs it, offspring sell at a vastly reduced price to get their mitts on the cash - Job done. :money:

Primrose

I hope that if I live long enough to be one of those elderly ladies and find myself in a similar position, I'll also not be stupid enough to fall for the first slick estate agent telling me I've got to drop the price. We can't stop growing old, but we don't have to be stupid. What's that old joke doing the e-mail rounds - Don't mess with Seniors ?? Of course the estate agent will tell you to drop the price. They're desperate at the moment to stop themselves going out of business and a sale is a sale, even if it's at a reduced price.