FTB - are we being paranoid or being messed around by the agents?

bumpydog

macadamia wrote: »

Ahh that old chestnut. There are so many variables in buying a house so if you intend staying in this flat for 10+ years because the "value" has come down and you can't trade up then may be you should go for it.

If you think it's a stepping stone to a bigger place you'd like in a couple of years then remain renting. To do anything else would be throwing money away.

Completely disagree.
I bought my first house with my wife in 2003 with no savings and a 100% morgage. We are now just about to exchange on our third house, having made 140k equity in seven years.

By coincidence the housepricecrash forum has been running for about the same period of time. If we'd listened to the doom mongers and ill-informed speculators back then, we'd still be throwing money away paying rent and £140k worse off.

macadamia_2

bumpydog wrote: »

Completely disagree.
I bought my first house with my wife in 2003 with no savings and a 100% morgage. We are now just about to exchange on our third house, having made 140k equity in seven years.

By coincidence the housepricecrash forum has been running for about the same period of time. If we'd listened to the doom mongers and ill-informed speculators back then, we'd still be throwing money away paying rent and £140k worse off.

I disagree about the House Price Crash website. I've been reading it for a few months now and there's more sense on that site than in most media we are subjected to. Seems to be a lot of very bright people contribute. I don't think they are bitter either - they are more concerned with the way the country is going to the dogs and how young people will never be able to afford a home until properties come back to a realistic figure.

As for your record of house buying you haven't been smart you have merely been lucky with timing. It could have so easily gone the other way and then you would have realised with a risky, stupid thing you did by taking a 100% mortgage (with NO savings!) Thankfully there seems to be some safeguards from the lenders in place now so that idiots can't borrow in this way anymore.

sonastin

macadamia wrote: »

As for your record of house buying you haven't been smart you have merely been lucky with timing. It could have so easily gone the other way and then you would have realised with a risky, stupid thing you did by taking a 100% mortgage (with NO savings!) Thankfully there seems to be some safeguards from the lenders in place now so that idiots can't borrow in this way anymore.

Taking a risk doesn't necessarily make you stupid or an idiot. There are some risks that are worth taking because the pay-off is worth it if the downsides don't materialise.

I too was warned by the nay-sayers not to buy my house in 2002 "because prices were too high and certain to drop" (with a 5% deposit because that was before 100% mortgages took off , but no savings). If the drop had happened, I would have had a roof over my head and negative equity. There were redundancies going on at my work then too, but I considered the industry I worked in, my chances of not being able to get other work and other possible ways of getting enough to pay the mortgage if I ended up out of work.

I figured the chances of being in negative equity and being unable to pay the mortgage and therefore having the house repossessed were pretty slim so it was a risk worth taking. And here we are, 8 years later. I've sold (assuming it goes through) for £45k more than I paid for it. I am lucky that the market increased as much as it did, but I didn't take a stupid risk to buy it in the first place. Nor am I an idiot for not listening to the people who predicted a crash back in 2002.

bumpydog

sonastin wrote: »

Taking a risk doesn't necessarily make you stupid or an idiot. There are some risks that are worth taking because the pay-off is worth it if the downsides don't materialise.

I too was warned by the nay-sayers not to buy my house in 2002 "because prices were too high and certain to drop" (with a 5% deposit because that was before 100% mortgages took off , but no savings). If the drop had happened, I would have had a roof over my head and negative equity. There were redundancies going on at my work then too, but I considered the industry I worked in, my chances of not being able to get other work and other possible ways of getting enough to pay the mortgage if I ended up out of work.

I figured the chances of being in negative equity and being unable to pay the mortgage and therefore having the house repossessed were pretty slim so it was a risk worth taking. And here we are, 8 years later. I've sold (assuming it goes through) for £45k more than I paid for it. I am lucky that the market increased as much as it did, but I didn't take a stupid risk to buy it in the first place. Nor am I an idiot for not listening to the people who predicted a crash back in 2002.

Pretty much agree with this post really.
Don't get me wrong I wasn't bragging about making the right choice (although from re-reading my post it does seem a bit like that). All I'm saying really is that on the housepricecrash forum you will only get one side of the argument. A lot of these people are speculators and have vested interests in seeing the housing market collapse. Infact if you dare to challenge thier view you get branded a troll and your posts sent to the troll subforum Not a healthy atmosphere to get impartial advice I would say.

Fatenbread

bumpydog wrote: »

I really would avoid the House Price Crash website if I were you. Its a collection of very bitter people hoping and praying for the collapse of the financial world, so they can feel better about not having taken responsibility for their own lives...

Is the right answer.

MobileSaver

macadamia wrote: »

If you think it's a stepping stone to a bigger place you'd like in a couple of years then remain renting. To do anything else would be throwing money away.

People seem to often forget that this is a home we're talking about not just something material with only financial implications.

Look at the nightmare scenario that these two posters found themselves in; there are also considerable risks/downsides with renting.

thebaileys wrote: »

About an hour ago I had a knock on the door from the postmam with a recorded delivery, it is from our landlord giving us 2 months notice to leave the property.

NEH wrote: »

I can sympathise, we came back from a break staying with my brother to find out we had been served notice with two months to go due to landlord being forced to sell