MSE News: Nationwide figures show flat housing market

With all the high street closures announced this week, everyone seems to have been spooked into tightening the purse strings even more!

Let me assure you, NOBODY I know is looking to buy a house at the minute. Those who would be buying are holding off to see what the future holds. And these include people in relatively secure jobs - solicitors, civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses etc. Those in the retail/finance/service/construction sectors are battening down the hatches altogether.

I just bought. For me it was simple maths - the slowdown in the housing market has led to the rental market going crazy, in my area at least. This meant that, as I had sufficient cash for a deposit, I could purchase for the same monthly cost as renting.

My experience of our local housing market (Surrey, London commuter belt) in the January to April period when I was looking, was that reasonably priced, quality (good fundamentals) properties were going fast - many before they were even advertised. In my office there are several other people who have either bought already this year or are looking to buy. In my street of 75 properties, two others have changed hands this year and two others are showing as 'sold'.

Yes, lots of people are, unfortunately, not in a position to move/buy and others don't think it's a good time. But I think there are others like me who are appreciating the relative value that is out there and as long as you buy a property with good fundamentals (room sizes, location etc) and take at least a medium term view, now seems like a good time to buy.

Yes, I got a fixed rate mortgage and, as current fixed mortgage rates already anticipate future rate hikes, my rate is a lot higher than base rate and not that dis-similar to typical pre credit crunch rates, certainly not half. My mortgage wouldn't double anyway, it is a capital and interest mortgage so only the interest part of that would increase if I went on to variable in a higher rate environment.

My caution as a result of the current uncertainty manifested itself by not fully extending myself - my mortgage provider offered me £80k more than I actually took. I borrowed enough to buy a property that was sufficient for my purposes rather than fully extending myself.

well i am crazy busy at the moment, so dont believe the media as tens of thousands every month around E&W are moving

brit1234 wrote: »

This is peak selling period and yet month on month figures do not rise. I strongly believe from now on prices are going to continue plummeting.

Many of us first time buyers are holding back with our hard earned deposits. If you buy now you loose your deposit in the comming falls and have problems in the future when it comes to remortgage.

Next month Halifax and Nationwide figures should show price falls whilst landregistry may show a rise before falling month after.

We all know house prices are very overvalued and will correct.

I don't know that they are overvalued.

If you look at the Nationwide inflation adjusted graph for prices since 1975 there is a clear rise but there are a number of factors that may account for this:

-much less social housing (subsidised) being built
-shortage of land being released by planners
-increasing population (largest increase this year since the war)
-more single occupancy homes
-increasing cost of materials
-stricter building codes (eg. in 1975 many houses were built without insulation!) increase build costs
-increasing red tape (plumbers, electricians etc have to work for a few weeks each year just to cover registration costs etc.)
-expansion of buy to let market driven by investors shy of the stock market
-increasing land prices (agricultural land prices have beaten property prices in the last decade)

I expect there are more, including rising fuel costs that effect material prices and tradesmen's costs.

I am probably older than you and I can remember hearing people saying "it can't go on rising for ever" for at least 30 years. No doubt some really large shock to society on the scale of WW2 will stop it but otherwise I expect house prices to continue to beat inflation (in the medium and long term) well into the future.