how much did property prices go down to in the 90s?

WillowCat

I bought a victorian semi right at the top of the market in the summer of 1989 for £65,000. Not been touched in forty years, no heating, lean-to toilet behind the empty room that was meant to be the kitchen, etc.

I think interest rates were running at about 12% at the point my DH was made redundant. I remember my take home wages were £900 per month, and the mortgage payment was £615. My train ticket was over £100 a month and I honestly don't know how we got through it. But we had to, because at it's lowest the house was probably worth no more than about £50,000 and that's after we'd had the renovations done. We would have been destroyed if we'd been repossessed.

We finally sold it in 1997 for £97,000 but bear in mind inflation was really high through the nineties so that probably still represented a loss.

However, we were fortunate to have bought a house not a flat.

A one bedroom flat I looked at in 2000 had been bought in 1990 for over £50,000. I don't know what it's lowest value was but in 2000 it was on the market for £35,000 (sold for £32,000).

moanymoany

We bought for £146k in 1989. In 1993 it was worth £99k.

silvercar

You would have to be unlucky to buy at the absolute peak and sell at the absolute lowest point.

We bought for 91k in 1988 (its value peaked at around 120k). We sold for 75k in 1993.

In 1992 we nearly sold it for 85k and couldn't find anything we wanted to buy so backed out. In 1993 we bought for £167k a house that had been on the market in 1992 for 230k - above the price range that we were even looking at.

Pennywise

My parents put a property on the market in 1991 - the EA's gave a value range of £120-£140k. They reduced the price every few months and by 1995 it was on the market for £70k and they accepted the only ever offer they received of £60k. So that makes a 50% reduction.

merlinthehappypig

I can't remember the exact amounts to the nearest pound, but we bought in 1985 at £52000, had it on the market for £85000 in 1989 and sold it for £55000 in 1990. This was in Worcestershire.

We moved to Suffolk and bought a house for £72000 (still 1990). The details had an asking price of £125000 from 1989. It was around 8 years before the price edged ahead of what we paid for it (sold in 1999 for £82000).

Deals_2

to compare the country throughout. thanks

Alan_M wrote: »

I bought in 89, a two bed terrace which had dropped from £95,000 down to £72,000, we thought we were getting a bargain.

By the mid 90's it was "worth" less than £50,000 at which point the mortgage payments had exceeded my gross salary (15% interest rates non fixed rate mortgage) and I could no longer afford the payments.

It was sold in Feb 2001 for £118,000

Having had a look on ourproperty.co.uk houses in that street peaked at £209,250 with a sale in May 2007

dander

Just adding a bit of anecdotal for my first flat, an ex council flat in London.

Previous owners bought it off the council in 1990 based on a valuation of £65k

I bought it in 1993 for £34k

So that's something like a 48% drop (rough estimate)

And, if I remember correctly my fixed rate mortgage when I bought was at about 12%!

Datasafe_2

We bought a town house in October 1889 for £38,000 in the East Midlands. They dropped to a low of £24,000 so I make that a drop of around 38%. I see they peaked at around £100,000 late last year.

Some of the HPI cheerleaders on here are in for one hell of a shock.

toomanyshoes

I bought a maisonette in the late 80s/early 90s pre-crash for £62K (interest rate was around the 13% mark if I remember correctly).

It was sold post crash for £41K and now one in the same area is up for £143K but they've been going for about £150 -£160 pre credit crunch.

LisbonLaura

The lowest I remember in the 90s crash was a 3 bed terrace in an unpopular Welsh valley.
At auction it failed to make its reserve of ....£1,000.

More sellers than buyers,
+ tight lending,
+ repos,
+ property seen as a poor investment*
= no bottom to values.

* & if 'investment' means driving up a price to make another pay more for a basic need (ie shelter), then a terminal session in a vat of boiling oil would seem appropriate IMHO