tell me I haven't "missed the boat"

useless

prices much higher round here again, they only dipped a bit, but enough to notice they are back up again

boo

Doozergirl

The rules of supply and demand. There aren't that many buyers but there aren't all that many vendors either, hence there has been a bit of a spring bounce this year.

If everyone gets wind of it and there becomes an oversupply of houses for sale again, any gains made will disappear. August is very quiet - in fact now is supposed to be the quietest time of year so it's worth looking now.

useless

ups and downs.

come on interest rate rise - I want to see what happens.

brit1234

useless wrote: »

prices much higher rouynd here again, they only dipped a bit, but enough to notice they are back up again

boo

No you haven't missed the boat, prices will continue going down be patient. When prices bottom they will stagnate for years before rising. Remember banks are lending 3-4 times salary, compair that to local wages and we have a lot further to go.

mike5678

brit1234 wrote: »

No you haven't missed the boat, prices will continue going down be patient. When prices bottom they will stagnate for years before rising. Remember banks are lending 3-4 times salary, compair that to local wages and we have a lot further to go.

People can afford the prices though. There are enough people with enough money to create enough demand for the supply. Those that can't afford to buy due to the 4x salary lending, rent.

In and around London this appears to be true anyway. Where I'm buying properties are being snapped up within weeks of going on the market, estate agents around here seem to be doing very well.

useless

south east is also busy.

only time will tell. with those good ol' interest rates

brit1234

mike5678 wrote: »

People can afford the prices though. There are enough people with enough money to create enough demand for the supply. Those that can't afford to buy due to the 4x salary lending, rent.

In and around London this appears to be true anyway. Where I'm buying properties are being snapped up within weeks of going on the market, estate agents around here seem to be doing very well.

Really, I'd like to see all these people. I have a good wage and a big deposit and I still can't afford the cheapest properties.

Yes there are those people getting rid of savings because of low interest rates, but these people are limited and not enough to sustain the market for long. Also the more that spend this money the less money banks can lend and hence it wll result in continued tough lending pulling prices down further

I spoke to an estate agent today and he said business is well down on traditional levels. Yes it is up a little from a few months ago but still down in genral. He believes like you said to rent and wait for prices to come down to affordable levels. Yes there are suprissingly honest estate agents out there.

ghostbusters

around where i live a number of houses have suddenly sprouted 'sold' signs outside them.. however on rightmove(+property bee) .. they seem to just gone 'under offer' .

i am not sure who it benefits.. or if i am reading too much into this .....

princeofpounds

Prices that are actually being transacted on haven't rebounded much at all - look at any of the indices (not rightmove, that's just a measure of asking prices).

Asking prices have risen over the last few months, until the latest datapoint which showed a big (2%) fall.

Will prices go up or down? Well it's hard to say in nominal terms because that is ultimately a function of how much money the central banks print. But barring any odd decisions you have to consider the following maths. (The numbers are arbitrary, it's the difference in the two scenarios that matters)

If I earn 20k net and i'm willing to spend half of that on a mortgage payment at 4% interest then I can afford a mortgage of 250k.

If interest rates rise to 7% (closer to the long term average) then I can afford a mortgage of only 140k.

What do you think happens to house prices?

Interest rates have recently been cut to historically low levels to save the economy. If it works, and the economy starts to recover, then interest rates will have to rise to deal with the resulting inflation.

That doesn't *necessarily* mean that house prices have another stage to fall - wages may inflate quickly or for long enough to compensate for the nominal declines an interest rate rise would cause. But it's a big hurdle to get over.

VKay

Hi brit- i'm like you- got a good deposit (25% plus a little more as each month goes by without buying) and ok wages between us but still struggling to find something we can comfortably afford to buy.

We don't want to borrow much over 2x our combined salary as I earn quite a bit more than my partner and if we want to have a family we are aware that my salary is the one which will reduce significantly.

Don't want to buy a house and find we can't afford to ever go on holiday again!

Good luck with it all.

breadlinebetty

Houseprices and sales are definitely on the up round my way (I'm in the south east) and have been for some months now. Some places are even fetching more than the asking price as there's a lack of good property for sale.