Joy as West Midlands amongst price rise pacesetters

Emy1501

chucky wrote: »

FTB's have been low for 7 years - stamp duty holiday at £185k had and will have little effect on house purchases.

£250k will obviously appeal to a bigger proportion of buyers.

Mortgage approvals for FTB's were about 40% lower in Feb than in July/August last year. Also the number of FTB's expecting to enter the market in rightmoves survey dropped from 31% in Q3 2009 to 26% Q1 2010.

lemonjelly

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I heard that there are more empty retail units than occupied ones in the town centre now. Is this the case?

Yes it is true. We tied with Bradford.

We couldn't even come first in that!:D

Yakubu22

I'm on the bear side of the divide. I could afford to buy a house but it would either be small (possibly too small for a family) or if we went bigger, be upto our eyeballs in mortgage. Mine and my fiancee's combined earnings are probably slightly above average -only just. We have been saving for a few years and could probably chuck a £25K deposit down.

But the area we live appears to be full of sellers who'd rather leave their house on the market for 18 months without dropping a penny. Sure, that's their choice but with a fragile economy and IMO another sh_t storm still to hit -I'm reluctant to entertain their prices.

I'm not bitter about not being a house owner, and neither is my life on hold because I'm "waiting for a crash". However we choose not spend life savings and future years income tied to a debt -which we felt was too much in the first place. Realistically (and speaking generally) there can be little room for more HPI over the next two years with the way things are.

So we just bide our time.

Cleaver

Yakubu22 wrote: »

I'm on the bear side of the divide. I could afford to buy a house but it would either be small (possibly too small for a family) or if we went bigger, be upto our eyeballs in mortgage. Mine and my fiancee's combined earnings are probably slightly above average -only just. We have been saving for a few years and could probably chuck a £25K deposit down.

But the area we live appears to be full of sellers who'd rather leave their house on the market for 18 months without dropping a penny. Sure, that's their choice but with a fragile economy and IMO another sh_t storm still to hit -I'm reluctant to entertain their prices.

I'm not bitter about not being a house owner, and neither is my life on hold because I'm "waiting for a crash". However we choose not spend life savings and future years income tied to a debt -which we felt was too much in the first place. Realistically (and speaking generally) there can be little room for more HPI over the next two years with the way things are.

So we just bide our time.

Great post.

Regarding the bit I've highlighted, how many people do you think said that in 2003, or 2005 or even at the end of 2008? Logic and reason doesn't seem to dictate the ebb and flow of house prices very much. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if we saw 10% gains or 10% loses in house prices over the next 12 months.

Graham_Devon

Cleaver wrote: »

Great post.

Regarding the bit I've highlighted, how many people do you think said that in 2003, or 2005 or even at the end of 2008? Logic and reason doesn't seem to dictate the ebb and flow of house prices very much. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if we saw 10% gains or 10% loses in house prices over the next 12 months.

The difference back then, is that the amount you could borrow just got bigger.

So although people couldn't afford, and could indeed have been saying that, people were able to borrow more and more. As house prices spiralled upwards, lenders found more and more ways of allowing people to borrow more. 100%, 5, 6, 7x earnings, Personal loans on top of 100% mortgages or 10%....then moving up to 25% personal loans when 10% was no longer enough.

That can't happen now.

Well, actually it could, I suppose, but I don't think, considering what's just happened, it will happen again.

Yakubu22

Cleaver wrote: »

Great post.

Regarding the bit I've highlighted, how many people do you think said that in 2003, or 2005 or even at the end of 2008? Logic and reason doesn't seem to dictate the ebb and flow of house prices very much. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if we saw 10% gains or 10% loses in house prices over the next 12 months.

Thanks very much...

IMO (and without starting a another debate) with all the cuts, uncertainty etc I dont see how things can get better just yet. Wasn't this the worst crash in 70 years or something? I agree prices will go up and down but I feel any short term gains will be balanced out with short term losses.
I dont think people have the same level of confidence (or niavety) now as they did in 2003/2005 etc. It was almost like a Gold rush then!

Cleaver

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The difference back then, is that the amount you could borrow just got bigger.

So although people couldn't afford, and could indeed have been saying that, people were able to borrow more and more. As house prices spiralled upwards, lenders found more and more ways of allowing people to borrow more. 100%, 5, 6, 7x earnings, Personal loans on top of 100% mortgages or 10%....then moving up to 25% personal loans when 10% was no longer enough.

That can't happen now.

Indeed. It didn't happen with everyone though, did it? Most people borrowed about 3, 4 or 5 times their earnings.

I don't really want to debate it, I don't know the answer. I'm just saying that house prices don't seem very logical and I wouldn't surprised to see them go up or down over the next few years. I think they'll go up a little bit, as people like buying houses but they are expensive. How's that for a watertright, precise, detailed theory?

Cleaver

Yakubu22 wrote: »

Thanks very much...

IMO (and without starting a another debate) with all the cuts, uncertainty etc I dont see how things can get better just yet. Wasn't this the worst crash in 70 years or something? I agree prices will go up and down but I feel any short term gains will be balanced out with short term losses.
I dont think people have the same level of confidence (or niavety) now as they did in 2003/2005 etc. It was almost like a Gold rush then!

I think the main thing in your post that I liked was that you said you're not bitter about not buying but also not willing to put your life on hold. That's pretty much my attitude: it's just a house. Who cares that much?

We bought late last year and it was a really strange market (which I've commented on before). We did see a bit of that gold rush mentality (great way to describe it by the way) of people offering asking prices for houses, days when owners would get 7 viewings and houses selling for asking or very close just days after coming on the market. We had a few viewings cancelled because the house came on the market early in the week, we booked for Saturday and it sold in the mean time. These houses were good quality, priced realistically (i.e. a good 20%+ under what they were selling for in 2007) and in good locations.

Without any type of middle ground, the other houses we looked round, whilst okay and everything, all had something a bit wrong with them: location, work doing, size etc and had been sitting on the market for 18 months or longer at a 2007 price or higher. Weary estate agents would ask what we thought and we told them that the house was nice, but too expensive. They'd shrug, kinda agree and say that that is what the vendor wanted for them. At least half the houses we looked round back in September / October are still sitting on the market, and some have been for two years now. Sitting there at 2007 prices, whilst houses around them come on for a lot cheaper and get snapped up.

That was just our experience when searching, but we really felt as though there were two markets out there. One which was crap houses at a high cost that were going nowhere, and others at reasonable prices that were good quality and seemed to sell very, very quickly for close to asking. Not that much in between.

Contrast this to when we bought a house in 2004 and it was a proper gold rush everywhere. Nearly every house seemed to sell in days, always for asking and often for over. There was a real sense of desperation to just buy something with Estate Agents and owners almost brimming with confidence. This has certainly gone, as I would say we experienced probably 70% of the houses in the camp of '2007 prices, not selling', with maybe 30% of them priced realistically and selling quickly when we were looking in 2009. It felt like a buyers market in other words, and nothing like when we bought a house in 2004.

Yakubu22

Cleaver wrote: »

I think the main thing in your post that I liked was that you said you're not bitter about not buying but also not willing to put your life on hold. That's pretty much my attitude: it's just a house. Who cares that much?

We bought late last year and it was a really strange market (which I've commented on before). We did see a bit of that gold rush mentality (great way to describe it by the way) of people offering asking prices for houses, days when owners would get 7 viewings and houses selling for asking or very close just days after coming on the market. We had a few viewings cancelled because the house came on the market early in the week, we booked for Saturday and it sold in the mean time. These houses were good quality, priced realistically (i.e. a good 20%+ under what they were selling for in 2007) and in good locations.

Without any type of middle ground, the other houses we looked round, whilst okay and everything, all had something a bit wrong with them: location, work doing, size etc and had been sitting on the market for 18 months or longer at a 2007 price or higher. Weary estate agents would ask what we thought and we told them that the house was nice, but too expensive. They'd shrug, kinda agree and say that that is what the vendor wanted for them. At least half the houses we looked round back in September / October are still sitting on the market, and some have been for two years now. Sitting there at 2007 prices, whilst houses around them come on for a lot cheaper and get snapped up.

That was just our experience when searching, but we really felt as though there were two markets out there. One which was crap houses at a high cost that were going nowhere, and others at reasonable prices that were good quality and seemed to sell very, very quickly for close to asking. Not that much in between.

Contrast this to when we bought a house in 2004 and it was a proper gold rush everywhere. Nearly every house seemed to sell in days, always for asking and often for over. There was a real sense of desperation to just buy something with Estate Agents and owners almost brimming with confidence. This has certainly gone, as I would say we experienced probably 70% of the houses in the camp of '2007 prices, not selling', with maybe 30% of them priced realistically and selling quickly when we were looking in 2009. It felt like a buyers market in other words, and nothing like when we bought a house in 2004.

Excellent post. I totally agree. Though we've never bought we were very close to buying in summer 2007. However for one reason or another we decided to rent instead. 5-6 years ago you could ask for almost anything (mortgage wise) from a bank and get it. Because you were buying property it was seen as a no brainer. People would say "You can't lose", "If you don't buy now, you never will" etc...

It was like the dotcom boom of 10 years ago were people who owned a webpage with a half baked business idea. Could say this is worth £1M -justified "because it is". And a lot of investers got stung when they realised that their investments were just webspace with no actual worthwhile business. I digress...

Completely agree with your sentiment that a house is just a house. The better priced one's sell, and others generally don't. I've seen some well priced houses go very quickly but these seem to be in a minority in my experience.

Since your mortgage (specifically it's duration/size) often dictates how long you have to work for, and I dislike work. Ensuring we get the best deal possible is something we want to get right. While the long term trend is always upward for prices, I think we have time in the short term to wait for more sellers to adopt a post 2007 mentality. Which would hopefully open up more choice for us realistic/tight-fisted* buyers.

*delete as appropriate