house prices are apparently falling quicker

chucky

Kenny4315 wrote: »

I've been in around 8 EAs today checking out if there's any hot prospects. Virtually no even luke warm prospects, the property on display is barely 10% below peak, and certainly nowhere near 20% down. Obviously the sell price will be less than this but the EAs seem to be keeping prices artificially high. The issue being that interest rates are not forcing the issue for sellers at the moment. Hardly any wonder that house sales are so low. I don't really see the advantage of EAs keeping prices high and selling such low quantities, suppose the sellers can still muddle along when base rate is 0.5%, and the SVR is maybe 4% ish.

agreed - i've not seen anything decent since August last year for me, most things are 10%.
i wouldn't touch it unless they were 25% off peak.

anything that i see now isn't the greatest and wouldn't give me the yield that i want.

the low rates are helping people through the tougher period - just shows through the number of forced sales.

blunt_crayon

Kenny4315 wrote: »

I've been in around 8 EAs today checking out if there's any hot prospects. Virtually no even luke warm prospects, the property on display is barely 10% below peak, and certainly nowhere near 20% down. Obviously the sell price will be less than this but the EAs seem to be keeping prices artificially high.

I agree that asking prices are artificially high, I have been keeping an eye on the new listings on Rightmove for my area (Chelmsford) for the past year and they hardly seem to be coming down at all. According to the records that I've been keeping (sad I know) the median selling prices are about 15% below the median asking prices though.

lostinrates

I am seeing stuff I like...I was disappointed on that one a few weeks ago and we're 'interested' in smething else now. (not as nice as the last one though).

bo_drinker

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/news/2009/03/house-prices-continue-to-fall

Kenny4315

I think that there is almost a two tier market out there at present.

1. People who either must sell or really really want to sell, and price realistically at that point in time. The result being a falling market on houses sold, but with little in the way of transactions.

2. People on the market, who would like to sell if the offer was right, this being not to far from the peak of the market. Which is why in the EAs windows I'm only seeing these, as they aren't selling, and the sellers ain't to bothered.

I don't see this situation as being beneficial to anyone in the longer term, it is effectively holding back the full scale correction of the market. The general views have been that house sales have been pretty low.

Does anyone have the details of the number of transactions, that the survey (halifax & nationwide) are based upon, and whether the level of transactions that the 2007 prices were based on, were significantly different to those the survey is now based upon. ie is one for 100,000 transaction and the other maybe only 50,000 ?

MrDT

Kenny4315 wrote: »

I think that there is almost a two tier market out there at present.

Certainly the case in my area. A 2 bed terraced repo is on at the moment at an asking (not guide) price of £65k. Similar properties up for private sale are on for £100k.

I know for a fact that a 3 bed terraced repo on the next street down sold within a month of being advertised at £78k (around Christmas time), but don't know how much it sold for. The houses at joke prices either aren't selling, or are taking upwards of 12 months to sell (lots of those go subject to contract, then back on a month later, or can be found "to let").

There are lots of repos for FTB to choose from, why pay more? Shame the houses that are actually selling aren't reflected in the LR stats. I'm convinced that the repo rate around here is high enough for it to make quite a big difference to the average price.

Not sure if it's classed as a two tier market, or a false market tbh. Those non montivated sellers asking 2007 prices aren't likely to sell, so are they really on the market?

This is admittedly at pretty much the bottom of the market (2 bed terraces far more common that one bed flats). No idea what the repo rate is like for grandiose properties as they're outside my area of interest.

bo_drinker

We are watching the market, pretty much as others have said. We know where we want to go but as always nothing coming on fresh, those that have are sticking as too expensive with cr4p/ small gardens. One has sold and fallen through twice it's been on for 18 months. I thought we would be in temp accom for weeks and we have been here nearly 6 months waiting to pounce. No rent to pay so lucky there. They can tumble as much as possible for me until of course we buy and then they can stop. ( I wish)

Kenny4315

From the land registry report on another thread.

Sales volume 38830 sept 2008 to dec 2008

Same period previous year. 95679

Don't have further details to hand but would suspect this is an on-going situation.

So the house price index is being a bit skewed by the lack of numbers. As I suspected it appears that the falls recorded in the index looks like the forced sales and those very keen to sell. While the bulk is sitting pondering and not to fussed at present. I'd have to suggest that it is possible that the indexes are actually over-stating the current actual fall, as it is based on such low numbers.

carolt

Well, rightmove sends me new properties at ever cheaper prices daily. eg this morning I had 2 new properties on for sub-250K in one area I'm watching - both quite nice, not dross - few months ago, they would have been over 300K. So the message is obviously getting throgh to some people. Equally, got one more - basically identical area/size house along with the other 2 this morning, for 320K.

Guess which one/s will sell?

Why would anyone go for the one 70K more?

Obviously, some people still haven't read a financial headline for a year or two - or either (a) don't actually want to sell or (b) are blinded by greed.

Kenny4315

carolt wrote: »

Well, rightmove sends me new properties at ever cheaper prices daily. eg this morning I had 2 new properties on for sub-250K

This is a difficult price point to monitor due to the stamp duty issue. Once a property gets into the £275k to £300k there's every chance of a dramatic fall to the £250k mark. Selling a house at this bracket is a real pain for the seller, unless it sells immediately.