I Finally Get To Post An Anecdotal.

[libitina]

Friends of mine have had their house on the market for 13months with a small price drop about 8 or so months ago. During that time,despite changing agents they only had 1 viewing. On Monday the EA rang her asking to book a viewing for that evening and another for the following day (yesterday), after mentioning it on here a few people cautioned that it might be a 'sting' so I warned her.

Viewer 1 loved it and asked to come back last night with her OH. Viewer 2 were a couple wanting to buy for their twentysomething son. 30 mins after they left the EA rang my friend with a full asking price cash offer!!. The 1st viewer also made an offer, and came round to the house in person to plead her case, but my friend had to turn her down.

Of course they accepted the cash offer, however it means they now need to buy another house, and in the area of their choice, (same village as kids schools and family etc.... -will cut about 400 miles a month) there is very little on the market and what there is is still expensive.

I hope their good luck holds out and it completes without any hitches and they find a house they can afford.

[red]

Friends of mine have had their house on the market for 13months with a small price drop about 8 or so months ago. During that time,despite changing agents they only had 1 viewing. On Monday the EA rang her asking to book a viewing for that evening and another for the following day (yesterday), after mentioning it on here a few people cautioned that it might be a 'sting' so I warned her.

Viewer 1 loved it and asked to come back last night with her OH. Viewer 2 were a couple wanting to buy for their twentysomething son. 30 mins after they left the EA rang my friend with a full asking price cash offer!!. The 1st viewer also made an offer, and came round to the house in person to plead her case, but my friend had to turn her down.

Of course they accepted the cash offer, however it means they now need to buy another house, and in the area of their choice, (same village as kids schools and family etc.... -will cut about 400 miles a month) there is very little on the market and what there is is still expensive.

I hope their good luck holds out and it completes without any hitches and they find a house they can afford.

So they found a greater fool to offload their property onto. Good for them.

Don't suppose they'd consider renting for 18 months..? Then they could REALLY clean up...

[libitina]

So they found a greater fool to offload their property onto. Good for them.

Don't suppose they'd consider renting for 18 months..? Then they could REALLY clean up...

I'll suggest it when she rings tonight.

[bobdabuilder]

One viewer in 13 months then two offers in a few days? The market has bottomed. It is boom time again. Buy! Buy! Buy!

[Catch22]

Very interesting, some people obviously think things are on the up, or there again they may be unaware of market cycles. So really one has not to read to much into two buyers actions.

Libitina, any chance of house type, area and price, with out abusing a confidence?

[libitina]

Very interesting, some people obviously think things are on the up, or there again they may be unaware of market cycles. So really one has not to read to much into two buyers actions.

Libitina, any chance of house type, area and price, with out abusing a confidence?

North Yorkshire, 3 bed new build (16 months old-ish) end of terrace, with garage and ensuite. Houses still being built by developer and being sold for £5k less than their price of £156k. They bought for £135k

[Bearfacts]

By way of offering a little balance. firend of ours has just taken her house off the market after 9 months of trying to sell. Originally asking 525k , had recently accepted an offer of 435k , which would have meant a significant loss but she was prepared to take it. For some reason the buyer changed his/her mind and pulled out. This is in a very desirable and popular village in Berkshire.

Could this be a North/ South split, i.e prices in south continue heading south whilst the last few mugs are sucked in ooop north ?

IMHO we will see a bounce this month due to the rate cut , but then an accelerating fall as people realise that there will be no further cuts and rates may infact have to rise as inflation picks up and the pound sinks.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

I'm seeing all the signs of a housing crash here in West Wales. I was living it London at the time of the last crash and it's kinda like deja vu.

Had an EA phone up today to suggest I BTL a property for 125,000 down near Swansea - I asked him what rent he could get for me - £375 Wow what I great deal! I'm off to the bank tomorrow to sort out the mortgage Also noticed several houses that had SOLD according to the signs outside come back on to the market. Interesting times.

Edited September 28, 2005 by gruffydd

[Dicky]

I'm seeing all the signs of a housing crash here in West Wales. I was living it London at the time of the last crash and it's kinda like deja vu.

Had an EA phone up today to suggest I BTL a property for 125,000 down near Swansea - I asked him what rent he could get for me - £375 Wow what I great deal! I'm off to the bank tomorrow to sort out the mortgage Also noticed several houses that had SOLD according to the signs outside come back on to the market. Interesting times.

Rought calculation is rent divided by 6, this should be the price of the property in thousands, at 375 it should be selling for 60K, for that money you should be looking at 750 - 800 PCM, then again you could have a 50% deposit in which case you can make it work, but the bank would give a better return with no risk.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

I honestly thought it was a wind-up at first. Who on earth would make that kind of investment decision? Actually............perhaps someone on Singing Pig might be interested.

[IMupNorth]

North Yorkshire, 3 bed new build (16 months old-ish) end of terrace, with garage and ensuite. Houses still being built by developer and being sold for £5k less than their price of £156k. They bought for £135k

This explains everything to me, who lives in North Yorkshire. As I've said many times on here, there is no crash in North Yorkshire, prices are still going up and in the last couple of months are accelerating away again.

New properties coming to the market are priced higher than ones that have been on the market a while. Hence making the older stuff look reasonable.

The figures quoted above look incredibly cheap for North Yorkshire though, must be a crummy part of York or something.

Average asking prices where I live are 9% higher now than they were in January this year. Whereas last year they were going down at this time of year, they are now going up.

There is no crash, you are all deceiving yourselves and jumping on the odd anecdote where idiots have overpriced and then had to take a drop. This is happening up here too but the the average continues to rise.

Tumble weed will be rolling across this website soon, as you all begin to realise this HPC is never going to happen. The mortgage lending figures are going back up, and you can't spin it any other way - end result is NO CRASH.

You want to stop believing the false God of Dr Bubb - he's wrong, the US stock market isn't going to crash, the dollar is not going to crash, the UK stock market is not going to crash and neither are house prices, well not in the imminent future.

Stagnation is the order of the day for at least another 12 months, unless of course Iran test a nuke !

[BandWagon]

Tumble weed will be rolling across this website soon, as you all begin to realise this HPC is never going to happen. The mortgage lending figures are going back up, and you can't spin it any other way - end result is NO CRASH.

You want to stop believing the false God of Dr Bubb - he's wrong, the US stock market isn't going to crash, the dollar is not going to crash, the UK stock market is not going to crash and neither are house prices, well not in the imminent future.

Stagnation is the order of the day for at least another 12 months, unless of course Iran test a nuke !

London prices have fallen around 10% in the last year. Some parts far more, ask Tony and Cherie, Belgravia's not looking too hot.

So what's the deal, will Leeds become more expensive than London? Sure.

It's very easy to see who's deceiving themselves on this site.

[The Masked Tulip]

Rought calculation is rent divided by 6, this should be the price of the property in thousands, at 375 it should be selling for 60K, for that money you should be looking at 750 - 800 PCM, then again you could have a 50% deposit in which case you can make it work, but the bank would give a better return with no risk.

So a house down the road from me which is on the market for 400K sale or 1200 per month rent should actually be for sale for 200K?

[dipstick]

My sister has just (nearly) completed on a house in a good part of York. The asking was 340k and she offered 285k and got it.

Perhaps she should have offered over the asking price to support your theory?

[IMupNorth]

My sister has just (nearly) completed on a house in a good part of York. The asking was 340k and she offered 285k and got it.

Perhaps she should have offered over the asking price to support your theory?

Dipstick by name, dipstick by nature - your anecdote is pretty meaningless - this just tells me that in this case the property was hopelessly overvalued. How did it compare to others in the area ? It may also just be that your sister got lucky. Good for her.

If you look at any of the surveys, or take the average of them all or Land Reg, they'll give you the big picture and it says no crash in North Yorkshire.

[Guest Charlie The Tramp]

no crash in North Yorkshire.

Where London and the South East lead the others will eventually follow, although there may be an exception but unlikely to lets say the rule.

surveyor Today, 03:08 PM IP: 82.144.231.52 | Post #8|

Hello there! I still pop in to check the news and find some of the links to be very interesting. Unfortunately the standard of threads (Met Office predicts coldest winter etc) seem to be straw clutching in the extreme. However I think the question Charlie asked re. prices is probably of interest. Of course prices aren't still rising across the board. In the SE where I work, I get to speak to dozens of estate agents each week (well somebody's got to do it). It's been clear for this year that the market has stalled, record numbers of agreed sales are not completing, marketing times have grown (a year is now not uncommon), and asking prices have been coming down. As a general comment, I'd say about 10%. Volumes have gone through the floor, but the market is not entirely dead. I find that where I'm doing proper surveys and speak to the sellers and buyers, there's a good reason for moving, often older people downsizing, families moving through necessity of growing family, work reasons etc. Most seem to have significant equity, so a crash wouldn't affect them much.

Some lenders are in denial. I was recently asked why I ticked the 'prices falling' box. This was not the first such enquiry, and I was so bored with the question that I sent them 15 pages of reports from BBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, FT etc quoting everyone from Rightmove to the RICS. And guess what? They all said the 'F' word; Prices falling. So to any bull who's still in denial, either all these sources must be mistaken, or possibly you are.

A colleague came back from valuing a semi with annexe flat in Orpington today. On market a year ago at £425,000. Several agents and 12 months later now under offer at £300,000 for a quick sale. Hardly evidence of a rising market.

I'm getting more instructions for valuing repos than at any time in the past 5 years. Also drive by valuations for bankruptcy cases, often of larger £500,000 plus houses. I've just turned down an instruction to act as an expert witness for some mug trying to sue a valuer for over valuing his flat. He's in deep do-do now and looking for someone else to blame (watch out for lots more of this). I read between the lines and realised this was a mortgage fraud (on the plaintiff's part) and thought 'Tough'. I think the market has been propped up by fraud at all levels, not just self cert.

For anyone relying on ODPM's stats, these are unreliable. As George Buckley of Deutsche Bank says: 'The ODPM measure is playing catch up.'

Two questions from myself;

1) Why do bulls insist that house prices are still steady or even going up?

2) Can anyone explain to a simple soul why high house prices are a good thing?

3) Why DO people write 'alot' ?

I've always been with Charlie on this; it's all about debt.

[Rain'ard]

Imupnorth shouldcumdownsouth, theres plenty of evidence of falling prices here. I spoke to a professional Landlord yesterday and he told me he bought a 4 bedroom house he had reduced from 220k to 185k. Also he told me he was unloading a 2 bedroom leasehold flat, he asked me if I wanted it he would let me have it reduced. I told him no, of course. He has actually accepted that the trend is down. He didn’t a year ago.

[Catch22]

Dipstick by name, dipstick by nature - your anecdote is pretty meaningless - this just tells me that in this case the property was hopelessly overvalued. How did it compare to others in the area ? It may also just be that your sister got lucky. Good for her.

If you look at any of the surveys, or take the average of them all or Land Reg, they'll give you the big picture and it says no crash in North Yorkshire.

Land Reg North Yorks BBC

All properties Quarter on Quarter +0.5% WOW

And you have to bear in mind that's April June quarter. Historical data is just that historical but even so it clearly shows the trend is down. I completed 1st July but the sale does not show on July Land Reg released data.

Leeds the biggest financial centre outside London, all property types suffering negative HPI bar Semi's Quater on Quarter, with Flats taking a right hammering -6.7% Quarter on Quarter and loads more being completed SEE HERE

And that's rich a guy with a crude tits image as an avatar calling somebody else a dipstick

Edited September 28, 2005 by Catch22

[IPOD]

Dipstick by name, dipstick by nature

Yup, name-calling and condescension make your argument so much more convincing-great move.

[dipstick]

Golly Gosh I'm so hurt (and I've never heard it before)

Anyway that aside.........her surveyor put it in at OVER the original asking price valuation. A surveyor that actually told someone they thought they had a bargain! Now THAT makes a refreshing change!

And with even that aside I still think she should have waited if she could.

Prices are coming down - North Yorkshire included.

[apom]

One viewer in 13 months then two offers in a few days? The market has bottomed. It is boom time again. Buy! Buy! Buy!

There are no cut and dried rules to this...

and unless you have a FTB.. then most people don't care about equity..

If their mortgage is small.. they have equity.. they want to move..

They keep the small mortgage..

The market struggles when the chain requires someone to enter the market.. they are the only ones paying todays prices..

There will still be people prepared to do that...

there are not enough.. thats why prices are falling..

but there are some..

so some will sell..

Well done to your friend..

[libitina]

I'mupnorth is right in saying that the boom is still continuing in North Yorkshire, Lancashire too. In parts of Lancs it only started in earnest in the last 12 months so still has a way to go.

Grotty part of York? No, its worse than that, its *********.

Friends have had an offer accepted on a house, £3k under asking price in the village of their choice. It was the only house in their budget and wouldn't normally be their first choice of style, but the location was their priority. It also needs cosmetic work doing on it but is more than livable so they can do it as and when.......

Edit: The new house is being bought for £6k more than they sold their old one, so not a step up the ladder, just a shift sideways. They needed the equity to be able to afford the area they wanted.

Edited September 29, 2005 by libitina