simon2

Lets be honest, we can be bearish about London but I cant really get my hopes up until normal houses that normal people want to buy appear here regularly. Very few of the London drops meet that criteria. Most of the reductions occuring at the top end which has different drivers. Or for flats that people overpaid for (ie HTB), then stuck on more money to try and make a profit for themselves, not caring that the flats market has been declining for the last few years. Regular houses in outer London that are OK for families that aren't taking the piss on price I would expect to shift quick. Today as I see it there are about half the listings there were pre-pandemic. The average quality is also a lot worse, a lot of stuff that hasn't sold is being regurgitated, but also the previously mentioned family houses feature much less due to being sold. There also must be a fair number of flats that would have made the listings but cannot, due to not being mortgageable.

Do they say how demand is actually quantified? The biggest London postcode district by population I am aware of is CR0 and I think this captures some of the broader London trends, flats taken the biggest hits, whereas houses are resilient. Having looked at other London postcodes it also reflects that volumes have gone after the stamp duty holiday. Rightmove have not updated this number for May, but looking at houseprices it appears this number is 46... which means that sales of properties now are even lower than last year when everyone was locked down. Too early for June but up to the 18th there are 20 sales, so it looks like another low number. Some of those sales last year may have had their initial agreement in 'regular' times but it seems strange for transactions to be this low. The number of sales prior to the stamp duty holiday were impressive, as these would have come from a lower inventory of properties. AFAIK the listings on Rightmove have not recovered above c.70% of pre-pandemic numbers at any time. So the BBC et al are right in one sense that demand has risen; but I feel that was driven by a low number of properties. Maybe that will normalise, or maybe it wont. Another stamp duty holiday maybe?

£100k off Acton: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/99146792#/?channel=RES_BUY Acton, like Clapham I think is a place where there are many drops to be found. More specifically a combination of large supply of competiting properties, and also being close to nicer areas which become more attractive with general price falls. One thing that I think is a sign of desperation is the modern auction method which should be outlawed, just a blatant attempt to get the buyer to pay the fees and getting people to bid against themselves.... Either way it shouldn't end with the starting price above a 4, a lot of 2-beds under this price point. Don't look at the previously sold prices here... may be some pain.

But for someone buying today, it isn't possible to say whether there are gainz or not, as we don't know the future. In some places I feel its not likely, but then again in others it may be further to run. There are still places in the country where properties are under 6 figures, someone on £20k (only a little above minimum wage) could afford that. The question was, why people are all talking about it - that's the nature of the beast, lots of talk after the horse has bolted. For instance nobody in the mainstream press really talks about crypto when it goes down by half, but if it gets back to all time highs people will be talking about it and the stories about 'I made xxx amount' will resume. I don't think the average person has much sense of inflation, but if they do buying a property (if they don't have one) is better than having a load of cash. They will also have much less realisation of the effect of leverage because for the past 20 years it has worked almost entirely in owners favour. The effects are more pronounced when it doesn't work. Take those people I know who bought a new build at £450k, current asking price of identical properties in the same block is £400k and still not sold. They are pretty much trapped into asking a specific price because even if their next property was cheaper, they have no deposit to put down on it. Within a portfolio I don't think a property is bad at all, as interest rates are low. But most people are not hedged at all. For instance if someone could rent a property at 1.5% of the value, that is a terrific deal. But if their portfolio is 95%+ in another asset: ie stocks/bitcoin/gold/cash, then that is dumb. They might be up big time, but that doesn't make it smart, in the same way that someone that doubled their money by putting it all on black is not smart either. Buying a property with a mortgage of interest rates of 1% is also good if you intend to live there long-term and not seek short-term profit. But how many people have a situation where 95%+ of their wealth is in property? I would guess at millions. Yet this is even encouraged by society - no-one would bat an eyelid if you were told 'you should buy the biggest house you can afford'.

I don't think its mad. I don't agree with it, but I can understand why it is. Property is about the only way the average Joe is going to make a decent amount of money in their lives. You can look at some careers and see that some take lots of time, skill and expense to qualify for - some need all three, and even at the end you may not get a job. Yet anyone can buy a house, wait for a year or so and earn more than someone else slaving away for the entire time would earn, if the market moves their way. The way the tax system works means that speculation is easy for even the most unsophisticated player, because flipping incurs no tax if it is your residence. Most of the big gainzs of the past decade was not widespread until a couple of years ago, with London and some other locations outpacing the rest. For instance pre-pandemic I saw properties in other towns still below GFC prices. No doubt that has changed now for these places which didn't get massive uplifts, and prices will be at all-time highs. Which means that everyone that has bought, has some profit. Look at the other forums like mumsnet/mse. I think they are great forward indicators of sentiment. There is literally nothing negative there, so in the short-term I would expect these trends to continue. That's exactly what the government want. People suddenly becoming bearish on houses would be unwelcome policitically.

Looking at the date of the first reduction I think the original price was a typo. I mean this went up for sale: same agent, same building, same day. Maybe same owner as well. Looking at the previous sold prices these are not that easy to shift despite the location. Going price might be under £300k. Which, adjusted for location is better value to me than similar size things for £200k in outer London in much worse places.

Well the article mentions Edmonton, Morden, Woolwich - those aren't commuter towns, but rather the crapper areas of London that people would rather not live in given the choice (I think Morden is OK actually) I agree with Instagram and stuff, I think this type of thing has a lot to answer for. People like showing off their new-build houses and shit on social media almost as much as their babies. I know quite a few people who bought new-build HTB/SO as their first place, it really is a bad financial decision, especially in London. Even those who bought earlier in the decade (ie 2010-2014) and benefitted from the rising tide have seen rather modest increases in the value of their flat as opposed to other properties. Anyone buying later (2015-2020) most likely is sitting on a loss and repayment of the government bit kicks in for some. If they had looked at places within their means that they could afford, they would have turned their noses up. But that's what I mean when I say 'don't want to' is not the same as 'cannot'; people prefer short-term gains with long-term pain rather than the other way around.

£15k after 3 years? I think there must be plenty of these that have not sold since they were completed, as they were put up at kite-flying prices. Reductions have not been quick - maybe the developers know getting into a price war will affect them all, and also piss off those who bought earlier. Could there be a rush for the exit in this area? There are enough apartments for it to happen. Many are at rather big premiums to the stuff nearby. Maybe 40% drops for these things would be more noteworthy.

@desiringonlychildTBH I moved from a posh suburb in Z4 where people might 'oooo' when I told them, to a 'grittier' one where people now say 'yuck'. Interest rates are the same for most properites, thus borrowing £300k might only be c£200 a month more than borrowing £200k. But it also misses out the forgone return if the differential is cash. If your opinion is that London prices will not move or even decrease that difference could be quite a lot over 5 years. The thing is about London as I am sure you will know is that even nice areas have bad bits and the bad areas have nice bits. And depending on where you are, commuting can be quicker from further out if you have a direct line vs a long tube journey. So for me while the current place is much less impressive to people, to me it isn't that much worse. Appreciate there will be intangible ties, ie family and friends, but just pointing out when people say 'cannot' it really don't mean that. Also it isn't a 'must' to live in a specific style of property, that's more personal taste. I see the same regarding commuter towns, in a lot of cases property there is as much as the cheaper bits of London, that is even before adding on that you need a season ticket if you work in London. However going back to the initial subject, even doing that I feel would be a preferable alternative that using shared ownership to buy in a place that you cannot afford on the open market. The benefits are there in the short-term (it is a nicer place) but in the long-term owning somewhere outright is better. But that's all people are after nowadays. Making short-term sacrifices such as living in cheaper places gets looked down on.

If you live in London and take the train to work, are there not places where a 2 bed flat is much less? I live in London too and appreciate the fact that some areas are nicer and convenient than others but all I am saying is that cannot is not the same as don't want to. Also used to live in Leeds and if you have a car there will be cheaper pockets around. I'd imagine houses in Bradford are much cheaper than £100k, if you worked in Leeds even places like Harehills would be under that. Yes it wouldn't be as nice, but again let's not confuse don't want to with cannot.

The thing is even up North, council tax, utilities bills and food are going to be the same price. If you drive to work chances are your commuting costs will be higher than a Londoner. At least in the private sectors which are not lower wage the difference between London and non-London salaries has been much bigger than just London weighting. Obviously minimum wage is still the same all over the country, but those people on those wages in London are unlikely to be buying. But from what I have seen there are pockets of the country even up North where prices are almost as expensive as the cheaper areas of London. So in that case people are still living above their means (almost the same as a Londoner who goes HTB to get a property). The answer is the same: just move somewhere cheaper.

It's still shared ownership, there is nothing different between it and the 'traditional' model, just the type of property. 50,000 properties across the whole country is not really going to make any waves unless they were all in the same town. IMO in London at least I think people are starting to wake up to the realities of it, if it was genuinely beneficial we could have seen it become very popular. But as a proportion of properties it seems to have become less popular over the years - that's an anecdotal observation (would be interesting to see the stats). The recent repairs stuff of owning only part of the property but being responsible for 100% of the repairs also won't have been missed. Again for some reason the downsides of shared ownership hasn't really been targeted in the press, but often the rent component makes it bad value. Even in London people have alternatives: just move to an older property in a worse area, there are still flats c.£200k. But being prudent is rarely advertised, neither is the aspect of if you buy a new-build it is very hard to get capital appreciation on it due to the new build premium, difficulty to add value (as everything is new), competitng against identical properties when selling, and increasing service charges. The new builds in the early part of the decade benefited from a massive prop (HTB). Anyone buying new build from 2016 onwards would have faced these issues, TBH I think its only a matter of time before they start getting real airtime in the press.

Is that 92 year old on a mortgage? If owned outright there must be some solution. A new build seems an unlikely place for an old'un to end up - if it was built in 2008, they would have been 80 already. If not a purchase, would a private landlord accept this person as a tenant? Apparently no savings and on pension. The most likely explanation I see is that a relative owns it, lets the old person stay and cannot afford the payment, but for dramatic effect lets kick out the old person. Would handing back the keys actually do much? You don't stop being the leaseholder, so presumably the charges are still owed and deducted off whatever it achieves at auction. Might have happened in the past but for the current day it seems like its used almost as a metaphor to gain sympathy.

Seen a few of these. Wouldn't surprise me if they are paid advertorials for Pocket Living. For instance, see a similar article here, I bet I could find one for every development they have. Fair play to her, I doubt in the scheme of things saving £10k a year for 3 years living at home is really that intense, especially if you are part of a large family which is a proxy for social life. But that is way more than a lot of her cohort. If no BOMAD contribution at all you are pretty much at a disadvantage nowadays; £250k in Barking I reckon could get either an old flat with almost double the space, or a newer build place, 2 bedrooms with ensuite. But that isn't her fault. Maybe she will be OK as prices are off the absolute peak, but for anyone buying similar in the last few years the ladder doesn't exist. I saw this thread in MSE and IMO this must be real common - I hope they post the link as I'm sure I know them. But they can't go any lower - if your deposit is wiped out where are you gonna go? Anyone buying new build to live in 2016 in late 20s/early 30s (which I think accounts for most) may be thinking about family now. But with some exceptions, prices for these places in London are way off (ie 10%+), that's if they can be sold at all.

Seems to me that even in the media when talking about house prices (whether rises or falls) they only talk about it in nominal terms. Even here, that graph seems nominal. Said it several times but I really believe the 'crash' will not be fast, and won't be in nominal terms, but inflation adjusted. In a single year something like 5% inflation might not be noticeable, but over 5 years it will be. Most people are going to be too thick to understand it - which is exactly what the government want. A quick crash would make people angry, but I bet in 2025 you'll get people on the forums saying stuff like 'where's the crash, my house is worth more than what I paid for it'. Inflation is the thief, but the dumbness of most of the people will allow it to happen.

I smell ******** on that article, reeks of vested interests. Aren't the insurance companies massive on build-to-rent? Conversions of offices/stores to flats would be much cheaper and easier than building a block from scratch, thus allowing cheaper rents. So the people with most to lose are other purpose built flats. A flat with a modern ventilation system would easily beat some of the older high-rises... millions of people live in those and nobody complains. It would be quite interesting if a company could do a 'Ryanair' on the market, undercutting everyone and keep a lid on the potential social downsides. The discount to market wouldn't even have to be that large to get attention. I would imagine that in outer London it'd be fairly easy to offer a good discount while getting a 10%+ yield for the investor.

All someone can really infer is what is happening in your own areas. Browsing other 'normal' forums I think gives a good insight into the average mindset. Remember the scaremongering of EA's saying if there was no extension of the holiday all the chains would break? On Mumsnet/MSE there is not really much talk of people complaining. To be sure there are one or two cases, and there obviously will be people whose move depended upon the saving. But I am inclined to think that this is nothing widespread. For areas I am looking at (London/South East) in a more wider timescale (since start of year) - Listing volumes still below pre-pandemic. This is something that has never recovered, reckon numbers are 30-40% down from pre-2019, some locations even more. Some I think explained by houses disappearing quicker, and less flats due to unsellability. Maybe this will unwind. - Flats are really struggling. Out of the last 50 or so flats I have saved on Rightmove (dates back to start of year), 5 have sold/SSTC, 3 is under offer, 18 is removed. The others are still going. Of those sales 1 is repo, 1 shared ownership, 1 stuck at SSTC since Feb, 1 where a sale has fallen through before (mortgageability questionable). There may be sales hidden in the removed but I look at the list regularly so I am inclined to think most of these have been just taken off market. The under offer ones I feel are not sales at all, maybe an investor leaving a low-ball offer in. - Houses are flying. Using the same time period virtually all the houses listed I saved sold (18 sold, 2 taken off). There is not a single stale listing, even stuff I added recent (some of which this month) is SSTC. So I am inclined to think that the stamp duty holiday was great for houses, but did feck all for flats, even the ones where the saving was the maximum. Too early to see if there will be any changes to this.

One thing that pisses me off is the lack of uniformity of data. So some old listings have no Rightmove listing at all, some current listings refuse to disclose the previously sold price. Here's an example https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/90434491#/?channel=RES_BUY The old listing for it is here. Amazingly they seem to have spent a little money doing it up and it's no better than the old one, should have left it alone. Even if goes at 100% of the new asking price by the time fees are taken into consideration that's probably a £100k loss in 5 years. 2016 must have been close to peak exuberance as whoever bought it massively overpaid. But while making bigger offers don't really impact your cashflow (as the extra money consists of borrowed money) if you lose money from the initial price that is real as it eats into your deposit. I see a lot of listings for flats seemingly stuck at high prices probably because the owners can't afford the cut. The choices are either that someone with more money than sense turns up, or they just keep living there.

Sounded familiar - Property Partner have 4 flats in that block - sadly I invested £100 in it. However, as with all cladding stories there is quite a lot of embellishment which never gets corrected. So if I'm not incorrect referrring to the update Property Partner have given (latest was 30 June), some of the repairs are covered under the Building Safety Bill but some are not so the managing agent has submitted an appeal, but the extent of the works have not been confirmed. Sophie has been peddling her story around for some months now. It very much reads as if she has gone off on her own to try and get some quotes from companies, and divided it by the whole block to get that figure. So £207k by no means is any official figure; but let's not facts get in the way of anything. Again you get all these people complaining about feeling unsafe, but 2 flats have sold in 2020, and it looks at least 10 Let agreed on RM.... strange how people don't mind inflicting it on someone else.

Another Clapham special: £175k off although the price was stupid to begin with: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/109262474#/?channel=RES_BUY Doesn't seem likely to sell at this price either, as there is one in slightly better decorative order at the same price (also unsold, been on since October last year) Interesting to note that these flats were going for c.£430k as way back as 2014, but I think general development and covid has done for them. Ugly, ex-LA type buildings are one of the things that are slow to move.

Nice thread. There must be dozens of candidates in London, I think 1-bed flats and also new blocks where they used HTB will be at least 10-15% off peak although it could be more if you grossly overpay. That last one only looks like a 1-bed for £575k... If you go on houseprices.io there is lots of data there, just wish it would like to the rightmove page as well.

£150k off a flat in London: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/78129361#/?channel=RES_BUY I think it's been on before but the last price drop gives the impression of throwing in the towel, clearly there were no bids.

Seems obvious to me. Like I said, a whiff of paid advertorial. It's a subject that will no doubt get heavily talked about (the comments section suggest a greater degree of reader interaction); the average user (a property bull) would welcome the idea of getting more money. Page views = more advertising revenues The idea is nonsense in the current format but a look at Seedrs shows that almost any idea is viable if you are being financed by the public who will do no research into it anyway. In some ways though, it could evolve into something else. EA's don't process very small transactions and are not buyer-friendly, so there is a gap for a company to insert themselves into the deal and be unbiased. So charging for a viewing seems like a bad idea, and a lot of people might turn that down. But how about charging for a viewing at unsociable hours or at the exact time the viewer requests? Or in the case of busy properties where the slots are full on the first few days, paying to bump an unpaying customer out of their slot? I could imagine people paying in those scenarios. Maybe not £30 though, and it'd look stupid in falling markets or those with weak demand.

Terrible idea really - it seems like a new business managed to get itself an advertorial. What happens if a viewer immediately doesn't like the house (it happens), do they get a refund? What happens if a viewer really likes the house but also wants to spend hours in there, and feel they are justified to because they have paid? What about second viewings? There are several mirages in the market, which attract the gullible, ie - saving stamp duty, only to pay more for the house - being glad at small HPI when inflation is high There will be people celebrating 'earning' £600 for their 20 viewings, oblivious to that they probably achieved a much lower price in the end because a big tranche of people were put off viewing. If it really was solely about preventing timewasters you'd just make it a deposit refundable on turning up.

I get that, but is Tolworth more pleasant than Croydon, Plaistow or Tottenham? Of course. Even in the shit places in London you'd be pushed to find a genuine 1-bed flat for under £200k. The only ones I've seen are in areas which are worse, or a high-rise in dodgy surroundings. Or studios mis-described as 1-beds by the agent. This is none of that, seemingly based on a quiet residential street.