only anecdotal but USEFUL

merlinthehappypig

Nenen wrote: »

Anyone else out there who knows the *sensible* thing is to wait but is finding that hard to do? Or anyone got any tips for how I develop patience and a sense of stability/security in a rented place????

Me too, as you know, though other problems are forcing my hand. I believe I have the patience, but others don't (and for good reasons). Though the rented house isn't what I would buy myself, it is still cheaper at this stage than buying and worth another 12 months or so to see what prices do. It helps that we haven't seen anyone from the LL or LA since we came here (almost 9 months) so it doesn't feel rented, except when the roof leaks and I don't have to worry about it

Fingers crossed for you getting the price drops and finding a really nice place.

lynzpower

Nenen,

I agree with Chris.

I sold to rent, and Im watch9ing the market in case we see a place wed like to buy. We are certainly in a muhc better financial position now than we were then.

Have you been banking the difference between mortgage+buildings ins+life cover+maintainence costs in a seperate bank account. this amounts to almost 400pcm for us. How much is it for you?

Generali

epz wrote: »

yeah, call me cynical but the best hope for peace in africa is china and india getting too expensive so they need somewhere new to outsource.

The thing is, wages and other costs are rising quickly in China and India. However, productivity is rising pretty fast too so will, at least in part, offset cost increases.

merlinthehappypig

lynzpower wrote: »

Nenen,

I agree with Chris.

I sold to rent, and Im watch9ing the market in case we see a place wed like to buy. We are certainly in a muhc better financial position now than we were then.

Have you been banking the difference between mortgage+buildings ins+life cover+maintainence costs in a seperate bank account. this amounts to almost 400pcm for us. How much is it for you?

For me the mortgage, personal loan, visa and buildings insurance which I no longer have came to £970 a month which is just over the £900 a month rent. ( I didn't have life cover on the mortgage as I couldn't get cover due to illness). The mortgage figure doesn't include any of the rate rises since March and I'm not sure how much they would have added. With the rate rises, plus a figure for house maintenance which is hard to calculate, the rent works out much cheaper. I also bought a ex demo car with a 5 year warranty with some of the equity so hopefully no unexpected car bills for 58 months.

In addition I get approximately £750 a month interest after tax on the money in the bank so I reckon we are somewhere around £900/£1000 a month up on where we were before.

MissMoneypenny

fc123 wrote: »

I know the feeling!! Can't offer advice but can send some sympathy......I'm summoning up the courage to post our dilemma (will soon) as the N Rock
and all the stuff it has thrown up has really mucked up our life plan!
Had an inspection today...some 19 yr old with a clipboard......but had hidden the illegal cat just in time!

Ahh...Life Plans. Life always gets in the way of plans:D

I'm renting ...and I quite like it. Moved back down from the north, so decided to rent while looking for areas to buy in (and decided to travel light, so nothing in storage). I don't get inspections as I think I have scared my EA - and I was trying to be nice (but firm) too! Perhaps too firm. No repair bills on a rental although I did pay for some fence repairs which my new neighbour put up. But as the boiler didn't work when we moved in, the LL saw the error of his ways and bought a brand new one. He has just had an electrician out too, to check the electrics, as he realised that he should have had a qualified person to do the work and not the handyman.

But what is happening to the market?! The typical 2 bed terraces, near a station, just outside zone 6, are not getting snapped up. Three up for sale in our small street alone and not moving. One has been on the market for 2 months. The difference between the highest priced one and lowest, is 30%. Sadly, one of the houses went up for sale as the owners handed the keys back to the mortgage company and the gas meter had a tape round saying that it was not to be used. I think I will stay put in rental for a bit longer.

I too think the north will take the brunt of any fall. I was living up north when the last crash happened and semis in nice areas with good schools, were going for £26,000. The wages and jobs just weren't there. The wages are still poor up there and the petrol was always dearer up there for some strange reason, yet there was a refinery and 2 ports nearby.

lynzpower

But what is happening to the market?! The typical 2 bed terraces, near a station, just outside zone 6, are not getting snapped up. Three up for sale in our small street alone and not moving. One has been on the market for 2 months. The difference between the highest priced one and lowest, is 30%. Sadly, one of the houses went up for sale as the owners handed the keys back to the mortgage company and the gas meter had a tape round saying that it was not to be used. I think I will stay put in rental for a bit longer.

Where abouts ( postcode are you talking about? Always on the lookout for a bargain

MissMoneypenny

lynzpower wrote: »

Where abouts ( postcode are you talking about? Always on the lookout for a bargain

South Cave, East Yorkshire in the North. Dartford in the SE. There is a 5 bedroom house in nn6 for £160,000
http://www.propertysnake.co.uk/site/postcode/nn6
3 bed house in Chingford (zone 5) for £190,000 http://www.propertysnake.co.uk/site/detail/4049195

Nenen

lynzpower wrote: »

Nenen,

I agree with Chris.

I sold to rent, and Im watch9ing the market in case we see a place wed like to buy. We are certainly in a muhc better financial position now than we were then.

Have you been banking the difference between mortgage+buildings ins+life cover+maintainence costs in a seperate bank account. this amounts to almost 400pcm for us. How much is it for you?

As we've moved to a more expensive area, our rent is about the same as our mortgage used to be and my dh is having to spend a lot more on travel to work (I'm spending a bit less)and renting office space for part of the week (he used to work from home) so we only save the cost of the buildings insurance + maintenance costs (we've kept life cover going as both have medical problems that we would have to pay extra for if we stopped the policy and started again... plus we'd like our partner to be able to buy should the worst happen). The savings on building insurance and maintenance I'd estimate to be about £80 per month plus some interest on our savings (smallish amount of equity from our last house). This is offset by OH's extra travel and office costs so, at the moment we're not making a lot of money but at least we're in a good position to be ready to go if the 'right' place comes up. If prices do drop (hopefully by 10-20%) then we'd be fine!

epz_2

Generali wrote: »

The thing is, wages and other costs are rising quickly in China and India. However, productivity is rising pretty fast too so will, at least in part, offset cost increases.

yeah well lets be honest its not hard to increase productivity when your production base is starting as basicly people working piecemeal at home, though it does require infrastructure to scale.

the problems i see are more the wafer thin margins they operate on. im sure many are below 1% if panorama and the memory cartels are to be belived. now it only takes some local problems like a union or material shortage for that to feed through.

also rising wages make it a lot less advantagious to outsource jobs there since you get all the problems but the rewards are substantially reduced. this results in higher inflation here.

just look at the it field, they outsourced all the jobs they could and now india has run out of able folk to do the jobs the pay is going up a lot and most folkes have little simpathy screwing employers to the wall since we have already been screwed over.

wait till it hits call center land!

lynzpower

Its hitting call centre land already. My mum was working on a project for a large company to outsource. She said throughout it was not going to work , however the company pressed ahead. She was working last year on bringing the business back. She was in meetings with a number of other large companies taking advice on how they broke the contracts overseas to bring the business back to the nrth west.