Where in belfast area for first time buyer?

NAR

Or make your wish list a bit more realistic for what you can afford to purchase now. Having established yourself on the ladder, for say 5 years, you may be in a position financially to buy your ideal property.

fredy34

My advice is same as NARs buy ASAP whatever you can afford.
I bought 18 months ago and my mate said he would wait 18months to build a deposit.
I paid 82k for a house he cant get one in the same area for less than 150k (bloomfield terrace houses)
I know you think its awful but i lived in ballybeen for 2 years and parts of it are actually quite nice (enler park area) big houses as well.

Good luck

talksalot81

Well I do appreciate the advice, but there is very little chance I will end up paying a sum greater than my perceived value. I am sure even the most bullish have to realise that the bubble will eventually burst to one extent or another. If it happens in a week, I am prepared but I am equally prepared for it happening in 2 years. If I jump on now, I am banking on it going up AND my getting out at the right time and would have absolutely no provision if there did happen to be a drop.

I am playing it ultrasafe, this I realise. But it is about time somebody did.

If I can find a place I like which goes around asking, then that is just dandy!

jetboy

you have a point in the fact that the free market will make a correction but it is highly unlikely to result in negative equity and therefore you are not goiing to get a bargain if you hold off for a year. Part of the problem has been that lots of people have jumped on the buy-to let bandwagon. As such this has kept rents down as there is more competition. The economics of btl are not so good now as big deposits are required to make a purchase (based on the criteria specified by most btl lenders). Hence the money to be made in btl is really only in the equity in the property. This will eventually cool off the demand for btl properties a bit but in turn will reduce the amount of them available thus putting rents up. Hobsons choice really. Renting looks like a bargain now but it won't always be. If you don't buy soon, you may never be able to. Not an enviable position to be in. My sister went through a similar experience last year. She was caught in a bidding war and initially lost. The property came back on the market At short notice (yet again the highest bidder couldn't produce the goods) and she got it in the end albeit 15k above the asking price.
I suggest you get on the ladder somewhere..even if you don't live in it.

talksalot81

On the contrary, if prices are 'corrected' such that they are the same price two years from now as they are now, a mortgage would represent a significant net loss. A quick calculation results in the conclusion that prices would have to go up by more than £15k over two years in order that I would not actually lose money. Furthermore, if that was indeed the case, I would be sitting on a much larger deposit.

I dont think there really is a question of 'if you dont do it now, you never will be able to'. That would basically say that every last school kid out there will be resigned to being unable to buy short of parental assistance. That is just unrealistic. There has got to be a market for the young and not so well off. If prices everywhere get so ridiculous that someone in my boat can neither afford to buy or rent... well then where do we go? The summary of the situation would be that you have a PhD level individual in a decent job who is homeless...

jetboy

15K over 2 years is less than half the current yield on properties in your price bracket. What I should have said was 'if you don't buy soon, you may never acquire a property in a place you actually want to live in'. It's the bidding that is ridiculous not the prices. That may change but we are a long way off negative equity. House prices returns will stay above savings rates here for quite some time.

leftieM

A tactic you could try is to find out whether the vendor has got a place lined up. We had (and still have thankfully) so our vendor gave us time limits as she has again. So we can't sit about. Those houses will be priced at what the vendor needs, will close in a short time and will be more likely to complete.
Our house will sell close to the asking price now as it is more important to us the get the house we have agreed than to squeeze every last penny out of this place. One of the houses we viewed in North Belfast was the same.
Talksalot you must have a PhD in something decent! I have a PhD and I never earned anything like 40k (yet....). Mind you now I 'earn' £50 a month from the tax credit peeps for being a full time mother so I'm laughing.

mirakl

There's as much chance of a negative equity trap happening in this situation as there is of my pet doing becoming Northern Ireland's First Minister.

I was exactly where you were 5 years ago, feeling like the property market was going through the roof and nearly afraid to pay over the original asking price. Had to buy in a council area (not the lowest quality housing) that was reserved for some more snobbish friends who didn't want to live in an estate and bought in the inner city.

I'm bloody glad I gave up on my stubborn attitude that house prices would fall and my Dad talked me into buying.

leftieM

I'd say your pet doing has a very good chance of being First Minister. Noone else seems to want the job!!
What's a 'doing' by the way?

talksalot81

mirakl wrote:

There's as much chance of a negative equity trap happening in this situation as there is of my pet doing becoming Northern Ireland's First Minister.

Alot of people seem to think like this. However these same people are unable to answer the basic question - where will the money come from? Average prices are way above what can be afforded on an average salary. Said salaries are not going to even begin to keep pace with current housing growth, so where is the money going to come from?

Citing the fact that Dublin has done it is not an answer. London is not an answer, I want a real answer. In the absence of one, the hypothesis is not supported.

Alot of the current logic is akin to saying you can go to the moon because it has been done before... yet ignoring the fact that you do not have a space craft.