Looking back to 2007

PhylPho

As I'm not a bull or a bear and have over 38 years owned a succession of houses in which to, er, merely live with me and mine, I don't have the insights of many here re the continuing rise in property asking prices.

I do though hop around the UK a fair bit and in recent months have glanced through newspapers local to the area I'm visiting -- and, out of curiosity, estate agents' ads. Once upon a time, those little boxes of a picture and text used to be flagged, where appropriate, with the word REDUCED. Now, estate agents seem -- regardless of area -- to be flagging them with NEW PRICE.

This exercise in semantics is presumably to hide the fact that the price has gone up. . ? If so, we're in the middle of another property boom.

Graham_Devon

New price always means reduced.

They don't advertise price rises in big red banners to try and entice people in. They have new prices, because the house isn't selling.

Often though, it seems, unrealistic prices are set to start with, so reducing them later to a half decent price is something that has "new price" slapped all over it as if it's now some kind of bargain.

It's poor psycology. But works on some.

phil_b_2

my 'way' is Leeds. I bought almost 1 year ago exactly.

Prices seem to have done alright since then according to this bbc thing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/html/da.stm

+17% annual
+2.4% quarterly

So not exactly crashing.

If anyone has a link to a similar site which breaks it down to local postcodes then post it up.

Cleaver

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Often though, it seems, unrealistic prices are set to start with, so reducing them later to a half decent price is something that has "new price" slapped all over it as if it's now some kind of bargain.

It's poor psycology. But works on some.

Considering that pretty much every single business that sells something uses the technique of 'reduced', 'sales' or 'deals' at some point then I'd say it's one of the most successful psychological ways of selling something and it probably 'works' on most people.

Graham_Devon

Cleaver wrote: »

Considering that pretty much every single business that sells something uses the technique of 'reduced', 'sales' or 'deals' at some point then I'd say it's one of the most successful psychological ways of selling something and it probably 'works' on most people.

Theres not that many business's where you generally make an offer lower than the advertised price though.

It's somewhat unique to the housing market, whereby a price is found, then the ticket price bumped up, in order to hopefully get the actual price of the product for sale.

When people are generally put off by the ticket price, the price then get's reduced, with some hype, to somewhere closer in the region of the actual price and in general, more interest in the product is then found.

Bizzare old system really. The whole process would probably be a lot simpler, and indeed faster, if the house worth £150k, was marketed at £150k, and the person buying it, paid, £150k.

Cleaver

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres not that many business's where you generally make an offer lower than the advertised price though.

I can think of quite a few businesses where you make offers below the advertised price, or you get money off through other means than making offers.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

When people are generally put off by the ticket price, the price then get's reduced, with some hype, to somewhere closer in the region of the actual price and in general, more interest in the product is then found.

Bizzare old system really.

Can you think of any product / service that actually isn't sold in this way in some shape or form? Nearly all products start at the highest price then are often reduced in the forms of sales, offers or after other products come on the market.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The whole process would probably be a lot simpler, and indeed faster, if the house worth £150k, was marketed at £150k, and the person buying it, paid, £150k.

It would never happen though, as buying and selling any product is about human psychology. So if you decided on a system to sell your house whereby you told people it is worth £150k, it will be marketed at £150k and you'll only accept £150k, I'd probably put my very similar house on the market for £145k with a big notice that said "Reduced from £150k!!"... and people would feel that mine was better value.

Graham_Devon

Alright, getting money off by other means and offers is somewhat different to nearly always offering a sum of money for the product that you deem fit.

But I can't be bothered being drawn into it

nwflyboy

Still new to these forums guys, but I am enjoying the debate!! Good to make your acquaintance. :beer:

my 'way' is Leeds. I bought almost 1 year ago exactly.

Prices seem to have done alright since then according to this bbc thing:

wont let me post a link because i am new

+17% annual
+2.4% quarterly

So not exactly crashing.

If anyone has a link to a similar site which breaks it down to local postcodes then post it up.

I genuinely think the market is patchy. I had even better results than Phil. And I also think that the age old adage is true: Location Location Location.

My area is a leafy market town in the NW, half an hour on the train from Liverpool, and my flat (yes flat) is five minutes from the motorway, 7 mins walk from the local hospital, five minutes away from the Uni, 1 minute from the train and bus station. It is at the Junction of the two most expensive roads in town (talking £500k plus, and they do sell). Plus there are very few flats in the area, and I am in the town centre.

It's still worth ten grand more than when I bought it mid 2006. Conversley, at the same time, a girl i know bought a 2 bed flat in an undesirable area of Liverpool, paid about 15 grand less than me, and she is suffering £30k worth of negative.

There will always be hot spots, and low spots - there was during the boom years, just the balance was different!!

For what it is worth, as a generalisation, I think that fundamentally there is more demand than supply due to rubbish housebuilding policy of God knows how many years, and that medium to long term, property remains a solid investment: People need somewhere to live.

Anyway, thats my bit for now lol

neverdespairgirl

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres not that many business's where you generally make an offer lower than the advertised price though.

It's somewhat unique to the housing market,

Cars. Antiques. Paintings. Fine wines. Hotels.

dopester

nwflyboy wrote: »

I genuinely think the market is patchy. I had even better results than Phil. And I also think that the age old adage is true: Location Location Location.

You don't worry negative changes might ever come to your area, in a similar or eventually worse impact on house values as your friend has "suffered"?

Over at HPC forum yesterday they were saying only thing certain is change, and how Liverpool and many other towns have become obsolete. Very much kept alive with central government spending and credit-boom business over the last 12 years. A think-tank in 2008 said central government money to support Liverpool and other areas should be cut off, and residents encouraged to move down south. I certainly fear buying anywhere in the North-West, at today's asking prices, given everything is still collapsing from the credit-glory years.

Truth is that like anything else, towns and cities should die when they outlive their purpose. I come from Liverpool, which existed because there was value in having a port on the left hand side of the country with a river that cleared itself of silt (unlike the Dee). People located themselves there because of it.

We don't need a port there now. We actually don't need Liverpool, but we hang onto the concept. Same can be said about other places. Cue an awful lot of waste, ending in failure.