Is now the right time to buy??

Fathero3

If tomorrow's budget includes regional pay for civil servants, then I would predict that house prices in Northern Ireland will continue to decline for many more years yet.

x12yhp

chunter wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6546955.stm

..those were the days..

If you think about it, the supply and demand that they claim to have been central, has not massively changed. Supply and demand is much more abstract than most commentators suggested.

saverbuyer

x12yhp wrote: »

If you think about it, the supply and demand that they claim to have been central, has not massively changed. Supply and demand is much more abstract than most commentators suggested.

It is about supply and demand.

Credit supply and demand.

trush09

Thanks for replies. Ive checked this out today and your right I would need consent which may change my rate, so at least I know with consent that its an option down the line

x12yhp

saverbuyer wrote: »

It is about supply and demand.

Credit supply and demand.

Yes, but no one accepted this. It was all about number of people who want a house and number of houses available. Back before the crash, very few people considered whether the people who wanted a house could actually afford it - instead of people seeing that (even at the credit levels available) the supply and demand argument would diminish as fewer and fewer people could afford the prices, the masses piled in thinking that prices would continue northward indefinitely. It was total stupidity and anyone who got into a bidding war towards the end of the boom should get 'THINK!' tattooed on the inside of their eyelids!!

saverbuyer

x12yhp wrote: »

Yes, but no one accepted this. It was all about number of people who want a house and number of houses available. Back before the crash, very few people considered whether the people who wanted a house could actually afford it - instead of people seeing that (even at the credit levels available) the supply and demand argument would diminish as fewer and fewer people could afford the prices, the masses piled in thinking that prices would continue northward indefinitely. It was total stupidity and anyone who got into a bidding war towards the end of the boom should get 'THINK!' tattooed on the inside of their eyelids!!

It’s the frenzy of the market. Has happened/will continue to happen during all bubbles. The difference here is that our credit bubble was the biggest in the world so has the most to deflate. It will continue to deflate for a long long time.

I would go a step further and say that anyone who bought from 2000 onwards will wish someone told them to "THINK".

I think the budget could be a real killer for NI.

one2escape

They have to be at the bottom now or near it. My house is now worth £40k and I have a mortgage of over £110,000 so I am nearly £80k in negative equatity.

saverbuyer

one2escape wrote: »

They have to be at the bottom now or near it. My house is now worth £40k and I have a mortgage of over £110,000 so I am nearly £80k in negative equatity.

The lower end of the market will have less to go than the middle or the upper end of the market but in some areas (the ones usually advertised as "up and coming" in 2007) could fall to little or nothing.

Housing benefit supports the lower end.

When HB is cut these area will fall to next to nothing.

x12yhp

I do not know how much further we have to go... I really do debate whether 'affordability' will improve greatly... it is all well and good for prices to decrease further but if the cost of lending increases then it isn't really making things any better for a prospective buyer.

As always, fundamentals are where we should look. In NI, we have a very large public sector and the outlook remains bleak so it is unlikely that employment there will be becoming easier or better paid. The wider economy remains tough and, whilst we have good potential, the private sector just is not going to take off anytime soon so there is really little hope of more money from buyers. With the economic environment it is hard to believe that credit availability is going to improve and recent moves by the banks strongly suggest that it will be getting worse before it gets better. It is all well and good if you have a good job and a good deposit but most do not. Further than that, there is a ticking time bomb thanks to those who massively over-leveraged themselves. Big debts are common and have been OK thanks to record lows in the cost of borrowing. I do not believe this is going to remain the case indefinitely and, if those debts do not get paid down while borrowing is cheap, the individuals guilty will quickly find their situations untenable should the cost of borrowing increase. This will lead to forced sales which will press the market down.

Whilst I would be willing to buy now were my situation good enough, I think that is not the case. When you think it all through, there really is little out there to point towards a change in the market direction in the near future so I suspect it may be a good thing that I couldn't buy right now!