What’s wrong with this property

ReadySteadyPop

Tabieth said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Tabieth said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Tabieth said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Tabieth said:

GDB2222 said:

Tabieth said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

strawb_shortcake said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

strawb_shortcake said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

Herzlos said:

Convenience of stuff is a huge deal and most of the reason property in cities is worth more. 

Being able to walk to a shop is much better than being able to order online. 

I would disagree, in what way do you think it is "better"? I have at least five major supermarkets/stores nearby, one is 24 hours plus all the small shops that sell booze, snacks etc and still find online more convenient One reason is that people`s stress levels are off the dial nowadays (is it the "debt for everything" life that many have adopted?) even a few minutes in a busy shop now is unpleasant (IMO) Trust me, having a Waitrose nearby isn`t going to get someone a silly price for their flat, a lender won`t care too much about that in this climate.

One of our strongest factors in moving is to have more shops and amenities in walking distance, I don't much care for online shopping, I want that human interaction.

In a shop full of self-service points and people glued to their phones you won`t get that human interaction, more chance of a meaningful chat with the delivery driver to be honest.  

Perhaps you should spend more time outside than behind a screen and open that mind of yours. The areas I'm looking at have small independent shops, bakers, fruit and veg shop, butchers as well as cafes and pubs, as well as other community endeavours
It's not all about groceries and buying tat of amazon and temu.

Many areas in nearly all cities have these things, the discussion was about being near a Waitrose as a major selling point, in London it clearly isn`t a major selling point because there are loads of unsold flats surrounded by shops, my further point was that "being near shops" has been much less of an issue in the last nearly 30 years because of the internet, and I find the fact that we are on the internet actually debating whether someone would overpay for a very basic quickly thrown up flat because it is near a Waitrose mildly bizarre.......

Yes, many areas have these things and many don’t. I live in a city and my area has independent shops, fishmongers, artisan bakeries, etc.. Other parts of the city don’t. Having access to these things is importantly to me which is why I bought in a “good” area, rather than a bigger property in a less desirable area. Its location, location, location. And I suspect (but don’t know) that Waitrose was being used as a bit of a short hand for all of that in many of the replies. It’s not being near shops per se (something that’s true in many areas), it’s being near “nice” shops. (Of course that doesn’t mean all properties in a nice area are good buys, that would be silly and over simplistic. Just that the one thing that can’t be changes about a property is its location). 

Saying all that, I’m very online and I do online supermarket shopping regularly. But being able to nip around the corner to buy something I’ve forgotten is importantly to me.  It’s one reason I’d never live in a very rural area. 

Just to clarify, the proximity to Waitrose of a different flat had been raised earlier on in this thread. I just noted that the Tramworks development is near Waitrose as a light-hearted comment. It seems to have taken on an awful lot of significance since then. 

Yeah, I agree. I wouldn’t buy a property that didn’t suit my needs or was over-priced just because it was near a Waitrose. And I don’t think anyone is saying that they would. It’s all a bit of a straw man argument really!

The Waitrose was flagged as a "selling point" which is obviously not the case in London or any city in the internet age.

It’s what Waitrose represents just as much as it’s nice to be able to pop into it on the way home from work. Waitrose have stores in affulent areas. “Good” locations. Location is important. 

Not the same in London though as it would be in Morningside or a posh town/village near Manchester, they are just scattered about to capture footfall, because as another poster said people will pop in on their way to/from work, they don`t need to live nearby, "posh" areas in London are often right next to to much less desirable places and if you keep over-building desirable places soon become undesirable.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/2-000-residents-object-to-enormous-north-london-housing-scheme-b1232212.html

I have never understood the fuss about Waitrose, it is really nothing special in my opinion, M&S is the same, used to be way better quality, now not so much but still with high prices. I still say that a Waitrose nearby will do absolutely nothing for people trying to sell these overpriced boxes.

No one is arguing that having a Waitrose nearby will make it easy to sell an overpriced property. Just that it’s convenient and a marker of a good location (even in London where I lived for several years). 

When was the last time you bought a property?

This one isn`t a marker of a good location, it is in an area that is going to be a building site for years, will be over-built and has unhappy residents taking up petitions against the over-building, it fact if we have the financial crisis that many think is long overdue they probably will scrap most of the building plans because they won`t be able to sell them. Waitrose also do deliveries so you could live anywhere and still shop there.

I think everyone on this forum is aware that supermarkets do online deliveries. It’s hardly a new concept! 

And the “overdue” financial crisis?! How long have you been predicting this?

The point I made was that this Waitrose isn`t a marker of anything except footfall through the area, it is just one of many shops, if you went into a financial crisis with a recent mortgage on one of these flats I don`t think that would be a good place to be.

MeteredOut

Is there now a rule that every post on this thread has to contain the word "Waitrose"?

Herzlos

ReadySteadyPop said:

The point I made was that this Waitrose isn`t a marker of anything except footfall through the area, it is just one of many shops, if you went into a financial crisis with a recent mortgage on one of these flats I don`t think that would be a good place to be.

The wider point was that convenience has a value, and amenities are important when deciding on where you want to live. How much bearing it has on the sale price is largely irrelevant because we're not Ybe.

Going into any financial crisis having just make a big purchase is going to hurt a bit, but no worse than being stuck renting. There's also so indication that's going to happen or that Ybe would be massively affected by it. In fact he's probably better moving before a crisis because once it hits properties going on the market tend to dry up especially from developers who can just sit on a plot for a while. 


The more important issues are which properties are somewhere he'd want to live, and whether the price is worth it to him. We can't answer either of those questions and your standard "everything is £100k overpriced" mantra doesn't help.

GDB2222

Going into any financial crisis having just make a big purchase is going to hurt a bit, but no worse than being stuck renting. 

That's an over-generalisation. I lived through the big dip in property prices lasting 7 or 8 years from 1988. People were really struggling with 12% mortgage rates. Especially amongst people who had recently bought, with 100% mortgages, things were really tight. There were loads of repossessions, and few buyers.

Renters, on the other hand, just went on paying the rent, as before. 

Herzlos

But rent also went up to cover the landlords bills, and tenants were evicted if landlords lost the houses. No-one apart from the super rich is safe from them. 

It's all about timing which you can't predcit. If you buy right before a drop (like I did and ended up at about 110% LTV) then it can be brutal in the short term but it'll balance out over time. 

You still need to live somewhere, right?

It is a bit of an overgeneralization though, and verging a bit far into discussing the economy rather than houses. 

GDB2222

Herzlos said:

But rent also went up to cover the landlords bills, and tenants were evicted if landlords lost the houses. No-one apart from the super rich is safe from them. 

It's all about timing which you can't predcit. If you buy right before a drop (like I did and ended up at about 110% LTV) then it can be brutal in the short term but it'll balance out over time. 

You still need to live somewhere, right?

It is a bit of an overgeneralization though, and verging a bit far into discussing the economy rather than houses. 

Interesting as it is, I agree that we’re getting off track.

My lips are sealed, fingertips glued together, or whatever the appropriate phrase is.

ReadySteadyPop

Herzlos said:

ReadySteadyPop said:

The point I made was that this Waitrose isn`t a marker of anything except footfall through the area, it is just one of many shops, if you went into a financial crisis with a recent mortgage on one of these flats I don`t think that would be a good place to be.

The wider point was that convenience has a value, and amenities are important when deciding on where you want to live. How much bearing it has on the sale price is largely irrelevant because we're not Ybe.

Going into any financial crisis having just make a big purchase is going to hurt a bit, but no worse than being stuck renting. There's also so indication that's going to happen or that Ybe would be massively affected by it. In fact he's probably better moving before a crisis because once it hits properties going on the market tend to dry up especially from developers who can just sit on a plot for a while. 


The more important issues are which properties are somewhere he'd want to live, and whether the price is worth it to him. We can't answer either of those questions and your standard "everything is £100k overpriced" mantra doesn't help.

In a small rural village or towns miles from the nearest city, maybe (In the more populated parts of the UK you are never really THAT far away from anything though?) In the middle of London in the internet delivery age not so much. The Waitrose and the multiple other shops nearby will do little to help sell these flats, it is a classic case of the Three O`s, overbuilding, over-supply and overpriced.

ReadySteadyPop

Herzlos said:

But rent also went up to cover the landlords bills, and tenants were evicted if landlords lost the houses. No-one apart from the super rich is safe from them. 

It's all about timing which you can't predcit. If you buy right before a drop (like I did and ended up at about 110% LTV) then it can be brutal in the short term but it'll balance out over time. 

You still need to live somewhere, right?

It is a bit of an overgeneralization though, and verging a bit far into discussing the economy rather than houses. 

More likely now that they will just continue to pay rent to the bank or other new owner, much harder to evict now, and even back then this happened in lots of cases, many young people will just run back to parents if the rental goes bad so that means even more supply hitting the market.

ReadySteadyPop

GDB2222 said:

Going into any financial crisis having just make a big purchase is going to hurt a bit, but no worse than being stuck renting. 

That's an over-generalisation. I lived through the big dip in property prices lasting 7 or 8 years from 1988. People were really struggling with 12% mortgage rates. Especially amongst people who had recently bought, with 100% mortgages, things were really tight. There were loads of repossessions, and few buyers.

Renters, on the other hand, just went on paying the rent, as before. 

That`s right, the lessons learned back then have been totally erased by years of cheap lending, rent is driven by wages, mortgage debt is priced by global bond markets, two completely different things. The OP is hip to the danger though and knows that the more they can knock off the price of this flat the better for them in the long run.

Herzlos

Stop trying to go off topic with the economy doom and gloom.