Is anyone else currently buying in London? Isn't the frenzy putting you off?

eagerftb

I am starting to feel that this frenzy is affecting my purchase as well. About a month ago offer accepted near asking price and I lined up everything in 2 weeks times even mortgage offer received but my solicitor has not received anything from seller's solicitor and for couple of weeks seller promised to get everything over with a view to complete in December. We are FTB and seller lives in a different property than this one. So absolutely chain free.

However its all gone v quiet, the EA has not been able to get in touch with Seller and I am waiting after spending money on Survey etc ... Waiting for my solicitor to receive pre contract documentation.

Not sure what the reason is..is the seller genuinely busy or is it cold feet or something else.


A similar property came up for 10% higher few days after..Now that property has not sold for over a month and has been reduced by 5% so I believe I have offered a fair value at asking but the lack of communication is killing..dont even know if we will get the property . Wondering if we should start searching again...arghhh....

MGCP

I'm just about to complete purchase in E11 and our experience has been very similar to others on here. We looked in June/July and offered on a couple of places, with offers based on the most recent sold prices available. We fell hopelessly short both times. In the end we paid about 10% over an OIRO figure. Another potential buyer matched our offer but we won as we were chain free. We worried that the mortgage valuation would fall short but they valued it at the price we paid.

I can see from the sold prices displayed for several properties on the seller's estate agent's website that 10% over is very common (these prices are now starting to come onto the land registry and I can see they match). I know one place we offered on went on at offers above £420k and sold for £499,995.

Some properties are going on the market overpriced, but that soon becomes obvious. Anything "desirable" seems to sell quickly and above asking.

Who knows what will happen with prices. There is still a lot of pent up demand though and a lot of people I know (professional couples) are buying at the £400 - £700k range. Everyone is having to reduce their expectations as to what that sort of money will buy them though, and they are buying smaller or moving a little further out of the centre than they hoped (ie natural Zone 2 buyers are all shifting into Zone 3 and so on). Prime central still seems to be bought up by foreign money and the ripple spreads out from there.

Slightly_Squiffy

My fiance and I are buying in London and have seen a sharp increase in prices in the last 8 months. We are the only ones of our peers who are currently buying. There are some who already own who were financed by the BoMaD 5+ years ago, those who live in flats who are owned by their parents/grandparents, and then there are those who are priced out and are resigned to renting until they one day move out to the country. I feel really fortunate that we can even consider buying tbh. We make a choice to live in London and we wouldn't be anywhere else. We are prepared to make all the sacrifices associated with living in one of the greatest cities in the world.

Tiglath

Did anyone see Panorama the other night? 2-bed maisonette in E17, on for £250k, open house the following day and it was viewed by 300(!) people, and sold 2 days later for £320k.

AndyGuil

£320k for a 2 bed in London is cheap.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

demontfort wrote: »

I thought I’d just bring a bit of sanity

Cool.

So when are you going to start with that?

As your last post was just Crashaholic drivel....

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Tiglath wrote: »

Did anyone see Panorama the other night? 2-bed maisonette in E17, on for £250k, open house the following day and it was viewed by 300(!) people, and sold 2 days later for £320k.

That's supply and demand in action for you.

Shame the programme entirely lost the plot in that regard, and didn't once address the real causes of high house prices.

Namely, a massive shortage of housing.

Ah well, that's what you expect when Moneyweak were involved in it's making.

AndyGuil wrote: »

£320k for a 2 bed in London is cheap.

It is indeed.

demontfort

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Cool.

So when are you going to start with that?

As your last post was just Crashaholic drivel....

Hahaha so says the man who can predict interest rates for the next 15 years, do come and work on the fixed income desk at my bank. We've been over this once before will yee never learn wee Hamish. Even you know that what goes up must come eventually down. I'm not predicting a crash, I'm predicting a medium to long term decline in UK house prices once the HTB froth has cleared, the free money dries up and interest rates revert to normal levels.

Despite the GCSE level Economics argument about supply and demand spouted by every house price ramper worth their salt, the UK housing market isn't underpinned by long term fundamentals. Instead it's supported by a seemingly endless supply of cheap money, a lunatic government and foreign property speculators trying to make a fast buck.

Enjoy your short term gains and keep drinking the Buckie old pal :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

demontfort

AndyGuil wrote: »

£320k for a 2 bed in London is cheap.

Sure if you're thick as mince it is and failed your 11 plus maths exam to boot. I got a nice big 2 bed, 25 minute bike ride from the City at nearly 100k less and I know I overpaid.

AndyGuil

demontfort wrote: »

Sure if you're thick as mince it is and failed your 11 plus maths exam to boot. I got a nice big 2 bed, 25 minute bike ride from the City at nearly 100k less and I know I overpaid.

Looking at average 2 bed prices and that fact that there are a lot of buyers then it is. East London is less desirable and so tends to be cheaper as well as south east.