House prices ....again.......

bingobangobongo

Thanks - at the end of the day I am happy where I live. My girlfriend is from Belfast and wanted to move closer to the city but prices made this impossible so we moved about 20 miles away. This was viewed (on her part mostly) as a short term solution, i.e a couple of year we would move closer to the city.
Worse comes to worse we caould stay put for x number of years. Although I won't be very happy when our fixed rate interest only mortgage becomes repayment in another year and 4 months. Might hurt the bank balance a lot then...

leftieM

IvanOpinion wrote: »

House prices are generally not (yet) falling, they are just rising at a much lesser rate or have stagnated.

Oh really.......

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/homefinder/article2956516.ece

I should add that the Bel Tel seems to pick and choose statistics to fit the headline so all may not be as it seems.

martin57

Hello,

I think houses are well overpriced and need at least a thrid knocked off the price. As someone who owns just one house my home outright (no mortgage) I hope that this happens soon. I dont see it as a disadvantage or loosing money because if I ever decided to move then probably the house that I'd be buying would have a corresponding drop in price as well. And you know I think that if houses were 1/3 cheaper then both first time buyers and those trading up would get a better deal.

So for anyone with just one property owned outright you can't loose if a 1/3 comes off price during a market correction, long long overdue ...and can't happen soon enough!

martin57

leftieM

martin57 wrote: »

So for anyone with just one property you can't loose if a 1/3 comes off price during a market correction, long long overdue ...and can't happen soon enough!

martin57

You can lose if you go into negative equity.

IvanOpinion

leftieM wrote: »

Oh really.......

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/homefinder/article2956516.ece

I should add that the Bel Tel seems to pick and choose statistics to fit the headline so all may not be as it seems.

You are definitely right about the Bel Tel and stats and is typical of the poor quality reporting we get. Going by their own stats (further down)
30% reckon down by 8% or more
24% reckon down by < 2%
21% reckon stagnated
25% (by implication) reckon they are up, did not vote or don't know???

Nobody seemed to think the drop was between 2.1% and 7.9% (I wonder what the question was that got asked)


It reminds me of the headline that said we had the wettest June on record ... when the truth came out only one of the 200 (or so) weather stations reported this.

Ivan

IvanOpinion

martin57 wrote: »

I think houses are well overpriced and need at least a thrid knocked off the price.

I think that is wishful thinking however should it happen I will definitely be going into buy mode

ivan

NAR

There has been a feeding frenzy with regards to house prices here with estate agents helping to push prices up. So now that the numbers buying have dropped the estate agents have started to realise they are putting houses on the market at above their true value. This is where the price "fall" is coming from. House prices will certainly not "drop", unless someone has paid over the odds for their property. House prices will continue to rise slowly, especially if interest rates are cut by November IMHO.

leftieM

NAR wrote: »

There has been a feeding frenzy with regards to house prices here with estate agents helping to push prices up. So now that the numbers buying have dropped the estate agents have started to realise they are putting houses on the market at above their true value. This is where the price "fall" is coming from. House prices will certainly not "drop", unless someone has paid over the odds for their property. House prices will continue to rise slowly, especially if interest rates are cut by November IMHO.

Much as it hurts me to say it, as EAs can be the worst liars, they didn't have to do anything to push prices up here. Potential buyers were fighting over almost every property. Somewhere along the way people decided that the place to stash the cash was in housing and they went for it big time. It has driven the prices to a level where now investors no longer think it's a good deal (or are sated) and other buyers can't afford to buy or move. So we've reached an impasse. Unless investors re-enter the market the current price levels can't be sustained. However you'd want to be one thick eejit to invest in a house in NI now.

IvanOpinion

Another report in todays BBC shows that they too can make snsationalism out of statistics 10% Chance of House Price crash

A few things have happened that may mean instead of interet rates going up again this year (as was expected) they may actually come down: firstly the current slump in banking; secondly the US central bank has cut rates; thirdly inflation is below its target.

As long as the banks cut the rates for the right reasons (i.e. it is economically prudent) then I am all for it, however if it is a knee jerk reaction due to political or market pressure then all it is does is defer even worse misery for many. Anyhoos if the rate comes down it could fuel house price rises again.

Ivan

talksalot81

IvanOpinion wrote: »

Anyhoos if the rate comes down it could fuel house price rises again.

In isolation, a cut in rates will not make any difference. The problem that exists for our market is that the multiples are so enormous that the banks will not lend people enough money. In reality this has been getting worse lately, availability of credit has been worsening both NI, UK and worldwide. To have prices spiral again, we would need this trend to reverse and go into overdrive.

Funnily enough though, UK plc. is doing everything in its power to try and achieve this. The risks associated are dropping rapidly as UK plc. gambles EVERYTHING on housing (ref. Northern Rock bailout and new of earlier today). The situation is getting very very dangerous. We are moving from the risk of people getting into negative equity to the distinct possibility that the whole country could lose everything on the back of housing woes. I am almost scared to guess at what next step might be taken by the BoE and government.