What about London???

SteveSilva

The property market is undoubtedely in a slowdown whether this will turn into a crash remains to be seen. However London is usually seen as a different kettle of Fish. Will Terminal 5, 3rd Runway, the Olympics etc. lead to an increase of house prices or are London prices also falling. After all the credit crunch has hit every where including the capital.
Is there a reliable London house price indicator?

Doozergirl

My own view is that Lonon, certainly parts of it, could be quite volatile. Rough areas see ridiculous price rises due to people being outpriced in better areas. I also believe that the places that have seen more rapid rises of late might be more likely to see more rapid falls.

All the Olympics hype has happened. Every agent was talking about the East London Line extension, regeneration etc etc when we bought a flat in London two years ago. How much can getting the Olympics for two weeks in 2012 genuinely send prices up across the Capital? I'm sure the relevant areas of East London will see great benefits but the price rises seem to be in anticipation of that, rather than a result of.

Where I live, prices have done virtually nothing for four years. The surveyor that came to our house last week told H exactly the same thing. Despite the population growing, I think prices were kept level partly to do with local affordability and partly to do with the sheer supply of new build keeping prices down as we saw a little more bouyancy in 'second hand' houses last year when the 2 big local estates were finally finished. Prices have obviously been kept down, however, by our living about 130 miles away from the Olympic Village and East London Line Extension. :rolleyes:

There are so many different markets. I think some parts of London may well suffer if buyers can become more choosy. Popular areas will always be popular.

carolt

London prices have to fall - my parents, amusingly, live in a million pound house (zone 3, 5 beds). It's nice, but not a million quid nice! It's in the suburbs. Next door sold for £180,000 about 14 years ago.. I'd say maybe 3-400K max is a reasonable price, related to earnings.

Doesn't make a jot of difference to them - they own it and aren't planning to sell... But I wouldn't want to be the people a couple of doors down who bought for a million quid last summer..... :eek:

hgllgh

you can look at the greater london indicators on the homepage of http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/.
(halifax down 6.4% for q4 07 :eek:)

although i don't pay too much attention to these indicators anymore as they seem to differ too much. The best way to guage the market is to get out there and view properties and then find out what they sold for.

Also I think london property has been overpriced for a long time and will be revalued over the next few years.

Benefits_Blagger

london will see the biggest falls, while the price rises across the country have been fuelled by easy credit, in london they have been fuelled by easy PLUS city bonuses. not only are the massive city bonuses going to dissapear, a lot of the people in the city are going to be made redundant.

expect BIG falls in london.

carolt

Valid point - the 11,000 job losses expected in the City, announced today, can't but have an impact on property prices in the city.

hgllgh

Also, the boffins that do manage to get a bonus won't be investing in property and if anything will be looking to offload property as it is falls in value

jaype

Seeing some falls in SE London - and that's family homes, not pokey flats (I have no interest in them so no idea what they're doing, pricewise). With London, the rot will start from the outside and work its way into the more upmarket and in-demand boroughs IMHO.

tanith

Its happened before and it will happen again... we are not about to buy or sell so will just ride it out as we have done in the past... only those that are constantly on the move seem to panic at the first signs of a drop in house prices...
Having said that houses in my road seem to be still slowly creeping up, I keep an eye on houses that sell and they are now at average £300.000 where as last November they were at £270.000 I don't understand why when I keep reading that the prices are falling...

Penelopa.Pitstop

I'm monitoring south west London and it's like this: some properties are on the market almost for a year and no price change, but people who want/need to sell dropping prices. Sometimes even if the price is unchanged on website agents are suggesting which owners will accept lower offers.
I viewed number of flats and houses in November and December and only one flat of them was sold because it was quite attractive and it went for asking price.

pickledpink

London is in a class of its own as far as property is concerned. Most homeowners in London know that they can get very good rents for their property and so are more inclined to wait until the properties rise again before selling.

Properties which were overpriced anyway, or undesirable ones will need to come down if the owners want to sell (but that applies to the whole of the UK) but London as a whole has such a demand from people wishing to buy (or rent) that it seems to escape the price falls compared to the rest of the country.