First Time Buyers!

JustAFish

Hello!

I have a simple question; if first time buyers do not buy houses until they can comfortably afford them, would that not drive house prices down until people could afford them?

CloudCuckooLand

Maybe. The problem is getting all the FTBs to stick together.

Human nature means that some will desert the ranks, when they think prices are "cheap enough".

So many different elements influence house purchase;

- space required for unexpected child
- job changes
- rental increases make buying relatively more affordable
- school catchment areas
- relationship breakdown
- different credit histories/salaries make "affordable" a difficult measurement.
etc etc

...that to expect consistency across a broad range of people is ambitious, to say the least.

DVardysShadow

Yes, this is exactly what would happen except that first time sellers can only sell if the price will clear the mortgage - otherwise, they must make up the difference from savings or the lender will prevent them selling. Therefore you find that while there may be loads of buyers out there for houses below a certain price, there are very few sellers willing or able to drop to meet the potential buyers.

morg_monster

i think the deserters are causing the current little bubble, especially in the SE and London. I count myself among them.... perhaps atypical FTBs (in terms of whole country; perhaps not so atypical in terms of London and the SE), with relatively high salaries, been saving carefully for quite a few years, perhaps with help from parents, biding our time, suddenly are able to afford a HOUSE! not a flat! in a NICE area! We are thinking, screw solidarity, we're nearly 30, buy now!

What will happen when this group of people have run dry, I don't know. Prices will be higher but once again the FTBs will have disappeared. Surely prices will drop again and the crash will continue? (I know, why am i buying know if i think this?!)

sarah_elton

morg_monster wrote: »

What will happen when this group of people have run dry, I don't know. Prices will be higher but once again the FTBs will have disappeared. Surely prices will drop again and the crash will continue? (I know, why am i buying know if i think this?!)

Because you want to get on with your life and in buying a house rather than a flat you're buying somewhere for the long-term and don't care about short term prices.

We're looking to buy too. We've each previously owned but are currently renting so nothing to sell. At 32 and 28 we're around the same age as a lot of FTBs. At current levels we can afford the sort of long-term family home we want. We're getting married next year and have both moved around a lot in recent years so we don't want to wait either.

The other cause of the bubble at the moment is serious shortage of supply. Soooooo little is coming to market it's unbelievable. We've been actively looking for about four months now and there's just nothing that's been right so far. I'm lucky if I get one email a week from Rightmove telling me there's a new property on that fits my search criteria.