As some of you will know I divorced about 5 years ago and surrendered my old house to my ex.

Financially I was not in a position to buy until about 2 years ago.

Now, to be honest, I could have bought but as everyone in my office keeps telling me, at the time all I kept going on about was that houses were over priced and due for a correction. Now of course it seems the correction has arrived and all they say now is, "you've been going on about it for so long it was bound to happen some time".

Yes, I could have bought 2 years ago, but I still feel that a small correction at the end of 2002 would have prevented us from being on the edge of something potentially very nasty today (homeowners and renters alike will suffer).

Before anyone says anthing about being bitter or missing the boat, I have no regrets. It will be a shame to have to wait a couple more years to buy but I've no intention of dying in the near future so whats the rush.

2002, I was predicting a 'crash' of 20%, Golman Sachs were predicting 20%, I went through the figures and concluded they were spot on, I still think they were.

Given that HP have risen by about 30% since I'm expecting something much worse, more like a 50-70% crash.

If you think that sounds crazy I think 4 bed terraced houses on Caversham heights being put on at asking prices of £450,000 is insane. They are fairly valued at about £220k, where I am confident they will be by 2008.

I sold in July 2003 and was completely paranoid about our purchasers pulling out due to the 'impending crash'. Fortunately it all went through. I have no regrets about calling the game to early. One friend sold an identical house in the same estate 5 months later for 4k more than we got. This was the last house to sell on the estate (Nethouseprice checked) despite a number being on the market for a very long time at similar prices.

I have been predicting a HPC since 2000. My wife has begun to think I am the biggest fool on earth with all our friends who bought in 2000 sitting on paper equity worth £250,000. This is going to be my year!

I thought the market would turn in

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002 I sold an investment property
2003 I sold another
2004
2005 This time I feel sure but I've been wrong before

I was screaming Crash imminent around summer 2003


Everyone I knew was saying it will never happen blah blah house will always go up


Some friends bought houses (at peak) there starting to suffer with IR and one couple have the loss of one income due to Baby


most are now saying
"your only saying it because it been on the TV" (they must have put there fingers in their ears when I told them in 2003/2004)

or

"you've been say it for years it was bound to happen" (ah yes, didn't you keep saying I should get on the ladder it will go up forever)

most people have no controll over their lives, they think everyone else is doing it (spend everything/mortgage to the hilt) so I can too.

I guarantee most people will blame the government for letting the crash and credit getting out of controll happen

I'll get blamed too, it's like one of those pyramid schemes or chain letters. Who ever breaks the chain will have a curse upon them. I sorry for not be so gullible


Kam

I believed the crash was "imminent" from early 2003. Seems I was about 14 months out, though buying in say March 2003 as a FTB would still have been a mistake unless you sold in summer 2004, pretty unlikely.

I still recall the mentality then and from some people still now that there is no crash, there won't be a crash, it will go on forever, house prices never fall, etc. - that's even more extraordinary.

I put my house on the market in Autumn 2003 because I could see what was coming. Everyone I know politely listened to my rants about 'this can't carry on - it will end in tears' but carried on MEWing and moving up. 'I can't see that happening' was a common response. Still is with some people.

Working in the print industry I saw a recession coming just before 2000
Print, like the Car industry seem to be affected before other industries
they are the first budget cut in any company’s expenditure.
I wasn’t wrong I was made redundant the following year after the
company struggled with hardly any work all year!

In 2002 I sold a property and rented to break a long and complicated chain
I wasn’t trying to gain on the property market by waiting for a crash!
6 months into my rental agreement I found a property to buy.
Close to exchanging contracts, gave notice to the landlord and then was made
redundant again !!

In the period after, prices just went ballistic, so I gave up and have been waiting ever since

misinformation in the media got my hopes up several times only to be disappointed
I said to my wife once it becomes ‘official’ (widely reported) we’ll get two bottles
of champagne one of now the other to be opened in our new home.

I’ve waited and put my life on hold for too long now. You tend to gauge that by
watching other people move on.

A lot of posts and links in the forum point to the obvious, but still no official consensus
Now the signs are so strong (EA’s going to the wall, Banks lending 3.5x only)
If it doesn’t happen this year it never will!

Responsible lending at long last, estate agents getting to know what it feels like to be priced out!
(of a job)

About bloody time. I’m off to buy two bottles

Sold in Spring 2003. 18 months before the top. I see from nethouse prices that my sale was the last transaction on my old street. I think that illustrates the difficulty in selling a house "at the top" because the transaction volume fails first. Proceeds 100% positioned in inflation hedges.

No regrets. Another few months and I'll be singing in the car (thats a dangerous sign).

BAB

I predicted slowdown in 2001 and if Binnie hadn't knocked down the trade centre, I think it may have happened

In 2001 prices were already high in the UK, but not massively and given the UK attitude on property, I think 2001 prices could have been maintained without a HPC

2001 houseprices were not cheap for FTB's, but not impossible

Then post 9/11 artificially low IR's - massive global liquidity/global HPI - we know the rest

In 2001 I didn't predict 9/11 (most people didn't)

PS Spare a thought for poor old Binnie, he used to have luxury houses and the run of Afganistan and Sudan, now he has had to downsize to a cave!

I only started looking at houses in earnest last year. Straight off I smelled a rat. At first I thought I was imagining it, but I began to see a large gap between what people who had bought years back had got, and what people in 2004 were getting for their money.

It was about that point I began to wonder what was going on. I continued looking, not sure quite what to do, then began to suspect more and more that something very wrong was on the financial horizon. I reasoned that if people were getting into such debt, they'd have to pay it off sooner or later, and that would cause them to reign in their spending. Either that or they would be like me, saving and saving and saving. This in turn would cause retail sales, house sales, car sales etc. to start slowing as people tightened their belts.

Finally, I read a Money Week article all about the bubble and got a whole load more facts and figures that confirmed my suspicions. I'm not sure when it will happen, because I think it's very hard to judge. In particular I don't think people take into account how much momentum there is in these things. But I think things are heading down, and I think by the end of the summer things will definitely be heading downwards fast.

Heh, heh. We've been doing something similar, except we celebrated exchange of contracts and will do all the anniversaries of completion of our sale until we buy again. For buying I expect we will do exchange of contracts and completion. I may nick your idea and suggest we do the next IR rise too. Cheers!

We have decided to tone down what we say in public now, definitely heads below the parapet time. The herd will be looking for people to blame.

I was actively reading this site during late spring 2004,

sold house to rent in august 2004

in my opinion the number of buyers able to afford had already dropped off by then,

no regrets, the house had increased in value by 48% in 18 months.

This is very regional and also depends on market segment. In Berkshire I know from Land Registry data prices that the 4 bed detached end of the market topped out in Spring/Summer 2003. That was the last time you saw properties selling in a week - at or above the asking price.

The FTB market continued climbing - or should I say the BTL market, until Spring/Summer 2004.

Since we have had lots of stagnation and properties selling anything from 5k to 100k below original asking prices (depending which end of the market) - sometimes (at the top end) after a year on the market.

Now we have masses on the market. And blocks of flats with For Sale and To Let boards everywhere. There is a forest of EA boards in every street. And Estate Agents going broke.

Gentlemen, the crash is upon us. It will be a rocky ride involving a very unpleasant recession.

I have a feeling this is going to make 1929 look like a mild correction.

I sold in May 2003. Simply failed to find another property to buy. I felt a crash was coming but heh it's only money and I've got another 29 years to go in this work business (at least!)

Things slowed down like mad late summer of 2003 and I thought I was seriously clever. Had agents calling me about properties I'd put in offers way under the asking price. I over cooked the cheekiness and lost one I quite liked. Asking prices surged a further 50% or so since then although hardly any in the bracket I'm looking at have sold.

As for now, I know a crash is coming. But so is our next child in a week or so. I've therefore got several reasons to continue the STR kick.

Sold in Dec 2003,having been gazzumped.The house had been on the market for 12 months so we assumed we got a good price.I now believe we sold before the peak.
We were actively viewing until April 2004 when I became convinced that prices had become unrealistic.
Even now I am not convinced about the crash theory being inevitible.I feel fairly sure they won't be taking off again and I am happy to rent as long as it takes.

Mid 2001 I realized it was becoming unrealistic when our neighbours much, much larger house went for 240k and our place was valued at 125 when we remortgaged. Sold Spring 2003 for same figure as our neighbours had - the estate agents valuation was 40k over our own guestimate, I really thought we had cut it fine but there was a rebounce after the Iraq war.

Most people I put forward the idea of a HPC thought the idea was ridiculous, a couple I saved from very bad purchases. I printed off copies of the Economist housing survey Spring 2003 for them.

Found this site summer 2004.

Those houses like mine still are up for 230k now, so there has already been a small decline, still none are selling. I knew the people who had grown up in these houses 20 years ago, they were teachers, bank clerks, car mechanics. Not city traders or company directors. When they're back to 120-130k I will bite again, that is my guideline.

Nov 2001, I was going to get a mortgage, I then saw some stats with the income to HP ratio and decided something was fishy. So I pulled out and kept doing my home ever more so.
I figured the crash to materialize starting 2003-4, but looks like it'll be 2004-5.

in 98/99 i realised i should to buy otherwise i would missout, asked dad to help me buy a house as unfortunatly i was still at university/doing my placement year. A nice 3 bedroom house cost about 60/70k at the time, seemed like a bargain to me. University Placement Salatry of 12k, dada didnt/couldnt afford to help me out. Didnt consider BTL as i was still at university

in 2001 just left university and realised things were getting VERY silly, newspaper articles about prices going up by thousands a mounth etc etc, said to my gf at the time we needed to buy otherwise we would missout, she was still at university and i was on 17k. Didnt buy because i wasnt earing enough on my salary to buy a house (didnt think to lie about my income).

Octoberish 2003, i was adiment that prices were too high, toyed with idea of a crash

Jan 2004, got a pay rise to 27k, realised this was the first opertunity i had ever had in my life to buy a house on my own!!!!! prices seemed to be droping/slowing, my girlfriend at the time (who worked for MBNA) said experts were expecting the market to level off by summer 2004. Didnt buy, realised we were heading for a crash, and was currently wealthier renting. Talked to estate agents in Jan saying i believed intrest rates would go up, they all said you could never predict these things and i shouldnt worry.

Found this site later in 2004 in google searching for 'house price crash'

STR'd in late 2002 as the talk was all about moving in on Iraq.
Since then houe went up about 5-10% - I am not in the slightest bothered by that as we made 100% on the original 1994 purchase.

Just remember in London - and most of the SE, prices are net unchanged (or lower) than Jan 2003: OVER 2 YEARS AGO! National averages are meaningless as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are showing 30-50% +ve last year - all down to stupid BTLers and clever EAs and developers. Business is business even though 10s of 000s will lose their shirt - a similar title to a proposition I put forward at a formal debate last year in my local community. The fact I was resoundly outvoted simply confirmed even more strongly my belief. The voters were mainly retirees who are the principal recipients of the boom.
Bring it on!

Thanks for the replies.

Yr 2000 through to Q1 2003 seems to be the time most of you decided the market had become overpriced and needed correction.

Have you ever wondered why when so many poeple around you are still in denial, your veiw on the market was/is so different? Is it because we are individual and can think outside the box (David Brent ), we don't have a herd mentality, or that we work in enviroments where our financial knowledge has taught us how to spot an overpriced asset?

Does it also mean that we will be the first to spot the bottom of the market and buy just before the masses rush in again at the start of the next bubble, or will our bearish instincts cause us to miss the boat?

I believe many of us may jump in too early, personally knew when prices were low and i needed to buy, just couldnt at the time... I dont think masses will rush in at the bottom, if you look at the last crash it takes along time for this market to turn. If lots of people are rushing in things have started to boom already and you have missed the bottom of the trough..

1) When I realised that even if we did buy, we'd never be able to move 'up the ladder'

2) MEW was contributing about 7% of GDP or consumer spending (it's now at 8%)

When this gets going it will get very messy indeed, so decided to steer well clear!

Spring 2004, when it became evident that the UK had reached the top of a very big bubble. Joined HPC a few months later.

The clincher was seeing the bubble fan out to places like Swansea and Middlesborough.

Face it , IF we on this site had any financial insight when it came to spotting market peaks/troughs , then we would have bought a dozen houses in 94/5 and sold them last year and set off for the seychelles - no excuses about gearing or " I wasnt in a position to do this " - it was a no-brainer (personal disclaimer : I have no brains)

Because of this I dont believe that we have any special financial insight on this site (or certainly no more than other money - oriented sites anyway). However ,I think there may be a hint of truth in the 'non herd ' mentality theory which kind of interested me and manifests itself in some of the more original posts on here (ie nothing to do with houseprices )

I think the site is more a meeting of a mix of people - FTBs , STRs, people looking to move on up that ladder and as such provides a bit of support for when we start to doubt if a crash will happen. You see this whenever the slightest bit of news of prices down/prices up and everyone is either "bring it on and murder the landlords" or "oooh noooo , they'll NEVER go down" . Then some of the cooler heads come on and everybody is reassured again ... Chuck in a mix of humour and distinct lack of chavs and all is pretty cosy.

As for spotting an over-priced asset , FTBs are starting to do this themselves anyway , hence the market is slowing/turning/falling .

When did I think HPs were silly ? About 2003 when I saw one of the flats in my block go for 120k - realised that at that rate I'd never be able to trade up

IMHO 98% of (so-called) financial advisers either believe the market will settle at roughly this level for a few years or will rise .
I have been constantly in battle with even colleagues in THIS FIRM though I just keep stum now.
When I go to seminars it still amazes me that FAs haven't sussed out what is going to happen - even apparently good guys i.e. professional and, otherwise, intelligent! And these people give investment advice - God help their clients. I can only assume they are either big BTLers and/or salespeople in the guise of (well-camouflaged) advisers.

When did I predict a crash/slowdown:

Towards the end of 2003, when a house I'd had for sale since May hadn't shifted and buyers seemed to have been becoming picky in the same way that they started to for certain market sectors in 1987 and 1988. The older and more individual properties were staying on the market longer and offers were being taken, despite newbuilds booming.

Also that particular area, Reading, employment prospects were not quite what they were , particularly with Wildcom (Worldcom)'s misfortunes and also outsourcing gathering pace e.g. the Pru. Previously in 2001 or so, some estate agents were citing Worldcom's success and move to Reading a speficic reason for fuelling the boom in its last stages.

My prediction of a correction, at the very least, firmed up in Feb 2004 when on another property my tenant unexpectedly gave notice and I couldn't find another without doing a large amount of renovation and no guarantees of success anyway. I had the property valued for sale as it was and found it had zoomed to about £70K more than I had thought. I did the sums (investment of the capital vs. rental); it was a no-brainer: I cashed in, drew my own conclusions and joined HPC. By the time the 2 properties sold (May & July 2004) I was more or less convinced.

Last summer, in the Alps, when the Swedish owner of a bar asked me what I thought of the outlook for the London property market. Then it all clicked. I don't know what I was thinking before that moment of clarity.

I sold in... 2001

I wasnt calling the top, just shifting asset classes

And agree with what FP said:
"Just remember in London - and most of the SE, prices are net unchanged (or lower) than Jan 2003: OVER 2 YEARS AGO! "

I think my old Flat (in Kensington) has probably increased by less than 10%. Meantime, I have had the extracted equity to work with. It has been invested well, and is worth far more than if it had stayed in Property.

I first thought about it around Q3/2003, but at that time (seems like an age ago now), IRs were at 3.5%, and mortgages were ludicrously cheap. The more I researched the market the more bearish I became, it seemed that very few of the bullish arguments held up under closer scrutiny. And then IRs started rising, and I knew, just knew, that this was the beginning of the end. People who had overstretched themselves when rates were 3.5% were now doing their ostrich impressions when rates were 4% and 4.25%. I made the decision to sell in Feb 2004, but couldn't say with any confidence when I thought the top would be. Initially I thought it would probably start in late 2004, but maybe not until late 2005.

But with each month after Easter last year, the tell tale signs of a weakening market became ever more evident to those looking for them and I thought with increasing confidence that the the turnaround was just "around the corner".

during the summer of 2005 my local newspaper prints and releases a property guide.

this property guide lists all the suburbs in sydney, the median house prices of the selected suburbs and the predicted capital growth for the next five years .

the figures posted by this guide of a minimum of 7 percent to over 12 percent CONSISTENT gains over the next five years.

a little number crunching would lead me to conclude these numbers to be bs and by extension question the sustainability of the current house prices.

totally totally agree with you... still dont think I will be ready to buy till end 2007!

I have said that before!

more comfortable about my position now thou!...

Good luck to you!

when i join i said it would take a while i said things would turn 2q2007 also said by end of 2007 6% rates, this was last year so far ive been spot on with my predictions, i also sais 6.5-7 % next year. Also predicted late summer Autumn prices in london will start to dive.

i predicted q3 04 and STRed in q1 05 - bad move - but things are starting to perk up now

Let me say now: Summer 2007 certainly looks like a good spot for a Top in UK property

Here's my video, showing the reasons why I believe this:
Are the Builders signaling a 2008 UK Property Crash
- link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNeCetQeLLU

This new Video lays out the case for an impending slide in UK Property,
following the same pattern that the Builders and Real Estate are tracing out in the USA.

just reading the comments made from the beginning of this thread........glad i was not a member back then....

...all that doom and gloom would have made me doubt myself and my purchases at the time....

..i bought 2 houses in 2003, one purchase was the week after sept 11th...from a new york stockbroker who thought the whole world economy was going down...i felt different...and i got the house for 40k under the asking and refinanced 6 months later for 20k more than the original asking price....... and since 2003 they have just about doubled in value.......

goes to show.....make your own judgements......

or as my dad says......if you want to be sucessful, hang around sucessful people and vise versa..

i called the top in 2000, but i was only 16 at the time so i can be forgiven , i then forgot about the property market til jan 2007 when i thought WTF people cant seriously be paying this much for houses

even back then as a child i thought the arguments people used to buy property where retarded.

its gone up this much for the last few years so its a good buy becuase it will go up the same amount in the next few years!

I know nobody will believe me, but I predicted the date of the run on Northern Rock exactly to the day.

'Northern Rock - September 14th' was on a Post-it on my desk for 4 weeks before it happened.

Admittedly there was a bit of luck in getting the exact date right, but still, it impressed everone at work.

I thought things were getting out of hand in 2001, but didn't think any more about it or a while as I wasn't in a position to buy. I started thinking again in about 2004/5 as I was in a position to buy and decided that things were getting loopy - that was when I found this site. Was very good to find somewhere where my opinions weren't deemed perverse. Also learnt a lot from some of the other posters on this site - led me to some bearish investments that have significantly improved my deposit/security money.

I predicted the run on Northern Rock. Went down town at the beginning of September 2007 with a work colleague and explained to him why I was taking a sizeable sum of cash out of my account - i.e. I expected a bank run some time in the next couple of months (I thought October), and gave NR, B&B, and A&L as possibilities, and that if it wasn't contained all hell could break lose. I think he thought I was barking, until a couple of weeks later...

Interestingly, I can remember talking to a friend who is a bit of an "outsider" in about 2003, and his prediction was 2007/8. I hoped for something a little sooner - expected 2005. That seemed so far in the future back then...

In spring of 2005, lenders were falling over themselves to give me a mortgage. Got an "agreement in principle" at 3.9% fixed (revisiting after the crisis started, I found that was indeed from Northern Rock).

At the time I was self-employed, and had a contract that was worth good money that year. But I had no history: in 2003 I'd have been (much) better off on the dole, and in 2004 I remained below the level for standard-rate income tax. By any kind of historical standard, that's a risky prospect ("subprime").

The fact they were so keen to lend me large amounts of money in those circumstances told me more clearly than anything we were in a bubble. I still contemplated buying, just to get somewhere nicer than I could rent for the price, but the knowledge that it wouldn't last, together with natural indecision, left me still renting to this day.

Someone who got the timing spot-on: that Prime Minister who quit while the going appeared good, leaving his no-longer-prudent friend to take the fallout!

Was late summer 2004 when it really clicked that things werent right.

I realised that the entire economy was based on debt and the expansion of debt. Of course this was unsustainble and had to end.

What I didnt realise was quite how bad it would be when it did end.

1976, having just read Meadows & Meadows "The Limits to Growth", and having had the opportunity to muck about with their 'World Model' on the University of London computer system via JANET - an early subsystem of the internet. Didnt expect to see it in my lifetime, though. Back then I was thinking 2050 or thereabouts.

More to the specific point - decided to get out of the housing market (obviously fantasy island) late 2006, sold flat in Richmond Feb 2007, packed up and am now in a cheap 1 bed apt in Spain, with the dosh sitting in Banco Santander - which seems to me to be about the safest bank in Europe at the moment. Might buy a place in a couple of years time. See how it goes.

Global oil output has effectively plateaued (plus or minus a bit) since last quarter of 2004. I dont think things are ever going to be the same as they were since financial deregulation kicked in back in the 80's till this year. The name of the game isnt going to be growth any more, its going to be getting smarter at making do with less.