satsuma

Yes It was me! I tend to agree, it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

This should be illegal: http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1973262,00.html

Yea, its a good sign, I know I have my deposit ready to buy my next house when the fall!

I stick by what I have said. Its up to individuals to decide to buy or not. What is of worry as that BOE has said (big suprise) that they will use interest rates to fight inflation. The headline rate is 3.1% but we all know that independant measurements are 5.6% or 6%. Banks are pulling fixed rates off the shelves as fast as they can which also is not a good sign.

NI does not have the same planning environment as they other areas. I have a lot of contact with people across the border and and am good friends with a town planner in a large southern Co. Council. What I am told is that due to a frenzy of building and slack planning the number of unsold new builds is building up. If you follow daft.ie for a few weks this is really clear. In the US they have a similar approach to planning and lots of unsold new builds. They also have ARMs (subprime mortgages) which have now been adjusted upwards pushing houses onto the market because the owners cant pay the mortgage. All areas have the same issue with BTL housing but I think NI is better off from the supply end. Its interesting that the debate has shifted from what if prices crash to how far will thay crash!

Personally I believe that prices are going to drop in NI but not as far as other places. I think this because landlords are going to have to sell rather than pay BTL mortgages on empty houses. I think they will get buyers at lower prices as NI does not have so many new builds due to tight planning laws. I think someone else has worked out that you (Tara) would be £50 a month better off if prices brop by 20K but rates increase. Sorry if I am not stating what I mean clearly!

Im afraid its not rubbish, the level of building in NI is way below demand. If you read between the lines you will see that I include demand from people who are buying houses with no regard for the rental potential. This makes up a large propertion of the people invloved in bidding wars at the moment. The fact that they choose to sit on a vacant property while to increases in value is part of their strategy if they have one. If this demand drys up I think I have made it clear that prices are likely to drop. However this differs from the situation in other places (ROI and US) which have property inventory of new houses which are not selling. I dont see any new developments without people lining up to put down their money! Looking at the number of tolet sign up I would think landlords are covering repayments out of their own pockets in many cases. Who knows how long it will be before they decide to cut and run but if they do they would have plenty of buyers at the moment. If that causes a crash or not....who knows.

Apologies if I am answering the wrong question but if prices drop by 20K and intrest rates rise you are not really any better of as regards the monthly repayment. This is assuming that £50 or £100 either way (per month) makes no difference to your decision to buy a house. I think the real issue is that if you buy now and prices fall by 20K than you are in negative equity. This does not really matter except that your credit score is lower than it wouild have been. To be honest it really makes no difference if prices drop by 20K unless you are in the buy to let game and topping up rental income on one or more properties to cover mortgage repayments. Lots of people are doing this as they make profit on capital growth of the house and could not care less about the rent. On the other hand if they drop by 50K you might have got more house for your money if you had waited. Its also really possible that due to the lack of houseing in NI that they will just level off.

Unison.ie has an intersting article in the business section. Two thirds of property going into auction is not selling. I also think the asking prices on daft.ie are lower in some counties. BBC news also has an article about inflation going to 3.1%, I think BOE will up UK rates to 5.5% in May! Im going out on a limb here but falling prices across the border will dampen inward flow of capital to the North. I cant see 5.5% helping locals decide to spend over 200K on what is not a lot of house (looking at what is available in NI). Put the two together and prices are likely to drop.

I was just thinking about this this morning, a lot of to-let signs are up around the Lisburn Road. March/April is an unusual time to be looking for tennants I would think?

Have not posted in a while. I note that the downturn is the US and ROI are well under way. I partly wish I could say the same for Northern Ireland but all I see are daft prices. Note: I did say daft prices would appear here before a downturn. If not a downturn it must have reached a peak! Still not many new developments are going up so that must be holding the prices up.

I am probabaly starting to sound like the bloke who always knows someone who knows someone but in this case I aslo know a mortgage broker (newly joined the ranks of the soon to be rich or unemployed you decide). He was chatting about his new job and mentioned that a large portion of his clients are co-ownership applicants. The limits for co-ownership going up to 180K now so this is another factor underpining what must be prices at 10 times average income. As for wages, those I know are doing well but I also realise that a vast number of people are on less than 14K and are lucky to get inflationary payrises each new year. Lots of these people also have virtually no mortgage because they bought more than 4 years ago. Plenty of rocks are sitting just below the surface. Chancellor Brown is also likely to cut the lining out of the civil service which will fall heaviest on NI. I still think the signs are there which point to more well paid jobs but they are not available in large numbers yet. That said I have never been able to call property prices and did not buy in Dublin in the mid 90s because I thought it was a bubble and would have lived the life of a hermit to afford the mortgage! In the long run I was right then but could have made a fortune 10 times over before the current slide in prices started. I have a feeling that NI will see daft prices in Belfast before it collapses.

I have fist hand of the situation in the south (friend is planner in southern council). The crash there is largley due to oversupply which is in turn due to poor control of the planning process. Prices are also already daft so the only way was down. I would argue that wages are on the increase here (Northern Ireland) and that the supply of money (debt) is not drying up. Add to that the number of people who are selling council houses for at least 100K more than the cost (from council) you can see that plenty of money is about. This is without looking at speculators from the south and so on.

Prices are going to silly levels in NI, the house I sold six months ago is now worth 70K more than I sold for. I was lucky to trade up and I know a couple of people who sold and waited a month or so only to find they were priced out. NI prices will not crash due to simple supply and demand and very little (relative to demand) building is going on. Any new developments also have several hundred people waiting to buy.