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House Price Crash Forum

Newcastle Upon Tyne


neilrich

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HOLA441

According to nethouseprices.com the following house sold on 25/08/2004 for £130k. At the end of 2004 the house was back on the market for £225k and recently reduced to £215k!! This house is on Hollywood Ave which is in Gosforth a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne and five years ago these were selling for less than £75k! A complete joke, price marked up by £95k in a couple of months and for what? Walls painted in magnolia and a B&Q kitchen!! House does not even have a driveway let alone a garage.

Forth Park Residential

Anyone here on HPC living in Newcastle? If so send me a msg!

Regards

Neil :rolleyes:

Edited by neilrich
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HOLA442

I dont live there, but its my home town and i moved down to surrey from newcastle about 3 years ago.

Price increases there have been nothing short of amazing... case in point, a friend of mine bought a 3 bed small semi (wafer thin walls) for about 60k about 4 years ago... sold this year for about 150k. The same houses were sold originally for about 35k about 6 years ago.

Needless to say, i still get the impression that the majority of people in the north think a crash is 'something that happens in the south' and i know plenty of people who are still thinking nothing of offering at or above asking prices for grotty dumps in rough areas.

Its very much still madness up there :(

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HOLA443

I am also an exiled Geordie. It's the current housing market in the NE that has led me to take an interest in this site. I'd have to agree that the locals have never seen anything like this, the last boom/bust came nowhere near it. If you're thinking of buying - don't!

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HOLA444

I actually live near the house in question - looks like a classic post-Property Ladder investment vehicle, with the only thing going for it being the proximity to a good school.

The North East market is completely out of kilter with any economic sense. I wasn't in a position to take out any mortgage until last year, but gave up actively looking for a FTB after prices in not so desirable areas lost all grip on reality. For example, I had a fish about on Net House Prices & found a house on Croydon Road, Arthurs Hill that sold for £31,740 in June 2001 & again at £120,000 a couple of months ago. I know someone who lives nearby and they had their door kicked in while they were sleeeping the other day - not exactly what you want for a mortgage that is 6 times the average regional salary, eh!?!

Personally, I think it'll crash hardest in the North this time round. We don't have a very strong local economy at the best of times (e.g. over 3000 redundancies announced last month), never mind strong enough to support this level of price growth. Things may look a bit 1992 up here by 2007...

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HOLA445
I actually live near the house in question - looks like a classic post-Property Ladder investment vehicle, with the only thing going for it being the proximity to a good school.

The North East market is completely out of kilter with any economic sense.  I wasn't in a position to take out any mortgage until last year, but gave up actively looking for a FTB after prices in not so desirable areas lost all grip on reality.  For example, I had a fish about on Net House Prices & found a house on Croydon Road, Arthurs Hill that sold for £31,740 in June 2001 & again at £120,000 a couple of months ago.  I know someone who lives nearby and they had their door kicked in while they were sleeeping the other day - not exactly what you want for a mortgage that is 6 times the average regional salary, eh!?!

Personally, I think it'll crash hardest in the North this time round.  We don't have a very strong local economy at the best of times (e.g. over 3000 redundancies announced last month), never mind strong enough to support this level of price growth.  Things may look a bit 1992 up here by 2007...

Could not agree more! You mention 'the average regional salary', I wonder what it actually is for Tyne and Wear? My guess would be less than £15k a year!

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HOLA446

It's difficult to find a straight answer to this one, but the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister reported a mean gross weekly wage of £410 for Newcastle in 2002, compared to an average of £439 across all core cities (see Competitive European Cities: Where do the Core Cities Stand? ), which translates to £21.3K gross salary in Newcastle compared to £22.8K across all core cities. This would be skewed by a small number of high earners (e.g. footballers, directors, judges etc.) - a quick look through this week's jobs supplement points to £15-18K being much more realistic, with around £12K being the norm for call centre jobs. Not much compared to asking prices, eh!?!

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HOLA447

The jobs section of the local evening paper I find pretty poor, unless you’re looking for something within the NHS or perhaps the local authority. I had a look at the website for Northern Rock who claim to be one of the largest employers in the North East, they are paying a salary of £17649 for a Senior Management Information Analyst or £12594 for a Call Centre Team Leader and £10400 for a Customer Service Adviser. I also checked out the website for Sage the accountancy software firm another major employer in the region where there are many vacancies listed only no mention of salary. Salaries in the region are pretty poor and certainly lower than the national average.

Not much compared to asking prices, eh!?!

You're spot on! How could someone employed by Northern Rock expect to be able to afford the poor example posted at the top of this thread, which just so happens to be within walking distance of the Northern Rock Head Office.

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HOLA448

The supply of housing within the region has certainly increased over the last five years, new developments have been popping up all over Newcastle. I would love to be able to quote a precise figure my guess would be in the tens of thousands for the number of new dwellings in and around Newcastle. One of the latest, a development for key workers and students has more than 700 dwellings, close to the city centre near Manors just up from Newcastle’s famous quayside, this alone shall have a negative impact on the Newcastle rental market where in my opinion there is already massive oversupply.

I guess one could argue that the regional economy is stronger and unemployment has fallen over the last five years, but is our economy stronger today? I’m trying to think of the many quality employment opportunities that have been created over the period that shall benefit our local economy into the long-term, but I can’t think of any! Looking forward if house prices do go into reverse, what shall be the impact on our consumer driven regional economy?????

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HOLA449
Guest negativeequity

Any one living in the Newcastle upon tyne ?

In answer to the question no. I spoke to some FTB and they said the North East of

England is a sh!thole and just wasn't posh enough for them to buy there :lol:

To working class.

Edited by negativeequity
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HOLA4410
Any one living in the Newcastle upon tyne ?

In answer to the question no. I spoke to some FTB and they said the North East of

England is a sh!thole and just wasn't posh enough for them to buy there :lol:

To working class.

I think you mean "too" working class. Are you not posh enough to have a spell checker?

You are spot on in your assessment of the North East. I would like to confirm to all the Southerners on the board, that the North East is awful. You really wouldn't like it up here, and you should stay down South. In fact, don't even bother to visit. There's nothing here for you.

:)

Edited by Phaedrus
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HOLA4411

Sage tend to pay a bit better than Northern Rock for call centre work, which was where the £12K came from. I completely agree with you about that house, which illustrates the discrepancy between income & asking price perfectly. The whole estate isn't that old & looks like it was built to house modest white collar families working nearby. I'd guess that then, relatively, the main breadwinner wouldn't have been too distant on the salary scale from the type of responsibility someone would have in that Senior Management Information Analyst job you saw advertised for less than £18K!

Newcastle has also had loads of external BTL investment (perhaps off the back of the City of Culture bid?), which has especially pushed new build flats to ridiculous levels - I've heard that there is a serious glut of empty city centre flats at the moment. Found this gem on a letting agent site the other day, warning would be investors back in August 2003 that things were a bit saturated then, never mind now: -

Acorn Properties - Info for Investors

Mind you, the local media, as ever, refuse to say anything is less than rosey in the property market: -

Some good signs in the early spring

I particularly like the line about lighter nights improving property sales!

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HOLA4412
Newcastle has also had loads of external BTL investment (perhaps off the back of the City of Culture bid?), which has especially pushed new build flats to ridiculous levels - I've heard that there is a serious glut of empty city centre flats at the moment.  Found this gem on a letting agent site the other day, warning would be investors back in August 2003 that things were a bit saturated then, never mind now: -

Acorn Properties - Info for Investors

I like the title 'Residential Property as an Investment', do these clowns no the meaning of the word 'investment'! I shall be amazed if anyone who climbed aboard the BTL bandwagon within recent years is actually getting a return on their investment! As my friend above says there is a serious glut of empty properties within Newcastle all available to rent, anyone here had a drive around Jesmond of late and counted the number of boards.

Please check out the following links for one of Gosforth's most recent developments Knightsbridge Court, a favourite of mine just look how many are up For Sale. I can purchase one of these for £210k or I can rent the same property for £625 a month!

Go to the following link and enter 'Knightsbridge Court' for the street and then click <search>

For Sale - Knightsbridge Court

Then go to the following link and enter 'Knightsbridge Court' for the street and the click <search>

To Rent - Search for Knightsbridge Court

I can't believe that people think the above represents a good investment!

Edited by neilrich
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HOLA4413

I wondered just how much of the Knightsbridge Court development was snapped up by people off plan trying to making a fast buck - looking at the Pattinson site certainly answered that question and I can see some fingers getting seriously burned there! Terrible setting for any decent quality of life - next door to a school & a train track, round the corner from a major office complex & looking out on to a busy dual carriageway. The asking price suddenly makes that house down the road look relatively alright, eh!?!

I've also noticed a lot more boards around in Heaton all year round, which is surprising given the high student population there. More 'To Sale or To Let' boards are creeping in too and we all know what that means!

I was talking to someone recently who's been doing BTL for years and he's seriously considering getting out now, mainly due to oversupply rather than anything else. In fact, he reckoned it was too many amateur BTLs at the end of the last boom that sped up the decline of Newcastle's west end in the nineties. Once the market turned, many of the amateur landlords struggled to fill places & couldn't sell either, so they started letting to anyone they could. This inevitably brought in problem tenants, who drove many of the more peaceful inhabitants away and set off a spiral of decay. Within a couple of years the area had sunk into a lawless, burnt out mess and by the back end of the decade, pairs of flats in Benwell were being sold off for a quid! Sounds plausible when you think it through - just hope it doesn't get that bad again...

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HOLA4414
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HOLA4415

The west end's obviously never going to be the safest place to own property in Newcastle, never mind let! However, things have improved a lot with CCTV etc.

Despite all the problems though, prices seem to have risen the highest in the west end compared to anywhere else. Many old school landlords have offloaded some complete rubbish to BTL novices recently at stupid prices. Scarily, some of this is still selling - this pair of flats sold for £80K at last month's Pattinson auction and would have been around £10-20K not so long ago!

Gerald Street, Benwell

Here's last month's auction results in full

Pattinson Auction Results - March 2005

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HOLA4416
The west end's obviously never going to be the safest place to own property in Newcastle, never mind let!  However, things have improved a lot with CCTV etc.

Despite all the problems though, prices seem to have risen the highest in the west end compared to anywhere else.  Many old school landlords have offloaded some complete rubbish to BTL novices recently at stupid prices.  Scarily, some of this is still selling - this pair of flats sold for £80K at last month's Pattinson auction and would have been around £10-20K not so long ago!

Gerald Street, Benwell

Here's last month's auction results in full

Pattinson Auction Results - March 2005

A lot of dodgy stuff there. I presume auction is a last resort for places they can't sell or need to sell quickly. If so the numbers should rise and prices fall quicker than the rest of the market.

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HOLA4417
I guess one could argue that the regional economy is stronger and unemployment has fallen over the last five years, but is our economy stronger today?  I’m trying to think of the many quality employment opportunities that have been created over the period that shall benefit our local economy into the long-term, but I can’t think of any!  Looking forward if house prices do go into reverse, what shall be the impact on our consumer driven regional economy?????

Maybe this is where the jobs have come from:

http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0100new...-name_page.html

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HOLA4418

An excellent find! A former colleague of mine who took early retirement in 2003 took a public sector job at Longbenton, they gave him a one week long course in-house, then a week later he was making decisions and dishing out thousands of pounds worth of benefits! He ended up leaving after a short time, but he descibes the set up as a complete joke and talks of what a mess this once great nation of ours is in!

I wonder what the average wage is for the public sector within the North East?

Edited by neilrich
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HOLA4419
An excellent find!  I wonder what the average wage is for the public sector within the North East?

I wouldn't have any idea with that, but public sector wage figures are probably public information if you know where to find them.

I suppose these jobs are low paid but secure (as long as labour is returned)

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HOLA4420

Not sure how secure some of these public sector jobs are, actually. I know someone working for an agency who manages several quite large teams of temp admin staff working across the public sector in the North East - they're paid peanuts for paper shuffling and he's been told to be ruthless on hiring & firing if he has any problems with staff. Most IT in Longbenton seems to be outsourced now and support services such as catering/cleaning etc. have been going that way for years - don't know who'll be left directly employed for the Government at this rate!

Anyway, on a complete tangent - I saw a new estate agent has opened up in Gosforth!!! Bradley Hall have a new 'Executive' Agency open just off the High Street - despite the overpriced rubbish they had in the window, there were a few listed as sold already! I have noticed a few new Sold SSTC boards in gardens around Gosforth, but the market's not exactly crying out for more EAs yet. Took a walk through Jesmond yesterday and things weren't looking so rosey, especially in terms of rentals - most students are usually sorted for next year by now & there are loads of boards everywhere. Saw a couple of auction boards creeping in too - and we all know what that means ;)

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HOLA4421

Thats a worrying article there, and the comparrison with soviet bloc countries being nearly the same as the NE with regards to their dependance on the public sector .... wow.

When taxes are raised or spending cut - i wonder how the NE will do?

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HOLA4422
I guess one could argue that the regional economy is stronger and unemployment has fallen over the last five years, but is our economy stronger today?  I’m trying to think of the many quality employment opportunities that have been created over the period that shall benefit our local economy into the long-term, but I can’t think of any!  Looking forward if house prices do go into reverse, what shall be the impact on our consumer driven regional economy?????

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,...1582905,00.html

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HOLA4423
Took a walk through Jesmond yesterday and things weren't looking so rosey, especially in terms of rentals

I sold up from west jesmond last year after 5 years there, prices are indeed mad but those to let signs are always up 12 months of the year so that is not necessarily indicative of loads of unlet flats/houses.

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HOLA4424
I sold up from west jesmond last year after 5 years there, prices are indeed mad but those to let signs are always up 12 months of the year so that is not necessarily indicative of loads of unlet flats/houses.

I'm with Quietobserver on this one, when out running I run through West Jesmond and have done so for many years, since the beginning of this year something changed, there has never been so many boards! Streets lined with 'For Sale' and 'To Let' boards, streets such as Forsyth Road or Lavender Gardens. Don't believe me then go take a look!

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HOLA4425
I'm with Quietobserver on this one, when out running I run through West Jesmond and have done so for many years, since the beginning of this year something changed, there has never been so many boards!  Streets lined with 'For Sale' and 'To Let' boards, streets such as Forsyth Road or Lavender Gardens.  Don't believe me then go take a look!

Fair do's. Its been a year since I was in Newcastle - I remember the signs used to annoy me as they make the place look a complete dump.

I just had a quick look on rightmove at 2 bed downstairs tynside flats (what I had). Prices seem to have continued to go up in the last 12 months - crazy - surely the weathy students parents will stop buying there soon, its ludacriously overpriced!

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