Northern Ireland house crash 'among world's worst'

wanchai_2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-15835140

chunter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A&ob=av2e

warmhands.coldheart

Mistral001 wrote: »

...BTW there is a Spotlight programme on BBC NI this evening about property. The trailers I have seen suggest that things are not looking good for property market.

No sign of any recovery any time soon going by this program! Mind you there are some real bargains out there if you have a spare £500,000 !!

tara747

That was a real wake up call last night for Joe Public. Prof Michael Moore's assertion that there will be no recovery within the life of most mortgages in place today must have sent a chill down quite a lot of spines. 44,000 HOUSEHOLDS in negative equity!!!

Scary also to see the huge threat that NAMA holds over NI and the utter powerlessness of the NI Ministers to do anything about it (and I can tell you, the Irish govt will dump huge property portfolios up here at any price if they are desperate for money).

Followed up by these articles today (and probably others - tried the Irish News site but I'm not a subscriber):

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/local/property_boom_ended_in_misery_1_3271588

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/local/house_prices_fall_back_to_2004_levels_1_3271649

I'm all for lower house prices and see the crash as a Good Thing in the grand scheme of things... but I do feel for those who are stuck in bad areas/houses that are too small for their growing families etc.

Do I feel sorry for that couple in Dromore who would still make money on their house even AFTER dropping it by half a million? No. If they *had* sold, some other schmuck would be in massive negative equity.

Oh and I was starting to feel sorry for the guy who's at risk of losing his house... but then he started whingeing that 'the bank shouldn't have lent me so much money' and my sympathy vanished. NOBODY MARCHED YOU TO THE BANK, FILLED OUT THE APPLICATION FORM FOR YOU AND FORCED YOU TO BUY AN OVERPRICED HOUSE. I do not think that it would be fair for those who sensibly did NOT buy a house during the boom to be forced to bail out those who rushed in without thinking. Thankfully, that is unlikely to happen - although savers are already indirectly subsidising the heavily-mortgaged thanks to pathetically low interest rates.

All in all, a very hard-hitting programme on the NI property market, possibly the scariest yet.

Coolhandluke

Just wait till interest rates start rising,thats when the real problems will start.

saverbuyer

Coolhandluke wrote: »

Just wait till interest rates start rising,thats when the real problems will start.

This is true. Every Tom, !!!!!! and Harry here seems to have a BTL "for the pension", either just breaking even from the rent payments or worse pocketing the surplus and not paying down the capital. I know numerous people on average earnings with easily 300K of debt with BTL and home mortgages. Interest rate rises (when they come) will cripple many. We are already at 4000 repossessions a year with rates at 0.5%.

Greed will be a lot of people’s downfall.

smcqis

its stupid as it assumes uniformity throughout NI. Places like the north coast and Templepatrick areas etc havent changed that much as they are sought after areas due to desirable locations

saverbuyer

smcqis wrote: »

its stupid as it assumes uniformity throughout NI. Places like the north coast and Templepatrick areas etc havent changed that much as they are sought after areas due to desirable locations

The old not in my area argument.

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/asking_prices_report.htm?location=bt39&all=1

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/asking_prices_report.htm?location=bt56&all=1

Only asking prices and not too much data but still it gives a general picture.

A.L.D.A

saverbuyer wrote: »

The old not in my area argument.

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/asking_prices_report.htm?location=bt39&all=1

http://www.home.co.uk/guides/asking_prices_report.htm?location=bt56&all=1

Only asking prices and not too much data but still it gives a general picture.

Thanks very useful link.

It does tend to confirm that some areas are falling less than others, but then some areas did not rise as fast as others.

Some of it surprises me as I thought the falls were greater. e.g. Terrace houses in North Belfast shot up in some areas and rightly collapsed.

The graphs at the bottom showing the number of properties for sale in each area by type and number of bedrooms is very useful and worth keeping an eye on. There seems to be an increase in larger houses for sale and a drop in the number of smaller houses. (maybe it is just the areas I was looking at)

Again advise caution in viewing the graphs. If you chose a small area and few are being sold it can mean that a very few exceptional houses (good or bad) can produce odd peaks and troughs. Usually best to ignore these and draw a straightish line from beginning to end to get an idea of trends.

saverbuyer

A.L.D.A wrote: »

Thanks very useful link.

It does tend to confirm that some areas are falling less than others, but then some areas did not rise as fast as others.

Some of it surprises me as I thought the falls were greater. e.g. Terrace houses in North Belfast shot up in some areas and rightly collapsed.

The graphs at the bottom showing the number of properties for sale in each area by type and number of bedrooms is very useful and worth keeping an eye on. There seems to be an increase in larger houses for sale and a drop in the number of smaller houses. (maybe it is just the areas I was looking at)

Again advise caution in viewing the graphs. If you chose a small area and few are being sold it can mean that a very few exceptional houses (good or bad) can produce odd peaks and troughs. Usually best to ignore these and draw a straightish line from beginning to end to get an idea of trends.

The data really needs to be looked at with certain caveats particularly with transactions at 50% of where they were, a few sales (particularly at the upper end) can skew the figures. I think the main thing to take is that no area has escaped the crash - if you want to sell your property you'll be looking at dropping to 2005 prices at the very least.

The lowest interest rates in history mean that people who would otherwise need to sell won’t have to but that won’t always be the case. Anyone holing out for the prise they would have got in 2007 may be waiting decades.


Unfortunately we have no real way to check actual sale prices.