RosscoPK

Bloody hell! Did Blanchflower hold a gun to the MPC members' heads or something? He's either going to be popping out the champagne.....or whinging because it wasn't cut to 0%.

Slightly off the path, but still regarding banks trying to encourage spending..... I'm constantly being sent letters from Lloyds TSB asking me to take out another loan (coming to the end of my Graduation loan). Anyway, I paid off my credit card at the end of May and on Saturday I received a letter from them trying to encourage me to spend £1000 on it between today and August 14th. My reward for doing so? The "gift" of a tenner in my next statement. I did think about crapping in an envelope and sending it back with the note, "you send me some of your sh!t and I'll send you some of mine!"

My, my - how the tide has changed! Makes quite astonishing reading compared to only a few months ago. But hang on a minute - house prices are only ever supposed to go up?! Has someone been telling me porkies?

Grrr! Get ready for all the EA's "Never been a better time to buy!" sales banners.... Oh well, no doubt house prices will start sky-rocketing again.

Just a little story I thought I'd share with you.... In Leicester, my girlfriend and I are looking to start renting a two bedroom apartment in the next couple of months. There's a new build estate, still undergoing major construction, on the outskirts of the city so we decided to have a look around to see what was available - to get an idea of size etc. The houses and apartments were generally very pleasant, but when we spoke to a saleswoman - posing as FTBs, the sales talk we received was quite unexpected. Instead of the typical 'you need to be quick, they're selling fast....' talk, she instead spoke about several properties that had either recently come back on the market, or that had had their prices reduced; quite considerably. A three storey town-house (tall, but narrow) had been reduced from £225k to £199k, and - if my memory serves me correctly - two-bed apartment / flat reduced from £125k to £109k - no mention of Shared Ownership. Loads of fees though - including a 'Green Belt' charge of £321 a year; never heard of that one. Maybe this in itself was just all sales talk, but it was certainly different to what I was expecting.

Gordon Brown astounds me, he really does. In 1997 he pledged that he would not allow House Prices to spiral out of control. I think we all know the response to that one! I was recently looking at properties around my area, a small studio flat - all I can realistically afford. I set my maximum price at 90,000 and found three properties listed at 74,500. Small 1-2 bed flats, less than 3.5x my salary. I found myself seriously considering the idea; until I read the small print at the bottom of the page. All three were 50% shared ownership. 145,000 for a 1-2 bed flat! My jaw dropped to the floor. On the BBC news site, an article drills the point further with a report on the burden FTBs are facing by stating that they are now having to seriously over-stretch themselves in order to get onto the property ladder (article). With IRs threatening to rise further, I find myself asking why the hell the government has let it get to this state. Mr Brown talks out his rear-end about his plans for 'Brown Towns', Stamp-Duty excempt Zero-Carbon emission homes and the like. This is all very well and good, but about about properties outside Cloud-Cuckoo land? How about increasing the threshold on Stamp Duty or, better yet, scrapping it altogether! How about building new AFFORDABLE homes and houses that are aimed at FTBs, that are BANNED from the BTL brigade? I'm not interested in Luxury Shoebox Apartments - every time I drive past a new building apartment block my first thought is to wonder how quickly the BTL or Property Speculator brigade will snap them up. Or indeed, how many of them will be left vacant - owned or otherwise? All these high prices seem to be doing is rewarding those who bought their homes pre-1999 and completely shafting the next generation - i.e. people like me. When will this madness stop? Sorry for the waffle, Maybe I'm missing the point somewhere along the line, but I'm just so frustrated with these ever increasing prices!

So basically, anyone saving up for the 'psychological' 5% deposit barrier is going to have to work and save a little bit more.... ....or am I mis-interpreting that? Very interesting piece of news - thanks RB.

Being a future FTB in a couple of years, I'd welcome a 0.5% rise to encourage a slide in house prices. However I can't see it being anything more than a 0.25% hike. If inflation then drops to around 2.7 - 2.8% then I guess we'd be looking at another couple of months till the next hike. By which time house prices will have probably gone up another couple of thousand! What I do know, however, is that I will be severely 'annoyed' if they are put on hold this month.

Thanks for all the fantastic responses everyone - given me a lot to think about. In a couple of years when we do start looking, depending on the situation, renting might be the best way to go. But then again, as someone mentioned earlier - 3x - 3.5x mortgage on 45k income for a 130k house is not an extortionate amount - in comparison to somewhere like London, of course! But buying at the 'peak' of the market is not a prospect that I would particularly welcome with open-arms; "Congratulations, you've bought a house.......oh, the market's dropped. Welcome to negative equity. We've got your money now, bye bye!" In the meantime - just gonna keep on saving!

Fair comment and I completely agree. I may have given the wrong impression earlier, I've been out of uni for about four years, so I'm not completely 'fresh' in a sense of the word. But it's only within the last year or so that I've been able to put a sizeable chunk of my wage towards a deposit; with work experience comes the money!

Basically, my Gran passed away last year and my mum inherited her house. My parents retire in the next couple of years and for them, their house now would be contributing to around 75% of their pension fund - thanks to Gordon screwing up the pensions - when they sell it. Hence they're planning on moving into my Gran's house a year or so after they retire - and I want them to have a happy retirement, which means having to find somewhere to live. They're not kicking me out or anything - those are just their future plans, and hopefully by then I'll have a sizeable deposit available to me. ------------- Thanks everyone for your responses so far - very helpful! 'drminky' mentioned about the investment option. I have been thinking about Premium Bonds; an idea put into my head by my cousin who apparently has won 'loads' from them. But at the moment I'm keeping the money in a high-interest savings account.

Hello Everyone, This is my first post here - apologies if it's in the wrong board. I've been reading these forums for a few months now and have been keeping a keen eye on the housing market since I'm looking to buy a house (well, actually, I have to buy) with my girlfriend within the next two years. I am currently saving for at least a 5% deposit at the moment. As a recent graduate I (naturally) have student debts, but so far have managed to save just over 2k - not a huge amount, but you have to start somewhere I guess! Many of my work colleagues and friends are trying to persuade me to rent instead, but I believe this to be a total waste of money. I'm not interested in one of those Share Schemes and I believe these to be a result of the high house prices, rather than a solution to them. There seems to be this philosophy of 'buy now while you still can', but with the recent news of the 3.1% inflation and impending IR rate hikes, I feel that buying now or within the next year would be financial suicide. Come August, myself and my partner will (hopefully) be earning roughly 40-45k and are looking to buy a new property (more likely two-bedroom) in Leicester, around the 130-140k mark; neither of us are especially keen to get anything more than a 3x - 3.5x mortgage. Is it worth buying now or best to wait as long as I possibly can? While 130k is not going to be out of our range by any means, if an identical house were to go up by another 10k+ over the next year or two, well - that'd be a bit of a pain in the backside! It seems that there's been talk of a 'possible' crash for the last two years, but instead the prices have just continued to increase. A work colleague (who owns two houses) thinks that the prices will continue to climb for the forseeable future, but I can't understand how house prices can now just simply keep going up and up and up without this being reflected in average wage earnings. If they do continue to increase - oh, lord! Any advice?