sutemiwaza

Interesting....reading between the lines it is quite negative.....what are your thoughts on central London?

My boss says there are too many agents and keeps talking about the 80s and 90s. Most of the agents I know agree we need more volume and a slow increase in interest rates woiuld help. I and my colleagues work on commission and need volume...in the last few weeks its gone quiet and deals are falling apart.

As an agent in central London the market has gone very quiet....people seem to be sitting on their hands. Volumes are well down and my boss says it spells trouble and says we should have higher interest rates as it would force people to sell leading to prices dropping and we would get some volume. Talking to the solicitors and mortgage brokers and it is pretty dire.

Just lost a deal and the buyer turned and said we are all totally screwed but just dont know it yet. He is a senior banker..... Told my boss who remembers the 90s and he agrees

In my area of Chelsea prices are well up on last year (may be 30-40% from the lows) and Savills and John D Wood seem to support this with their graphs but this is due to lack of properties and cash rich buyers (city money .....). In the pub on Friday and a friend who is an agent in Wandsworth said it is really slow below £500-£750k as most buyers need 90% mortgages and cant get them but above that level he cannot take on enough instructions as so many buyers are chasing too few houses. It seems people reliant on big mortgages are screwed and this is creating two different markets the haves and have nots.....

Admittedly I am an agent but I still think prices will drop eventually. The reason they havent is because in my area at least there is still a shortage of properties meaning buyers are still bidding against each other. My boss thinks it is also due to HIPS as prior to HIPS (before my time) he said 30-40% of sellers were speculative which gave greater choice. Volume is still well down.

Market is strong...lack of properties is making people pay silly money in Chelsea. Our team were having a chat yesterday in the pub and we are all worried about the back end of the year. It is amazing how many agents think it is going to go pear shaped. Now time to go out!

Working in central London agency we still have an acute shortage and we are manic.....still bearish and think things will get bad eventually. In central London if the economy tanks so does the currency and we get an influx of foreigners helping to prop up the demand 9happened lat year). My boss keeps telling me to make hay while the sun shines and we are...but after the election? There is too much debt and if interest rates go up we are all screwed.

The market is mad in Chelsea we have seen prices jump in the last few months all because we have no properties, which means buyers are competing. We are having bankers registering every day in the expectation of bonuses and if we dont get any more property to sell...prices will go up. We are definitely down from the peak but now may be 10-15%....we are lucky as we have both foreigners and bankers buying but elsewhere the market is very different... The research published by the agents is b@ll@c** you need to go into your individual areas and talk to the agents...my area is flying, friends in fulham say prices are up but other agents in other areas are still having problems....saw a graph from JDW saying big houses are down 40% from a year ago...OUCH. If this lack of stock continues (my boss says we are down 60% from normal) and these b@nkers keep buying prices will keep going up....but that is us and central London does not reflect the whole of LONDON!

We have lots of short leases in central London. It is a real pain as there are ground rent reviews and it is way toooo complicated and most of us normally leave it to the manager...you could look up the Lease website (one of my applicants came in with a copy of a guide on how to extend your lease by John D Wood, try their website)..the search engines should give you come guidance. Short leases are a pain!

For my area the John D Wood Index seems on the money as it uses actual exchange data. Nationally I like the Land Registry even though it is late as it records completions and probably does not cover my area very well (alot use offshore companies). Savills and Knight Frank are good for spin and a breakdown of buyer profiles. Their reports always cheer us up.... Anyone know anything about the FT index?

Having debate in our office if any of the indexes are any good. Have been watching our local market in central London climb since about Feb/March (at least for flats) and the national indexes are only just reporting an upturn.... ...Land Registry too slow as completion can be several months after exchange ...Halifax and Nationwide dont cover central London (not an issue for most and makes a change from London centric papers) ....Hometrack and Rightmove too speculative ...Savills just seem to use their agents waving their finger in the air ...John D Wood ...not national... but do use pounds per square foot at date of exchange...(and showed some pretty large falls) ..Knight Frank...again top end but do not seem to use actual transactional data just finger in the air We get asked all the time by buyers what is happening to the market....locally it is strong as we have never had such a shortage of property. The easy answer is it depends on what you are after..national or local? Still believe we are going to get all the indexes pointing down ....but with the shortage of properties not for the next few months (too many owners sitting on their hands).

Simple supply and demand....my boss has been working an agent for some time and he says people are too comfortable and we need higher interest rates as people are not putting their house/flat on the market. Our number of instructions is down on last year. If this is the same across the country I am not surprised prices are going up.... Am still a bear but with the very little to offer buyers they are bidding against each other....

I agree the market is out of sync. When is it going to correct ....my entire office thought we were all screwed at the beginning of the year. Some of our buyers even think it is still going to collapse. In their words they dont trust the stockmarket and they are getting 1% on cash. Their view is they are buying in for 10-15+ years and it is all relative. So they have bitten the bullet ..... The point is buyers should accept where the market is ....it might not be where you want it to be but thats life.....i am still holding out for Chester Square on my shoestring budget but at least I am prepared to wait.....for years...or decades.....

The market sets the price. My boss has just come in having advised an owner where he thought the market is and the owner has instructed us at a higher figure. Buyers can offer whatever they want and sometimes it goes for less sometimes more. It is a freemarket and owners form their own opinion and take what they find as acceptable. As an agent we guide the owner based on the last few sales. We dont control the number of properties on the market or what our owners will accept.... Average wage might be £46k but Fulham isnt average....it is still very sought after and a lot of our buyers buy there as they can get 4 or 5 beds for the price of a good flat in Chelsea. These buyers are typically city and foreign therefore I reckon average house buyer in fulham is probably £150k-250k a year including bonus....would be interesting to find out. If you cant afford to buy in fulham or wait for the correction (many agents believe there will be a correction...but when) look elsewhere Ealing or Putney.... The market sets prices. You have to decide whether you can afford to live there.

As an agent we dont control prices or volumes it is down to the market. Would love to see higher prices (better commission) and higher volumes (more commission) in my market in Chelsea. Would agree the shortage is leading to higher prices....with interest rates this low it could be some time before we see more vendors decide to sell (my boss was arguing for higher rates to get a few of our owners to take sensible offers). On the affordability side it would be great if everyone could live where they wanted (I like Chester Square) but prices ration the supply. We get people wanting to live in Chelsea every day but realising they cant afford it so they move to Fulham or Battersea. Will the market drop ...probably ..but can people afford to wait? Just a few thoughts

As an agent have heard on the grapevine (in the pub) apparently John D Wood have just updated their index for the various areas and Fulham has a large uplift (our office is waiting to see their Chelsea index as they put them on their website). Have friends as agents in Fulham and they are reporting shortage of houses and best bids occurring on a regular basis...there is a lack of supply and this driving up demand. My boss has been an agent for many years and says this is just a very strong spring bounce.......

"How to Buy" when you are ready which for most on this forum may not be for a very long time As an agent I would like to offer some advice Put the offer in writing in letter form with your contact details Give the details of your solicitor (telephone, fax, address etc) Your offer in figures and in writing Give details of financing (mortgage, cash, property to sell) Give details of timing and how quickly you can exchange and preferred completion (timing can be as important as price to some sellers) State what your offer includes eg curtains, white goods etc Put down the reasons for the level of your offer and recent sales to validate your opinion. Good luck

France/Italy... + there is normally a seasonal uplift so it will be interesting if this continues... As my boss pointed out with market down 25% currency down 25-30% they are buying at half price from 18 months ago (buy one get one free BOGOF)

As suggested get loan frozen (they are normally very good) straight away and go from there. He may not need a mortgage but just a loan secured against the property which might be more readily available. Would suggest those banks with money i.e. HSBC and some of the government backed ones. He will need to show proof of ownership and that Probate has been granted.

Am based in central London and we are busy with viewings and offers. Quite a few foreigners are buying which is getting some of the other buyers interested (even had best bids etc). However, know other agents in other areas are having similar pickup in activity but others are really quiet....very strange!

We are busy...(am still employed as an agent in central London)...what really gets us is when we put a flat/house under offer (which we are doing at the moment) we get some surveyors who only spend 10-15 minutes in the property yet give a "full report". However, some of the known and more experienced valuers can take an hour or two, but you get what you pay for. P.S. My boss keeps telling me to stop saying valuation as this is something a "surveyor" does we just do a marketing report...so I agree with betterthanathousand

Interesting topic...a client told me he was expecting the FTSE to bottom out at 2500...and this was summer last year! He is/was a senior banker.

MV=PT the graph suggests there needs to be a huge increase in money supply by x2 or x3. Quantatitive easing has started but by nothing like enough.. In for a very rocky ride. Would suggest forget setting interest rates [target a range] and print money. Low interest rates counter productive as everyone needs to save more to keep income constant. Also low interest rates encourage misallocation of resources and zombie companies.

Ouch...as an agent it seems alot especially at the moment as we have a shortage of houses and I work in central London and my colleagues in other areas agree..Still think it is going to crash in a major way but the market going up and down 20% can happen in a few months (especially when the bonues season happened..not happening anymore). Have heard about the Knight Frank and Savills index and just heard about one from John D Wood...it would be interesting to see if there is any difference betwen them.