Should I go through with house purchase in the current climate?

JHSH

I am nearing exchange date. I have a large deposit and a 5 year fixed rate mortgage in place. Transaction is not part of a chain and I am a first time buyer. Just wanted to see if anyone is in a similar situation or has any views on this. My concern is that holding off may prolong getting on the ladder even more, due to lenders changing their criteria as as well as housing stock etc and on on the flip side of the coin if value does decrease, is this something to be greatly concerned with if not looking to move and sell in the next few years.

AdrianC

Hold on while I give my crystal ball a polish...

There's no way to know. Maybe it will make a long-term difference, maybe it won't. Maybe lending criteria will tighten, maybe they won't. We simply don't have anything to compare to, and we don't know where anything's going past the next few weeks.

Comms69

If you arent looking to sell then house value has little impact on you realistically. 

jimbo2108

it all depends on how long you plan to stay in a house. I bought my house in Jan, i plan to stay here for over 5 years so IF the markets to crash they will hopefully pick back up over the years. Who knows in the coming months the mortgage rates could highly inflate, meaning you'd be paying more

mrsmsebastian

JHSH said:

I am nearing exchange date. I have a large deposit and a 5 year fixed rate mortgage in place. Transaction is not part of a chain and I am a first time buyer. Just wanted to see if anyone is in a similar situation or has any views on this. My concern is that holding off may prolong getting on the ladder even more, due to lenders changing their criteria as as well as housing stock etc and on on the flip side of the coin if value does decrease, is this something to be greatly concerned with if not looking to move and sell in the next few years.

Im exchanging and completing tomorrow, first time buyer and we are not on the chain but we are still going ahead.
Why?
1. I don't want to keep on renting and the money I am paying for my rent is just the same as the money I am going to pay for my monthly mortgage plus with a bonus of having a massive garden, garage and driveway! 
2. I don't give a damn what happens in the house market for the next ten years as I am intending to stay in my house until me and my husband gets old hence we bought a semi-detached bungalow
3. If I  get scared now and pull out from the sale because of fear on house devaluation then I might miss my chance of having my own house. You'll never know because of the crisis lenders might become very strict with requirements or might even ask for 60, 70 or even 80 LVT then we are in trouble  because at the moment we have 87% LVT.
But that is just me and my reasons for not delaying the house purchase.

steampowered

It very much depends on the circumstances.

If I had a small deposit, I'd wait. If you are taking out for example a 95% mortgage you only need a 5% drop in house prices to be in negative equity - and then you are trapped, unable to move and unable to remortgage (so paying a high mortgage rate).

If I had a larger deposit and intended to be in the property for some time, I'd go ahead. If house prices drop, the prices of everyone else's houses will drop to, which would help make it easier to move in future.