Proportion of cash buyers increasing

DervProf

Thrugelmir wrote: »

We currently have around 2 bedrooms available for every person living in this country. So far from the cramped conditions of years gone by.

Are you saying that all is well then ?

I suspect that a lot of people would like to own their own bedroom, along with a kitchen and living room.

purch

Perhaps fewer people are buying retirement property abroad in the current climate

Probably.

My bro in law was in Valencia over the weekend, and it was !!!!ing down with rain and chilly.

LisbonLaura

purch wrote: »

Probably.

My bro in law was in Valencia over the weekend, and it was !!!!ing down with rain and chilly.

Nowhere in Europe is really warm enough for Brit retirees in winter, yet so many buy their 'place in the sun' in summer!
It's yet another example of peasant programming.

Orpheo

The fact that there has been a proportionate increase in cash buyers stands to reason, it does not mean good news for the housing market. All it means is that there are less buyers.

geneer

julieq wrote: »

Just to hammer home the point that not everyone needs a mortgage, and that if you reduce mortgage lending without increasing supply of homes all you do is exclude a section of the population at the expense of another:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13116262

"Figures compiled by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) show that in January 2011, nearly 40% of buyers did not need a loan to buy their home.

"This means the proportion of cash buyers has more then doubled since 2005, when the records began.

"This in turn suggests the market is increasingly the domain of the cash-rich, with many other buyers shut out"

Which in turn suggests that the house price statistics will be fairly heavily skewed to the upside.

LittleMissAspie

There was a chart on the BBC that showed the % of cash buyers has risen steadily since 2005, which was way before all the lending "restrictions". I don't think the crash or lending policies has anything to do with it, it must be something else.

Edit: I would like to know the number of cash sales as my theory is that it would be steady. Before the crash many would-be buyers couldn't afford the high prices so they were slowly dwindling therefore increasing the proportion of cash buyers. Then after 2007 fewer people could get a mortgage and so fewer mortgaged buyers therefore a still increasing proportion of cash buyers. So nothing to do with more people actually having pots of cash. Number of sales has dropped so much there could even be a lot fewer cash buyers than 2005.