[PatientWaiter]

Have you seen the latest example of Basingstoke EA propaganda?

Someone showed me a flyer posted in and around the local EA office areas. It reads:

WITH THE HOUSING MARKET IN BASINGSTOKE DUE TO LIFT OFF AGAIN, THERE'S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO REVIEW THE VALUE OF YOUR PROPERTY

...and finishes off with "our valuations team is in your area" and a phone number.

I really wanna see the Basingstoke housing market lift off again... maybe the C. Heights apartments will start to sell back at their original price of 230k, who knows?

[newaccount99]

I did like the front page of the B'stoke Gazette property section this week:



Market is bolstered by first-time buyers: The gazette 21/01/05.


Especially when the Times came up with this a day later:

First-time buyers are priced out of almost every town: The Times 22/01/05

http://www.timesonli...1451223,00.html

[PatientWaiter]

Latest Crown Heights bail-out:

http://www.fastcropit.com/sisogr/html/temp...d=siba999001894

As advertised in Wednesday's "Basingstoke Extra" freebie newspaper.

£165k guide price - that's £65k off the original asking price. Again, applying the 90% rule in place at the moment, that's a realistic selling price of £148,500 - £81500 off the original price.

I'd be seriously miserable if I'd made an investment like that

[bearly holding up]

PatientWaiter, on Feb 17 2005, 01:08 PM, said:

Latest Crown Heights bail-out:

http://www.fastcropit.com/sisogr/html/temp...d=siba999001894

As advertised in Wednesday's "Basingstoke Extra" freebie newspaper.

£165k guide price - that's £65k off the original asking price.  Again, applying the 90% rule in place at the moment, that's a realistic selling price of £148,500 - £81500 off the original price.

I'd be seriously miserable if I'd made an investment like that 
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can't wait for these kind of reductions up North.

[Kayser Soze]

PatientWaiter, on Feb 17 2005, 01:08 PM, said:

£165k guide price - that's £65k off the original asking price.  Again, applying the 90% rule in place at the moment, that's a realistic selling price of £148,500 - £81500 off the original price.

I'd be seriously miserable if I'd made an investment like that 
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not doubting you but.....this 90% rule. Is this figure available anywhere (official or semi official) as would really like to track this percentage of accepted price re offer price?

[colonel faulkner]

Kayser Soze, on Feb 17 2005, 05:22 PM, said:

I'm not doubting you but.....this 90% rule. Is this figure available anywhere (official or semi official) as would really like to track this percentage of accepted price re offer price?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

http://www.hometrack.co.uk/index.cfm?fusea...sitem&newsid=95

See page 6, graph 3. 92.7% reported for Jan, falling trend.

[newaccount99]

Haven't posted on here for a few weeks....mainly because I appear to be witnessing a phoney war.

I reguarly check the property pages and Rightmove and I just don't seem to see much happening:

1) Plenty more overpriced properties comming on the market.
2) A few properties appear to sell
3) Occasional "sold" property appears back on the market
4) Other properties being withdrawn/re-marketed.

But no significant cuts in asking prices since those we saw at year start.

Sure the odd property drops it's asking price but for every one of those I see, another prop comes on the market at £silly+some

Maybe it's just a watched kettle and all that.....and maybe I expected things to dip faster than this..........but all in all it looks pretty stagnant to me.....It really is Boringstoke at the moment

If things don't start kicking off come the spring or early summer I'm tempted to switch my vote to the 'mother of all stagnations' camp

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

BTLOptingOut, on Feb 25 2005, 10:27 PM, said:

If things don't start kicking off come the spring or early summer I'm tempted to switch my vote to the 'mother of all stagnations' camp 

Stagnation... I don't agree. Looking at the graph of real increase in house prices since 1960 ...
http://www.whatprice...ouse-prices.JPG

you can see that if you average out all the little peaks and troughs, prices follow a straight-line increase; they go up and down, but essentially the increase is a simple linear one. You can see that by 2005 (er... that's now isnt it?!) prices should be around 300% of their 1960 value... the year 2000 bubble has pushed it up to 400% ... it doesn't take an Einstein to figure what happens next.

The only argument being put forward that there won't be a correction this time (and it would have to be a large correction to counter the large increase obviously) is that we are living under completely different conditions these days - inflation blah blah, unemployment blah blah, interest rates etc. I don't buy that one myself- there are always global factors affecting the markets, but unless there was some fundamental shift in supply vs demand values remain pretty constant. I've even heard those desperate to prop up this argument blaming immigration and asylum under the current government

[newaccount99]

Grime- skint wouldbe ftb, on Feb 26 2005, 10:07 AM, said:

Stagnation... I don't agree. Looking at the graph of real increase in house prices since 1960  ...

Yes i'm aware of all the graphs.....I don't think we actualy disagree..........I would say "correction" is certainly on the cards and of the order 20-30%.

"Stagnation" and "crash" are subjective terms and are probably more related to the speed of the correction....for example:

I would personaly (subjectively) class the following yearly changes at todays inflation rate:

Stagnation: HPI +3 to -3%
Crash: HPI < -8%

But another person could quite rightly (subjectively) propose other values for the above. So a "correction" of the same magnitude could be achieved by either a '2yrs * Crash' scenario or a '5yrs * Stagnation' scenario or anything in between.....

All I was saying was that I was formaly of the first scenario now i'm begining to wonder if it will be the later......either way I think we both agree that a house looks like a cr*p investment for the next couple of years+

[deano]

I putting this back at the top in the hope BTL will see it and update it!

[newaccount99]

deano, on May 5 2005, 10:30 AM, said:

I putting this back at the top in the hope BTL will see it and update it!
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cheers Deano and thanks for the PM. I haven't posted on here lately cause i'm afraid there's not an awful lot to report.....we're still in a phoney war here in North Hampshire and everything is very static, a few sales, no price increases/decreases but a heck of a lot of sticky properties.

Tories got in, which is no surprise as this has been a safe tory seat for as many years as I've lived here.

Still shed loads of 'city living' apartments available, no apparent discounts however more incentives than you can shake a big stick at...including Season tickets to London.....

I'm afraid I've now transitioned to the Stagnation-Correction camp! I firmly believe that unless we see a 0.5% rise in BOE rate in the next 12 months we are looking at 7 years of +3% to -3% annual HPI (nominal) which is approx 0% to -6% annual HPI (real) if you take CPI into account.

However I say that only for 'normal' stock....the 'city lifestyle' appartments will follow Crash-Correction path regardless of BOE. Anyone whose bought these rip-offs is going to be seriously out of pocket.

Of course all the above IMHO and only about the area I know......

[Rubbernecker]

I heard that one of those 2 bed flats in the disgusting Custard Towers went for £155,000 at auction! Still too expensive IMO as they are very small inside and an estate agent confirmed this as well as a mate who has got mates there!

They are requesting planning permission just up Chapel Hill for 355 flats and gues what only 355 parking spaces as clearly they think no-one has visitors anymore.

I have been keeping an eye on a Victorian property in town which is a 2 bed terrace and has gone from 159,000 to 139,000 which is quite amusing!

[newaccount99]

So here are the latest LR figures for the Basingstoke and Dean area.

Period £Av Price Sales Q increase
Dec-98 111019 972
Mar-99 112614 788 1.44
Jun-99 115841 1066 2.87
Sep-99 133144 1195 14.94
Dec-99 128144 1223 -3.76
Mar-00 142663 849 11.33
Jun-00 143565 1029 0.63
Sep-00 157589 888 9.77
Dec-00 143325 928 -9.05
Mar-01 148405 790 3.54
Jun-01 158664 1094 6.91
Sep-01 172965 1246 9.01
Dec-01 174144 1051 0.68
Mar-02 152786 843 -12.26
Jun-02 180640 1144 18.23
Sep-02 184436 1144 2.10
Dec-02 190878 1017 3.49
Mar-03 196597 678 3.00
Jun-03 190664 780 -3.02
Sep-03 205786 1000 7.93
Dec-03 206467 1227 0.33
Mar-04 207369 800 0.44
Jun-04 203590 1167 -1.82
Sep-04 223197 1165 9.63
Dec-03 228835 898 2.53
Mar-04 219178 467 -4.22

Now the previous Q'ters figures are always subject to some adjustment so we could see a rise of approx 10% on those sales figures and the average price is subject to some variation......So what conclusions can we draw from the above:

1) Sales volumes are definately down on recent trend.
2) HPI has been running at approx 5.5% for last two years.

So no correction in Basingstoke yet and we need to see how the next 6 mths lie before we can declare crash or stagnation. But either way hold on purchasing that Victory Hill BTL portfolio for now

[newaccount99]

I wish I was updating with some interesting news of price drops or riots in Boringstoke......the fact of the matter is that things are still in stand off......I reguarly view Rightmove and houses have been sitting on there since the new year and before.....no price shifts and very few moving on as Sold..

I'm not sure how much longer the towns vast number of EA's can stay in trading....all their books must be deeply in the red with such few sales yet plush shops and local advertising bills to cover.

I really thought we would be in a rout by now but apparently not. Howevere latest deals on Victory Hill do include 1 years mortgage paid. Those crappy Duplex's at Crown heights are still on at last years prices of £285K.

To quote many a newbie BTL'er "I'm in this for the long haul" albeit renting rather than investing

[PatientWaiter]

I disagree that there hasn't been any movement in Basingstoke. Doing a search on rightmove starting with the lowest priced property first, there's now huge numbers of studio flats stacked up at 89,950 whereas last year you literally couldn't buy anything for less than 105k.

I say 89,950. There's one build that has at least four studios on offer. Prices now dropped to 84,950, that's more than 5.5% off just since the start of the year:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-548...pa_n=1&tr_t=buy

Here's another very interesting price. Brighton Hill, admittedly not the nicest part of town, 3 bed terrace for 124,950. Hasn't moved in MONTHS:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-781...pa_n=8&tr_t=buy

Now have a look at nethouseprices.com:

http://www.nethouseprices.com/component/op...5/limitstart,0/

In the list, you'll see the same style house, same area (about a street away), same build style, same everything. Price last June: 189,950. If 124,950 is such a bargain by comparison, why hasn't anyone bought it?? That's 65K off (>34% price reduction). And it doesn't end there. I've got prices for houses in the same street that are up to 193K !!! for a 3 bed terrace in Brighton Hill !!!

Conclusions please...

Oh, and the "Victory Hill" development isn't just "no mortagage" for a year. Last week they ran an advert saying "live free for a year" and in 3 inch high letters told the readership that they CANNOT REFUSE the offer that weekend. As far as I know, the offer was "everything paid, for 1 year" - prices from 149K. There's no way they're going to pull people in for 149K for a 1 bed flat.

I've been told that the apartments in Crown Heights have been sold as housing association stock. Gotta get myself on one of those lists...