The Bull Trap

I bought in December last year. Hand forced so to speak by a missus fed up of waiting, a baby (born two weeks ago), and the right house coming up, otherwise I think I would still have waited. [*]Asking Price - Had been on the market for a year and a half, initially for £205,000, falling to £195,000 [*]Your offer - Needed Mortgage [*]Your position - Was renting on a running contract so only a month notice required [*]Your offer - Initially £140,000, then £145,000. We then left it for six months and went back with £152,500 [*]Accepted eventually as they needed to move, did move assuming the house would sell then found themselves stuck with it. [*]Any other feedback - Yes, we went to see the owners and did all of our dealings face to face even though they insisted we did the sale through the EA. Much easier and cut out the ********. Hope this helps!

Amen.

Merry Christmas one and all, I hope you all have a great 2013 and beyond

I work for a veterinary supplier, we've got inflation in our industry at 4.4%

I just bought a house. I've been sat waiting for six years, prices have come down, I got married and my Mrs is pregnant. The village we rent in is nice, good school etc. and a house came up for £210,000. It sat there for a few months and they dropped to £195,000. We looked around, offered £150,000. They said no, they want £175,000. Anyway, six months, a collapsed sale, council tax bill kicking in (they moved out into a smaller place) and winter looming, we sealed the deal at £152500. We put £40k down so I'm borrowing 3.5x my wage and we've got Manchester Building society's fixed 25 year mortgage at 5.2%. I might regret that if rates never rise, but peace of mind is worth a certain amount to me. Payments will be £670 which is only slightly more than we're paying rent at the moment. I expect prices to fall further, but we spent so long looking for a nice house we could negotiate a lot of money off so we took the chance. My main motivation was when I realised that as we've fixed for the life of the mortgage we pay back 200,000ish for the 112,500 borrowed. If prices drop but interest rates rise, they would have to fall a long way until the true cost of buying a house (including interest rates) would be less. Besides, it has a big garden for veg and garage/shed/greenhouse for me to stash up with tin cans If you really want to buy, make sure you negotiate a ton of cash off and I personally wanted to eliminate worry about interest rates rising. The house is also good enough for us never to move.

Sieg Heil!

I'm up for this.

Can't tell you much about Hayfield, but it's very close to New Mills, where the Swizzels Matlow factory is. Not sure if you can smell it in Hayfield, but the smell in New Mills when they are making sweets is AMAZING. The whole place smells of refreshers or those hard powdery lollies they do.

Who can save £2500 a month???

I viewed a house on for 209,000 and offered 160,000. They came back with no. Then, a week later, they said, how about £180,000. Two days after that £170,000. After that, we went for another walk around and discovered the neighbour is building a massive garage blocking the views from the garden (house has been empty for two years so they must have taken the opportunity to pass planning) so we withdrew the offer in the end. I'm almost certain they would have come down to £160,000 Don't know if that's any help or not!

No then Thanks

Is it just me who suspects the government may have encouraged this panic buying in an effort to boost GDP and stave off official recession? Does the sale of fuel count towards GDP (a tad ignorant of this, sorry)? I'm not one for lizard men conspiracies by the way, just a thought and I wondered if it was possible or if anyone else had thought similar?

We stuck an offer in on a house a month back - on originally for 289,000, currently 229,000 'reduced for quick sale'. We offered £180,000 and got told they were looking for 210,00. I told the EA that they might well be, but the property has been on the market for 4 years and if they expect to sell it and are keen for 'a quick sale' then they may be advised to consider our offer more seriously. Anyway, last week the house appears with 'under offer' next to it on RM. Futher digging reveals that the offer is our offer, which they refused, and was 30k off what they want. I'd say they're trying to smoke out any other interested parties.

You get on the spot fines for illegal irrigation, although you only normally get caught in city centres. Not had any trouble on the walk back to the village.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ferarri&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 Increasingly less...

Screw oil pipelines... ALE pipelines. Maybe one day...

Priceless. "I've spent £335,000 on my house, so it's worth that AT LEAST" Err...... brace yourself for some bad news.

I understand what you are saying, but you haven't applied the irrational, fanatical belief the ordinary man in the street holds - "House prices always go up in the LONG RUN" Whilst I agree with you, and think what I have just written above is ridiculous, you have to consider the people I speak of. By BTL, I do not mean any serious business man, I mean Mr and Mrs Smith who have paid their house of and are looking to earn a little pension bonus by having a house nicely paying for itself, to be sold when need be. I think a lot of people are doing this, without thought of yeilds etc, merely applying the logic that the mortgage is £x per month and the rent is £x+y per month, therefore they cannot do anything but win. I'm only 27, but I know of four couples who are my parents age (late 50's/ early 60's) who are doing/have done this.

I hope you're right - I wasn't old enough to really know what happened leading up to the last correction, but I suggest one difference is the BTL market? Everytime houses fall, they are snapped up by the BTL mob as an investment and us first time buyers can't buy. I'm quite fortunate, I could buy if I wished, but I don't want to buy now, possibly on the verge of a collapse. Unfortunately, I cannot see how a crash is possible, with all lower priced houses being bought by the BTL army. The ONLY way I can see a crash is if interest rates rise and our BTL friends who have over stretched themselves are forced to sell (along with the other house 'owners' indebted up to their eyeballs). Who knows, but I have my fingers crossed.

I would suggest the 'average' going with an 'average' wage of 25k would be more like 125k, would it not? Assuming a deposit of 20%. So, from 164k, only a 24% correction is required, possibly more to account for an overshoot. Do you agree?

I purely throw this one out to the crowd for discussion. Estate Agents beginning to cut costs? Belt tightening? Selling this £80,000 property before it's worth £10,000? We can but hope. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31861079.html

Can't see any 'sale' details on the website? Am I just being thick? A few houses i've had my eye on have sold this week just gone - 3 bed detatched, no garage, sandwiched in between two larger houses, not been touched since 1930's..... Complete renovation required etc. Was on for 165k, then 155k. It sold STC and fell through two months ago for 140k so I offered 120k (Which I don't think it too far off, 30k spending on it (assuming you got people in)) and they said 140k is the lowest they'd go. I assume it sold for 140ish then... two friends of mine bought a larger house, with garage, in good nick, 6 doors down, for 180k so I think even 140 is too dear. 165k would be the asking price if done up IMHO. A few other houses have "Sold" signs round here springing up. I presume it's people grabbing a 'bargain' before the 'spring bounce'..... But yes, houses are certainly selling around here.

We're not in 2022 yet, but yes, that was what I was getting at. As I said, worst case scenario - I have to keep that at the back of my mind otherwise i'd go insane worrying about my money and when/if I should buy a house... Obviously, I don't think it will go that way, I merely state what I would do if mass social disorder arrived with a huge financial collapse... I agree with your points in the rest of your post, I don't see what this action achieves besides tempting the undesirables of society into wandering the streets on the 7th searching for vulnerable people with sacks of cash.

I will not be withdrawing my funds, unless I see significant support for this and can see a banking collapse. There's little point, it'll only work if a large proportion of society do it and then what? Everyone who doesn't is left with nothing? Worst case scenario, my folks own their own place, have enough wood to burn for years and a veg patch large enough to feed a few families. I can steal from farms and the hedgerow, snare rabbits, eat the old etc. They also have guns to defend themselves. That's my worst case scenario. But i'll give everyone on this site a free cabbage if that ends up happening.

Crikey O Reilly. Have you read the comments underneath? Are these people insane? Blind? Desperate? All of the previous? And more?