Warwickshire Lad

Not much more that I'd like to say now except that I think it's a shame that there's been a few bad tempered responses to my original post. I suspect that it might have something to do with it being perceived as being "positive" about the market, and well, that simply can't be tolerated because it's "off message". In that kind of atmosphere, no-one will ever cut you slack. Actually, I intended to post about both the negatives and positives from my point of view, and that's it. All perspectives should be welcomed, newbies, lurkers, veterans and everyone in between, and preferably with good grace. I'm now glad I stepped away when I did. Thanks to the mods for moving the thread. See you in another 10 years.

Why thank you for that trip down memory lane. It's a reminder of how painful it was for me to think about the subject then and how even more painful I'm sure it is to FTBs now. You make a point on my reference to conventional wisdom. Actually, I came on this forum to discover more than just conventional wisdom of vested interests, and that's what I found thanks to the insight of some very entertaining and knowledgeable people. Over the last ten years there were successive times that I thought things would turn seriously south but they haven't (except for the moderate drops I already mentioned after the 2008 crisis). The insanity we've seen is perhaps a perfect storm of many interacting factors. So, OK - I'd be interested to see you make the argument that low interest rates and lack of supply have absolutely nothing to do with it.

It's OK, people are free to agree or criticise. I take into account that when it comes to the property market, feelings can run very high and very deep for some people. It did for me - I remember back to my very first post on this forum when I felt hopeless in the face of rapidly rising prices. Discovering this place was something of "eureka" moment - I knew something was wrong in the property market, but couldn't fully understand it, and there's a lot of educated people on here who are an awful lot smarter than me! I am not here to gloat or anything of the sort. I'd be quite happy for prices to go back to what they were 10 years ago. It will be interesting to see if Brexit will have any effect over the next few years, but I guess low interest rates and lack of supply seem to be keeping prices high at least for now, or at least that's what conventional wisdom says.

Hi everyone - I used to post on here very frequently about a decade or so ago. Glad to see the site is still here, because it's such a treasure trove of information. :-) So, I guess it's time to share an update. Well, in 2007 I was an FTB. However, the decision to buy at that time was not easy - after a lot of time spent on this forum over 3 years or so I became passionate in the belief a HPC was imminent, but a combination of my improved financial circumstances, coupled with some disillusionment creeping in, I caved in and bought a property. So, a decade on, how did I do? I bought a semi in a sought after area of town for 145K. On the negative side, it turned out that it needed a full electrical rewire, and various other improvements meant that I've spent about 20K on it - more than I expected. Probably the biggest mistake though was the mortgage - I anticipated interest rates to rise significantly, and got a long fixed rate - but with the financial crash in 2008 they went completely the other way. On the positive side, however, I've consistently overpaid on said mortgage, thereby avoiding some of the interest, and have now paid about a third of it off. The area I live in continues to be sought after, even more so now since the local school now has an outstanding Ofsted rating. Recently an EA valued my house at 210K, but that's just their opinion of course. Noisy neighbours and other factors are now making me consider a move, however. New Builds are popping up everywhere around town, and they are nice, but expensive compared to other houses. Looks like prices are now dropping slightly - full on HPC? The market always seems to defy gravity, so who knows? I feel sad for today's FTBs, it still feels like we are gradually going back to Victorian times where everyone rented from the wealthy landlord class. Overall I feel happy to have not lined a landlord's pocket for the last decade and have worked hard to build up some equity. I've not done everything right, it would probably have been better to have waited until 2009/10, but sometimes you have to stop analysing too much and just get on with your life. Best wishes to you all in HPC land!

I'd vote for Vince Cable.

As mentioned on a BBC news report a while ago, the HSBC is one of a very few banks that has deposits which are worth more than its loan book.

Most of the criticism the BBC receive from this forum is unwarranted, especially their perceived bias towards bullish headlines. The real reason for the criticism that they get, IMO, is simply because many bears are mega-sensitive to ANY even remotely bullish article, even if there might be a reasonable argument for one. The BBC are not perfect, but their news operation is about as balanced as you're likely to find anywhere. If anything the only criticism I'd level at them, is that they report house price movements too often. The BBC have made some great programmes to cover the bear argument such as the recent "Truth About Property" etc and the "Great House Price Crash 2005?". Please stop with this crap. Oh well let me go and find a more intelligent thread to read.

I got a 10 year fixed rate. No problems here.

I used to post actively and frequently, but only very occasionally post and lurk now. It's about having a life other than thinking about a house price crash.

Yes. I bought one earlier this year, after a few years of refusal (due to this site). Since buying I have been decorating/improving the property ever since, and also have a cat too. And yes, I think the market is now heading for a slide which will certainly see prices fall across the board. However, I bought at the time I did because I'd recently had a good increase in salary I had the offer of parental help I therefore had a good deposit was borrowing about 3.5 times and not over-stretching I found a 10 year fixed mortgage deal at a good interest rate, which I can also overpay I HATED renting after having done it for many years already and spent approx. £35K on landlords It was important for my personal well being and development So am I going to be bothered if my relatively modest house falls by a nominal 20%? Well - what does it matter - bigger properties will fall by an even larger nominal value (in the same way as they rose more during the bubble). In 5 years time with lower property prices, a chunk of the mortgage paid off, and (perhaps) IR at about the same level as today, it'd be a good time to trade up.

Yes, it was rubbish - your comment that is. The programme was brilliantly refreshing change. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Well done BBC.

He's probably seen this website...

Great post, Mr. Yogi. Makes you wonder doesn't it when you look at all these people that they're just living it all on the never-never. I do have a mortgage now, but I have no other debts whatsoever - not even a credit card. Even my mortgage was borrowed at 3.5x income at on a long fixed-rate. There's plenty of money I plan to spend on improving my house, but determined to stay within my means.

One of the most stupid and ignorant press releases I've ever seen!

My educated guess is that it's being directly harvested from the Rightmove website itself. It is possible to do this, because each property has it's own unique ID number so that it's possible to keep track of them all. Ages ago someone wrote a program which would harvest information like this and produce a report with all the reduced properties, and made it available on this forum. All that's happened now is that someone has been good enough to make a presentable website on top of this data. I must presume that if it's being done this way that PropertySnake has the necessary permission from Rightmove to use it's data in this way. It's a good website !! It could do with some more refinement, perhaps - but not bad. One thing I'd like to see is some sort of link into the LR data so we can see asking prices vs actual achieved ceiling prices. Then we can truly see whether house prices are actually going below celing levels. At the moment the website only reports asking price reductions, which is nice but not the full picture.