House Prices UP 4.9% - but still half of peak?

qwert_yuiop

snowmen wrote: »

A large proportion of the peak prices here were due to people buying a property, not even moving into it, and then selling it at a profit 3 months later. Admittedly, the bank had to lend them the money somewhere along the line but unfortunately people were silly enough to keep buying the properties at the inflated prices and this fuelled the problem.


Crash in London will never happen. There are just too many jobs and too many people wanting to live there for a crash. The equivalent of a crash in London would be no price rise at all from year to year.

Asking prices are down over the last month. Look it up.

qwert_yuiop

marathonic wrote: »

This is a bold prediction. A lot of the experts are expecting rates in the medium term to rise from 0.5% to 2.5%. The bears among us all refer to this as a 500% increase in your mortgage.

However, whilst it's obvious that the base rate of 0.5% is unsustainable, the margin between base rate and SVR rates on mortgages is unusually high as well.

Most of the predictions I've read anticipate the 2% rise in the Bank of England base rate to be accompanied by an average rise in SVR's of around 0.8%.

Given that the SVR for Ulster Bank, probably Northern Irelands biggest lender, is currently 4%, this would give an expected increase to 4.8%.

Looking at this from a monetary point of view, this would increase the repayments on a £100,000 mortgage over 25 years from £533 per month to £579 - representing an increase of £46 per month. This is hardly a figure that's going to give rise to mass arrears in mortgages.

Of course, the above is all based on the predictions of various experts and even the experts get it very wrong but to say that rate rises are going to result in another crash is nothing more than scaremongering.

We all know what a crash looks like by now. The old shibboleths ( good word, aye?) about property never going down in NI, blah blah, are well and truly dead, and the buyers of today will be a lot more cautious than previously. It wouldn't take much to swing sentiment, and there's a lot going on in the world these days, isn't there? Hardly scaremongering. Black swan events seem to be as common as white these days.

dsab

steveymp wrote: »

Nowt happening outside greater Belfast Commuter area, although asking prices are rising, houses outside Belfast are sitting in a stagnant market

In my new house 2 years now and quite happy with what I paid as I'm going nowhere (touch wood) in the foreseeable future.

Short of the odd small development there is nothing being built outside Belfast area. This shows you the builders and banks confidence in this area.

I am in Newry, and there is def. a big upturn here. A few existing Developments that had slowed down considerably are building (and selling) at a much higher rate for the last 6 months again. There are also 4 new decent sized Developments that have been started/released in the last few months, and they seem to be selling very well (and that's only the Developments I am aware off, I am sure there are more).

I am also seeing much more individual Houses being either completed or built from scratch now, at least down here.

A.L.D.A

London is a distraction, and has an international dimension on a scale not shared elsewhere in the UK. To allow external investment to significantly influence UK interest rates seems absurd to me. Surely some form of local stamp duty would be more appropriate? Hit the people with the money to buy rather than the ones in debt or those that need to borrow to invest in their business.

Interest rate, when it rises, would worry me, not so much in connection with housing, but business investment. There is a back log of (NEEDED) potential investment, but not a lot of confidence. The NI economy desperately needs investment and private sector growth.

Another factor is the poor economic figures coming out of the EU. So I can't see anyone in a hurry to significantly increase interest rates.

The housing market is picking up, houses are clearly moving. I don't expect massive rises in cost year on year, but can see increases ahead of inflation. The trend is now up. I don't believe there will be falls, but the rises will probably not be that significant. Wages need to increase for any significant sustained rise.

I also see an increase in building activity in the coming year, certainly if the enquirers I am getting are are anything to go by there is a significant increase coming in the year ahead. Building prices also seem to be on the increase. Gone are the days of the sub £50. sq ft house.

Hopefully we never return to the equivalent of the 2007 peak. That was insanity and should never have been allowed to happen.

snowmen

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

Asking prices are down over the last month. Look it up.[/
Going down over the last month does not mean the London market is crashing .London will always be a buoyant market overall.

qwert_yuiop

snowmen wrote: »

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

Asking prices are down over the last month. Look it up.[/
Going down over the last month does not mean the London market is crashing .London will always be a buoyant market overall.

I agree one month is not a trend but it's a different sign from the last few.
What age are you? London has crashed before and no doubt will again. If we learnt one thing from 2007, surely it must be the dafter the boom, the bigger the crash - once prices outstrip earnings, you're only working on optimism, a "greater fool" theory and ultimately self delusion.
Is it not a sign that something's going awry when people brag that their house is earning more than they are?

"This time it's different"

Old_Git

are houses here selling below the rateable value.

marathonic

Old_Git wrote: »

are houses here selling below the rateable value.

Average prices, as per the latest NIRPPI report, are 1% above Q1 2005 levels - which I believe is when the rateable value calculations are based on.

Certainly, locally, around rateable value seems to be the aim - with most new properties coming on the market with asking prices of about 8-10% above rateable value.

qwert_yuiop

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

snowmen wrote: »

I agree one month is not a trend but it's a different sign from the last few.
What age are you? London has crashed before and no doubt will again. If we learnt one thing from 2007, surely it must be the dafter the boom, the bigger the crash - once prices outstrip earnings, you're only working on optimism, a "greater fool" theory and ultimately self delusion.
Is it not a sign that something's going awry when people brag that their house is earning more than they are?

"This time it's different"

According to the daily torygraph today, London prices slipped (a little) again last month, the only part of england to record a fall.

So we may not know if this will influence prices elsewhere, including here, but we may be about to find out.

warmhands.coldheart

Northern Ireland House Prices LOWEST in the UK

Rate of price increases in UK regions
England - 10.8% to average of £283,000
Wales - 5.7% to average of £172,000
Scotland - 4.9% to average of £194,000
Northern Ireland - 4.9% to average of £137,000
UK as a whole - 10.4% to £271,000

So our house prices are Half the UK average......