Housing Market Cooling Rapidly in London?

BigAunty

Read quite a few articles to say the bubble is deflating in London due to the prospect of interest rate rises, the new mortgage screening rules, cautiousness on the part of surveyors valuing properties and perhaps belated recognition that the recent huge price rise is a bubble.

For London buyers and sellers, what are your recent experiences?

princeofpounds

Asking prices are definitely falling away in the areas west of the nine elms development. But that may be because they went into a particular speculative frenzy when the cranes got going.

dominoman

Yes - in my experience some cooling. Neighbour put his house on the market in January this year and got 4 offers at well over asking (50 k over asking price). The buyer pulled out and he relisted a month ago. He hasn't had a single offer he is happy with.

Having said that, I personally think this big housing rally has a couple more years in it yet. Much depends on interest rates and the availability of credit. I'd guess that Mark Carney is talking them up in the hope of not actually needing to raise them at all.

The Tories won't want to see any kind of serious slowdown this side of May 2015 so will do what they can to keep the taps flowing...

RedRuby_2

The big jump in asking prices has put such a big damper on my house hunting, I've sort of stopped looking or at least sceptical of finding anything decent in my budget.

Jenniefour

Yes, a little. West London. Bumped into the agent who sold me this house a few days ago. Said that less people were coming to block viewings - 10 to 15 rather than 25+. Properties still fetching over asking prices.

I suspect that the new mortgage requirements have yet to filter through fully. How it will affect the London market is hard to tell as there are a lot of cash buyers about. I think London will continue to rise for quite a few years albeit a bit more slowly than the last 12/15 months which have been crazy.

Agree with comments about the General Election - Tories are going to do nothing anytime soon. And London population is growing so demand on housing supply is going to increase anyway because they're not building anywhere near enough new homes.

Thrugelmir

dominoman wrote: »

I'd guess that Mark Carney is talking them up in the hope of not actually needing to raise them at all.

The BOE does not play games........

bouicca21

In my bit of London it was cooling even before the prospect of interest rate rises and new mortgage rules. Not to the extent of price drops though

jjlandlord

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The BOE does not play games........

Of course it does. Everyone does. This is all a game.

BigAunty

jjlandlord wrote: »

Of course it does. Everyone does. This is all a game.

Yes, but they are independent from the government and explicitly say it's not up to them to change houseprices (in other words, they don't care if there are bubbles or the bursting of bubbles, it's not a concern of theirs about the impact of their decisions on house owners.That's fair enough).

They have flagged up an intention to raise interest rates and I believe they will do so, no playing about or political games.

jjlandlord

They are not playing political games (not all games are political), and they do care if they are bubbles that could threaten the economy, especially if said bubbles are fuelled by their monetary policy.

verulamium

Cooling? Yes, in that houses sells in 2-3 weeks now rather than a couple of days previously.

House prices in our region are still rising but the rate has slowed down a little.