FunkyGibbon

The toilet's so stunning it merited TWO photographs. Just love the blue plastic toilet brush. Worth 550K at least; or £1.99 from your local Poundsaver store. What a load of cr*p.

This takes the concept of open-plan living to a whole new level Take a look at linky for the full details!

Stunning! property for sale?

I remember the 1990's recession well. I purchased my first home in 1989 at the peak of the house price bubble in East London for £95,000 with a 95% interest-only mortgage. Three years later, I had the house valued by a local agent and was given a valuation of £65,000. As a result, I had £30,000 negative equity and was unable to sell. At that time, thousands of people were defaulting on their mortgages and literally handing their house keys back to the lender in the belief that would be the end of the matter. However, I held onto the property after making some sacrifice in my living standards. House prices subsequently recovered and after 13 years, I eventually sold the house for £155,000. I have been a member of housepricecrash.co.uk ever since and have seen the value of my old house double to £300,000+ since my sale in 2002.

I agree with the observations of the OP. My Grandparents lived in a modest 2 bedroom council house in Streatham, South London. It is now up for sale by the current owners at over £300,000 - a sum that could never have been afforded by my grandparents. I grew up in a middle class neighbourhood in North London and the in the street where my family home was, you would be lucky to find anything for less than £1 million - in a normal suburban London street! I also notice that at work, an entire generation of 20-30 year old's are mostly living at home with their parents (after graduating) or in rented accommodation. A whole generation appears to have been dispossessed of the ability to own their own homes.

At £800 Rent pcm, the maximum I would be willing to pay is £180,000 based on the following assumptions: 1) Buy to let tracker mortgage with NatWest 25% Deposit (£45,000) at 4.99% 2) Letting Agent Fees of 10% of Gross Rent 3) Weeks let per year: 48 4) Gross Yield 5% However, you would be gambling that interest rates remain at their current low rate for a considerable period of time and that HPI over the next 5-10 years is positive. Unfortunately, I do not believe that this will happen. If and when inflation picks up and/or the UK loses its AAA credit rating, interest rates are likely to increase and at that point a further falls in HPI are inevitable and mortgage rates will need to rise accordingly. In any event, you will be tying up the £45,000 deposit in the BTL for the duration of the investment and you need to ask yourself if you can gain a better return on bank deposits, stock market or some other activity.

Wow - a fantastic & funky resource. Bookmarked.

Be funky! No mortgage is the best.

A dead cat bounce for sure. House prices are still falling in the USA and they're likely to be 12-18 months ahead of the UK in terms of economic trends: Falling in the USA

Have cash and would not buy at the moment. Prices are still ridiculously high and need to fall back to 3 x average income. In the UK in 2008, the average annual salary was £20,801 (source: Office for National Statistics "Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) - 2008 Results" - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15187 ). According to the UK Land Registry, the average house price for March 2009 was £152,895 (source: Land Registry House Price index March 2009 http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/houseprices ). In my opinion, house prices are still 200-300% overvalued and need to fall considerably before it would be worth buying a property with cash.

This may merit a new thread but I have a couple of examples of where you look at the details advertised an estate agent and think, "hmm, quite nice and quite good value", but when you do some more research you find some really dodgy aspect of the property the agents HAVE NOT told you about that make you think that the property really is overpriced crap. My first offering is an attractive country cottage in the town of Trowbridge in Wiltshire. The agents details are here: attractive cottage in Trowbridge. However what the agents are not telling you is that the property is 1000ft from one of the largest sewage farms in the area. See the attached map 1 to give you an idea of the scale. A few days ago, I saw the following flat in the historic centre of Bath, again seemingly reasonably priced for the location and style: nice flat in historic Bath. What the agents are not telling you here (and I needed to view the property to find out) is that it is situated NEXT DOOR to a very noisy pub. Funnily enough you can actually see the pub windows in the estate agent's photos, but is not clear until you pan out that you get an idea what's happening. Even worse, the bedroom of the flat overlooks the beer garden of the pub so during those balmy summer nights you can forget about any early nights what with the drifting smoke and chatter from the garden. The agent mentions in the property details, "benefits from excellent local shop and amenities on Bathwick Street including an excellent an excellent delicatessen", but not one word about the pub! Anyway, there's still lots of overpriced crap out there and you don't need a ******** detector to find it.

Location Location Location

There's problem with your link. Try Fantastic City pad in Stratford But hey, it's not fantastic (only fantastically overpriced), it's not in the City (it's in East London), but agreed it is a "pad". 80K for a bedsit in Stratford?

Take a look at 46 Colworth Road, Leytonstone E11. According to Property Bee, the property was first listed in August 2008 with no price reductions. I have plenty of background on this property having lived there for 2 years in 1986-1988 when it was subdivided into bedsits for DHSS tenants. It has subsequently had the partitions removed and for a short period in the 90s was the home of an alternative health therapy practice. The property is located in scenic Upper Leytonstone which is bisected by the snarling M11 link road and cosmopolitan Leytonstone High Road. Crime rates are approximately double the national average particularly thefts from motor vehicles (Crime Rates in E11 1HY). You will be well placed to suffer the consequences as the property has no off-street parking. The property is situated next door to a group of council or ex-council owned properties adding a frisson of glamour to the location. Externally, the house is rendered with an attractive pebble-dash finish which provides the property with a durable and attactive exterior. For outside space, the property has a twee landscaped front garden and a small, overlooked rear patio. The property has a two largish double bedrooms and two tiny single bedrooms. With two reception rooms, a downstairs utility room/cloakroom and dated and cheaply fitted kitchen, that's your lot for £439,995.

Bath estate agents appear to be in denial at the moment. I just picked up a copy of FindaProperty (free every Thursday with the Bath Chronicle) and it's like the House Price Crash never happened. Some examples: Andrews (www.andrewsonline.co.uk) Green Park - 2 double bedrooms - flat - £229,000 (http://www.andrewsonline.co.uk/buying-sell...s.aspx?ID=50404) River Street - (small) top floor maisonette - 2 double bedrooms - £239.960 (http://www.andrewsonline.co.uk/buying-sell...s.aspx?ID=48761) Cobb Farr (www.cobbfarr.com) Great Bedford Street (St James Square) - 1 bed flat - £220,000 (http://www.cobbfarr.com/propertyDetails.php?pid=103666) Who are buying these properties? A first time buyer with a 75% loan to value mortgage would require a sum of over £60,000 to cover the deposit and costs. Who has that sort of money in these credit crunched times? I believe Bath may be due for a very hard landing in the near future