house price madness

[Deleted User]

I live 3 miles from St. Albans in a lovely leafy village. The 3 bed houses here typically come up at £280k to 400k. There is one for sale at the moment for £385k (but its quite overpriced in my opinion).

It all depends where in Herts. If you want cheap, look at London Colney or South Mims. If you want cheaper try Hatfield or Hemel.

If you are looking at 'south herts' (Radlett/Shenley/Borehamwood) then you'll find the prices are quite Mental - Radlett prices are astronomical - although ironically our village is only 5 minutes drive from there

I know a 'young' family (both under 35) who just spent £1.1m on a nice house in Bushey. Then they spent about £50k doing it up. Their new staircase cost more than all the renovations I spent on my house. Ah, crazy rich people

Generali

doughnutmachine wrote: »

Last month I was a bit bored and went on rightmove to see how many houses were on sale in London for over a million.... It was something like eight thousand!!!!


Sheesh, I just don't know where the money comes from. Even a couple earning a hundred grand each would struggle to buy a million pound house.

For the most part it comes from Europeans who are holding large amounts of cash in Euro that are twitchy about what happens to all the CASH they've amassed if the Euro breaks up.

Why do you think someone would hold a mil or more in cash? My wages get paid into the bank but I guess there must be some professions where cash works better than bank transfer.

AndyGuil

Building up equity in properties and some cash would get you into the £1m+ houses too.

movilogo

i was looking on rightmove at properties within a 3 mile radius of my house (Herts) and there is NOTHING within the £400k-£600k range.

Plenty of cheaper houses in Bedfordshire (which is just besides Herts)

If you can't find anything around your current house below £400k, that makes your house value over £400k I guess?

Recently EAs have jacked up prices by 10% at least. In my area, the houses are not selling. I have seen a dozen houses in last 3 months and barring only 1 of them, rest all are still on market.

Last month I was a bit bored and went on rightmove to see how many houses were on sale in London for over a million.... It was something like eight thousand!!!!

There are several thousands people in London who earn over £1 million a year!!

the_flying_pig

yeah, i was in northwood yesterday, visiting people who live easily walking distance from the metropolitan line station, their place is fairly big, detached, 4-5 bedrooms, in a very upmarket cul-de-sac, they paid about £800k for it.

Loughton_Monkey

doughnutmachine wrote: »

.....Sheesh, I just don't know where the money comes from. Even a couple earning a hundred grand each would struggle to buy a million pound house.

It doesn't work like that!

Do you think these are first time buyers?

Here's a rough guide to how they could buy.....

Buy for £6,200 in 1973 and sell a couple of years later at 18% profit. Increase the mortgage by £4K and buy for £11,750 and sell for £15,750 (up 34%) in 3 years. Up the mortgage another £3K and buy for £18,900 and sell at 81% profit for £34,260 3 years later. Then yet another £4K on mortgage and buy for £38,500, selling 3 years later for 23% more - £47,500.

Now put another £10.5K on the mortgage and buy for £58,000, selling 6 years later for a 132% profit at £135K. By then, you can up your mortgage by a hefty £35K and buy for £170K, selling for substantially the same price 10 years later because there was a crash!

Another hefty increase of £120K on the mortgage [because you're earning a good deal more after that 10 years] lets you buy for £295K. Spend a bit of money on the house and 15 years later, it will have gone up 238% to a cool £1m, by which time the mortgage of barely over £200K is paid off.

Very broadly, that's how I did it, and could therefore buy one of those £1m houses for cash if I wanted to move nearer to London (which I don't). It really isn't difficult if you have a 'decent' career and move about a bit.

kabayiri

Dear all

All the bleating and moaning about high house prices seems to come from those in London / SE.

And yet....the resounding sentiment from this thread and similar seems to be over joyous on rising house prices.

Something doesn't stack.

Yours...
Confused Norverner in a £3.59 house

scousedave

doughnutmachine wrote: »

Last month I was a bit bored and went on rightmove to see how many houses were on sale in London for over a million.... It was something like eight thousand!!!!


Sheesh, I just don't know where the money comes from. Even a couple earning a hundred grand each would struggle to buy a million pound house.

Overseas Investors I believe. Saw a program the other day and itbsaid approx all new builds in london are snapped up by overseas investors.

[Deleted User]

Hertfordshire is not London FYI

AndyGuil

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Hertfordshire is not London FYI

It's not the county of Greater London but it does have a tube line into London. Like many parts of Surrey, Berkshire, Middlesex etc. it will be absorbed.