'What'll happen to house prices?' poll discussion

mloio

Difficult to be confident over the next 12 months, but over next few years theoretically has to come down.

Everyone agrees we had a property asset bubble. This was fuelled by too loose credit and, arguably, fraud. The thing about bubbles is that they always burst and we haven't seen a real burst yet because of unusually low interest rates and quantitative easing measures used to temper the effects of the recession.

Bottomline prices still need to correct properly from the bubble. We can't really expect prices to go back to where they were before (in real terms) unless we expect the same levels of loose credit and fraud, which thankfully banks seem to be avoiding.

sye60_2

Nothing will be clear until after the next election IMHO.
However I cannot see any government (lab/con/coalition) continuing with the current spending policies which, again IMHO, has created a false sense of security within the economy via a trickle down effect of its excessive spending.

What would be interesting would be to split the poll to also show how many voters have a mortgage to pay and how many are looking or not ready to buy – are people being over optimistic because they have a vested interest or, like me, wanting the house prices to come down so they can afford a house? :wall:

geoffky

There are some very scared people around as they know that if interest rates go up and up then they have no chance of hanging in there having credit up to their eyeballs or over stepped on a mortgage..in the 80s and 90s the rates went up not in a little half percent here and there but in whole percentage points...my age tells me they can triple....

rag31

Where's the 'I don't care' button?

Becky

Perry525

The immediate future holds, lots of jobs disappearing in the NHS, Local Council and retail shopping, it includes pressure on all sorts of companies to retain more capitol.
A lot of retail companies will be renewing their borrowing this year and will find the extra cost pushing them into receivership.
All of this will impact on house prices.

Chocolate8me

I am looking to sell my house & buy another this year.

Prices seem to be decent at the moment but if your after a 4/5 bedroom, detached house in a nice location, those seem to be going for silly money & people are snapping them up!

If house prices decrease, many people will experience negative equity & as interest rates WILL rise, many more will be repossessed.

Who knows what that will do to the market.

At the end of the day, prices always peak & trough but generally increase over time. It's a case of not going in too deep financially (which is what people did 5 years ago when banks stupidly offered 5 times the annual salary for a mortgage) & make allowances for interest rates to rise. Be sensible & the market will slowly pick up again :T

wildthing01

i haven't a clue about the housing market - my brain just doesn't do economics - but i hope they don't go up too much - we have a little money to invest (on a mortgage) and hoping to either buy a larger house for us or invest in a little rent-out/sell on thing - it's the only way we really stand any chance of making any real change to our standard of living - but with small children and OH looking to go back to college, not sure we could keep up with interest rates if they go back up...

as12111

I don't resent because I'm not actually looking to buy property and glad of it because I feel I'd be getting ripped off if I was buying now

as12111

One of the worst things about trying to get your foot on the ladder 5 years ago was that the decent and sensible people who were willing to pay reasonable deposits were constantly being gazzumped by fools who got themselves hold of some toxic loans somewhere and only looking to capitalise for themselves. Then these fools ended up defaulting because they got themselves into negative equity and the rest of the world had to suffer. All the while, ridiculous government schemes funded by the tax payer somehow allowed some of them to hold on to property that some of them knew they couldn't afford.

antonia1

I think that people who are hoping house prices go up and are using their homes as an "investment" are just silly. We don't rejoice when the cost of food, water and fuel keep increasing, so why be so pleased when the cost of shelter goes up? They are all basic human requirements. I suspect its that you don't care that other people are loing out on the deal. But you will care when the next generation are coming to you for handouts to buy their first home or decide they don't want to look after you when you get old because they've had enough of being taken advantage of.

It would be interesting to see how many people think that house prices rising over the rate of inflation is a good thing and how many think that its a bad thing.