lolacarrascal

So this is what's wrong with our society, poster comes on telling us how his mate cheated on his rates while the rest of us had to pay up, and nobody says boo. Shameful.

Seems to be broadly correlated with the normal seasonal variation in sales in the housing market i.e price increases in early spring for the 'bounce' , reductions at year end when not as much buyer interest. So a simple counter strategy is don't buy a new house in the spring, wait to the middle of winter.

Perhaps more typical of asking prices for sites in BT9, but still overpriced no doubt. http://www.propertynews.com/Property/Belfast/TRLTRL63277/Site-15-Osborne-Park/?utm_source=email-alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=property-alerts

If you see any sites coming up in BT9 for £50k let us know, but I won't be holding my breath. You need to rethink your current (100 yr old?) pile of bricks valuation - a new pile of bricks on the same site will be worth much more.

Not necessarily, depends on what proportion the debt represents of total net income but that's not the point of my post - the game changer is the fact that the govt have now explictly stated a policy intention to avoid a severe house price correction. Whether they can manipulate the market to actually do so is another matter.

Thinking this is a very significant statement of policy intention by the Government - i.e. read this as 'a significant HPC through nominal prices just can't be allowd to happen or the banks / govt risk become insolvent, any adjustment is therefore going to have to be in real prices through inflation erosion and a long drawn out reduction to reach the bottom with broadly flat nominal prices for years as the preferable scenario'. http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/regulation/lenders-may-be-forced-to-cap-ltvs-says-osborne-%C2%A0/1045697.article Not exactly the news HPCers would be hoping for I'm thinking - first time I've seen such an overt comment by the govt on the need to keep house prices from falling too much too soon. Edit to add: reintroduction of MIRAS (mortage interest relief at source i.e. tax break) for those too young to remember) could be the mechanism to deliver such a policy objective and also help to balance the playing field for FTBers bidding against BTLers

Have had a mixed experience with EAs but I have to say that I find women EAs do a much better job than their male colleagues

Pinned thread updated for anyone interested in the data rather than VI spin (I think mods prefer discussion kept here)

In a previous thread, you and Doccyboy and I discussed sticking points in the housing market and I was surprised by your anecodal view that the top and bottom were correcting and that the middle hadn't to the same extent. The attached data tends to support your position if SD house type is taken as a proxy for the middle of the market. (NB for 2003Q1 data missing, the next available data point was used, was going to do same for missing 2011 data but had to go too far back and was therefore misleading)

Updated house price indicies for Northern Ireland 2005-2011Q4

Updated UUJ sample size 2003-2011Q4

Updated house type prices 2003-2011 Q4

Updated all house prices by region 2003Q1-20114

Seems it can and for even less! See here, this company's doing some very interesting work from an energy saving perspective. (no affiliation) http://www.viking-house.co.uk/ If you are into the green ideology, here's a site worth taking a look at http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/forum114/

Ground rent - not something to be worried about - a good solicitor would have obtained an indemnity from the vendor to protect any financial risk you might be exposed to. A leasehold isn't an issue to fret about either as long as its sufficiently dated - your was 900yrs plus I think from memory. Absolutely not a problem. You shouldn't have needed to pay tradesmen to provide quotes for work, not in this economic climate. The EPC - well you don't need to be told anything about that for the future. Incurring penalty charges for early withdrawal of funds was your mistake - I'm guessing you were lured by a slightly higher rate and this was a loss of interest, not capital. Working out what the difference after tax was going to be would have put these these penalty charges into perspective for the loss of financial flexibility you gave up. Only you can decide what the house was worth but a deal might still be done. In a small community like Dungannon I'd be pretty sure the EA knows your rent situation (maybe you even told him) and if it seems that you're going ahead with a new lease, who know's what might happen. Like I said before - it's a stressful buisness even when if it goes smoothly, so keep your pecker up, acknowledge your mistakes and learn from - we've all made them at some point.

How come £3k - what have you already paid for or committed to? Your solicitor (the good one you picked not the cheap one) won't be charging you much if anything - he will of course expect you to go back to him next time you try to buy.

So what! You're fighting the wrong battle - reduced your offer yet? Prepared to walk away?

Damn govt telling us fecking lies again then!

Not sure how the public sector wage freeze applies but there's so many different scales and points on them that I'm sure most got a pay rise of sorts on their pay scale without a general increase on top for inflation.

Provisional figures from 2011 ASHE suggest a 2.6% increase in mean wages in NI compared to 2010 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-235202

Yes quite possibly but the UK has a high proportion of long dated gilts so the risk of needing to do option 1 is perhaps lessened. More QE seems the most likely route to me in which case I don't see any obstacle to wages eventually rising. The other consideration to think about is the fact that currency fluctuations are a zero sum, if the £ falls, it must be falling against other rising currencies. It's not immediately obvious to me which curriencies that could be.

I've mentioned several times before that the Halifax data has been the most erratic of the 4 main NI indicies since the peak. I think their reported fall in prices of 23% in the last year can be given as much credibility as their reported increase of 8% over the previous 12 months to that - neither seems to be an accurate reflection of reality and these wild swings aren't being reflected to the same extent in the other indicies - treat with caution.

Is this not telling us that those at the lowest end of the pay scale can't afford to buy a home - so what's new. Even the Govt think family benefits should be capped at a higher level (another debate here as to whether that's right or wrong).

As you said in your own post, the easy way for governments is to inflate their way out of trouble if they can/need to. Yes, real house prices could fall a lot further but if that is mostly through inflation, then not having a large mortage, the real value of which is rapidly being inflated away could be a missed opportunity. Taking absolute positions in a time of uncertaintly is not without risks, hedging bets a bit might be more the pragmatic strategy in such circumstances.

'Do your own research' is a favourite mantra on here and well worth the effort. You can start here - there's enough easy reading here to keep you going for a while and it'll answer all the questions you have from a position of informed impartial knowledge. http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/In-your-home