Smiley George

They are a bunch of drooling, incompetent, f*ckwits. The wife and I were laughing hard for about 5 mins, I think we're going to reach out and wind them up. Might even see if we can get a viewing and then pull out 15 mins after viewing time and advise him that we'd forgotten we'd bought a place already.

Agreed, I have kids and I want to see them not get shafted.

🙏

I'm just about to pick the keys up today on our new place, it was a probate sale, needs some work, but not a disaster zone. A previous sale had fallen through due to collapsing chain. Being chain free we chanced our arm and got the place at a significant discount (15%) off the previously agreed price just 2 months earlier, which was already reduced from IAP. There is an identical house 5 doors down which has been up for sale for ages, has been reduced and is still £180k more than the price we've paid. As soon as our sale hits the LR these people have got zero chance of getting what they want. There are a number of properties a little further out which are in the same boat, ridiculous IAP's being reduced little by little, but not selling. In a wonderful piece of schadenfreude, the previous place we made an offer on last August has just come back on the market after the sale fell through. The asking price now is £20k less than our "chain free" offer back in August. The process was BAFO and the EA was a smug tw@t and was massively condescending of our slightly below asking offer. The greedy so-and-so's have gotten everything they deserve. Had they gone with our offer we would maybe have completed by Xmas and we would've had an extra £70k of mortgage debt - I'm soooo happy, we may enquire about the place this afternoon just to yank the EA's chain - if you pardon the pun. Not sure now whether to remove myself from this site now I'm a home-moaner and have a VI in rampant HPI forever

It already has. Just the indicies, lenders, EA's are desperately trying to hide it. I'm just about to pick the keys up today on our new place, it was a probate sale, needs some work, but not a disaster zone. A previous sale had fallen through due to collapsing chain. Being chain free we chanced our arm and got the place at a significant discount (15%) off the previously agreed price just 2 months earlier, which was already reduced from IAP. There is an identical house 5 doors down which has been up for sale for ages, has been reduced and is still £180k more than the price we've paid. As soon as our sale hits the LR these people have got zero chance of getting what they want. And that's part of the problem. Ours was a "quick" sale, but it may still not appear on LR for another 3 months - the crash happens initially in slow motion.

Denial, greed, desperation, delusion. Take your pick.

Greed and the desperation of EA's to get an instruction.

That's interesting. During the interview yesterday she was at pains to try and play down any links she may have had to government and policy formation/advice on housing.

Yep, there you have it, that's what we have to look forward to when Labour win the next GE. I despair, it's really very depressing.

😀

She's another Neo-liberal, establishment puppet. There's another thread on here recently showing her weak responses when challenged on high house prices. I had her card marked last year when I saw her interviewed on Peston. It was when inflation was taking off and BOE were well behind the curve. Peston asked whether she thought BOE had been asleep at the wheel and too slow to act; perfect opportunity for Labour to change the narrative and put some pressure on the establishment. However, her answer was basically, yes, BOE have been doing a great job. I couldn't believe it. As has been mentioned on many threads on here voting Lab/Tory is a vote for the status quo, nothing will change in this country until we have a party willing to challenge these criminals and take us in a whole new direction - it ain't happening anytime soon.

Talks about everything but the elephant in the room, houses are too expensive. A decent point about SDLT being a poor tax and not incentivising people to move/downsize. Not as horrific as i thought it would be, maybe she’s had some kind of epiphany!

Apparently she’s going to tell us why the housing market is broken. Wonder if she’s going to take responsibility for her part in breaking it? fill yer boots.

This. But what's really mind boggling is that houses which would've been going on at £850k last summer are now going on at £1.1m. But there's zero evidence to support prices at £850k never mind £1.1m as none of the 850's that went SSTC last year have actually completed and hit LR yet. It's greed and desperation from EA's to fill their client books. Within 2 weeks most of these are reduced by 5 or 10%.

#8 a vase full of twigs in every fireplace

I suspect this is more to do with low volumes and EA's falling over themselves to over value and get an instruction. Seeing a lot of this now almost on a daily basis, houses that went on RM at Covid +20% are getting at least 10% reductions within a couple of weeks. Also, don't underestimate the amount of demand that Rishi's numb-headed SDLT holiday pulled forward, volumes are still impacted by this as well as all of the other head winds now in play.

After years of zero interest rates and pumping free money into the economy, it's now our fault! There are no words to describe the contempt I hold for these liars. Central bank should be brought back into govt control, then at least the population can have an influence via the ballot box about policies which affect us all.

Much, thanks 😀.

Yes 🤣. It's absurd really that so much credence and airtime is given to an "index" based on what average people think their houses are worth, after being egged on by a bunch of mouth-breathing simpletons (EA's). It's nonsense it really is. In my search area last couple of weeks there has been a noticeable uptick in half-decent 3/4 bed semi's, all being lumped on at pre-Covid +25%. They will not sell at those prices. I can confidently predict that, because there are many of the same type of houses which have been up for sale since before Xmas, at the same over valued prices. These people are simply ignoring what's going on at ground level in front of their very eyes. They'll be on mumsnet in a couple of weeks, wringing their hands about why they've had no viewings or asking what's wrong with our house? We put twigs in the fireplace and it still won't sell. And I say this as someone who is rapidly approaching completion on a similar house in that area, needs some modernising and refurb, not a complete dump but some effort required - but it's 35% less than some of those now being listed. Found a motivated seller and did a deal, we'll have completed by mid-April. To put that in context there are two house we BAFO'd on last July that are still SSTC and have not yet "sold". As someone about to become a home-moaner I should be very pleased with todays news, but I'm really not. I have kids and I feel embarrassed and angry at how the UK housing market has been allowed to turn into a fraudulent swamp of greed, self-interest and criminality.

Could you elaborate for us dummies at the back?

Thanks

This is the bit that really annoys me. Why on earth the VI's think it's up to the seller to plug this "gap" is beyond me, any buyer who does this is a complete mug. The seller drops their price accordingly or the transaction doesn't happen, its as simple as that.

From the horses mouth! “The average house price in February was £285,476, 2.1% up on this time last year, and has been stable over the last three months. “When comparing to January, there was a 1.1% increase in house prices through the month of February, although overall prices are flat compared to three months ago. Recent reductions in mortgage rates, improving consumer confidence, and a continuing resilience in the labour market are arguably helping to stabilise prices following the falls seen in November and December. Still, with the cost of a home down on a quarterly basis, the underlying activity continues to indicate a general downward trend. “In cash terms, house prices are down around £8,500 (-2.9%) on the August 2022 peak but remain almost £9,000 above the average prices seen at the start of 2022 and are still above pre-pandemic levels, meaning most sellers will retain price gains made during the pandemic. With average house prices remaining high housing affordability will continue to feel challenging for many buyers.”

Yes. Needs some updating, but we can move in after decorating and modernise as we go, plenty of room to extend over next few years as well. I could've predicted the indices would go -ve only once we'd bought

Nope, thats bull. See my longer response to @BaldED I’m sure @Stjames83will be along soon to refute this.