Edhutch

Leemo, you are 100% wrong about the Kingston Rd property: not prepared to say anything more but I have inside knowledge of this. Your stuff on St John's sell-off is also BS, but if it makes you feel better, hey carry on fabricating...

Diss it all you like: others disagree and the buyers are back. Plenty of parents of young children love Jericho for its excellent primary schools, as TheHowler has already pointed out, so clearly they aren't put off by the putative 'problems' you are so desperate to talk up.

According to land registry figures both Oxford and Cambridge as a whole (not specific postcodes) are up by about 4% from May 09 to Sept 09. Suspect North Oxford is up by more than this based on recently achieved prices and probably the best bits of Cambridge would be similar. There is still a problem with low supply of the decent 4 bed and upward stuff in Jericho and N. Oxford: are you talking about these areas?

Gazumping is back in Jericho (have this on v. good authority from someone to whom it has just happened (property ended up going for 5% ABOVE asking price). If you like it and can afford it, go for it. Fallingbuzzard has a downer on anywhere he can't afford btw, so buckets of salt and all that.

Always with the fantasies about 25% further falls. By your own admission you are an 'idealistic' young man. Sad that you feel the need to label antyone demonstrably wealthier and more successful than yourself 'moneygrabbing' but there you go (I really don't believe that you have the purchasing power of 2.5-3 million to get the two properties you pontificate about btw). No doubt you would have found a way to make Kristallnacht sound fair and reasonable had you been there at the time (yes I am Jewish and yes I do have a problem with embittered losers stigmatising landlords as sexist and moneygrabbing). As for flaming/off topic I'm still waiting for your current market-based evidence that N. Oxford is headed in a downward direction.

Always with the fantasies about 25% further falls. By your own admission you are an 'idealistic' young man. Sad that you feel the need to label anyone demonstrably wealthier and more successful than yourself 'moneygrabbing' but there you go (I really don't believe that you have the purchasing power of 2.5-3 million to get the two properties you pontificate about btw). No doubt you would have found a way to make Kristallnacht sound fair and reasonable had you been there at the time (yes I am Jewish and yes I do have a problem with embittered losers stigmatising landlords as sexist and 'moneygrabbing'). As for flaming/off topic I'm still waiting for your current market-based evidence that N. Oxford is headed in a downward direction.

Then why are you making little snipes about marginal daily moves in the sterling exchange rate? Oh it's for the same reason that you are nitpicking about the gender of your landlord (you are probably the sort of person who considers it clever to write 's/he'): the truth is that events have overtaken you and you have lost the argument about N. Oxford starting to go back up again. PS I'm a landlord, too, incidentally, have been for nearly a decade . That's probably one of the many reasons why I can afford to own in N. Oxford, whereas you are currently helping your landlady to climb the property ladder at your expense! Very noble and unsexist of you old chap.

The pound collapsed precipitously ages ago (see graph): http://www.indexmundi.com/xrates/graph.aspx?c1=GBP&c2=EUR&days=1825&lastday=20091007 In terms of Euros UK housing had come off more than 40% from its July 2007 peak by the end of 2008. Good luck if you expect NOMINAL house prices in £ to tank any more. Your idea of 'the wrong price' (in spite of all the recent market indicators) just highlights yet again that you are p*ssing in the wind and hidebound by a rigid mindset. Markets oversheet then correct (often too much in the other direction) then recalibrate again. Your landlord must be a happy man because with your mindset you will be keeping him in clover for many years to come.

You've given up on ever being able to afford N. Oxford then? P.S. I forgot to add to my earlier post that Nick Ross lives in ... N. Oxford!

I do like to throw out a bit of bait every few posts: thankyou for biting. As Nick Ross used to say, don't have nightmares

I agree that N. Oxford is a bubble not obviously connected to other areas of Oxford. To be honest I don't know much about the rest of Oxford. I would guess the nicer bits of Headington would be OK (i.e. they have hit the floor and are on the up) but beyond that I have no idea other than that there is a housing shortage in and around Oxford generally which might well prop things up. I've only lived in Oxford for a few years and when I first came I was genuinely shocked by the shabbiness of quite a few of the areas. It is brutal to say this but I wouldn't want to live anywhere near anyone on housing benefit etc because of fear of crime. For sheer size and space some of the villas in the Rose Hill area (with huge gardens) are intriguing, but in truth few people with real cash would want to live there because of the near neighbours. Iffley Rd falls into a similar category but is nearer in and a lot more aspirational, though the guest houses and student digs put me off. Has Iffley Rd started to rebound too I wonder?

Actually sunshine I had and still have a fair old stash in the FTSE 100. Your salary linkage thing doesn't work for the most affluent areas of London and the south east where inherited cash and bonuses still rule the roost. Fiscal tightening will mean that interest rates can stay pretty low for the next 18-24 months or more in spite of £ continuing to fall (16% increased disposal income compared with 2007 for those with a mortgage and still in work). Those with cash will keep on buying in the best areas, so you could have a very long wait! Pound has tanked against the Euro and will reach parity pretty soon. Dollar has its own big issues but for now has the advantage of being the world's reserve currency (so can probably get way with more printing than we can). You repeat your mantras but you find the steady reality of the N. Oxford rebound a frustratingly stubborn contradiction. At least for now you have given up outright denial of the reality of the current market situation. I have much more sympathy for the position (and humour) of The Howler. The aptly named Howler realizes that he may have lost out and half-accepts it with an original observational wit which adds to the general gaiety. You on the other hand are like a sour old eschatologist who cannot forgive the world for its stubborn refusal to heed his prophesies and end now!

1, Significant pent-up demand. In 2008 noone knew what was happening and everyone held off for fear of futher falls, the end of capitalism as we know it etc. The money is now returning to the market an a lot of people who were sitting on cash have been smoked out by the recent turn in the market/return of cautious optimism. The people with money/good jobs will do relatively well out of the current recession. Low interest rates for the next 18 months will help, too. I see continued £ devaluation in the short-medium term, inflation not kicking off until 2011. 2. Agree if you can find such investments (Swiss francs anyone?), but this is far easier said than done, esp. when it is your housing stash you are playing with. Money in the bank is losing out bigtime against property in the last 8 months (not only are you paying rent and getting minimal interest, but you are also falling behing as the housing indices pick up again). I have said before that I don't see rapid increases ahead, just a slow but steady recovery with periods of stagnation. On recent evidence, I just don't see prices falling again in nominal terms for quite a while, whereas Falling Buzzard and co. seem to think that the 15-20% from Autun 07 to Jan 09 was just the start. I'm saying that the evidence of the market for the past 6 months is that that's as good as it gets guys. I will admit though that even I have been slightly surprised at just how strongly N. Oxford seems to be bouncing back. The truth is that money attracts money. My friends in West London tell me that the more desirable areas there have bottomed out and are starting to rise again so I guess that the upper middle classes are currently weathering the recession pretty well. I thought the point of the local boards was to give an impression of the local markets as they stand, but clearly others would prefer to make them an exercise in group denial. If the world stops doing what we think it ought to be doing then sometimes the best option is to admit what is happening, to work out why this is happening and to change tack or to formulate a defensive counter-strategy. Leaving ear-marked housing money in £s in the bank is just for mugs at the moment and certainly not a wise medium-term strategy.

You keep telling yourselves that! Colleges buy and sell properties all the time, though it is true that cash-strapped Colleges have ditched stuff needed a lot of refurbishment recently. But guess what? Spec. developers have bought them , done them up and flipped them within 6 months! James Penney and others are starting to post the dreaded ('if you are considering selling please do they are going like hotcakes' circulars). They weren't bothering to do this 6 months ago. Lots of sold signs in Navigation Way (nr Phil and Jim Primary School) have just appeared on the houses themselves (these are mid-range/cheap for N. Oxford, i.e. 450--600K). So much for Falling buzzard's theory that only the expensive stuff is selling (and, wait a minute, didn't he claim that £1 mill. plus stuff wasn't selling either last week!) FB doesn't have a clue and every word he posts bespeaks desperate denial of what is happening in the real world atm, rather than in his imagination ( or that of his mysterious 'buying agent'!) PS Not sure what on earth Trinity CAMBRIDGE buying the rental rights to the Dome has to do with it other than Trinity arre clearly expecting low interest rates for a while (otherwise how would spending 24 mill. on arental rights which generated 842K last year make sense?

Falling Buzzard your 'agent'/alter ego is having a laugh. Another bidder on this house (yes The Anchor one) bid v. Close to asking (950k). The fair priced stuff is selling fast (look at the 995k bainton rd house that went sstc within a week of going up recently). You are just deluding yourself and your comments reveal that you have no understanding of the current state of the market in N. Oxford.

Clearly your buying agents are on valium if they can't see what is happening. Because I am nosy (and too lazy to unsubscribe from email circulars) I still get the mailshots from the Summertown Savills. Their latest is quite an interesting read: "This year has seen a positive change in buyer sentiment and the market now looks very different from the gloom of September 2008. Oxford is among those areas that has remained buoyant with a record number of sales agreed in July. We have also seen a 34 per cent rise in transactions to the end of September compared to 2008, and viewing numbers have returned to 2006-07 levels. House prices in Oxfordshire have proved resilient. For realistically priced properties, we are generally exchanging at close to guide price; for the best houses, competitive bidding has returned. We are seeing good interest at the top end of the market from South East Asia, benefiting hugely from our strong presence in that region. Our commitment to our buyers is to ensure the best choice, delivered in the most efficient manner and the dividend to our sellers is a professionally conducted, successful sale. We hope that you enjoy this selection of houses currently available for sale and would be delighted to discuss the local market in greater detail with you at any time. Giles Lawton Head of Office Summertown Oxford" A friend has just exchanged on a large house in Kingston Rd, roomy but rather tired, with lots of scope for being spruced up. The asking price was £985K and he is paying £980K (!) Will be v. interesting to see the Land Registry figures for Sept. and October for N. Oxford transactions.

Agree that there are too many estate agents on the current turnover of properties. N. Oxford, is safe, green, fairly quiet, free of pubs, chip shops etc because councillors who themselves often live here have deliberately kept it that way for the sake of the residents. It's the schools, the commutability and the educated upper middle classness that keeps people here. I joked about kids learning Sanskrit but a playmate of my daughter was heard to utter 'koax' when asked by her father what noise a frog makes (a ref. to Aristophanes' The Frogs). The little girl in question was three years old! Frightfully precious not to say precocious, but there's a certain kind of educated Englishness which just doesn't exist in many places any more. You might think it silly (and in some ways it probably is), but many of us want our children to grow up to be educated, literate, thinking people and N. Oxford is an ideal environment for this. If you don't get it, fine, but there is clearly still a big demand for all this, hence prices on the up again.

Spot on. Too many people on here just don't get this. Hold off buying a house iof you want, but FFS don't stash all your cash in increasingly worthless £s. House prices will prob stagnate for a while and go down in REAL terms but not NOMINAL terms. People at HPC need to be alert to this possibility. It is in the interests of the British govt to devalue the £.

Falling Buzzard, I really hope for your sake you do understand, because if your buying agent is telling you nothing is selling in N. Oxford then you aren't getting very up to the minute information!

Finally, a breath of pragmatism on here. Take note Falling Buzzard: just because you don't like/understand it doesn't mean it's not happening. Sticking your head in the sand won't give you a clearer view of anything. The Elizabeth Jennings Way stuff had hung around for ages and it looks like the sellers were right to hold out. The point is that this stuff just wasn't shifting at all at the end of last year. Ditto roads like Oakthorpe etc in a similar price bracket. Still 10% off peak of course. Shortage of supply still a big issue (hence low transaction volumes).

FallingBuzzard, where are your figures coming from??? Suggset you just look on rightmove for a week or two or get out there and actively track properties (inc. viweing and making 'fake' offers). You are simply wrong about £1m+ properties being stuck. I wouldn't call Bainton Rd or the newer part of Charlbury Rd of 'historical significance' but they are in good locations and they are still selling for 900-1.1K when they come up (at the peak they went for 1.25+ and at the bottom (late last year) they wouldn't shift even at 900K). The flasher period stuff on Frenchay, St Margarets, Woodstock Rd stc is still selling for way more than this, too. You sound like a man in denial of what is happening atm.

700K would actually get you a four bed poky place depending on the road (I wouldn't fancy that either...). I haven't disclosed what my place cost incidentally. I quoted Thompson's salary as an example of how loaded some of the inhabitants of N. Oxford are and as an extreme example of the LONDON money that has flowed into N. Oxford in the past decade or so.

Howler this is v. funny (and a bit sad, I admit). I'm actually married to a don and I do slightly bemoan the phenomenon you're talking about, but on the other hand i work in London most of the time so I realize that I can't really complain as I am doing what all the other interlopers have done before me.

I actually agree about the threat of significantly higher inflation (though not hyperinflation). That is why it is so potentially dangerous not to have any debt and to be fully in cash at the moment. It is one of the reasons I chose to buy in February this year. The main thing is not to be overextended when interest rates inevitably rise ( the middle aged, middle class buyers in N. Oxford will prob. still be sitting pretty). Look at what happened in the mid-1970s: savers were wiped out and house prices rose in nominal terms but not in real terms. If you have been sitting on a cashpile waiting for houseprices to drop further in the past eight months then you will actually have been going backwards re. your ability to purchase a house. The more sagacious of the HPCers are not sitting on a pile of cash: they have diversified their stash. Have you?

I didn't start the name calling on this thread, but then I'm not the one with my face pressed against the window... The reason I am confident that N. Oxford is going up again isn't just the sold signs everywhere but the fact that the deals are actually going through. Like many on here I've been studying N. Oxford prices for quite a while. The fact is that sellers who have knocked about 15-20% off what they would have got at the top of the market in Autumn 2007 are achieving very rapid sales in the 800-1.4 million category. There is a Bainton Rd House on Rightmove with an agreed sale. It is up at £995K. I consider this a very fair price and if the buyer isn't in a chain they might have got this agreed for £950K now if they were lucky. A year ago the seller would have waited for 6 months and been pleased with an offer of £900K. The point is that this property has only been up for a week. The same thing happened recently with 33a Charlbury Rd (on at 1.15 million and now completed). A year ago similar properties weren't getting offers anywhere near the (similar) asking prices and they were hanging around for months. I know this as I was looking at them and weighing it up. Anyone who knows this market can now see the fairly priced stuff flying off the shelves. There are often two bidders and a reasonable amount of competition. This just was not happening a year ago. Sorry to break the bad news but the train has started to chug its way out of the station.