London house prices start to fall

dolce_vita

Jonbvn wrote: »

Oh so since you know of two flats which have increased in price, the land registry data is wrong.

PPPlease!

And none of these flats Melissa talks about have actually been sold for those prices.

Melissa177

Jonbvn wrote: »

Oh so since you know of two flats which have increased in price, the land registry data is wrong.

PPPlease!

Well, here's the Barbican as an example (Andrewes House postcode)

http://www.upmystreet.com/property/prices/trends/l/ec2y+8ba.html

And Battersea:

http://www.upmystreet.com/property/prices/trends/l/battersea.html


I don't believe the Fool's figures, I think the source is suspicious.

Doozergirl

That data is a joke! The person who write that has simply cherry picked the figures that look bad.

So detached houses in Lewisham are now worth 23.6% less than they were last quarter? And they've based that on a grand total of 18 sales. What a joke. And the disparity! It's not even the same boroughs that appear in each section. Evidently written with bias - I learnt to spot stuff like that at school when I was 11. :rolleyes: How can people writig !!!!!! like that get published?

"However, the average price of a flat has dropped in just two London boroughs so far" Hardly likely to get a job at the BBC, this one!

Melissa177

Hah - what a surprise.

The writer of the article is an STR - see end of this article: http://www.fool.co.uk/news/property-home/2007/07/30/five-dangerous-homebuying-mistakes.aspx

One way to enjoy poor returns is to buy at a time when prices are high. In my humble opinion, that time is now (but I've been saying that for quite a while).
As I said earlier, I'm the Fool's property bear. (A bear is someone who expects prices to fall, rather than rise.) Indeed, I've been fretting about rising property prices since 2003, and I sold my house to move into rented accommodation two years ago.
As you'd expect, I've taken a lot of stick from people who have seen their wealth rise thanks to UK property's long winning streak. However, as a reformed gambler, I know that all winning streaks eventually come to an end.
For the record, I strongly believe that now is a truly terrible time to buy property. My view is backed by two leading economic forecasters. The Ernst & Young ITEM (Independent Treasury Economic Model) Club, which correctly predicted the property boom that began in 1998, calculates that UK house prices are presently overvalued by up to a sixth (16%).
Today, credit-rating agency Fitch warned that UK house prices are overvalued by at least a fifth (20%). It cautions that after New Zealand and Denmark, the UK is the nation most vulnerable to a housing crash. Thus, unlike the thousands of vested interests (estate agents, mortgage lenders, property firms and the like), I'm not afraid to use the 'C word'. So, brace yourselves, because I'm calling a crash!

DrFluffy

Melissa177 wrote: »

A friend of mine has a flat in the Barbican (the City of London, which the Fool claims is dropping), and it's gone up by around 100K since last summer when he had it valued. Similar flats are under offer at these prices.

I live in The City - we are always being cold called by agents desperate to sell our flat. The flat directly above ours (same layout as ours but marketed for £5k more when we brought in 2003) has just sold for 50% more than we paid for ours... Properties around here never stay on the market long. Viva the City fat cats, their big bonuses, their need to invest in property and their desire of CoL pied-a-terres!

nobblyned

Any normal data will have a bell curve, some will below the average rises, some will be above. If you just cherrypick data from one end of the curve to back up your argument you can generate examples of pretty much whatever you like.

To go to the point where you are trying to demonstrate fall based on samples of as little as 3 sales (data quoted for Hackney detached props), you might as well make the numbers up yourself.

Generali

Cliff gets pretty roundly mocked on the Fool boards too. I'm starting to feel for him quite honestly. It's not his fault - he just earns an honest crust putting the wind up people.

I still think that this credit squeeze is going to turn very nasty though. It'll take a while to feed through though.

Doozergirl

I have no idea what is goingto happen, can't imagine prices rising at all (not that they have been really, here) but that tripe isn't even registering on my radar.

touch

I am actively looking in the SW london area and have found that any recent reductions are on the properties that were over valued by agents in the first place. Any decent house coming on the market, and valued correctly are being picked up by buyers, before the agents spend too much marketing costs.

I think we are seeing a re-adjustment. There are still buyers like me out there but I'm not willing to spend more than its worth. If your a vendor be realistic and you will get a buyer.

Property is still the best investment, simply the relentless demand for housing will drive this.

What gets my goat at the moment is the amount of properties I've viewed where the owner clearly has done nothing to maintain it since living, but has brought a brand new car, then still expects to receive the asking price. Sorry but if its you biggest asset then look after it don't buy a new car which is throwing money down the drain, and don't expect me to line your pocket.

Generali

touch wrote: »

Property is still the best investment, simply the relentless demand for housing will drive this.

Not if the banks turn off the mortgage taps. If the cash isn't there, demand* has to fall.

If the banks aren't lending to each other today (see the credit squeeze headlines in tomorrows papers - The European Central Bank had to make short-term loans of over €90,000,000,000 today to keep the money market liquid), why would they want to lend to some basket case with a 15% deposit remortgaged from his PPR and no real business plan?




*Demand being people willing and able to bid for a good or service at the market price