Where in belfast area for first time buyer?

NAR

talksalot81 wrote:

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.

Prices in the last 3 years have gone up more than 50%; prices in the next two years are likely to be up another 50% if the current trend continues. Your larger deposit won't come close!
Don't know why you are ignoring good advice from people you have "got the t shirt", but there again your own thoughts on the matter may be blinding you to the real world of market forces.

ginger_nuts

prices will continue to rise .Its just question off by how much .
In the old days a house was seen as a home and somewhere to live for many years .
Now a house is seen as an investment and people plan how long they want to live there before they even get the keys . My house like every other house has doubled in value in 2 years .if it didnt double in the next two years I wont worry If I am not selling .

talksalot81

I am ignoring 'good' advice because no one has answered the fundamental question - where is the money coming from? If there is no answer then the advice simply should not be considered as good.

There are 2 ways to look at the matter:

1) Believe the trends of old and ignore other matters
2) Consider the underlying problems

The problem with approach (1) is that the trend is in fact led by the underlying situation.

As for your numbers, if prices do go up another 50%, then you are looking way over 200k for a nice FTB house. FTB's simply cant afford that. Ok so they now are buying today's 100k houses (incidentally it is almost impossible to go lower than this). So what about another 2 years.... FTB's can only afford a house currently costing 60k... but hold on.... there are no houses costing this much. Bye bye FTB's. In the absence of these buyers, how can the ladder move? Nobody can move up because at the bottom of the chain there is no one to move into the cheapest accomodation....

Come on, enough ignoring the fundamentals. I have heard all the jazz and dont buy it. If you want to be a bull, explain yourself with something other than a partially justified extrapolation!!

belfastgal

has anyone any examples of what they bought for and what house now valued at ?
northern ireland house prices are just rocketing...its great !!!!!

ginger_nuts

belfastgal wrote:

has anyone any examples of what they bought for and what house now valued at ?
northern ireland house prices are just rocketing...its great !!!!!

In May 2005 I bought a one bedroom flat for £40,000 .
In April 2006 it was worth £57,000
Now it is worth £90,000 .This was bought purely as an investment .
I bought my present home (a 3 bed semi ) for £39,000 nine years ago ,today it is worth £190,000 .

If FTB's cant afford to buy they will have to rent .This will fuel the BTL market and push prices even higher .
FTB's can now borrow 5 times there income ,this will increase in time to 10 times there income .Or the mortgage could be taken for 35 ,50 or 100 years and passed on to your family .Other countries do this .

leftieM

belfastgal wrote:

has anyone any examples of what they bought for and what house now valued at ?
northern ireland house prices are just rocketing...its great !!!!!

Do you really think so?
We bought for 80k 5 years ago and are selling for 180k.
Our neighbour bought her house for 35k off the Housing Executive 3 years ago. Now that made me sick!
This has turned into an interesting discussion. Are there any other FTBers out there who are holding out or are you rushing on to the ladder?

Back to the original post - another option is the Tates Ave/ Village area. Yes they are terraces but they are getting the overspill from the Lisburn Road which is the most fashionable area in Belfast at the moment. Although I gather that buying anything is out of the question now.

talksalot81

ginger_nuts wrote:

If FTB's cant afford to buy they will have to rent .This will fuel the BTL market and push prices even higher .
FTB's can now borrow 5 times there income ,this will increase in time to 10 times there income .Or the mortgage could be taken for 35 ,50 or 100 years and passed on to your family .Other countries do this .

Ok so you propose that not only can people not afford to buy but that it has a spiralling effect with rent too. You are just introducing exactly the same problem, eventually those at the bottom can afford anything to buy and now they cant afford to rent either. Are these people going to be homeless?

As for the multiples and mortgage terms - this is deeply silly and I would hazard that level of debt would potentially lead to enormous devaluation of our currency and indeed complete economic ruin. That simply is not the answer to the source of finances in the future.

jetboy

A lot of this money is coming from outside the country and will continue to do so as Belfast is rapidly becoming a uk/european property hotspot. The reasons behind what is going on now are macro economic and can not be attributed to just one issue. Wages can't sustain Belfast prices thats why more and more people will end up commuting in as they do in London and Dublin etc. It may be hard to believe that this is happening in lil 'ole NI but it is. The nonsense restrictions drummed up by the planning office havn't helped either. Renting is dead money..maybe you should consider interest only mortgages..at least you can flip the equity in a couple of years.

ginger_nuts

if you want to buy today then you pay todays prices .
If you want to wait then tomorrow prices will be higher .

Dont imagine that prices will fall .They wont !

mirakl

5 years ago I paid 50K for my house. An identical house nearby is up for 152.5K.

My parents have been offered 300K over the asking price for their house by a developer. It's interesting that those in the property market are clearly optimistic about the property prices in Belfast or a lot of developers are all about to go bankrupt.

As jetboy says the situation now is macro economic I have friends from the rest of the UK, germany, Spain and the US who are all talking about investing in property in NI.