N Ireland enjoys near 50pc house price gains

Jonbvn

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AK3L4Z4HDJZUVQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/money/2007/07/04/bcnhalifax104.xml

!!!!!!! 50% gains!

Such gains are surely bordering on the ridiculous! Is this bubble likely to burst?

wifeforlife

With a bit of luck, we've also sh!te wages!

Cate

Turnbull2000

Enjoyed? What a curious word to desribe a dangerous inflationary bubble. It's like "enjoying" the adrelaline rush of a sky dive, but without a parachute to land yourself safely.

Can only see a tragic end to this.

phlash

I've seen a skydive done without a parachute, although the guy did manage to get his parachute back on!

Blue Skies!

seatzie

I'll go for the soft landing option, I don't see a huge crash but I do think some areas are overvalued, plus when I moved last year the craze of bidding up to 30k over the asking price for the house has to stop and hopefully has

leftieM

I think it has peaked here (where I am at least). There are a few major bidding wars in the posh end of the market but my end of the market is ticking over slowly. Houses are taking longer to sell and are getting asking price or below.
It's really hard to know how it will go. I'd love to see what an expert said about it. On one hand you can see how much Belfast has improved in the last few years - from a quality of life point of view it's full of nice parks and restaurants and has loads of cultural things, it feels safe to live here, there are more well paid jobs - so I can see how high prices can be justified to some extent. They are exceedingly high here though. It does seem unsustainable. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

exasperated_2

The bubble has burst, the market here for the most part is stagnating and/or starting to level off with lower prices. The report is outdated, looking at what happened over the last year, but not at how things are currently moving. Because of the activity in the start of the year, the overall year report will still look good, but from about May on, it's been downhill, and with interest rates rising will continue to slide.

See this report for more info:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2734753.ece - Disposable incomes under pressure as house prices soar
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/homefinder/article2734724.ece -Consumers feel pinch of rising house prices
http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=83431&pt=n - NI house boom borrowing strain

This is relevant, too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6268754.stm
UK warning on sub-prime mortgages

Some of what fueled the price-rises in NI was the sub-prime market, and when that gets restricted, prices will have to come down because people won't be able to borrow enough to pay a high prices, ftb's are already priced out of the market and investors aren't sticking around to plump it up anymore.

I write this as a homeowner trying to sell - if we'd sold 6 months ago we'd be laughing, but as it is now, we've had to drop our price, we won't get anywhere near what similar houses were going for not 3 months ago, and it could be months & months before we get a buyer. And we're in what is a high-demand area!

Jonbvn

exasperated wrote: »

The bubble has burst, the market here for the most part is stagnating and/or starting to level off with lower prices. The report is outdated, looking at what happened over the last year, but not at how things are currently moving. Because of the activity in the start of the year, the overall year report will still look good, but from about May on, it's been downhill, and with interest rates rising will continue to slide.

See this report for more info:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2734753.ece - Disposable incomes under pressure as house prices soar
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/homefinder/article2734724.ece -Consumers feel pinch of rising house prices
http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=83431&pt=n - NI house boom borrowing strain

This is relevant, too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6268754.stm
UK warning on sub-prime mortgages

Some of what fueled the price-rises in NI was the sub-prime market, and when that gets restricted, prices will have to come down because people won't be able to borrow enough to pay a high prices, ftb's are already priced out of the market and investors aren't sticking around to plump it up anymore.

I write this as a homeowner trying to sell - if we'd sold 6 months ago we'd be laughing, but as it is now, we've had to drop our price, we won't get anywhere near what similar houses were going for not 3 months ago, and it could be months & months before we get a buyer. And we're in what is a high-demand area!

Thanks,

Can't beat local knowledge.

leftieM

exasperated wrote: »

I write this as a homeowner trying to sell - if we'd sold 6 months ago we'd be laughing, but as it is now, we've had to drop our price, we won't get anywhere near what similar houses were going for not 3 months ago, and it could be months & months before we get a buyer. And we're in what is a high-demand area!

Oh well, look on the bright side - you're going to have your pick of houses to buy when you move and they'll have dropped in price too.