is now a good time to buy?? ftb

the_ash_and_the_oak

Think we can all agree it is a better time than last month at least

alexlyne

The other points to think about are, you could get a 90% mortgage with a 5 year fixed rate of 3-4%.

Where??!
I'm looking at 6.2 minimum on a 90% mortgage!

besonders1

I agree you'll get it cheaper than last year ago, do you need to buy now?
Your budget does seem cheap, I live in a ghost town up north and yet you'd still need £80- 100K for a FTB house.

wheresmydoshat

we tried to buy a house last summer, but the vendor did not accept any of our offers. we did gain some experience from the process though.

what i struggled with the most tho was believing the asking prices were true valuations. its all well and good a vendor not wanting to accept 20k less than the asking price, but what if the asking price has been inflated by 10k in the first place to try and make up for lower offers ?

so when we start looking again, do we really believe that the % house prices have gone down in our area have really been accounted for in reaching the asking price you see ?

the estate agent may think nothing of the odd 10k, but to first time buyers thats an awful lot of money.

toothe

living in Stoke On Trent.
There are plenty of terraced houses going for under 70k that are ready to move into and some going for 50k that need a bit of work.
In regard to the prices getting lower, there is a bottom to any market, people just simply will not sell, leaving only repo and new builds.

5 Year Purchase Fixed Rate: First Time Buyer Exclusive 5.99% 30/06/2014

alexlyne intro rate of 5.99 there (without even looking around)

besonders1

good luck with your house search. Unless you have a crystal ball no-one will ever know when the bottom is until we are past it. There are not many houses on the market now except for the overvalued ones and repos anyway. It could be years before the market picks up again .

GDB2222

toothe wrote: »

living in Stoke On Trent.
There are plenty of terraced houses going for under 70k that are ready to move into and some going for 50k that need a bit of work.
In regard to the prices getting lower, there is a bottom to any market, people just simply will not sell, leaving only repo and new builds.

There are always people who have to sell (for example because of relocation, death, illness, divorce, redundancy). If there are not enough buyers to soak that up, prices will fall further. Also, as prices fall, it becomes more attractive to trade up, so some people will take a hit on the property they are selling provided they get at least as much off one they are buying.

Take a look at the newsletter here:
http://www.tfsbrokers.com/risk&manage_property_newsletters.html

This is a futures market where large banks are trading property futures. The prices they are predicting is £118,000 for the average house price on the Halifax index in 3 years time. That's roughly 20% less than now.