Dramatic slowdown in the Housing market

meanmachine_2

Stewboy1978 wrote:

Try and buy a house in Edinburgh and see if the market is crashing :rolleyes:

Sorry I don't know the area, but if you check the LR figures, Edinburgh fell by nearly 4% last quarter.

Oh, and how many Scots on here kept insisting last year that PRICES NEVER FALL in Scotland? It became something of a cultish mantra.

I'm neither bearish or bullish. I'm a realist. Prices will continue to rise until we get to an extreme point of unaffordability. But how we get there will determine what happens next. If it's a measured rise, then stagnation.

If we get there because of other reasons- interest rate rises or unemployment - then things could get very sticky.

And yes, house prices always go up in the longer term - by about the rate of wage inflation. Which is where the bulls come mightily unstuck.

Oh, and one other worry for those of you thinking that a property will pay for your pension - from 2010, the working population is set to decline big time. And who will buy your houses then?

Tassotti

Property for me is a long term investment. The "crash" may well happen over the next few years, but what will property be selling for in 20 years time?

In 2001, bought my first property, "people told me to wait 6 months as prices will drop. Lo and behold, 6 months later price increased 10K!

Don't think it will be 30% less, more like 100% more.

meanmachine_2

Tassotti wrote:

Property for me is a long term investment. The "crash" may well happen over the next few years, but what will property be selling for in 20 years time?

In which case, I hope the population trend I outlined doesn't come to pass, cos you'll be screwed.

You have heard that there aren't enough kids being born, right? Which means fewer active workers in 20 years' time, which means there's no one to buy your house.

wibble68_2

lisyloo wrote:

You should not read much into one months figures in isolation.
A better view would be looking at the article in the graph.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4754642.stm

So far I would say it looks like a fairly orderly slowdown.

You also shouldn't take any notice of data produced by people
who will say anything to improve their business.

Apart from doing your own research in your local area the land registry figures are the only real guide to what the market is doing.

As for an orderly slow down, lets not lose sight of the fact that the housing market is being supported by investors not FTB's.

If anyone thinks that this kind of market can remain stable, think
again.

Tassotti

meanmachine wrote:

In which case, I hope the population trend I outlined doesn't come to pass, cos you'll be screwed.

You have heard that there aren't enough kids being born, right? Which means fewer active workers in 20 years' time, which means there's no one to buy your house.

Ha ha ha, haven't laughed so much in a long time. What ARE you talking about?!?

Looks like I'll be going out tonight to meet a young lady and increase the next generation of property buyers

meanmachine_2

Tassotti wrote:

Ha ha ha, haven't laughed so much in a long time. What ARE you talking about?!?

Looks like I'll be going out tonight to meet a young lady and increase the next generation of property buyers

I hope that's forced laughter. Or did it escape your notice that there aren't nearly enough babies being born to replace the current work force?

And no, I'm not talking about general population size. I'm talking about active worker size. Think about it really hard. You need to be working to pay a mortgage.

Currently, there are too many teachers in this country (!!!), since class sizes are falling. They're soon going to have to start laying them off.

Tassotti

Well then, I won't sell to teachers. They probably couldn't afford the properties I have anyway.

I take it you are renting in the hope that prices will fall and you can then afford to buy a home. The past shows that there has never been a fall over over more than 27%, could you afford to buy then? I know many people who have had the same opinion since 2000. They will never buy.

If this is true and you 'get on the ladder', wouldn't you want your house to increase in price?

Bestthingsinlifearefree

meanmachine wrote:

In which case, I hope the population trend I outlined doesn't come to pass, cos you'll be screwed.

You have heard that there aren't enough kids being born, right? Which means fewer active workers in 20 years' time, which means there's no one to buy your house.

Dont worry mean machine if you go to the website for governemnt office of national statistics / census.

The UK population is actually predicted to rise by 6 million or so over the next 25 years.

So thats one less thing for you to worry about !!

Tassotti

Well said btilaf.

With not enough housing and population growing, unemployment low, low interest rates, got to be good for everyone (except house buyer dreamers)

Avoid at all cost new build properties. Only people to benefit out of this are the developers.

meanmachine_2

Bestthingsinlifearefree wrote:

Dont worry mean machine if you go to the website for governemnt office of national statistics / census.

The UK population is actually predicted to rise by 6 million or so over the next 25 years.

So thats one less thing for you to worry about !!

No, I'm afraid it's something "investors" have to worry about. We'll have a massive top heavy population, like in Japan. A country that didn't enjoy a baby boom in the 50s and which, in population terms, is about 10 years ahead of us.

And oh dear, look what happened there.

Still, it's not all bad news - Japanese interest rates are in the up again after 10 years. Not that that'll mean anything to most of the people on here....

..Except when UK mortgage rates start rising.