Is there any evidence of a downturn in two bedroom flats in the citycentre or on the outskirts of the city centre?

Are there many still being built and awaiting the market. How many and what are the completion dates?

Have Flats & family homes (3/4 bedroom houses) held their prices/risen much since 2005?

Has there been a slow down in turnover or increasing FOR SALE signs?

Answers and other thoughts (anecdotal evidence) most welcomed.

DB

I've been watching a development in Wakefield finished in 2004, none of the flats which have resold have touched their 2004 prices. I'm now very interested in the waterfront project (or what rentals will be expected) when it is finished in March.

friend of mine is trying to sell her 4br terrace in Harehills (one of the nicer parts, to be fair). Has been on since before Christmas, no biters, has already had to drop asking by £10k.

I'd happily live there, but I can't think of many people in Leeds with over £200k to spend who would want to.

I have lived near Harehills and a fairer price would be 150k Max. Its amazing that in some of the 'worst' areas of Harehills prices have tripled in 3 Years. I bought property at Crossgreen and also just off Halton Moor 4 years ago and they have more than doubled.

I wonder what effect on the area the new dual carriage from the M1 into S Leeds and the new retail park will have on the Cross Green and Halton Moor areas... obviously i'm hoping that prices will go up.
Tony

Daddy Bear,

Three years ago I cycled along side the river Aire through Leeds and I couldn't believe how many high rise flats were being built along the river sides and now it seems inner city flats are appearing all over the place.

I read somewhere that Leeds has a very high proportion of these flats empty, pssible due to too many being built, rents too high etc. Personally I think the prices of these will drop drastically and a bargain could be had within a few years. I also think a lot of the tower blocks will become the slums of the future.. one cant beat a good old terrace or semi as they are much nicer enviroments to live in .

I think the City Council has encouraged the building of inner city properties to reduce the amount of traffic in and out of Leeds as part of the government's target of reducing city pollution.

Incidently , I am against the twin towers project, 500 foot skyscraper, because I think it is dis-tasteful after what happened in America and think it could be a target for terroism. I also think it is out of character with the City's architecture and embodies the sickness within Leeds City Council of glamourising the inner city at the expense of the poor suburbs. Leeds will have two parasitic buildings now , the 'Kremlin' social security/NHS building and now the twin towers.

Sorry for going on but felt like a moan.
Tony

I read that too, it said landlords were happy to sit on empty properties due to capital appreciation. One of the first bearish articles I ever read was on the Leeds market. It was around 2002 I think in the Yorkshire post. It said that if you take the current stock of flats in Leeds in 2001 the same number is currently under construction and the same number AGAIN had been granted planning permission. It said the total stock would tripple by 2010 and questioned if they were all needed on current demographics.

It's Leeds for F**ks sake! Not a capital city or anywhere of significance on the World scene. (Sorry if that doesn't help your house rise in value!!)

The 7/7 ba$tards came from Beeston, why would they bomb their own doorstep?

Wetherby has more new build flats and even houses than you can count and even the ones from 2003 haven't all sold yet

I read somewhere recently there are 5000 new units (2 bedroom flats) scheduled to come onto the Leeds City centre market in the next 18 months - is this a true figure - anyone got any evidence? Anyone think there will be demand for these?

Looking at 2 bed flat prices over the last 6 months there is a lot of evidence of price falls. However houses don't appear to be falling as much - if at all.

DB

The town planners in Leeds should be shot for what they have allowed to happen. A couple of years ago, the place started to look quite nice, a lot of tall ugly old buildings had been pulled down and it all started to look nice and open and light. Now, you have so many tall buildings sat virtually on the roadside that the only way to see daylight is by looking up, soon you'll have to collect a lamp to enter the city if you want to be able to see anything. And as the the green bulbous ship like monstrisity which now sits where Howarth timber used to be, who on earth came up with that idea? Perhaps someone should start a website on the hideous sights that are springing up!

still no offers, now on with another agent, dropping price by another £10k.

SOLD! At £199K... (was originally on at £225k).

For interest, I have attached some research based on sale prices for a large block of 1/2 bedroom city centre apartments called Magellan House (near the Royal Armouries).

Colour coded as follows:

red = loss/marginal profit

blue = reasonable/large profit

Regards

Sox

Spoke to an estate agent today he actually agreed with me that 2 bedroom flats hit their peak in spring/summer 2005 and generally have held or dropped since then.
Cautious of irish investors holding a huge number of units (empty) purely for capital gain and then flooding the market as forced to sell due to domestic irish market turning to rat's chit.....
Also mentioned the 1000's of units still to come to market in pipeline over next 18 months....
Leeds HPI on houses
20% 2003
10% 2004
5% 2005
0-5%2006
0 2007

spot the trend?

DB

met a bloke today who bought a 2 bed flat in leeds in 2005 for £230k - currently trying to offload for £185k - guess what? no-one interested

£1800pcm

I am sooooo glad I am renting.

Hi Fancypants

I am amased this 4 bed terrace sold in Harehils for £199K!

You say it is in the nicer part of Harehills, wherabouts? Is it the chapel Allerton/Potternewton side of Roundhay Road?

love the way all flats are all luxury flats, not bog standard. in the words of a marc almond song, there pulling down the old slums to build the new. people never learn! by the way whaat do you think to the absurd prices in kirkstall?

I think they're absurd!

Eddisons auction at LUFC on 10th May has Lot No. 130, Flat 1, Aspect 14, Elmwood Lane, Leeds up as follows;
Status: Available
Guide Price: £110000+
Category: Vacant Residential
Full Address:
Flat 1, Aspect 14, Elmwood Lane, United Kingdom, LS2 8WE
Category Heading:
Vacant modern style 2 bedroom apartment in purpose built block
Description:
Situated
Off Clay Pit Lane close to the junction with the Inner ring Road A58(M) in the city centre.
Ground Floor
Communal entrance hall, Private hall, bathroom, open plan living area with kitchen having built in appliances, two bedrooms, en suite shower room to one bedroom.
Outside
Communal grounds.
Note
* Double glazing
* We are informed that the flat was formerly let at £600 p.c.m.
* A service charge is payable.
Tenure
Leasehold for a term of 999 years from 1.1.2003 @ £150pa

Net House prices says....£201,500 on 23rd November 2003

http://www.eddisons.com/pages/auctioncatal...n=16&Page=9

http://www.nethouseprices.com/index.php?co...&curPage=15

Guide prices mean absolutley nothing!

I was looking at a property in Eddisons Auction in March that had a guide of £110,000 and it sold for over £250,000.

They often make guide prices very low to attract bidders. This is the opposite mentality to estate agents but that is how auctions work.

Guide Price: £110000+

Because no-one would be able to tell!
Tha - bum - TISHHHHH.

oh yes........and several multi-lane carriageways, the motoring equivalent of Clapham junction!

what do people think of the market in Armley?
Do you still think it has the potential to increase?

And just between Little London and Lovell Park (and HBOS).
Not to mention the fact that they were reported as falling apart...

You may not have to wait too long for a downturn. When it happens the BTL parasites will be s***ing themselves. They will be falling over each other as they rush to the estate agents to put "their" properties (part paid for with other people's money) on the market.

Just be patient. It WILL happen.

Auction guide prices have little bearing on the sale price. Auction houses deliberatley put low guide prices on to attract bidders.

I looked at a property last month with a guide price of £110K and it sold for £256k

Drove through Leeds over the weekend on the way to York - what a dump! - all the problems of a big city with none of the benefits

it's grown beyond my wildest expectations last 3 years, really didn't expect that. Material improvements like the nice Tesco Metro and Wilko's (honestly you should have seen what it was like before...), and also location of student facilities to the area suggest room for growth. **BUT** things like this have been getting cited for 20-odd years about Armley improving, and apart from the last 3 years (the only time in its history that Leeds has taken part in a housing boom) it's never come to fruition. I'm a bear, so take what I say any way you will, but I don't know of any fundamental reason why it should change its long-term trend, except with an ongoing strong economy for the North as a whole, so also depends on how much you buy into the new labour miracle economy. This would suggest to me that it will see a strong reaction (aka falls) to trend when the rest of the market corrects, but that really is my own opinion!

I love living in Leeds, and get stressed by all the posh gits in York, 'niceness', lack of working class soul etc. I mean, the McDonalds in York station closes at 9 at night, it's not what you call living. Not exactly a gig capital, smaller pokier shops, less of a buzz. Each to his own, eh.

If I worked in York I'd seriously consider living in Leeds and commuting.

Is Leeds really that bad?


You've just sold me on a move to York.

IWS - were you lost? You don't drive through Leeds to get to York from Manchester.
Our benign and munificient leaders built a road over the Pennines (especially so the disaffected could escape Manchester I heard ). It gently glides through the peaceful sylvan valleys of upper West Yorkshire and then dumps you into the swamp land in the Vale of York. Gets no nearer than my house to Leeds (about 6 miles).

West Yorkshire - the sunny side of the Pennines

fair enough!

West Yorkshire - the land that time forgot

Naaah, that's Barnsley. Over there, "Walking with Cavemen" was listed under "Current Affairs" in the local TV listings.

that's a cracker!

Update, with a reserve of only £115k this flat failed to sell yesterday.

http://www.eddisons.com/pages/home_page/pr...n=16&Page=9

Wow, that looks like one of the better developments as well, if all these new builds in Leeds are going to be worth less than £100k each there is going to be carnage.

I got my hair cut in Leeds on Saturday. My barber was thinking about buying a house for his stepdaughter (well, getting the student sharers to pay the mortgage... erm, most of the mortgage - when I pressed him) and when I asked him why he thought prices would keep going up he stuttered something about Euros and being more like Europe (yeah, I know)... my point being that even this gent quite quickly admitted that the flats were horrendously over-valued. I suspect the innercity flat crash (outside of London at least) has already got well on the way.

Wow, that looks like one of the better developments as well, if all these new builds in Leeds are going to be worth less than £100k each there is going to be carnage.

Hello,
Just registered. I've lurked for ages, but I saw this on rightmove and had to share it...............

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-761...=1&tr_t=buy

Made me laugh in the extreme. I think they had the YTS lad write this one up.
Love the "Black Tarmac Finish" - NICE !

Anyway, I live in Wakefield, a bona-fide FTB. Wouldn't mind buying, but I'm unwilling to bankrupt myself each month for something that just isn't worth it.
For example - My mate sold a 1 bed back to back South Leeds, in 2003 for 45K. Now you're looking at 75K !!!!

Its utter madness and I refuse to join the party. Some people are still giving the old rubbish about "they only go up. you know" "My mother bought her house for £4K in 1979 - Look what its worth now".
But also I am finding more and more people who say its all gone on too long and it'll end in tears.

The property pages in the Wakefield Express are getting thicker, with more "New Price" and "No Chain".
The To-Let signs are still piling up around the Royal Armouries in Leeds.
So I really think we aren't far off now.
Especially when you can get this................Comanding views of the 1960s Market Hall, I think........

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-142...=6&tr_t=buy

or hows about this one................Lovely views of all the cr*p stuck on the wier near chantry bridge. I mean WHO would want to buy this one, down there, for this price?????? - Certainly not this muppet.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-151...=1&tr_t=buy

Ho-Hum!!! - I dispair, I tell ya!

It's a work of genius!!!
I particularly like the "White Numerals" listed as a "FEATURE"!!!!, but the best has got to be;
"Viewing Highly Recommended"!!!!??? WTF???

(A small square of tarmac costing £25 grand with it's main features being two stripes and a number painted on it, can't possibly be appreciated by just a photograph. You really need to be there otherwise you just won't enjoy the stench of urine???)

this is one of the ones that people with local knowledge would expect to be the worst - may look like a posh development, but it's one of the developments just between the city centre and Little London, which is considered to be a very very rough area.

I'm still being bearish especially re: 'up and coming areas', and go as far as saying, for flats in this locale in leeds, sub-50k might be a top price I'd feel was fair for them, similar to what you'd think any basic two bed property would be in a very very underprivileged area

I'm looking to buy in Wakefield too, Someone told me there are only 5 people living in the riverside development and looking on rightmove it seems the company which built the flats has had to rent them out themselves.

Nothing seems to be shifting currently, I know three people with houses up, none of them have had any viewings and one has just reduced by £15k

I haven't been down to Thornes to see these new developments, they seem about as useful as t1ts on a bull to me.
Its hardly Chelsea Harbour now is it?

I'm pretty much priced out of Shakey Wakey.
The prices of bog standard terraces one or two beds, are stupid in this town, between 90 - 110K. Even the ones in the less salubrious parts of "the merrie city". (In truth, are there any salubrious parts......?)
When its 120K for an ex-council semi in the shimmering golden eden that is Lupset, its time to have a serious look at what the flipping blime is going on.

I suppose its because its a mid size dormitory town, good transport links to peoples workplaces (the M1 & M62 cross just north of it). Good -ish schools, if you count the 3 private ones (QEGS, Silcoates, WGHS) - Personally I went to one of the sprawling comprehensives, but got to Uni in South Wales and then came back (D'oh!!!!)
I see in the paper that the bigwigs of the city are up in arms again as the Lonely Planet Guide to Great Britain has left Wakey out (AGAIN!!!)
It was the same story when the last edition was published too. ("But we have a cathedral, Pugnes Boating lake & the Henry Moore Sculpture park" - Well Whoopy Sh1t!, thats gonna flood the place with folks blowing their tourist wads innit)

On an ancedodal point, last year my mate sold his terrace in Stanley, 3 beds inc. the dorma, cellar, bit of a garden, it was on for 129K, it sat there for 6 months, minimal viewings, then got a sale for the asking price, after he kicked Beaumonts EA into touch.
It seems that most places are sticking for a few months and then go. Others just sit there and moulder (Asking price too high?) - And a VERY few places go straight away - More money than sense methinks.

Also places I have seen up for sale perhaps a couple of years ago, seem to be coming back on the market again.
Whether these were BTLs that weren't coughing up the golden eggs that all the tinpot property tycoons expected, or are up again for other reasons I dunno.

But the crowning turd in the waterpipe has to be this.......... I have the dubious pleasure in living in the soon to be abolished constituancy of MR ED BALLS !. (I wouldn't buy a used car from the man) - Needless to say he won't be securing my vote in the next GE.
He's one of the guilty men in my book, El Gordo's economic monkeyboy, the architect of HPI. What does a privately educated, Oxbridge & Harvard graduate from Norfolk have to say about a very working class/lower middle set of post industrial Yorkshire pit villages?........Not much in my book. Unless its because the last MP was Bill O'Brien an ex-miner with a good majority and the place has only elected Labour MPs since 1906 ??.
Also its strange that the sitting Lab MP for Morley, (this will be the new merged constituancy) - Suddenly stepped aside so the galant ED could fight for this place instead of him.
I think Mr BALLS will be in cabinet before not too long and will be hanging his monogrammed towling robe on the back of the bathroom door of Number 11 shortly after that.
(On second thoughts he better make it a Kevlar robe and a tin hat, cos he's the lucky chap whose gonna have to spin his way out of the mess that the Brownster is leaving when he moves next door)

Anyway, Tirade over..............

Hi All

I have been looking at prices around the north of Leeds for the last year or so in any detail, and have followed them loosely off and on for the past couple of years.

It appears property is taking a lot longer to sell and there are a number of (allbeit small) reductions around where I live. I have certainly noticed a distinct fall in the number of properties that have SSTC and under offer on right move.

The resale prices of "luxury flats" outside of the city centre are also noticably suffering - not just the city centre.

Cheers
WR

Has anyone seen the Huge 'New Forest Village' development in Middleton, South Leeds. Five big developers all asking £220k + for three story three bed towns. This huge development will have a link road to the acre road estate and the much troubled Heritage Village, hardly any of the properties have sold and builders offfering huge incentives on completed houses....surely no one is so stupid as to pay over 200K to live on Acre Road in Miggie ?

middletons not the nicest area by any stretch - 220k? my word, that's almost comical...!

I'd have thought significantly sub-100k would be more optimistic??

Had a bit of a stroll down the river Aire tonight, walking back along East Street, Bow Street and Marsh Lane. Although I drive through this area on a regular basis, my walk enabled me to fully take in the number of apartments being built.

Extrapolating a sign I saw for a proposed 200 apartment development. I would say, in this one small area of Leeds, there must be at least another thousand under construction.

Also noted that a lot of the apartments being constructed on Bow Street have had their windows put through (there is a playground, some fields and existing council properties over the road).

Anyway, had a few beers making my way back via “he-re” letting/estate agents at Leeds Bridge House. Looking through their window, a couple of properties caught my eye:

No 110 Magellan House: now for sale at £185k, originally sold 22/08/03 for £177.5k

…and

No 129 Magellan House: now for sale at £195k, originally sold 22/08/03 for £200k and again on 30/07/04 for £211k.