House Prices/Credit Crunch/Recession etc - Article from FT..

[User removed 4]

Well, my house has dropped nearly £20,000 since we put it on the market, that's almost 10% in only five months. We had an offer of £170,000 a week or so ago from a woman who'd initially been round the house back in February when it was on for £200,000. We turned it down, accepting her revised offer of £175,000 (a full £25,000 under what we'd initially put the house on the market for). She then withdrew her offer, giving no reason. I can only presume that as a buyer, watching prices and therefore in a very strong position, she's decided to wait a little longer, till they come down further. It's a scary position for us sellers to be in, because we need to make as much as poss to put down on our next place.

We're thinking about taking the profit we do make on our house (within reason) and sticking it an 11% account and renting for a while. But if we can't actually sell our house (there are 15-20 houses for sale per buyer atm, so they're spoiled for choice) we will have to stay put.

Either that, or rent ours out and try to rent a bigger place ourselves. I'm lucky, in that I do have some healthy equity in my house, but nothing like the Fiveways example Uncle Spielberg listed above. I bought the place for £132,000, with a £15K deposit, so had a mortgage of only £117K, but a remortgage to do windows, put in new kitchen / bathroom etc, has made it a little more precarious.

It is really scary atm...

.

taking the profit and sticking it in an 11% account ? that would take you dangerously close to being a greedy exploitative capitalist bastard for some people on here !!

 

[Alex Alex Dawson oo! oo!]

I guess all the exceptional and professionally qualified people in established, professional institutions who "unknowingly" took on debt originating from the US sub-prime lending would also class themselves as dedicated industry professionals with years of experience.............
They, or course, clearly knew nothing.

 

[ridda]

I remember people in the 90's umming or arring in the mid 1990's about buying a garden 1 bed flat in the Fiveways area for £ 32000 as the press said prices would fall further, price last year £ 180000, now £ 160000. Even with a 20% fall they are laughing and this will happen again. People will assume prices will fall forever and hang on and miss out like they did last time. I think its great all this doom and ggloom because there will be some great opportunities in the next 2 years.

I agree there will be some great opportunities in the next two years but not in the housing market.
At the moment America is having a fire sale everything is up for grabs and this is sucking in a massive amounts of money [mainly from sovereign funds] buying into financials and commercial real estate.
I expect the stock markets to pick up later this year, or early next year, and there will be opportunities to pick up cheap financial stocks.
At the end of all this you are going to see a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the mega rich.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

I guess all the exceptional and professionally qualified people in established, professional institutions who "unknowingly" took on debt originating from the US sub-prime lending would also class themselves as dedicated industry professionals with years of experience.............
They, or course, clearly knew nothing.

Not really the banks are so awash with our cash they took a punt and got their fingers burnt, they don't really care that mauch as any losses with be passed onto us with higher mortgage rates and fees payable, even with writing billions off they still made billions in the last year.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

So who's offering 11%?

Good point. Halifax are doing a regular savers account that has 10% interest on it. Some of these Icelandic banks have good (6.5%) saving accounts, but Birmingham Midshires are doing a 7.11% savings account. So rather than watch the equity in your home go down, flog it now and it'll go up. But that's only if you can flog your house now.

.

 

[Uncle C]

Good point. Halifax are doing a regular savers account that has 10% interest on it. Some of these Icelandic banks have good (6.5%) saving accounts, but Birmingham Midshires are doing a 7.11% savings account. So rather than watch the equity in your home go down, flog it now and it'll go up. But that's only if you can flog your house now.

.

The regular saver high interest accounts are generally for 1 or 2 thousand pounds max - not for the proceeds of a house sale, so I ask again where is this magic 11% coming from or is it an NSC FACT

 

[eastlondonseagull]

The regular saver high interest accounts are generally for 1 or 2 thousand pounds max - not for the proceeds of a house sale, so I ask again where is this magic 11% coming from or is it an NSC FACT

It's obviously an NSC FACT

.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

The more Governments can panic the populace the easier it is to control them - whatever happened to bird flu and missiles being fired at planes taking off from Heathrow? The USA has a hidden agenda, probably about to obliterate Iran, and this credit crunch is the perfect distraction for something the majority of people would strongly object to. Once they've achieved their objectives, things will return to normality.

This is an NSC global conspiracy FACT

 

[Wozza]

Our current mortgage deal is about to expire, and revert to 7% or so.

Phoned Abbey and they offered 3- or 5-years fixed rate... at just under the same rate.

So I guess they have little to lend, or they think the rates are going up. Or maybe that we're a risk. Tsk!

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Halifax Plc are launching some very good new fixed rates on Monday.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

C&G have a 5 year fixed rate at 6.29% with a free survey and free legals.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Article by Martin Wolfe from FT.

What might happen to the British housing market? After a week of dire news from specialised mortgage lenders and housebuilders, this is an obvious question. It also plays directly into the darkest obsessions of the British, for whom nothing is more important than that houses become ever more ludicrously expensive.

Quite.

At what point did a house go from just being a place you lived in, to being an investment vehicle guaranteeing an annual return of percent on your 'property portfolio'?

All these 'Property Ladder' type programmes making muppets believe you could make a million overnight. As always in these things, the latecomers and the stupid got their fingers burnt. Badly. If all these wannabee shrewdies want to act like gamblers then they should be treated like gamblers when they hit a losing streak. Tough shit basically.

Personally, one of the funnier things I've seen in recent months was the article, forget which paper, where it said that there were so many 'investment properties' lying empty in Bulgaria that the local pikeys were just going round them, one by one, systematically stripping them down to the bare bones.

You'd need a heart of stone not to

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

What I find a real piss take is the BBC still have all the old proeprty buying programmes on in the mornings with the presenters going on about £ 50000 profits in a year and buy now before its too late and property investors buying at auction spending £ 10000 on improvements and selling for £ 40000 more. Are the BBC mad or just insensitive bastards ?.

 

[Storer68]

We will see, I think it will.

from my seat here a floor beneath the corridoor of power, let me tell you they are shitting themselves about the next two years

 

[Storer68]

What I find a real piss take is the BBC still have all the old proeprty buying programmes on in the mornings with the presenters going on about £ 50000 profits in a year and buy now before its too late and property investors buying at auction spending £ 10000 on improvements and selling for £ 40000 more. Are the BBC mad or just insensitive bastards ?.

no the programmes were probanly made in spring 2007 when the world was still racking up the debt.......

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

but why show them now its just taking the piss really isn't it

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

from my seat here a floor beneath the corridoor of power, let me tell you they are shitting themselves about the next two years

They are a DEAD MAN WALKING government anyway and will lose in 2 years time no matter what happens especially if that BELL END , Brown is still in charge of their rabble.

 

[Storer68]

If you are a first time buyer you are now being asked for a CASH DEPOSIT of around £30,000 That's about three years take home for most of them....

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Well, my house has dropped nearly £20,000 since we put it on the market, that's almost 10% in only five months. We had an offer of £170,000 a week or so ago from a woman who'd initially been round the house back in February when it was on for £200,000. We turned it down, accepting her revised offer of £175,000 (a full £25,000 under what we'd initially put the house on the market for). She then withdrew her offer, giving no reason. I can only presume that as a buyer, watching prices and therefore in a very strong position, she's decided to wait a little longer, till they come down further. It's a scary position for us sellers to be in, because we need to make as much as poss to put down on our next place.

We're thinking about taking the profit we do make on our house (within reason) and sticking it an 11% account and renting for a while. But if we can't actually sell our house (there are 15-20 houses for sale per buyer atm, so they're spoiled for choice) we will have to stay put.

Either that, or rent ours out and try to rent a bigger place ourselves. I'm lucky, in that I do have some healthy equity in my house, but nothing like the Fiveways example Uncle Spielberg listed above. I bought the place for £132,000, with a £15K deposit, so had a mortgage of only £117K, but a remortgage to do windows, put in new kitchen / bathroom etc, has made it a little more precarious.

It is really scary atm...

.

I also worked at Fox & Sons Lewes Road in the mid 90's and the 2/3 bed Hanover houses were going for £ 50000 - £ 55000.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Well, my house has dropped nearly £20,000 since we put it on the market, that's almost 10% in only five months. We had an offer of £170,000 a week or so ago from a woman who'd initially been round the house back in February when it was on for £200,000. We turned it down, accepting her revised offer of £175,000 (a full £25,000 under what we'd initially put the house on the market for). She then withdrew her offer, giving no reason. I can only presume that as a buyer, watching prices and therefore in a very strong position, she's decided to wait a little longer, till they come down further. It's a scary position for us sellers to be in, because we need to make as much as poss to put down on our next place.

We're thinking about taking the profit we do make on our house (within reason) and sticking it an 11% account and renting for a while. But if we can't actually sell our house (there are 15-20 houses for sale per buyer atm, so they're spoiled for choice) we will have to stay put.

Either that, or rent ours out and try to rent a bigger place ourselves. I'm lucky, in that I do have some healthy equity in my house, but nothing like the Fiveways example Uncle Spielberg listed above. I bought the place for £132,000, with a £15K deposit, so had a mortgage of only £117K, but a remortgage to do windows, put in new kitchen / bathroom etc, has made it a little more precarious.

It is really scary atm...

.

I also worked at Fox & Sons Lewes Road in the mid 90's and the 2/3 bed Hanover houses were going for £ 50000 - £ 55000.