Poor choice for 'middle class' housing

kilby_007

We're looking to buy in East Yorkshire at the moment with a budget of 300K (this gets you a modern 4 bed detached or a very large 4/5 bed period semi in the areas we're looking at) and we've been closely monitoring the market since November. Back then things were moving a bit slow, but the sales were fairly steady across all areas of the market. We were seeing 1 or 2 houses per week in budget that looked appealing but we were hugely unlucky with structural problems with the properties we offered on so we ended up renting so that we didn't lose our buyers.

In Feb/March time some of the lower priced properties ripe for BTL went crazy and I thought the market was about to explode, and then it all settled down again in April. There seemed to be a temporary increase in prices across the board which has now more than corrected itself, in fact I'm seeing regular reductions on these houses now in the 90K-150K price bracket. In the last 2 months though there's been very little choice for us in around the 300K mark. There's the odd quality property that pops up and is well priced, and it goes under offer or sold within a few days (unfortunately I work offshore so we keep losing out). The rest of the properties (and I'm talking 90%) are overpriced and just sit there for ages, not taking anything much below their asking price. Do you think it's a case that they're hoping prices will bounce back after any political decision this month, or are there other factors leading to this portion of the market going completely stale?

onlyroz

The blip in the lower priced properties was almost certainly a result of the recent stamp duty changes for second homes. As for now, I guess people are waiting for the referendum to be over before putting their house on the market or adjusting their prices.

Where are you looking in East Yorkshire? I assume Hull, Beverley or one of the surrounding villages.

stueyhants

Whilst the prices are higher, it's pretty much the same pattern on the south coast as well. Not a lot of new stock at the middle end of the market coming on. The total number of houses on rightmove in my area is only slightly higher than at the worst point of the previous crash and is way down (50%) less than last year. Anything half decent is going fast and we know there are plenty of buyers wanting to move into the area that are chain free that can move quick.

If you are willing to stretch yourself to the max in term of mortgage value then you can get above this middle band then it starts to get easier with more choice and what seems like better value for money.....but the mortgage value starts to make you wince

kilby_007

onlyroz wrote: »

Where are you looking in East Yorkshire? I assume Hull, Beverley or one of the surrounding villages.

We were looking at Cottingham originally but the area around the Ofsted graded "outstanding" schools is going bananas, with ugly (in my opinion) 70's small 3 bed bungalows with little gardens going for more than the big 4 bed period semis with massive gardens on the other side of the village. It's also getting so busy there with traffic and the new housing estates that we've almost stopped looking there altogether, but that said there's very little coming to market now anyway.

Hessle, Willerby and (maybe) Beverley at the moment but our preference is Hessle as you get more for your money, it's handy for the M62, easy access to Hull via train or the A63, and a short hop across the bridge for the airport which I use twice per month. There's no congestion on the roads there either as it's not so densely populated.

kilby_007

stueyhants wrote: »

If you are willing to stretch yourself to the max in term of mortgage value then you can get above this middle band then it starts to get easier with more choice and what seems like better value for money.....but the mortgage value starts to make you wince

Yes I'm finding the same. If we stretch to 365-375K there's some really beautiful big properties that have been sat there for a long time with no sale. You could probably haggle a ~5%-10% discount on these but it would leave us mortgaged to the hilts with only a 10% deposit and a big whack in stamp duty too. If we can do 300K with 20% deposit we can reduce the mortgage term and fix at a really low interest rate, so that's our preference but it may be that we save for another 6 months and go bigger, which would give us the added benefit of watching the post-Brexit fall (or the danger of a boom, depending on who you listen to)!

brodawel

kilby_007 wrote: »

We're looking to buy in East Yorkshire at the moment with a budget of 300K (this gets you a modern 4 bed detached or a very large 4/5 bed period semi in the areas we're looking at) and we've been closely monitoring the market since November. Back then things were moving a bit slow, but the sales were fairly steady across all areas of the market. We were seeing 1 or 2 houses per week in budget that looked appealing but we were hugely unlucky with structural problems with the properties we offered on so we ended up renting so that we didn't lose our buyers.

In Feb/March time some of the lower priced properties ripe for BTL went crazy and I thought the market was about to explode, and then it all settled down again in April. There seemed to be a temporary increase in prices across the board which has now more than corrected itself, in fact I'm seeing regular reductions on these houses now in the 90K-150K price bracket. In the last 2 months though there's been very little choice for us in around the 300K mark. There's the odd quality property that pops up and is well priced, and it goes under offer or sold within a few days (unfortunately I work offshore so we keep losing out). The rest of the properties (and I'm talking 90%) are overpriced and just sit there for ages, not taking anything much below their asking price. Do you think it's a case that they're hoping prices will bounce back after any political decision this month, or are there other factors leading to this portion of the market going completely stale?

That pretty much sums up my situation word for word except I'm in North Wales and I don't work offshore. It's driving me nuts, I keep going through everything on rightmove over and over again, considering areas and properties I wouldn't normally consider but I'd still have to hand over a large chunk of money for something I don't really want. I keep hoping the second home/holiday home owners will start getting rid then it might free up some homes.

martindow

kilby_007 wrote: »

We were looking at Cottingham originally but the area around the Ofsted graded "outstanding" schools is going bananas,

I'm not sure I would worry too much about Ofsted ratings as these can quickly change. If you have children yourself rather than being just concerned about house prices go to visit some schools. I've found that the atmosphere and learning in schools often seems to be fairly independent of Ofsted ratings. I notice that you have placed outstanding within inverted commas!

There was another thread on this board recently that discussed school catchments and Ofsted that may be worth looking for.