The London Bubble

[SHERWICK]

1369557298[/url]' post='909329747']

The language illustrates the level of infantilisation of many of these people being housed by the council. Instead of making their own decision about where to live and then acting on it, they expect some council employee to tell them where they are going to live out their lives and then assign them a free house in that area.

Exactly.

[betonr]

So, I can't create a new post, but just saw this on Reuters

House prices to see fastest rise in four years - Reuters poll

..."The price of London homes, long the magnet for rich overseas investors, are expected to soar 5.0 percent this year and next as demand in the capital continues to outrun supply."...

Link to Reuters

[TheCountOfNowhere]

So, I can't create a new post, but just saw this on Reuters

House prices to see fastest rise in four years - Reuters poll

..."The price of London homes, long the magnet for rich overseas investors, are expected to soar 5.0 percent this year and next as demand in the capital continues to outrun supply."...

Link to Reuters

London bubble 5% closer to collapse....

Sounds like one of the desperate headlines from 2007.

[Nabby81]

Work in the City 2 colleagues looking to buy both mid to late 20's both being funded by the bank of mum and dad ,one to the tune of £120k to buy a 2 bed flat for £250k.Both under the average London wage both have parents telling them to get on the ladder and supporting them with Capital.

Whilst the Bank of Mum and Dad keeps printing and educating kids to get on the ladder prices will stay where they are.For those of us with no parents we have little hope of saving the cash for a deposit whilst renting ourselves.

[winkie]

Work in the City 2 colleagues looking to buy both mid to late 20's both being funded by the bank of mum and dad ,one to the tune of £120k to buy a 2 bed flat for £250k.Both under the average London wage both have parents telling them to get on the ladder and supporting them with Capital.

Whilst the Bank of Mum and Dad keeps printing and educating kids to get on the ladder prices will stay where they are.For those of us with no parents we have little hope of saving the cash for a deposit whilst renting ourselves.

Go back thirty odd years....few parents had any spare funds or access to them, but a 20 something London worker could buy a very nice first home with a small saved deposit independently, solo,on their own from their own hard work and effort......now only those with family support have access to certain privileges...how hard they work is a secondary factor.......the gap is visibly growing wider.

Edited May 29, 2013 by winkie

[betonr]

a 2 bedroom flat for £250k in London? Tell me where and I'll get a mortgage asap

So far I haven't seen many 1 bedroom flats for less than £330k

[Bruce Banner]

a 2 bedroom flat for £250k in London? Tell me where and I'll get a mortgage asap

So far I haven't seen many 1 bedroom flats for less than £330k

Patience.

[winkie]

a 2 bedroom flat for £250k in London? Tell me where and I'll get a mortgage asap

So far I haven't seen many 1 bedroom flats for less than £330k

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40667507.html

[worried1]

Go back thirty odd years....few parents had any spare funds or access to them, but a 20 something London worker could buy a very nice first home with a small saved deposit independently, solo,on their own from their own hard work and effort......now only those with family support have access to certain privileges...how hard they work is a secondary factor.......the gap is visibly growing wider.

Yep, it is almost like the upper class 'landed gentry' were a few decades ago. However hard people worked in the professions only a very very tiny proportion would ever be able to live like the upper class who had it all handed to them by their parents.

It is the same thing now, but we are talking about being able to buy small flats rather than country estates.

[worried1]

a 2 bedroom flat for £250k in London? Tell me where and I'll get a mortgage asap

So far I haven't seen many 1 bedroom flats for less than £330k

Rightmove are listing thousands in London for under £250k, sometimes a long way under. Granted, they are not where you probably want to live but they are out there.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Work in the City 2 colleagues looking to buy both mid to late 20's both being funded by the bank of mum and dad ,one to the tune of £120k to buy a 2 bed flat for £250k.Both under the average London wage both have parents telling them to get on the ladder and supporting them with Capital.

Whilst the Bank of Mum and Dad keeps printing and educating kids to get on the ladder prices will stay where they are.For those of us with no parents we have little hope of saving the cash for a deposit whilst renting ourselves.

This chap would understand the logic of that:

Mr Ponzi

[tomandlu]

It is the same thing now, but we are talking about being able to buy small flats rather than country estates.

Up to a point - small flat, maybe, but they'll still struggle to get further up the 'ladder'.

[Nabby81]

Rightmove are listing thousands in London for under £250k, sometimes a long way under. Granted, they are not where you probably want to live but they are out there.

Not sure where it is infact it could be more than £250k that was the last price I herd but as he is talking about getting a lodger to help cover the rent perhaps he has gone higher.It is a recent build though.I'll see if I can find the location.

[musehead]

a 2 bedroom flat for £250k in London? Tell me where and I'll get a mortgage asap

So far I haven't seen many 1 bedroom flats for less than £330k

A friend bought a 1-bed in colliers wood last year for £130k, another friend bought a reasonable size 2-bed in a fairly new build block for £204k in Streatham, very close to the station.

Not great areas, but not too far out and hardly Baghdad.

[betonr]

Not great areas, but not too far out and hardly Baghdad.

I'll have a look, but since I pulled out of my purchase I decided to wait and see.

Today there are so many mixed messages in the media.. the eurozone is now relaxing the austerity measures which could mean foreign money flow to London slowing down.

[winkie]

I'll have a look, but since I pulled out of my purchase I decided to wait and see.

Today there are so many mixed messages in the media.. the eurozone is now relaxing the austerity measures which could mean foreign money flow to London slowing down.

Is that good or bad?

[Scarlet]

Just wanted to add my experience of trying to buy for myself in central London in case it is of interest to others on this thread. I joined this forum a couple of years ago as I had just began looking for a home in central London and felt then what I was seeing price-wise was unsustainable in the long-term but was determined to find a home I would be happy to stay in for at least 5 years and hoped I'd find a 'bargain' if I looked hard enough. I have had three purchases fall through and in every case each flat has been remarketed at a higher price than I could meet as the vendor realised they had agreed to sell to me 'too cheap'. Of course I had looked very hard for something I felt was good value but it seems impossible in central London (where I've lived, worked and rented for last 15 years). At present in W2/WC1 and central parts of NW1 at up to 450K I'm seeing the lowest stock levels since I have begun looking and this, I believe, is the major problem in central London and increasingly the proportion of ex-council properties makes up most of the flats available. I am not looking at new builds so not competing with overseas buyers there. My competition seems to be developers and investors (some of the latter from overseas) and a few buyers looking for a home like me.

Agents all moan about the lack of stock and say this is forcing prices up and until this changes I can't see how the market will turn.

On the rental front, two agents I know in W2 area have both said the market for 1/2 bed flats is much quieter and some owners are having to reduce their prices to get a let. One has put this down to the departure of City workers and the slump in hirings there. He said his agency is so quiet (they have 8 properties to sell) and are struggling on the lettings front that he doesn't see how someone isn't going to lose his job soon! I hope this materialises into a solid trend and note the postings about rental falls in other 'prime' areas but I believe investors will just take a reduction and still hang on in there (if they can). I thought I found sellers each time who were genuinely prepared to take a hit for a quick sale but in each case it didn't play out that way. After two years and three failed purchases it all seems much worse (stock and price-wise) than when I started.

[Starla]

At present in W2/WC1 and central parts of NW1 at up to 450K I'm seeing the lowest stock levels since I have begun looking and this, I believe, is the major problem in central London and increasingly the proportion of ex-council properties makes up most of the flats available. I am not looking at new builds so not competing with overseas buyers there. My competition seems to be developers and investors (some of the latter from overseas) and a few buyers looking for a home like me.

I feel your pain. I was originally looking around W4ish and I'm now pushed out (living in) the TW postcode area. I'm at the point where I could just about afford to buy in an area I don't even want to live in (ever) and I'm not buying in those sorts of areas at any price. I think a lot of people in London are convincing themselves that hell-hole areas are now suddenly chic because of the price tag. My Rightmove Property alert emails in my price range are the same theme everytime. I scan through them and go "No, bad area, ex council, rough estate, cash buyers only, over-priced/out of my price range, above shops, below shops, new build, tenant in situ BTL only, high maintenance charges, etc etc". Very little flat wise seems to come on the market, and rarely anything that I would describe as "normal" in my price range. I suspect the low stock of decent flats coming on the market has something to do with the massive gulf in prices(£100's of K's ++++) for the potential seller wanting to move up to a house.

[betonr]

London parties like it’s 2007

According to the most widely-followed measures, the average London home is now rising in price by $1,000 a day. And the top of the line stuff is doing better than ever.

Knight Frank, a long-established London real estate agency, produces an index of “prime central” property. We’re talking prices in posh neighborhoods like Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Belgravia.

They’re off the map.

Measured in British pounds, prices are now a fifth higher than in the madness of 2007. Even when accounting for the falloff in the British pound, and measured in U.S. dollars, they are basically back to their old peak.

Some of it is due to bargain-basement interest rates and massive, massive quantitative easing. The Bank of England has by now printed so much money that it literally owns one third of the entire British national debt.

Some of it is due to the pressures of immigration, combined with tight building restrictions on new development.

Some of it is due to the influx of money from abroad. Russia. The Middle East. The Far East. London real estate is the new Swiss bank account. It’s where you hide your money if you want to hide your money.

Read more

[Starla]

London real estate is the new Swiss bank account. It’s where you hide your money if you want to hide your money.

Which makes me a bit of a tit for stupidly thinking it was somewhere to live so you could get to where you work on time. I'm so old school.

On the plus side, all this was quite frustrating when I was 10k, 20k short of the sort of place I'd be ok living in. Now that I'm about £150k short or borderline for something I'd not want anyway, it doesn't bother me so much. In the same way I don't get hung up about not being able to own a fleet of Ferrari's,because it's not in my financial zone either.

[Scarlet]

I feel your pain. I was originally looking around W4ish and I'm now pushed out (living in) the TW postcode area. I'm at the point where I could just about afford to buy in an area I don't even want to live in (ever) and I'm not buying in those sorts of areas at any price. I think a lot of people in London are convincing themselves that hell-hole areas are now suddenly chic because of the price tag. My Rightmove Property alert emails in my price range are the same theme everytime. I scan through them and go "No, bad area, ex council, rough estate, cash buyers only, over-priced/out of my price range, above shops, below shops, new build, tenant in situ BTL only, high maintenance charges, etc etc". Very little flat wise seems to come on the market, and rarely anything that I would describe as "normal" in my price range. I suspect the low stock of decent flats coming on the market has something to do with the massive gulf in prices(£100's of K's ++++) for the potential seller wanting to move up to a house.

Always interesting to read other people's experiences of trying to buy in the capital - I too need very strong coffee before I can look at RM alerts these days. On your last point, two of the three sellers I dealt with were people who already had homes elsewhere in the country so weren't trading up. Their London flat was their first home which they hung on to as an investment (rented out) and both had outstanding mortgages of less than 100k so they could have afforded to take a hit but after consideration (and wasting my time & £) didn't want to. The third vendor was a company which accepted my offer then decided it could get more at auction so pulled out of the purchase (we'll see as it goes to auction in two months' time). As the areas I'm looking in seem to consist mostly of investment properties (every flat I have looked at in the past two years bar two has been a rental property) my hope is that the fall in rents in the areas I'm looking in consolidates and forces more investor-owned properties onto the market the only other thing that would do this would be an increase in interest rates for those with loans to service.

[Damik]

http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Central-London-house-prices-going-up-at-rate-of-per-hour

The latest Land Registry All Transaction Data (ATD) also show that house prices in prime central London rose by 25% between March last year and March this year – equivalent to £27 per hour 24/7, or the equivalent of £122 per hour for a working week.

I see this as positive news. It will not take very long with this speed to pop the bubble.

I am most afraid of the Japanese style slow house price decline with a few % per year ...

[theonlywayisdown]

anecdotal - a friend recently told me house prices especially around London and the S.E. are staying high due to the recent change of leadership in China.

Apparently the new leader has big plans to stamp out corruption, and hence why you're seeing buckloads of China people putting their 'hard earned' cash into property over here.

Discussion is welcome.

[rantnrave]

http://www.estateage...ate-of-per-hour

The latest Land Registry All Transaction Data (ATD) also show that house prices in prime central London rose by 25% between March last year and March this year – equivalent to £27 per hour 24/7, or the equivalent of £122 per hour for a working week.

I see this as positive news. It will not take very long with this speed to pop the bubble.

I am most afraid of the Japanese style slow house price decline with a few % per year ...

+1

[Scarlet]

http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Central-London-house-prices-going-up-at-rate-of-per-hour

The latest Land Registry All Transaction Data (ATD) also show that house prices in prime central London rose by 25% between March last year and March this year – equivalent to £27 per hour 24/7, or the equivalent of £122 per hour for a working week.

I see this as positive news. It will not take very long with this speed to pop the bubble.

I am most afraid of the Japanese style slow house price decline with a few % per year ...

That is a truly shocking figure. Based on my experience of looking in central London I would have said property in W2/WC1 and NW1 (Euston) had jumped between 10% - 15% (asking) in a year. If overall it's 25% then I hope this does hasten a correction as it's madness.