Should I buy in London or wait?

Generali

Over a lifetime of ownership, the chances are that losses will be somewhere between small and non-existent.

I'd avoid buying in a crappy area though. The last time the housing market dropped off a cliff, it was the dodgy bits of London that suffered the most.

It became a bit of a 'thing', posh people that had been suckered into buying in Streatham, The Isle of Dogs or Battersea (it was a dodgy part of town in 1989). They became known in turn as: St Reatham, L'Isle des Chiens and South Chelsea. People who had bought in Chelsea, Clapham and so on didn't lose much if at all.

lisyloo

However if the London train is bit fracking pokey, why not go somewhere else ?

London was the only place my OH found a job after a year of looking. He was trying hard every day i.e. networking with everyone he knew, not just waiting for emails to roll in.

The alternatives for men around 50 are not that easy.
It's not even as if there are loads of shelf stacking or trolley pushing jobs around and if there were - then would they want a 50 year old manager who might be stuck in his ways and have his own ideas.

The practicalities of looking at options when you're already established in a career are not that easy.

Conrad

Why be so money fixated? Just buy a HOME and know in the long term in London you will fair well. Don't get hung up on a possible correction in the short term.


My opinion is prices have a long way to rise yet. I recall people in 1999 telling me the market was surely at it's limit and would fall soon.


People from across the world want a piece of secure London real estate. Chinese people fear a big bust over there. Many from less stable parts of the work, even places like Italy and Spain want into London at any cost.


I am looking at buying on the M25 border in places still yet to really go up as I see these as inevitable recipients of a wave of purchasers seeking better value. I'm hoping to get a 2 bed flat right next to a station for £230k. I can envisage this being well over £500k in 5 years time.

Conrad

Generali wrote: »

I'd avoid buying in a crappy area though.

I know plenty of folk that bought in what were deemed veritable £cshit holes in the late 90's, early noughties, such as Stoke Newington, Harringey, London Fields etc which went on to experience huge HPI.


A client kept telling me to invest near the Olympic site but it was still a hell hole and I just couldn't imagine it becoming as popular as it has. Prices have tripled in about 7 years.

[Deleted User]

My little brother just bought an flat right next to the Olympic site - i think its madness really. Those things probably make a great investment for renting out (as most of them are) but they are so over-valued.

Then again, unless people stop wanting to live in London, I can't see prices falling.

AndyGuil

Areas with large regeneration projects seem to gain the most.

The next block of these are Cricklewood, Old Oak Common and Croydon.

egoode

Personally I think if you can afford something in central London now then you should be looking at buying. I tried buying 7 years ago but due to various reasons was not able to and then spent the money on something else. Now 7 years later I'm trying to buy again and can no longer afford the areas I originally looked at buying in. I've finally found somewhere I do want to buy but I do regret a little not finding a way to buy in the area I was originally looking at 7 years earlier.

Snakey

I didn't buy in 1999 when I moved down here, because everyone said the market was so overpriced and it wasn't sustainable and there was bound to be a crash.

I eventually bought just a couple of months ago, spending an amount of money that I don't even want to admit to, in order to buy something that I could have got for a third of the price (if that) fifteen years earlier. People were still advising me not to buy as the market was so overpriced and it wasn't sustainable and there was bound to be a crash, and they're still saying it to me now (I get the feeling that these guys, some of whom are supposed to be my friends, would be absolutely pant-wettingly delighted to see me lose my shirt, just so that they could crow about it. People are strange sometimes).

Thing is, in the meantime you have a life. With me, it got to the point where I wouldn't be able to fit in a 25-year mortgage before retirement age if I didn't bite the bullet - and the thought that I'd be three-fifths of the way through that period already if I'd only bought when I first wanted to - and I was sick of magnolia walls and bland Ikea furniture and people (often the same ones as above) saying "you pay how much rent????"

If the market crashes tomorrow I'll just have to take it on the chin. I really don't care at this point. I have my home, and this is a place I could live in for ever, and as everyone says above it will be mine one day.

Hope this helps!

Oh, when I moved down here one of the reasons I didn't buy was that I was only intending to stay for a few years - London was exciting and all, but I couldn't imagine settling here for good, much less being old here, like, you know, forty or something (I'm 42 now). Now I can't imagine going back up North. Weird how things change, and without you even realising it.

BillJones

Snakey wrote: »

I didn't buy in 1999 when I moved down here, because everyone said the market was so overpriced and it wasn't sustainable and there was bound to be a crash.

I refused to but in Canary Riverside in about 2,000, as I thought that it was lunacy to pay £400k for a three bedroom flat. They now go for about £2m.

I then did buy, three years ago, a flat for closer to the higher price above than the lower, assuming that I'd lose money, but wanting a home, and think that I'm up about 30%, with now a near constant barrage of people wanting to buy. I'll be very surprised if I can't sell for 30% more in three years.

It all seems a bit crazy, but London is still booming, and half the world seems to want to live here.

Now I can't imagine going back up North. Weird how things change, and without you even realising it.

Prices in Newcastle look far too high to me now, compared to London. A high-flat in the riverside, a bit poky, three anonymous bedrooms in a new build seem to cost up to £800k. It's a great town, but there are only a handful of people up there that that can be sold on to.

padington

In regards to buying uptown or downtown, I would say ... midtown, those places sandwiched between rich and poor areas are the ones to look out for.