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House Price Crash Forum

benzlife

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Everything posted by benzlife

  1. Well, I've had an offer accepted on my first house after nearly six years of sitting on the fence. Will post more details after everything has gone through (assuming it does!). I will say that I bought for about 6% under asking price for a property that to me represented real value compared to some of the stock being advertised at sky high prices. Still, I have a slight sense of unease that I've missed something that others who viewed the property spotted :-o
  2. This house has been on and off the market for well over a year and this is it's first price drop. I do think this is starting to represent value. Compare to this, just a stones throw away just on at £315k: Overpriced of Feversham Road
  3. I've had completely the opposite experience of renting. Been in this one for three years. It's owned by a trust and managed properly by WSB. I expect we could stay here as long as we like and the only way we woud be kicked if it was to be sold; in which case we'd jump a the chance to buy it ourselves. I guess it's the luck of the draw but you could always factor in the landlord's position when you next move to try and get a bit more security?
  4. I find McKillops properties are often overpriced, although I would expect on this occasion the vendor has inflated their estimate. Looks like a prime example of someone thinking they'll make a profit out of having done work. To mirror the views expressed recently on this thread I think the market is dead as a dodo at the moment. Very little of any quality coming on. It is worth noting that during the Spring anything that was of really good quality sold at close to 2007 prices. It's the houses with compromises (poor position / layout / area) that are sticking. It doesn't help that most are overpriced to boot. Anecdotally most people I talk to still can't understand why I've not bought over the last few years. The classic 'renting is dead money' one is heard about once a week at my work. I continue to pedal the line that the interest payments on a mortgage would be roughly comparable to our rent (not taking into account the interest we earn on our deposit). This is met with bemusement and a kind of blank look that says everything about people's inability to understand simple concepts where property is concerned. Still even a 20% correction is looking very optimistic as I sit and write.
  5. He's on newsnight now making mincemeat of two lightweights. Not because he's right, but because they haven't got the knowledge to effectively argue against his views. Typical beeb!
  6. Went to see a house last weekend. For a change the EA followed up with two phone calls and an email. I replied to the email saying I thought the price was well above market value and that we may reconsider if the vendor dropped their asking price. Snotty girl at the EA office suggested it was too early for the buyer to consider a 'low' price for their property. I didn't reply stating the obvious fact that whatever the house sells for will be the market value, but her language suggests the thinking behind the price. Put it up nice and high, see if you get a boomer to pay top whack, if not accept a lower price after a month or two on the market. Risky game if you ask me because it doesn't look like anythings shifting at the moment and there could be lots of people chasing the market down. It'll be interesting to see if the late spring, early summer brings some movement on asking prices.
  7. This is the rub isn't it. If you think it's the HPC then a decent amoint of cash in the bank will probably buy you a house outright in 2 or 3 years. If you think it's the paper money system that goes you either get into the shiny stuff or into bricks and mortar with a hope that hyperinflation makes your mortgage the equivalent to a loaf of bread. Tough choice.
  8. Interesting idea. Its probably worth checking to see how onerous the rate can be. Would we be able to remortgage after the work has been completed (perhaps within 1 year of taking the original mortgage out) to perhaps get the house revalued and hopefully move onto a better LTV mortgage?
  9. I'm currently looking at a house that is about £50k below our self-imposed budget of £300k (i.e.£250k) for which we have a 25% deposit saved. It's a lot of house for it's money, but needs quite a bit of work doing to it to turn it into the family home we would like. In short we think we'd need to add a second storey to an existing ground floor extension to add an extra bedroom. Other changes (such as new fixtures and fittings) can happen over a longer period when we've got the cash saved. However, we would like to try and add the extension pretty much as soon as we move in (taking into account planning etc). In today's loan/mortgage market what are the options for financing something like this? Given that even on a smaller mortgage (i.e. £250k) we won't have cash left to fund this entirely from savings. Is it possible to obtain a mortgage for the house + extension? Would we be better off with a bridging loan? Where's the best place to start looking for these things? Any other suggestions welcome. DISCLAIMER: This house is being bought in full knowledge that a massive HPC may be round the corner. We don't want it to be our pension, nor do we plan to flip it to move on up the ladder, or rent it out to a family of immigrants on benefits. If sucessful we plan on living in it for many many years and raising our two wonderful children in it. Phew...
  10. Can you post a link to that video please. Want to share it!
  11. You're right you do need to increase your mortgage all the time, but in the midst of a bubble people are willing to extend themsevles more and more each time (and our banks were happy to oblige). I "missed the boat" (that's an EA term for you), but think of how it must have felt to Joe public getting all that money for doing nothing. So, they traded up, again and again. Hence the ladder.
  12. True, but if you have a high percentage deposit (which happens as your equity stake grows), you become a smaller risk to the bank, and theoretically they'll lend you more money.
  13. I think it's more to do with how in a rising market your equity grow. Take this example: I start with a 10% deposit on a 100k home = 10k 4 years later (if we go back in time to 1999 to 2003), my house is worth 200k Suddenly I have 110k equity in a 200k house. Time to move up the ladder and put down say 33.3% down on a 330k home. 4 years later (2003 to 2007), my 330k house is now worth 500k. My original 10k has become 280k worth of equity in my half-mil house!!!! The trouble is this breaks down as soon as property stops going up in value, and it becomes clear that it’s not a property ladder, it’s a ponzi scheme that just happens to look a bit like a ladder when everything’s going ok. Edit to correct a percentage error half way through my working!
  14. Time for a "Salisbury anyone?" bump! Got to say that the quantity, quality and price of new properties coming onto the market are all depressing the hell out of me. Why are prices 10 to 15% up on last year? Has Salisbury experienced some sort of bubble in the past 6 months or are sellers just more deluded/desperate this year??
  15. Could it be that people are just feeling more confident about the economy.? I know this may be a ludicrous assertion, but from where I'm sitting the general noise seems to be that things are picking up. It's election year in the US and they'll be doing all they can to make people feel that things are back on track. That the general populace buys it is more a sad indictment of their intelligence than anything; they don't have any more money, but they do feel more confident spending what little they have. Suggesting that it's possible to 'downgrade' from fast-food to some uber-cheap sit down restaurant seems to be clutching at straws somewhat.
  16. You an HPC'er, him a full-on NIMBY! Christmas round your house must be fun...
  17. This statement is frankly ridiculous and an indication of quite how brainwashed the younger generation in this country have become. I guess they've seen their parents do well and unquestioningly follow the path the golden goose. This silly woman is in effect saying she'd rather buy a house than get married and have kids. If this kind of stupidity and shortsightedness is endemic then Briton's Love Affair with Housing will find a way through the current predicament. Edit to try and correct markup!
  18. Oh no, someone pointing out the uncomfortable truth that house prices haven't come down much and are still well above their Jan 09 lows. More to the point how dare anyone question that prices may not fall in nominal terms (good job you've got a crystal ball to call him out on this call). Perhaps there should be a forum rule banning anyone who questions the "approved" future that sees BTL slumlords and overleveraged boomers begging on the streets whilst HPC members pick up houses for the odd krugerand.
  19. Is it just me that sees a weird irony playing out? The whole thing is being propped up by the banking elite, yet the 'sovereign default' threat comes from the 'markets', which are in effect the banking elite. It's like an ouroboros.
  20. Just to add.... If they actually want to protect the 1% they'd be thinking about breaking the banks up (so they're not too big to fail) and trying to reset the existing system through some controlled defaults. The bankers problem is that they've become so focused on making money this year rather than securing profits for the next 10 years.
  21. Well that's a rosy summation. It seems a bit shortsighted though. The powers that be are doing all they can to keep the scam going, but my view is that they've got it all wrong. The 1% were protected whilst thing were going well - after all everyone else was getting better off (albeit at a much slower rate than the elite). These are the last desperate moves of a system that is broken. Are you not seeing understanding dawn in the population, because I am. It don't think the backlash will start in the UK, but it will spread here once the dominos start to go...
  22. That's the weird thing though. I come on here and it seems so clear and obvious that it's all about to come tumbling down, yet outside of this board (within the press, in business, around town etc.) the world seems to be fine and dandy. We're not the crazy ones are we?
  23. This has happened to me twice as well. Anyone got a theory as to why?
  24. The only interesting thing about watching a second credit crunch would be seeing how they managed to kick the can down the road once more. What we have to hope is that this time the public somewhere will say no more and start lynching bankers. I think it's most likely to happen in USA, Spain or perhaps Germany; you can be sure the British bankers will be the last left standing.
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