House Price Crash Discussion Thread

HammersFan

Why do things get so nasty so quickly in here? For whatever reason people seem very frustrated. Life is way too short for all that.

nelly_2

HammersFan wrote: »

Why do things get so nasty so quickly in here? For whatever reason people seem very frustrated. Life is way too short for all that.

What?

Are you new to the internerd or sommat?

The reason the interpants was invented (apart from !!!!!!) was so we can slag each other off and never get a smack in the face

Now grow up, catch up, or log the eff off

mr.broderick

More quality from nelly.

nelly wrote: »

What?

Are you new to the internerd or sommat?

The reason the interpants was invented (apart from !!!!!!) was so we can slag each other off and never get a smack in the face

Now grow up, catch up, or log the eff off

nelly_2

mr.broderick wrote: »

More quality from nelly.

true though init?

if you fancy the other- google images (with safe search off) corrina femjoy, katie fey and veronica zemanova

I'll see you in a week

mr.broderick

nelly wrote: »

true though init?

if you fancy the other- google images (with safe search off) corrina femjoy, katie fey and veronica zemanova

I'll see you in a week

Tiava google have fun

ManAtHome

Generali wrote: »

The City seems to be making its views about asset values pretty clear right now. The Fed cut rates by 0.75% and it's made little if any difference.

Apart from the NYSE traders removing heads/donning chicken suits, and helping Euroland save on the Andrex...

John_Pierpoint

ATN wrote: »

Nenen - Have a look at Capital Economics, they have been studying the housing market as long as anybody else and are widely respected.

Also, (not directed to Nenen) for anybody who doubts what their being told by any of the building soceties I'd suggest some well spent time reading the following

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/methodology.htm

If you want the opinion of quite literally thousands of Surveyor's view of house prices then I suggest we all start taking notice of what NBS and Halifax are telling us.

As well as the average house prices, the graph should have a histogram along its base showing the volume of transactions.

I think we are heading for a period of low volume as sellers cannot contemplate admitting they are loosing money. If it gets really nasty there will be a spurt of sales when they realise that the mortgagee company will FORCE the sale and the mortgagor will still be responsible for any losses and expenses involved.

There is nothing simpler than buying from a Mortgagee in possession; they just want their money back, know less about the property than you do, and there is no "stuck" chain.

John

hartleyinteriors

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this. Have been reading various threads but have just signed up so I can post in this one in the hope that people might share their views and opinions for our situation.

Last September we reserved a new build apartment off-plan in a regeneration area of Plymouth. The area is currently redundant docks in the city centre but the plan is to regenerate the entire area with homes, businesses, hotels, bars, restaurants etc and even a cruise liner port. The plans really are massive although a long time in the making - 10 years to complete everything in five phases. It is to be something along the lines of Cardiff docks or the development in Portsmouth. My partner and I, both in our twenties, decided to reserve a plot as not only is it somewhere we would like to live but we thought that over time it could make real financial sense. We have reserved in the first residential development in the first phase of the master plan our intention being to get in early at the best price and wait for the market and the area to, quite literally, rise around us - we saw it as grabbing an opportunity in an area that developed we may not be able to afford to buy in.

This was the plan until the recent slow down in the housing market, the economy and all the media hype, doom merchants or whatever exactly is going on cast doubts over how viable this venture will be. I am looking for peoples opinions. We have not exchanged contracts yet so pulling out at this stage would mean a loss of around £1,500. From what I can gather most of the advice is to not buy at the moment but I feel that the fact we are looking at buying in to a regeneration project in a great city in an part of the country where people have advised a downturn would not affect so much could still mean it is a goer.

We would sell our current property which we bought 2 years ago and completely refurbished. Current valuations on our property would give us anywhere up to £20,000 equity half of which would go on the deposit on exchange for the new build we have other plans for the remainder. This would leave us in a position of 95% LTV on the new build, with our mortgage bill more or less doubling. We envisage that we would stay in the new place for 3-5 years at least and then consider selling or letting. We should have no reason to have to sell between now and then.

The dilemma in essence is considering whether we stay in our current place and see what happens to the market, or 'bite the bullet', 'take the leap of faith', 'speculate to accumulate' and all the rest of it with the aim of living the dream and not missing out on this opportunity.

Look forward to hearing people's views and I'm happy to provide further details if it would help forming a better opinion.

codger

Hi HI, and welcome to MSE -- you've joined one of the best little (or maybe, not so little) communities on the 'Net.

In response to your question. First off, please don't take my opinion as Gospel. There are far brighter and more experienced posters on here. Secondly: all I can offer are my own thoughts -- thoughts that stand to be corrected by subsequent posters (well, that's one of the beauties of this forum, it ain't so much what you say as what you learn.) Finally: if you know where there's a ready supply of crystal balls, please advise soonest. . .

In response, then:

1) Obviously, you're not buying for short-term possession. You're looking for a home to occupy for up to five years. Longevity helps.

2) Presumably, this isn't a development by a small-ish outfit. Size matters.

3) However. . . I'm not quite sure what you mean by the phrase "has cast doubts over how viable this venture will be".

Who's casting those doubts? Is it some apocryphal gossip -- of which there's a lot around, everywhere, at the moment -- or something rather more substantial (say, for example, a local Councillor going into print.)

If that's the case, then as you'll probably know, loss of confidence, once it's in the public prints, can become self-perpetuating.

So in one way much depends, at this stage anyway, on the credibility of the source that is casting doubt on the credibility of the project.

But it also depends on your own feelings -- though not necessarily "gut feelings": you might need to do a little more research into the provenance of the project, viz:

Is it private / public sector partnership? How much civic pride / public money is being invested? How important is success, or failure, to the Local Authority? Just what is the financial scale of the project in its envisaged, final, form? And to what extent is that dependent not on funds from people like you but from financing majors?

Finally -- and importantly -- the purchase price. Was this 'struck' (or decided by the builder) before the market went off the boil?

At first sight it's easy to say, no, don't risk it, an LTV of 95% on a purchase in a new multi-stage development that may not even get past stage 1. . . Forget it.

But that -- though it may be accurate -- strikes me as perhaps a little too simplistic. Put it another way: an LTV of 95% on just about any property purchase at the moment may well pose a risk, though again, any such risk is over the short- rather than long-term. Even so. That 5% equity margin is pretty slim, the way the market is at the moment. . .

But then: are you sure the price you're about to pay now reflects as near as you can be sure (from comparative checks in the local area) the property's market value now? Satisfying, today, an asking price in a glossy sales brochure published six months or a year ago may not be the most sensible of actions.

There's also no point in committing to a development where the prospects are less for a stage-by-stage price increase (so the early birds get the financial worm) as an actual progressive price cut by a develop worried about getting rid.

Sorry for the complicated response, but yours is a pretty complicated scenario. And worse, it's not one I can respond to as clearly or constructively as I'd like. On the basis of the information so far, the answer I'd have to give at this stage to the question 'What would you do?' is, er, I'm not actually sure. . .

Not a lot of good, that!

Hopefully, later this evening there'll be wiser heads than mine posting here. I'll catch up tomorrow, be interesting to see what others have come up with.

bluejake

hartleyinteriors wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this. Have been reading various threads but have just signed up so I can post in this one in the hope that people might share their views and opinions for our situation.

Last September we reserved a new build apartment off-plan in a regeneration area of Plymouth. The area is currently redundant docks in the city centre but the plan is to regenerate the entire area with homes, businesses, hotels, bars, restaurants etc and even a cruise liner port. The plans really are massive although a long time in the making - 10 years to complete everything in five phases. It is to be something along the lines of Cardiff docks or the development in Portsmouth. My partner and I, both in our twenties, decided to reserve a plot as not only is it somewhere we would like to live but we thought that over time it could make real financial sense. We have reserved in the first residential development in the first phase of the master plan our intention being to get in early at the best price and wait for the market and the area to, quite literally, rise around us - we saw it as grabbing an opportunity in an area that developed we may not be able to afford to buy in.

This was the plan until the recent slow down in the housing market, the economy and all the media hype, doom merchants or whatever exactly is going on cast doubts over how viable this venture will be. I am looking for peoples opinions. We have not exchanged contracts yet so pulling out at this stage would mean a loss of around £1,500. From what I can gather most of the advice is to not buy at the moment but I feel that the fact we are looking at buying in to a regeneration project in a great city in an part of the country where people have advised a downturn would not affect so much could still mean it is a goer.

We would sell our current property which we bought 2 years ago and completely refurbished. Current valuations on our property would give us anywhere up to £20,000 equity half of which would go on the deposit on exchange for the new build we have other plans for the remainder. This would leave us in a position of 95% LTV on the new build, with our mortgage bill more or less doubling. We envisage that we would stay in the new place for 3-5 years at least and then consider selling or letting. We should have no reason to have to sell between now and then.

The dilemma in essence is considering whether we stay in our current place and see what happens to the market, or 'bite the bullet', 'take the leap of faith', 'speculate to accumulate' and all the rest of it with the aim of living the dream and not missing out on this opportunity.

Look forward to hearing people's views and I'm happy to provide further details if it would help forming a better opinion.

I think you would have to be completely crackers to invest in property now especially city centre flats.

Would you be happy if your flat is worth less than you paid for it in 3-5 years time?

Will this development really go ahead as planned? People seem to have forgotten what a recession is like. Do not assume the last 10 years will be repeated over the next 10 years. Economic conditions may well be very different indeed.

Personally, I really really would not like to spend years living on a building site.

If you do buy make sure the price reflects the conditions as they are now and what is expected to come not last September's price.