[Garf]

bobthebuilder, on 30 January 2012 - 11:18 PM, said:

one of my customers in blackheath told me today "the olympics are gonna push the prices up around here"

Prices of stables perhaps, since the horsey events are in Greenwich.

[sf-02]

It's mainly the inner London boroughs that are holding up. The rest...not so much. See here http://fromthemurkyd...s-across-london

Greenwich dropped 2.3% last month. Newham 2.5% over the past year. You can get one bed flats for 70k in Woolwich. A dump for sure, but one in zone 4 that shows that that prices don't start in the hundreds of thousands.

[Si1]

Killer Bunny, on 30 January 2012 - 10:35 PM, said:

Yes.

Nowhere is immune to the laws of economics.

C London is roughly flat in prices yet the lowest rates in history, falling jobs and a falling €. They're not selling nearly as many as they say they are. Obvious.

Price follows volumes. Everywhere

oh i am sure yes; it's just that occasionally the laws of economics take a wee holiday off somewhere only to come back with a horn

[out2lunch]

Radio 4 about 3pm I think yesterday, Arab money buying in London, the lady kept saying "why not, why not?". Probably a good "investment" in her eyes, as well as buying Harrods.

[Grrrr I'm a tiger]

MrTReturns, on 31 January 2012 - 06:31 AM, said:

Radio 4 about 3pm I think yesterday, Arab money buying in London, the lady kept saying "why not, why not?". Probably a good "investment" in her eyes, as well as buying Harrods.

Overseas cash buying in London relies on the "ripple effect" of residents to move further out to cheaper areas for it to impact on national prices. Once its all sold, that ripple effect will no longer happen. More then half of all Londoners rent already and the majority of new build flats and homes over £1 million are bought by overseas 'investors'.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Time.

[winkie]

TheCountOfNowhere, on 31 January 2012 - 08:26 AM, said:

Time.

[eric pebble]

winkie, on 31 January 2012 - 10:31 AM, said:

[Logan3]

Hi Folks,

Here's an anecdote for you:

I was in my gym in a posh(ish) part of NW London around Christmas and overheard a conversation between an American banker and his in-Laws.

He said he was about the only American ex-pat out of all his friends left in London. Said people were gradually finding 'other opportunities' and leaving, and that London would 'be a very different place in a couple of years time'.

Driving around St John's wood which is American Banker Shangri-La there are a TON of To Let and For Sale signs going up, so I dare say the exodus is real.

I think this is likely to have a much greater effect on house and rent prices than all these mysterious foreign buyers.

[SaintJay]

sharia law?

[Jem]

TheCountOfNowhere, on 31 January 2012 - 08:26 AM, said:

Time.

Yes, something very strange is happening in North East London in areas around RM1- Romford and a mile and a half further out. Hardly anything has sold for nearly two years, prices are being reduced at around 15k at a time. You can now get a lovely refurbished 5 bed for between 250k and 300k and prices are still falling, yet it is only 30 minutes on the tube or train from Central London.

What has interested me more though is this; a year ago my brother was looking for a 4bed to rent in the area, he could hardly find any, at the moment the number of houses available for rent is absolutely astonishing and yet there are very few takers. Properties remain available for months on end. I pondered about the reasons for this, it seems to be multiple. Owners unable to afford the mortgage payments are putting up their properties to rent since they cannot sell them. The rental requested is so high that cash strapped renters cannot afford them, added to by the change in housing benefit rules. Plus, this area has large numbers of public sector workers and self- employed running small businesses. Both of these groups are under pressure in terms of employment and work available.

Here is a classic recipe for stagnation, prices will have to fall considerably in the rental and for sale sector for anything to move. Distressed sales are already appearing and will accelerate in due course. This seems to me to be the pattern of future price decline in London. 'Normal' Londoners do not live in the areas bordering the Thames unless they are in social housing or on housing benefit. Ordinary working people with families move out.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-21477444.html

Property above reduced by £17 000 yesterday. The corrective or crash will be slow and unobtrusive in various suburbs where ordinary Londers live and in which the overseas investors are not interested in.

[koala_bear]

Jem, on 31 January 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

The corrective or crash will be slow and unobtrusive in various suburbs where ordinary Londoners live and in which the overseas investors are not interested in.

Agreed the conditions for the crash are there but there is no driving force to progress the crash. Increasing IR and unemployment would drive the inevitable faster. Wage increases failing to keep up with inflation will take even longer to have an effect.

[OnlyMe]

Sounds like an utterly fake market has been presented for london - lots of companies selling propoerty to the rich in unstable middle eastern countries and of course the olympics - where investors rush in and then out either before or after the opening ceremony.

Meanwhile those running companies in London will struggle to find or pay for staff and the staff themselves will struggle to make it pay too.

What a mess.

This post has been edited by OnlyMe: 31 January 2012 - 03:50 PM

[winkie]

Jem, on 31 January 2012 - 02:57 PM, said:

Plus, this area has large numbers of public sector workers and self- employed running small businesses. Both of these groups are under pressure in terms of employment and work available.

This is a good point.....public service cuts also impact hard on private sector employment, there are many that rely on available public money, grants and consultancies for example.

[Austin Allegro]

spyguy, on 30 January 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

Oh your Granuiad reading type, latte swilling effete.

London has a couple of nice areas. A few nice but boring areas on the outer urbs.

The rest of it varies from scummy crap holes to Somalia by the Thames.

Still nicer than Reading and Bracknell.

A bit of a sweeping statement! Taking just the NW postcodes, I would say:

NW1 - A mixture of very nice (Regent's Park) and horrible (Camden)
NW2 - mostly horrible
NW3 - very nice
NW4 - ok but fairly dull suburbia
NW5 - mostly horrible
NW6 - equally divided into very nice and horrible, along the division of West End Lane.
NW7 - very nice, known as 'Londonshire' for its village feel
NW8 - very nice
NW9 - fairly dull and mildly grotty suburbia
NW10 - awful, here be dragons
NW11 - some very nice parts on the Hampstead borders and the garden suburb, the rest a bit bland unless you're Orthodox Jewish


So I don't think you can say London only has a 'couple of nice areas'!