'House Prices: Would you prefer them to rise or fall?' poll results/discussion

Sigur_2

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

(assuming there isn't a huge drop in Spain also!).

Indicators do point towards a large decline in the Spanish housing market.

moggylover

jh71283 wrote: »

For all those saying they want a large drop etc so that their kids can afford houses....


What about those of us who have worked hard to be able to buy at the current price levels?

Or is it more a case of 'I'm Alright Jack...'

No, that's an attitude I abhor - but we have to face the fact that unless something fairly hefty happens - then our homes will be valueless anyway - cos if there are no first time buyers then the rest of the market cannot move up!

Had a negative equity situation when I bought this house back in 1990 - paid 42,000 - and 10 weeks later would have been lucky to get 35,000! Always joke that I could have solved the crash by not buying when I did - cos if I hadn't the sods' law the prices would have risen - lol!

However, I did not panic - I just carried on with the renovation (and was fortunate enough to be able to get a grant cos it was pretty derelict) and kept all outgoings to a bare minimum (no phone, no new car, no anything much really apart from paying bills) and after a couple of years things gradually started to improve. I still had the house - I had managed to get it beautiful (although I really think some new furniture would be nice (but not essential - lol) - and the prices were rising again. So just hunker down and cut all expenditure to a REAL minimum and keep going.

Always pay: mortgage, council tax and water rates first - then your roof stays over your head - we can actually survive quite well (if not always comfortably) without most of the rest of the bills that we get by just not having! I always said that I would go without leccy and heat before I would allow the house to be repossessed - and I meant it. You will look back and see that it was worth it: I now look at my morgage and know that I spend less on that than the majority of people do on their car HP and that is what happens with mortgages and homes eventually, if you look on them as a long-term investment and a HOME, and not a get-rich quick scheme.

My house is now worth something in the region of £200,000 - and I know 18 years seems a long time - but gosh it has flown past (unfortunately - lol).

moggylover

PhilDS wrote: »

I was merely making the point that if someone has a house on the social then they shouldn't be allowed to buy another one and rent it out. How can anyone disagree with that?

On another point...not all tennents in social housing pay high rents, or indeed rents that come anywhere near reflecting market conditions. Who makes up that deficit? The tax payer (one way or another).

Hi Phil,

do not disagree with first para at all (see my second post) - but cannot understand the attitude to social housing whichever way I turn it around. Do we actually think that people who cannot afford the market prices should live in cardboard boxes? Are there people out there who think those that cannot earn big money are lesser creatures who deserve nothing? I know that there are a few scroungers who make life unpleasant for others - but I still maintain that they are a minority - and that others should not be judged by their failings (and that even those failings should perhaps be looked on with an understanding of HOW they became so disenfranchised). I always prefer to think - "there but for the Grace of God go I! - rather than "I am perfect so I deserve what I have - sod the rest!"

Social Housing is just that - a humanitarian response to the fact that some people (for varying reasons) cannot earn big wages, even though some of them do jobs which are not only necessary but worthwhile. Should we shoot them - cos that is always the feeling I get from the anti comments?

moggylover

Glowboy wrote: »

I would like to see a small drop, maybe 5% a year for the next three years.
Part of me thinks those who have made their bed by mortgaging to the hilt should now lie in it and a crash would teach the next generation a valuable lesson. On the other hand history suggests that lessons are rarely learned whatever happens, and as I have several friends who for contrasting reasons need to move house I recognise the human impact of problems in the housing market.

The reality is, whilst the estate agents and the like are trying to downplay the prospect of a slump, if the British population as a whole decide property is going to get cheaper, it will happen.

Hear, hear!

Am also in the situation of having to move at present - not complaining about the drop in my house price cos Joe Bloggs above me will also get the same drop - and if he does not then he will not sell! No-one need loose - not even those with negative equity - they just might have to have a few years of "cutting their cloth"!

Not had a holiday in 20 years BTW - and I have friends who moan if they cannot have 3 a year! Perhaps we just need to cut up or credit cards - or pop them in the freezer - and have what we CAN afford for a while - not what we might be able to afford next year!

moggylover

ShelfStacker wrote: »

I'm 19. Banks, even if they did do 100% mortgages still, wouldn't consider giving me a mortgage anywhere near the required amount in the near future on my salary, so I can't buy. The cheapest flat to rent in this area is nearly £600, which is over two thirds of my monthly salary, so I can't rent and not starve or go to jail for not paying council tax. The council will not take me on because they have so few houses/flats for so many people (thank you, Tories, for the right to buy scheme... really, allowing all the council properties to be bought up was a great idea considering it's the only chance a lot of people have at having a roof over their heads). So right now, for the foreseeable future, I'm going to have to live at home. Probably until my mid-20s at least. I have no idea how some of my older colleagues at work do it...

So I voted E, even if for purely selfish reasons. I'd LOVE a precipitous drop in house prices such that working class people in this country can actually afford them. Actually, personally, I'd prefer a new option F, "major house price crash AND a massive building of new council properties AND going round the country and kicking every single buy to let speculator square in the nads, as well as every single politician who's ever stood up for Right to Buy ever", but for now I'll stick with just the crash.

Hi ShelfStacker - look on this as an opportunity to save! Or do as I did and get a second job - (8.30am to 5.00pm in one and 6.00pm till 2.00am in the next) and save like fury! If we REALLY want something enough - we will do it - quite well with you on the last para though - never found it morally acceptable to get rich from other peoples' misfortune. Probably why I shall never be rich - lol! But at least what I have I own - and have worked hard for - it's quite satisfying - eventually! With house prices dropping - now is a good time to save like fury!

Things have not really changed though - it was just as impossible when my parents married 53 years ago - they could not get Council Housing - and VERY few working class people (who actually called themselves that not middle class) would have even have dreamed of buying their own house - and they ended up as "lodgers" in some not particularly pleasant places where they paid through the nose for one room! One would have thought that a wealthy Country like ours could have improved this situation by now!

moggylover

Hi Scarlet Macaw - how can a drop in house prices create a lack of spending power? For most of us we have to be dodering before we can down-size and have a bit of cash in our pocket - and then all too often it has to be lent to off-spring to finance their first efforts in an over-inflated market!

Only thing that will create a lack of spending power is high interest rates - and in and of itself that will not be detrimental to the majority of HOME owners, long term.

Spending on credit to keep inflation going is never going to be either a sensible or a viable economy - this means "manipulated" market forces - not real one! You know - when it is cheaper to bin your two year old washing machine than have it repaired!!

seven-day-weekend

Sigur wrote: »

Indicators do point towards a large decline in the Spanish housing market.

Yes I agree, but this is mainly apartments and villas on the coast; my house is a traditional Alpujarran village house in a Spanish village inland in the mountains and at the moment these appear to be holding their value quite a lot more.

PasturesNew

moggylover wrote: »

Always pay: mortgage, council tax and water rates first - then your roof stays over your head - ... I always said that I would go without leccy and heat before I would allow the house to be repossessed

These are the rules I operate under.

As a result of this thinking I've just spent 7 years sat in a house, mainly with the lights off, eating cheap beans. Trapped.

Sold it a year ago!

People don't seem to be able to prioritise their outgoings. Statements like "Low paid cannot afford to eat", while true in some instances (or I'd have had bread with my beans) often mean "after they've forked out for their mobile phones, Sky+ boxes and WII".

The headline should say "People are cutting back on the amount of food they eat so they can still text their friends"

Nobody "cannot afford to pay the mortgage". That's the first one you pay. Then council tax. Then water. Then I'd say electricity.

Luxuries come after the essentials and the needs.

Additionally, people sign up for all manner of contracts. I have a mobile phone. I bought it 2nd hand from ebay in 2005. I bought a SIM for it. I pay £8/month line rental. I pay 8p/min or per text. As a rule of thumb, my text/call bill is under £1/year. But, more importantly, I have no contract I am tied into if I suddenly need that money; I can cancel it immediately and flog the phone.

Suppliers tie us into all manner of contracts: BT, 1 year minimum. Cable, 1 year minimum. Mobile phones, 1-3 years. I steer clear of as many contracts as possible.

Phatmouse

Crash, crash, crash!!!!!



Current house prices are maddness, its been coming for years, even as they were rising we were being told that it was just not sustainable, yet no one listened and just pushed and pushed prices higher.

I'm not alright jack but I flipping well will be :rotfl:

ManAtHome

Well the peeps had their choice 3 years ago when things should have been levelling off, but the "gimme loads more debt" gang "won" - bit of a bu**er, might have just saved the economy...