First Time Buyers - Enough is Enough!

Robin_Hood_7

i wonder what will come out of the election though... i mean everybody in this country know about the house issue`s etc... not sure how the hell there going to tackle this 1 but like in some earlier threads.... bringing the house prices down could leave a lot of ppl in negative eq. and that half buy half rent was a joke idea, the other option of buying a house with ya mates was also not that clever, lowering the prices would be good for business in the sense of building and buying more houses would keep everything ticking over and more houses would be sold etc... but also think of what the country (government) has mis lead some ppl into thinking " yes , lets get a whoping great loan to buy a house, and not worry about the end result " .. this could only get worse before things get better.... im glad i havent plunged into debt just yet... going to join you lot on the fence for a while.

deemy2004

get your seat while you can, the fence is filling up ...;)

The real reason, the REAL reason why house prices have gone up so much, way beyond what could have been imagined just 3 or 4 years ago, is because of the Americans

When they cut interest rates to 1%, the pumped so much excess liquidity into the worlds financial system that the money flowed every wherre into every concievable asset. Everyone and their dog was borrowing at 1% from the yanks and investing everywhere else. Add in $ depreciation then the gain was even more ! As the value of the debt was reduced.... was a can't lose situation... Hence we have enjoyed so many quirks of the system such as the 0% credit cards....

Since US interest rates started rising, and quite quickly the liquidity has been drying up ... off course there will come a point where the UK rates will have to rise to keep pace with US rates, so effectively taking the interest rate decision out of the BOE hands i.e. if US raises than Britian will raise rates... were not quite there yet, but with each 0.25% rise in the USA, the momentumn builds for rises over here....

nelly_2

Im on the fence too and I like it here.

There's a load of flats just round the corner from me been built, they have been on the market for ages and sold abot 2 out of 53 they dropped about 20 grand so far and still not shifting.

meanmachine_2

deemy2004 wrote:

get your seat while you can, the fence is filling up ...;)

The real reason, the REAL reason why house prices have gone up so much, way beyond what could have been imagined just 3 or 4 years ago, is because of the Americans

Spot on again.

What makes me laugh is when people claim that house prices can ONLY keep shooting up because there is a finite amount of land and a growing population. Just look at the US property market - an abundance of land, and yet house prices have been soaring. And I'm not even going to mention Japan...

Nor am I going to mention the one MILLION empty properties in this country today.

I've a friend, bought in London 9 months ago, and they're already in negative equity. Frightening. Their monthly mortgage payments are an incredible £1300 (and that's on a two year reduced rate!!!)

meanmachine_2

Oh, and April has shown a further drop in house prices. That's 10 months running now.

As this is a website designed to help people save money, the best possible advice I could give any FTBers is to save your money, forget about the property market, and come back in six months' time. Then, see how much you've saved from not buying and wait another six months. And then another six months.

Remember, in a falling market, renting isn't money down the drain if you're saving your deposit in a high interest account. It just means you can afford a much better property (or the same property for less) when you DO come to buy.

deemy2004

Its not really hit home to the house owners / sellers, they are still pricing unrealistically... when it does then sentiment will truly turn bearish...

Likely event will be a quartely drop of 4 or more %, then they will wake up and smell the coffee and it will no longer be greed of getting the top price but fear of losing the longer they hold property, until that day.... prices will continue to drift lower.

dougk_2

meanmachine wrote:

Oh, and April has shown a further drop in house prices. That's 10 months running now.

Not entirely true - many of the reports show that the prices are higher now than they were last June. Rightmove inddicates only 4 moths out of 12 that prices fell.

Rightmove, Halifax and Nationwide (non-seasonally adjusted figures) show prices rose in March.... so where do your figures come from?

Remember all these come from those that take out mortgages , those that don't (cash investors etc) never come into the figures.

meanmachine_2

dougk wrote:

meanmachine wrote:

Oh, and April has shown a further drop in house prices. That's 10 months running now.
QUOTE]

Not factually true - all the reports show that the prices are higher now than they were last June.

Rightmove, Halifax and Nationwide (non-seasonally adjusted figures) show prices rose in March.... so where do your figures come from?

Remeber all these come from those that take out mortgages , those that don't (cash investors etc) never come into the figures.

Factually true I'm afraid. Please don't confuse asking prices with ACTUAL prices. My source is Hometrack.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=714580&section=finance&src=rss/uk/businessNews

What is your source that points to rising prices?

This is the whole problem. If people still don't know that the market is in decline, they're still going to hold out for ridiculously high sums - and never sell their home. Well, good luck to 'em!

dougk_2

Halifax, Nationwide, Rightmove are all the sources showing rising prices (halifax and Nationwide being done on slold prices) and I am sure the ODPM figures this month will say the same.

And physical looking at houses in the area, number sold etc shows that the market is not falling in the way you would suggest.

Yes some areas are falling , but some areas are still rising or better still areas that have fallen are rebounding.

deemy2004

dougk wrote:

Not entirely true - many of the reports show that the prices are higher now than they were last June. Rightmove inddicates only 4 moths out of 12 that prices fell.
.

The year on year will still be positive as remember the large spurt higher in prices from Jan to May last year.

That has yet to work its way out of the indices, lets see what July's year on year growth stands at...and probably by October we will be seeing negative growth for the first in a long, long time.

The housing market resembles a dam.. the pressure keeps building as house sellers arn't marking their houses lower enough to entice buyers.. the longer it goes on the more houses remain unsold on the books the closer we get to the point when the damn bursts and there be's the quarter that sees a decline of more than 4% afterwhich its man the lifeboats !