Cludo

"...at the bottom of the next price rise" That says it all really doesn't it - people think that prices are just going to keep going up and up. The rise in London prices is frightening quite frankly and I was reading on another forum where a poster was looking to buy a two bed flat for £450,000. WTAF, who WHO would pay that sort of money for a flat??! (and it wasn't in Central London either, not even close...)

Another expat into the UK and I could afford to buy a house in London (albeit small but enough for the time being ) and think I would struggle now to buy in Melbourne. My friends live over an hour commute into Melbourne and pay AUD 500,000 for their homes. They have more space then we do but I'm just over 20 minutes into Victoria. You will laugh at this but we are actually biding our time here trying to save as much as we can until we can afford to move back to Australia.

Where do you plan to go to get this future for your family?? Geniune question as I think the world over is pretty messed up at the moment and I don't see it correcting itself any time soon. I'm not from the UK and looking to leave but until things are sorted we will stay put...what's that old saying, better the devil you know? That's not to say it won't crash, it will of course, but it's very hard to see when. To think in places like Crystal Palace in London 2 up-2 down houses are going for £300,000 + is madness. We have bank accounts in 3 different currencies and we can't decide what to do with our savings. It all looks cr&p at the moment.

Perhaps I'm being cynical here (and this is as someone who has no family support with both sets living in different countries not just 30 miles away...) they did tell you to hurry up and get reproducing. Perhaps they were saying also that they can't envision doing childcare when they're in their 80's when you've saved enough to buy that house outright (or spent years moaning on here about people who have bought). Sometimes you really just have to take a jump and hope for the best.

I do enjoy reading this forum (though hardly contribute tbh) however sometimes the shite that comes out is a bit incredulous... Really? Women rack up debts and the hero, sorry Daddy, pays it back?? I work full time and earn more than my husband, as well as run the house and do childcare (sick days/ CM drop off, collect). My husband wouldn't even bother reading a forum like this, he lives in the 'everything will always be OK, right?' world so if we could really just stop with the ridiculous stereotyping that would be good.

I did. Moved from zone 2 West London to zone 3 SW London and for us it was the best thing to do, we pay sufficiently less in mortgage repayment then rent and use some of the money to over pay and some for maintenence etc. The prices here now are at ridiculous levels for the type of property (2 up 2 down) and we honestly wouldn't be able to afford to buy now, plus I would resent paying these stupid prices. We have plans to leave the UK in 3 years and while HPI would seem good for me, the amount we have over paid on our mortgage means I will be happy to sell for what we paid. I was told recently too that as we are EOT we could "command" a premium. I would think EOT might fetch a bit more then a middle terrace house but a premium? FFS.

You sound a little manic now... In fact, you sound jealous. And like your friends need to find new friends. So if it's OK for you to step in as a cash buyer and profit from a homeowners financial misery why isn't it OK for millions of others to have profited from the crazy house prices in the first place? Sorry one rule for you and one for others? Or more likely you missed out the first time around and hoping for a second chance?

Thank you for posting that. I don't normally watch the video links (short attenion span...?) but that one was interesting and well worth the concentration it took

My advice would be to buy, but buy sensibly! That sounds a ridiculous thing to say but so many people don’t buy sensibly and then, guess what, they get stuck in negative equity. We are only in London for another possible 2 years and we bought 2 years ago and taking into consideration what rent we would have forked out etc we will come out at least even with what we have put in and meaning then that we have had the security of our own home and being able to do what we like with it. Many people wouldn’t have bought in our area (SW16) but we have gone from a pokey two bed flat in W12 with no garden to a (in my mind!) spacious two bed house with a garden and we are paying £400 less a month for our mortgage. In that time we have put in a new boiler and painted the house so a total of maybe £2000 spent, still saving us over £5000 and also paying down our loan amount (we pay extra when we can). If you are here for another 6-8 years then I would definitely buy. I don’t think London prices are going to go up much more, but then I don’t think they are coming down too much either.