spring

I'm thinking of renting a flat with a mate in B'fast. Was it hard to find somewhere reasonable at a good price?

deleted post - discovered story had already been posted.

thinking of renting a house in belfast with a few mates. just a couple of questions if anyone can help: -do u usually have to go into a contract of > 1 month. if so, how long? -how does the money work ie. i take it we all pay the landlord separately? -what if one person moves out during the contract period - do we have to cover his rent? -if one person moves out-is it up to us to find a replacement? cheers!

Just an anecodatal contribution - I remember when I started my current job in 2004 and was talking with colleagues in the canteen about houses. The general concenusus was that prices were too high and would crash. So I would call 2004 the tail end of the first (albeit) smaller bubble. I have a feeling that they may be right in that prices may have bottomed out for a while (possibly even a yr)...before they start to fall again. The hard part for us will be if they start rising this yr and u gotta decide whether u have the b@lls to not buy and hope that they start falling again next yr. If they start rising..all our friends and family will be on us like a ton of bricks telling us to buy or we'll lose out (again).

i guess they need to keep the numbers of ppl they put thru the early selection process at a mangeable level. Easier to screen 4,500 recent graduates than 45,000 people.

bbc article

Fair point....what's the alternative?

I'm 30 & got a pension statement in recently. In the projected income, it says that I can expect to get 10k a year at retirement (if the fund does well) & 3k a year if the fund doesn't do so well. There is a note about inflation to the effect that in 25yrs time, the purchasing power of the money will be half. Reading this letter was one of the most soberig moments of my life. I'm obviously s**ting myself and will be cranking up my % contribution asap. I mean...WTF is 5k a year gonna do for me....I'm likely to starve to death if I have to rely on this kind of figure. This will only alleviate it slightly tho. Got me thinking about houses as well. This is one of the main reasons why I can't take on a big mortgage. I have to be able to put a good bit of money aside to help me have some sort of existence at retirement. Pensions & Mortgages are serious stuff in our generation. Screw what the vested interests says about 'not missing the boat etc. They don't give a crap about whether u have an impoverished retirement or not.

what type of property do u want to buy & how much would you be prepared to pay for it?

i agree with your post. i did what one should never do - made a quick assumtion without reading what had been written. i thought that some people were deluded & thought that strandmillas/malone rd houses would come down to 90k or something. u factored in that the houses in strandmillas would still be significantly dearer than the houses in e belfast etc. i apologize - should've read all the posts b4 commenting & looking like a *****.

i have also been checking in here less & less as well as restricting my property news visits to once per month. i've realized that i am perhaps fooling myself into thinking that massive price falls are going to happen every month. i've seen aricles that say that house price crashes typically last 4+yrs. i have to keep reminding myself of this frustrating truth. i assume u live with your mum & dad at the minute. the only problem with u moving in with a mate is u wont have hundreds and hundreds of quid to put away for a big deposit any more. but i guess u have to balance that out with not missing out on life & being independent. tough call. oh..and i'm probably gonna be controversial here - but i guess another frustrating truth is that there are certain areas like strandmillas and malone that will always be unaffordable for a lot of folk....if everyone could afford to live there-the place wouldnt have as much prestige value.

What about co-ownership though? Will it not allow ppl to get x3 from the mortgage lender and x3 from the co-ownership? i.e. x6 salary.

Exactly the way I feel....I'll have to save even more to top up the pathetic interest.

I'm starting to see a definite increase in sale agreeds. I know that a good proportion of them fall through. Initially I was a bit worried about this - thinking maybe things are taking off again. But then I caught myself on - there aren't enough of them to cause another boom. I'm starting to think now that more sales may be a good thing. Simply because it may help drive prices down for people who are genuinely moving house. Over the last year and a half, I've heard loads of people say: "theres no point reducing prices, cos people can't get the finance to buy" or "there's no point trying to put your house up for sale cos u'll never get it sold at any price now" Most people bought they're houses when they were a lot cheaper. So, all they care about is not making a loss when they want to move house. So if they think they can move house by dropping the price substantially...and the property they want to move to does the same..and so on...prices could collapse. And when prospective sellers "sitting out" of the market hear of people moving house and getting on with they're lives - they'll put they're houses back on the market - further increasing supply. Its only really the BTL brigade and folks who bout they're houses in the last 5 yrs who cant really do this. Just my thoughts - hope I'm right. PS - not sure if I've ommitted to think about the guy at the "top" of the chain - he'd obviously have to agree to take a big drop in money of he wants to walk away with the money as opposed to moving.

I assume this morgage leaflet was from the eary to mid 70s?

Just wondering what happened pre 2000. Did people take out mortgages and stay with exactly the same mortgage for 25 years or was remortgaging always available and popular?

Documentary analysing the causes and effects of Ireland's property boom and examining where it all went wrong. Did Ireland's bank lend money too freely?

i see that they reckon the extra funding will be able to cover approx 200 applications. i'm just wondering if anyone knows how many applications are covered in a normal yr?

I remember talking to work colleagues in April 2004 and they were complaining that the prices were too high and that they were going to fall. So they definitely weren't 'totally affordable' in 2005.

A lot of talk on the news about how the B&B Nationalization is a massive blow to Buy to Let folk as they will now find it much harder to renew their BTL mortgages when they come off their 2 year deals. As far as I can remember, the massive boom year was 2006. The people who bought up until Sep 06 will already have renewed their deals. So it'll be 2010 before this really hits them. So that leaves the people who bought after Sep 06 - they'll be looking to remortgage now. Just wondering, was the BTL boom still going on in the 1st 6 months of 07? I can't fully remember. I know things had stopped by end of summer 07. If the boom was still going then, it means there will be a lot of people who bought overpriced BTL properties who are going to be remortgaging over the next 9 months.

U had to expect that a Gov wouldn't let their county's banking sector fail. the uk may do the same if necesary. Will the US rescue plan (and all the other bailouts) tighten or loosen credit? I'm finding news reports conflicting as to whether credit will be more freely available at lower interest rates following the bailout(s). Some say yes, some say no. What are your opinions?

Paul, have I interpreted Alan Bridle's 11th slide correctly - ie. unlike GB, we don't have anywhere near the supply probs as GB as we increased our building as demand increased (just like ROI)? If so, hapy days!

< £35k

Any suggestions for a reasonably low risk/good savings rate bank/building society for deposit saving? Some ppl say nationwide - any others?

I've started to notice more & more peope on the forum comment that inflation is going to erode our savings. Regarding house prices & our savings - are they saying that house prices will only fall so far and that inflation (& subsequent wage inflation) will make them affordable? I just can't get to the bottom of what they are saying - ie. the effect inflation will have on FTBs ability to afford a house. Will it help or hinder?