Firstly im guilty of reading this site for ages and adding nothing up until now.(Not that anything i do add from now on will be any good ,but hey here i am!!)
Id just like to see a few more people in the South Wales area contributing with individual accounts of whats going on.
I always log on and find no posts for days on end- interrupted now and again by Masked Tulip or someone.
Im sure you all have a lot more to say so as Delia Smith once said " LETS BE AVVIN YOU".
And my name EGGCHUB does not mean that i resemble a big fat egg or that i am gravitationally challenged its just a random name plucked i think from the 80% or so of the human brain that we dont use.

Anyway i look forward to more "crack" in the south wales area.

I must admit I rarely visit the Regional forum for this reason even though my wife and I have been watching the Creigiau and Pentyrch areas extremely closely for over two years now. There's not a lot of activity to report, to be honest - it was pretty darn quiet back in the summer of 2006 and clearly stagnating even then. Now it's positively moribund, but price drops of any magnitude are rare. A ludicrously overpriced ('done up') bungalow near us recently dropped below the £300k mark which feels like a psychological victory, even if in percentage terms it still qualifies as denial. My wife's theory is that the population of these places is largely professional and family orientated and somehow they won't need to sell in the way the more densely packed areas of Cardiff proper will. I sincerely hope she's wrong. Things are rather boring around here.

Pontypridd and Ynysybwl have ground to a halt.

Some people I know have inherited a property that was the family home for many years, but they are relcutant to lower the asking price, and I fear that unless they sell it soon, they never will. It's been on the market for nine months and their argument is that the Estate Agent has advised them not to lower the price. Aaagh!

If any of you have listened to the podcast on the homepage you will know that most people in the property business have no professional memories of the 1989-93 crash and so are still stuck in the "Prices will only ever go up" mentality.

Agree with the sentiment that we need more proactive postings on the Wales site. Not being critical of those who really do make an effort but the range of topics and information is a litle thin.

Blackwood area has ground to a halt. Property bee is not reporting any significant price drops in the £150k to £100k region (my budget!!). I can report that the amount of repos is increasing, 2 on my small estate and several with each of the local EA's. However EA's unsurprisingly are still talking up the market, with a recent article in the local free paper blaming the stagnation (in Blackwood) firmly on the lack of 100% mortgages.

Estate agent in Llanelli area said that he was seeing drops and that people were becoming more realistic about prices. He had seen offers of 20% below asking accepted - he did think the area had 'bottomed out' - not sure about that part of the chat!
Just wish that people in Cardiff would start to get 'realistic' - seeing a few drops here but from prices that were vastly optimistic in the first place, so now they're just optimistic...

Cardiff houses are too expensive by far. I'm tired of thinking this and, looking over the cardiff thread i started, I've been saying and thinking it for quite a while. Even the newbuilds have stopped dropping their asking prices - it's getting very boring here!

Hello everyone! Just found this board and thought I might share some thoughts with you.

My portfolio is based in North Cardiff and consists of mainly commercial property and flats. I have until last week resisted the temptation to invest in more residential property because of the gross over valuation in the market. However there are bargains to be had! I have taken a punt on 3 bed semi on a corner plot in Rhiwbina for 145,000. Sold to close estate came on the market On Friday bought by me on the Tuesday. Needs some work but after I have had a 2 bedroom extension built and the whole house refurbished it's gonna make me a few bob. A 5 bed semi in Rhiwbina even if prices drop another 10% in the next 6 months(which I expect them to) is a sound investment.

So boring it's not! I'm getting quite excited Just need to be on the ball and in the right place at the right time.

Who, in a remotely sane world , would consider paying 400k for a box in Grove Park or 170K for an ex-council house on Greenwood Road? I well remember that area when the cows were still in the fields and that's the way it should have stayed.
Let's be honest, B'wood has only ever stagnated although it's long had its silly pretensions. God only knows why , because it's basically one large ex-council estate with horrendous places like Cefn FForest and Aberbargoed on it's door step. It's only claim to fame is a crap pop group.
Total clearance , diaspora and re-afforestation would in my opinion be the perfect solution for Backwoods.

Pontypridd and Ynysybwl are deader than Alistair Darling's career. There is still a trickle of housebuilding going on, mainly small developments being carried out by individuals who jumped on the bandwagon.

Part of me feels sorry for them, but only a small part. Most of them I detest for adding to the gratuitous newbuild that has clogged up the valleys and added to flooding problems. It's become really clear that we have never had a real shortage of housing, only an artificial one causd by some properties being empty as people switched from one house to another.

I have noticed a sharp increase in empty properties and I have noticed quite a few with bailiffs' letters stuck on the doors and windows.

I know a number of builders and they tell me the lcoal building supply companies are dead quiet tradewise, and quite a few of the small builders are worried that they will soon have no work.

A colleague has just told me that a house for auction last week in the Treforest area of Pontypridd - which is where the University of Glamorgan is located - failed to reach its reserve price. Treforest in the recent past has had plenty of renting opportunities as avaricious landlords rip off students.

Thats all well and good but what was the reverse, if was set at 2002 price levels then it would of sold no doubt but if its still at 2005/6 levels then don't expect it to sell.
Lets me honest unless your renting to students who would buy in Treforest, all the talk of people buying here because Cardiff is to expensive, yeah right!! its cheaper for a reason.

I think Wales is going to be very sticky on the way down for a number of reasons.

1) Many parts have seen modest increases in prices over the last decade unlike the 200% increases seen in many parts of Englands south coast
2) Wales still has the family feel about it, the valleys, Swansea and West Wales particular where family members like to stay close to home in the Village they were born and prepared to pay a premium for it.
3) Its going to be very hard for many to adjust their prices downwards, be it through MEW or simply greed, here in Wales second hand items seem to cost more than over the bridge, I have always bought my Cars from England and save on average £2k (new and secondhand), nobody wants to drop in Wales.
4) We are not very good at negotiation and happy to pay the price advertised
5) House prices in Wales historically have been too low, with better communication and transport links even after a correction a percentage growth will remain because of this.

Its the reason so many from England bought holiday homes in west wales and cheaper property just over the bridge in Newport , Cardiff , Bridgend areas whilst still earning Bristol and the English M4 corridor type wages.
Some of the new estates in Cardiff and surrounding areas are deserted during the week day and Cardiff railway station jam packed with many traveling to work in Bristol and London.
A fall of 20% off the average property in Bristol would still make Wales a cheaper place to live with no fall.


Biggest falls I have seen to date have been Cardiff new builds, I was chatting to a friend who works for persimmon homes as a health and safety officer and he was saying that 2 new developments in Cardiff are knocking £60k off £320k 4 bed detached properties (down to £260k).
Cardiff bay has massive oversupply of apartments, if your in the market for these then £50k knocked off asking prices is not uncommon at the moment.

Outside of Cardiff the more established areas I am seeing very little falls in terms of asking prices, the area holding firm seems to be vale of glamorgan, Barry is taking a hit on new developments but Penarth, Llantwit, Cowbridge these type of areas seem to be going up not down.

Agree about the cars - been keeping an eye on several main dealers for a few months now. Swansea is undoubtedly more expensive to buy a secondhand car than Cardiff and then, once you cross the bridge, the prices go down again.

I have noticed this even with dealerships who have branches in Cardiff and Bristol and, nearly always, the quality of used car in the Bristol branch is much better than the one sold in Cardiff.

I agree with many of your points, but not 5.

What do you mean by too low? A property is only worth what people are willing to pay. And people have been willing to pay less than in, say, London and the South East of England, because wages are that much lower in Wales.

As to the last paragraph of your post, there are very little falls maybe because the market has ground to a halt. I'm not sure that S Wales is different from other parts of the UK in that respect. People in general are still not in on the old market psychology which is that prices don't fall.

Yeah, the thing about Treforest is that the preponderance of students has driven out a lot of families and with consequent rundown of local amenities such as schools.

Wales is an attractive place, especially for retirees, and I wonder if any slight
fall in price of semis/detached/bungalows will immediately be taken up by english buyers.

Thus, it may take a while for any significant drops.

There is a huge number of medium/low priced terraces available.
Are these actually selling ?

More info on the above.

The reserve price on the house was £123k. a year go it would have been sold/bought for £160 - £170k easily.

So at least a £40k - £50k reduction and still not sold.

noticed a couple of sold signs on small terraced in Pontypridd lately - I would guess for significant reductions on asking. Rhondda has collapsed as far as I can see - auction prices for 3 bed terraced in £40-£50K region - if they are selling at all.

That's low.

Yes to a degree property is only worth what people are prepared to pay, but in Wales prices have historically been lower than the rest of the UK, nobody in Wales knew any different, that was the prices that people have paid and thats that.
However now prices have increased there is nothing to say that in Wales a new level has now been set, I am not wet behind the ear with regards to the economic change about to hit us, however only 8 years ago I remember nice semis in much of South Wales (Swansea , Neath , Port Talbot) in the £40k - £50k price bracket at a time when family income was around £30k, this made property very affordable, to the point that new developments in Wales were being bought by people over the bridge to rent out, £50k property with £400pm rent and it was a winner everytime.

I'm amazed how much development that has gone on in Caerphilly in the last 10 years or so ... the town has tripled in size , but the last lot of new build are getting very hard to shift ...

hi all, this is my first post. allthough ive been watching for a while as me and my girlfriend are really hoping to buy a house when the time is right.

Stevec... as nobody else has congratulated you on your purchase, i will. i know the house you bought, and it was a real bargain. a little bit too much work for a first home for me and the girlfriend but with your plans you wshould be able to make it pay well. i think your right, a 5 bedder in rhiwbina is allways going to be a great house to own.

What weve noticed is a very slow downturn, things really have been sticking, on our street alone theres a house on the market thats been there for over a year, its now empty, havnt checked the price.
but things have started to drop now, ive heard of 2 bed end of links selling by me (thornhill) for 128,000 which is back to 05 prices. these were at peak price up to 160,000, which i new couldnt last as me and lisa my girlfriend who are both on pretty good wages could never afford that.

our position is fairly good, we have a deposit of around 35,000 and i really dont want a mortgage of above 100,000. so im waiting for the right time to jump in and get the sort of house im after. were not quite there yet but at least its coming in our direction instead of running away from us over the last 5 years, its not been pleasant watching evryone else boast about how much theyve made on houses but im glad i waited, i'm not greedy, but i do like a bargain. and i dont like to feel stupid, which is what evryone arround me has been trying to make me feel for the last 7 years. im hoping i can get on the market soon and im hoping it will serve me well.
great site by the way.

Welcome, must say that is a very good attitude to have.

£35k is a decent deposit and as long as you can hold on to it then you should be in a real good bargaining position 12mths down the road.
The only problem with falling house prices is when to actually take the plunge (timing is essential), especially with the economy as it is,putting £35k down on a property at a time of uncertain employment takes a brave man.

However if you wait for the right property at a price your happy to pay to come along then some of the biggest falls may be over the next 12mths whilst there is all the bad press coverage and the uncertainty on the economy and restrictions on lending.
Mass sell off of land by developers, may bring a once in a couple of decades opportunity for a bargain.

2 years from now and all the above may be a bit clearer, builders may have balanced the books to an extent, media coverage is toned down, government attempts to save the market from mass repossessions have had some affect, inflation drops back, IR lowered and lending eases up a bit.
People may then be incline to hold their prices as they see the worst is over and repossession figures drop (sentiment is very important with house price movement).

Cheers mate.
You sound like you have got your head screwed on. My advice is to bide your time and keep a close eye on the market. As a first time buyer with a decent deposit you are going to be ideally placed in the coming months. I wouldn't be surprised to see 2 bedroom houses in Thornhill coming down to 100,000 in the next 6 months. Timing is going to be the key which is why it is so important to keep an eye on the market.
Best of luck!