Jump to content
House Price Crash Forum

Antsy

Members
  • Posts

    642
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Antsy

  1. If you are a key worker you can get 50K (or 100K for some higher level teachers) as a loan to buy. It is just in London and the SE (I think) and you pay it back as a percentage of the value of the property eg. House costs 200k, you borrow 50k, if the house is worth 120k in 3 years (ha!), you pay them back a quarter of the value, ie 30k. It is only running till April 2006, though. they may then extend it. It used to be that you could only borrow this on properties worth below 150(?)K but they had to scrap that as the take-up rate was so low - not all workers are new graduates with no family etc. The new 'help' is probably referring to Prezza's garden-less noddy box scheme, to be built on land liable to flood in Thamesmead, close to the new Thames crossing with traffic thundering past etc.
  2. frank - you are not the only one. we have been waiting 7 months (purely because I had been having regular phone chats with the landlord where he was promising it would be coming next week...) but I am now in the process of the warning letter then notice that we're taking him to court. This hasn't been helped by the fact that the Royal Mail have lost the 1st letter asking him to politely pay up within 2 weeks (sent by recorded delivery!!!) TWICE. The people before us nicked his sofa but we paid all the bills, paid all rent on time and even wrote off a week's rent at the end because we had pulled out of purchasing the flat (thankfully) etc etc. :angry: :angry:
  3. Perhaps he DID ask Gordon for advice... brings a whole new perspective as to why they've fallen out so badly.
  4. Haven't they noticed that their members er- aren't lending many mortgages anymore????? What can it all mean?
  5. It always features in the bulk of the crime stories in the local rag... Bit around the common is supposed to be okay, but the new Thames bridge looks like it is going to bring more traffic to the area. Plus it's bordering on the major flood risk area (aka Thamesmead)
  6. It is the same in the Sydenham / Penge area... lots of new instructions and even a few reduced (though only one agent is owning up to this via their window banners, so far). we are looking for the same sort of thing for about the same price (though won't be able to buy till early 2006 as partner will then qualify for a key worker loan... saves us panicking and jumping in too early). In lewisham/ brockley the mexican stand-off is happening there and prices are only coming down about 3k so derisory... and deserves a similar response. Fingers crossed, eh?
  7. And you are getting a bargain... this (and the subject of teachers' pay) is a high horse of mine, so allow your eyes to glaze over if you wish. however, i have lived in the US previously and i can tell you that you would be paying a lot more if you had to pay for healthcare directly. And there are other niceties to the system such as proving you can pay before they let you get in an ambulance... As for whichever halfwit questioned why teachers should be paid a reasonable amount, i am sure you would rather have people with half a brain teaching in schools and attempting to inspire kids that a job via a grasp of basic literacy / numeracy is better than a life on / in the nick. This means that, like all careers, you have to have decent pay to attract decent people...
  8. Does this mean that if I ask nicely I can get my employer to replace my company's stakeholder pension scheme with a nice final salary one like my Dad's then?
  9. What if they have to move house owing to larger family / new job? As a potential FTB and renter I can just jack in my contract (subject to shorthold tenancy) and bugger off elsewhere (paying less pcm at the moment than I would in mortgage repayments for a similar sized property). I may be mistaken, but I think I have the upper hand even if interest rates fall to 2% (unlikely)...
  10. I can't be bothered to feed the troll - its breath smells. Anyway, back to the program - I loved Krusty's idea that stagnation has continued as there aren't any properties coming onto the market. For someone who deals in houses, surely she must occasionally look in estate agents' windows? The properties are piling up BUT THEY AREN'T SHIFTING AS THERE ARE NO FTBs. The goon.
  11. Exactly. There are only so many of the BTL brigade (thankfully) and they don't have bottomless pockets. Who else there can buy at current prices? Even teachers with a few years' experience who are on about 25K (about as good as it gets in the public sector there) couldn't buy a two bed as a couple. I have said before about Rosemullion homes trying to call a 225k house in my parents' village a 'starter home' and nearly getting lynched... Chains can no longer move so a collapse is imminent, or must be. At 3%, it will take about 40 years before average wages catch up with ability to buy in Falmouth, let alone there...
  12. well, the parking might make the maisonette as valuable as a downstairs bathroomed house in a better area, but I think you have answered your own question with this post. Let's face it, your friends can put it on the market for a million if they so desire, but it won't sell until hell freezes over, or thereabouts...
  13. That is superb. I love the 'elevated views'. They must have had to ask around the office to come up with that. Why anyone would live in St Austell is beyond me. Though I suppose it is a step up from Bugle...
  14. Well, as the topic says, prices are going down. Friend's 2 bed flat was on the mkt for 180k and is now STC for 158k, so that's about a 12 per cent drop. Sadly, though this is good for potential FTBs like me, this isn't good news for those trading up. The 3 bed house they are moving to has been reduced from 225 to 208k, so that's only about 8%. All of it is still horribly overpriced, but I will be having a drink tonight and hoping that the New Year brings more of the same. (I don't feel bad doing this as they bought their 2 bed 4 or 5 years ago for around 60 to 70k so they have a sizeable buffer...) Anyone else have more ' good' news from this part of the world?
  15. true - I forget things such as service charges cos my landlord pays them (current building = 1k per year...ouch)
  16. Just another thing - you are more likely to get a flat with a communal garden as there are so many mansion blocks round here. Not so bad, as you don't have to mow the lawn but can admire it and use it all the same! West Norwood is vile. If CP is too expensive, try Sydenham borders or Penge / Anerley
  17. Also to remember - cost of repairs / service charges, epecially as 140k will only buy a flat.
  18. I have been living in said area for the last 6 months and apart from the dire train service, courtesy of Southern, they are really good (Bromley council's criminal nelect of the park is soon to be solved by the GLA, hopefully, as they have just consulted the locals). There is a lot more for sale here than there was, and the first Reduced signs are gooing up in the EAs' windows in Sydenham. My advice so far - Sydenham High Street and Penge look rough but aren't that bad, local estates also don't seem too problematic. Having said that, the area is hugely overpriced and there are far too many flats to let at the moment (signs everywhere). suspect some of these may find their way onto the market after Xmas, perhaps driving prices down. I actually chose to rent here prior to buying, rather than move to a bigger place in Abbey Wood / Plumstead area, which was my other option at the time. It's much more expensive here though, but way better.
  19. yes - sorry about that, I thought after I posted it that I had gone a bit overboard as it is a particularly terrible example. However, it always seems to be an area that is good pickings for crime stories in the local rag. As you seem to have been saving hard, perhaps you will be able to afford something in a slightly better area if you wait? Prices are slowly coming down, it just depends how much patience you have and whether this is sustained. Can't see how it can go on inn the present form - as someone once said here, if prices go up and up forever, soon a basic one bed will cost a million. And I can't see that happening...
  20. I hadn't thought of that - it is indeed a fabulously apt name
  21. "In fact, prices have fallen by only 1 per cent - this has made housing much more affordable and will bring first-time buyers swarming back into the market in the new year." Very, very good... (Richard Hair of NAEA in recent article on Thisismoney, please take note... ''the market isn't dead (kicks stinking corpse) - it's just resting its eyes" )
  22. Plumstead has recently been thought of as up & coming but still has serious crime problems (acccording to front pages of lewisham local papers, where it crops up all too often). Unfortunately it will therefore be one of the areas that loses value pretty quickly or at least stays stuck at present levels if the market just stays at its current grinding halt. If it's particularly convenient for work then go for it - the area round tthe common is the best bit and all in all, it is better overall than Woolwich or Thamesmead. However, I think you are mad trying to buy right now. I would (and will) wait for 4-6 months and see what the Spring brings. You don't want to find yourself stuck at 30 in Plumstead thinking about having a family or even with a young family as education is dire there. Try renting there first and seeing if you can live with it - by the time your assured shorthold 6 mo is up the market will probably have made its intentions clear... What I'm trying to say is don't buy there just because it's the last affordable pocket you can see. It's cheap for a reason... http://icsouthlondon.icnetwork.co.uk/0100n...-name_page.html
  23. Just out of interest, what did you say? We are currently at the point where I have to write the obligatory 'I'll take you to small claims" letter at the end of this week (moved out in July, landlord said he'd give us the whole deposit, nothing arrived owing to 'cashflow problems', ho hum).
  24. At a guess - about 20 to 40 per cent too much at the moment! Looking forward to the ripple out from Cambourne to the rest of the county, though.... Merry, merry, merry christmas, ha ha
  25. Well, it IS the financial centre of Britain (as someone said in another thread...). I saw a TV prog about the Doncaster Belles 'ladies' football team once. Eek. After match drinks resembled 11 Mike Tysons out on the Bacardi Breezers (in skirts)...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information