Buy now or wait till BREXIT

Homersimpson

fussyhumanbeing wrote: »

Don't listen to the doomsdayers, I have held out because of brexit though. I'm already seeing prices come down in my area. I think in a worst case scenario with no deal, prices could drop a further 10-15%, after that they will recover. I don't think 30% is possible.

If there is a brexit deal I do see prices slowly recovering and the downside risk will go IMO.

I think this is good advice but just decide how low prices need to go before you buy, when I bought mine in 2008 a lot of people told me prices would drop even further but they didn't they stabilised and then started going back up.

If they drop 5% is that enough, 10% etc. if they start increasing again will you buy then but what if they drop again? When will the market bottom out is a question no one can answer for sure.

If prices drop massively it doesn't mean people will rush to sell their houses at a massive discount despite what the house price crash lot think. I certainly wont be selling mine as I need to live somewhere.

What a lot of people did in the 2008 was stay in their house rather than move to a bigger house and extend it, lots of my friends did loft conversions, extensions or converted the integral garage into a room.

When they are old and grey the HPC lot will look back in their rented accommodation, struggling to make ends meet while paying the rent with their pension wishing they had bought at some point instead of waiting for a crash that never came. I on the other hand will be mortgage free in 5 years having a secure home for the future. The question is who do you want to be?

PhilE

That's good advice if we were in similar circumstances to the' 08 crisis. But we're not, we're going into uncharted territory.

What is clear for SOME areas, is that Brexit has already decreased the rate of property inflation.

If the OP is in one of those areas, it may be worth waiting a little while at least. Use the time to prepare to move quickly. Mortgage/cash in place. A first time buyer can have an advantage, but only if he/she is armed with knowledge.
Study. I'd be looking at the market online, walking past houses for sale up to 5 hours per day. Id take note of how long a property was on the market for, what it was sold for. House searching can be challenging and disappointing.

A lot of its luck, and striking at the right moment. In my area, there was a bit of shell shock when Brexit was announced. I got myself a fair deal from a keen seller shortly after.

Homersimpson

PhilE wrote: »

That's good advice if we were in similar circumstances to the' 08 crisis. But we're not, we're going into uncharted territory.

Where as the recession of 2008 was full charted territory with banks going bust left right and centre.

The point is that all major events like this are uncharted territory, what seems clear to me is that eventually everything settles down and is fine, even the big recession in the early 90's (when I was just a kid) ended eventually.

I'm not saying be blase about whats happening but the OP just needs to decide what they want to do and when and see how it goes. It won't be the case that in 12 months people are falling over themselves to give houses away for next to nothing.

51mm5

Indeed, if house prices decrease in your area it's hard to anticipate how low it will go so as above have a method of when you want to jump in or if the right property turns up it's adviseable to go for it as long as it's affordable for you, but whatever you do, don't be like Crashytime and his peers who have been waiting 20 years for a property crash and is never going to see prices as they were back then and is effectively priced out forever.

PhilE

If a recession similar to '08 were to occur, then we'd have a better idea of what the consequences are. This is the first exit from the EU. So it's uncharted territory.

As for if there will be a full recovery or not, that remains to be seen. Britain never fully recovered from the wars of the last century, and never will. Alliances with Europe have been helpful. Better than war you could say.

Crashy_Time

Homersimpson wrote: »

I think this is good advice but just decide how low prices need to go before you buy, when I bought mine in 2008 a lot of people told me prices would drop even further but they didn't they stabilised and then started going back up.

If they drop 5% is that enough, 10% etc. if they start increasing again will you buy then but what if they drop again? When will the market bottom out is a question no one can answer for sure.

If prices drop massively it doesn't mean people will rush to sell their houses at a massive discount despite what the house price crash lot think. I certainly wont be selling mine as I need to live somewhere.

What a lot of people did in the 2008 was stay in their house rather than move to a bigger house and extend it, lots of my friends did loft conversions, extensions or converted the integral garage into a room.

When they are old and grey the HPC lot will look back in their rented accommodation, struggling to make ends meet while paying the rent with their pension wishing they had bought at some point instead of waiting for a crash that never came. I on the other hand will be mortgage free in 5 years having a secure home for the future. The question is who do you want to be?

You do understand that that didn`t happen because of "market forces" though, and that it isn`t even sustainable with zero interest rates?

Crashy_Time

51mm5 wrote: »

I’m going to ask for specifics as you never tend to answer questions directly, so what and when where these changes and when did transactions start to decrease? If you don’t answer this then well .....you’re trolling..,.again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46748966


"Separate figures from the Bank of England showed that mortgage approvals for house purchases fell in November, and are now at half the level of 15 years ago"


Do you accept that credit conditions have changed?

Homersimpson

I understand how the housing market works, how the economy works and how the various factors affect things.

As a genuine question to you, are you a home owner or a renter?

cybervic

If you are a rent paying FTB, you need to think about how much rent money you are losing VS the house price drop.
I started looking January last year, finally completed the sale 10 month later. Yes, there are a lot of price drop where I am (south btw) but a good property still went very quickly. Even though most people are holding out, a gem still gets snatched within seconds.

I also actually think now is the best time to buy if you can find one you like. I believe there are more buyers holding out than sellers and this means buyer has more bargaining power so you have less competition. I am a remainer but I am quite optimistic that even if we have a no deal, we will start talking trade deals with other country outside EU so people will start to move on once there is a certainly.

oh, and it takes a while to find something a place you like anyway, so there is no harm to start now.

PhilE

Home owner.