Aberdeen, Aspc Stats

[maxdiver]

I think that there is an over-supply of Young-Exec. flats in Aberdeen.

Look at places like Kepplestone, Citigait, Aurora and even places like bannermill.

These are more likely to fall - in a downturn.

it is mostly company lets that is filling these places with BTL buying.

we will see what is happening.

but word down the pipes is that this year a large o/g firm is recuiting about 20% of new grads compared w. last year.

you've been warned!

[sandster]

What did the 1 bed go for?

173k springs to mind but I will ask at the weekend.

[klee]

173k springs to mind but I will ask at the weekend.

If 173k is correct then I feel sorry for whoever paid that for a 1 bed, they must have money to burn! The 2 beds in strawberry bank are valued at 170 - 180k. Don't even know if people are willing to pay 180k for them now with all the doom and gloom news. Same as Bloomfield Court, theres a fixed priced 2 bed for around £175k and it's sat there are a few weeks now, that would ahve been snapped up last summer very quickly.

[1888]

I am argueing with an Aberdonian over what will happen

He is convinced that his property will rise by 25% this year

and by that amount for the next 2 years

that is a doubling in value in 3 years

He is convinced that Aberdeen is a microeconomy based soley on oil and as oil prices remain high so does everything else in Aberdeen

I asked him where the nurses,teachers ,police ,council workers lived and his reply was that they were all moving further out due to the cost

He also mentioned that renting was more expensive than a mortgage

It just got me wondering what happens when oil runs dry in the north sea in 20 yrs

A 25yr mortgage on a 300k flat may be a little silly for a fishing village

once people realise this I am sure things will change

[maxdiver]

Do people in Aberdeen benefit directly from the Oil Price???

I think that the investment into the oil industry is as high as it will go - and no further jobs will be created with higher and higher oil prices.

People's oil-shares may go up in value but i don't think that oil prices correlates with share prices that much.

25% this year - i doubt it.

prices fell by 4% in Q4 2007 - so the trend is downwards.

We'll see - but at least the oil will run out in 20 years not like the rest of the UK which can be sold off easy (rover, engineering, 20,000 jobs in the city) etc...

[maxdiver]

ASPC Q4 2007 report

Have a look at this - 4% drop in 3 months.

a drop of £8,000 in 90 days - or roughly £120/working day.

By the way - most of my peers who recently bought were not aware of the ASPC publication.

I pointed out that (and know that they are hostile to HPC) that they should have done more research and been aware of the market information.

Apparantly a 4% drop is just a blip though - not worthy of being taken seriously.

[brownbootcuts]

Do people in Aberdeen benefit directly from the Oil Price???

A bit OT but anyway:

There is usually a mention in local press that x thousand people are employed in the oil and gas industry.

The thing is in the offshore sector at least, many of those people dont actually live in Aberdeen. Any offshore worker will tell you that many people from Middlesborough/Newcastle/Glasgow etc etc , its certainly not Aberdonian only employees.

[dtl]

People that think that Aberdeen is going to somehow escape any downturn in the market are totally missing the point.

I agree that folks in Aberdeen generally do pretty well for themselves, courtesy of the oil industry.

However, many of the people in Aberdeen are in a similar situation to many other people across the UK....... financially overstretched.

The fact that many so people are overstretched stems from the fallacy that property is a one way bet, and your house is going to increase in value by at least 10% a year. This then allows you not to worry about saving for the boring things; your pension, some money for a rainy day etc.

The logic seems to have been that as long as you have property then money is for spending on the fun stuff.

Hence, with the the current problems with interbank lending and the end of the securitization model the housing market is going to decline, starting with the new build buy to lets.

Of course if the well paid people in Aberdeen have been stashing money away in the bank, rather than spending it, then this may be avoided..............

I know a couple of guys in Aberdeen on 130K plus, who have nothing left in the bank at the end of the month......however they do have fairly recently aquired BTL portfoliios.

[maxdiver]

A lot of the older people i work with have BTL portfolios and earn high (maybe not 130k but high anyway)

and they are all worrying about retirement.

keeping a place in aberdeen, paying for wives and children and their BTL portfolio combined with recent weakness in the markets has meant that people here are thinking it will be hard to retire.

The young ones (under 50 say) tend to be very flash it seems to me.

I guess there is a lot of temptation to appear rich here - but i know hardly anyone who'll talk about investments/savings besides BTL and buying a millstone (Stewart Milne Home).

[Dosser]

Do people in Aberdeen benefit directly from the Oil Price???

Yes. Although plenty of, most people, offshore do not live in Aberdeen; a good deal do (or Aberdeenshire). However, loads of support services are in the local area. Then there is the service sector, e.g. the taxi drivers, the hotels etc. Without the oil Aberdeen would wither and die. So the oil may cacoon Aberdeen from a general recession and people may feel 'protected' keeping sentiment positive with regard to high house prices.

However, the poster earlier said people are stretched. I don't care where you are, people as a rule will stretch themselves, leaving little at the end of the month. So if you're in Dumfries earning £500 a week, you'll probably have outgoings of near enough £500, if your in Aberdeen earning £1000 pounds a week, you will probably spend £1000 a week.

Ergo, if you are in Aberdeen or anywhere else in the country, if you are coming off a fixed rate, chances are you're going to be hurting - and this is what is driving house prices and sentiment down.

D

Edited April 15, 2008 by Dosser

[maxdiver]

I checked out the always good P&J property supplement yesterday.

3 things I noticed.

1) a lot of country properties for sale - Dee Valley etc... - being sold by holidayers here

2) a flat from Glasgow was on sale ~250k - a bit strange to advertise this far away

3) Citigait (i think) called itself "the best value development in town" or something like that, and 30k was taken off the price of the flats! Value = 30k off.

Just what i noticed - also there were a few more adds for rooms to let esp. in 4 bed houses in nice areas - when i first came to Aberdeen i was suprised that do few rooms were available to rent - unlike other places where i've been where newsagents would have loads of adds on the windows.

[maxdiver]

I have done some top secret research on the ASPC website.

I've come up with this graph of houses sold per quarter and those for sale per quarter.

Given that the number of houses in Aberdeen has remained more or less constant in the 30 months of this graph - what conclusions can be draw from the changes - and what is the expected future trend?

[Guest An Bearin Bui]

I am argueing with an Aberdonian over what will happen

He is convinced that his property will rise by 25% this year

and by that amount for the next 2 years

that is a doubling in value in 3 years

He is convinced that Aberdeen is a microeconomy based soley on oil and as oil prices remain high so does everything else in AberdeenI asked him where the nurses,teachers ,police ,council workers lived and his reply was that they were all moving further out due to the cost

He also mentioned that renting was more expensive than a mortgage

It just got me wondering what happens when oil runs dry in the north sea in 20 yrs

A 25yr mortgage on a 300k flat may be a little silly for a fishing village

once people realise this I am sure things will change

You hear this "Aberdeen is unique" stuff a lot from people up there - I have a nice news article that you can send to your friend:

180 Shell oil jobs to go from Aberdeen

Should have him crying into his cornflakes (especially if he works for Shell)

[sandster]

You hear this "Aberdeen is unique" stuff a lot from people up there - I have a nice news article that you can send to your friend:

180 Shell oil jobs to go from Aberdeen

Should have him crying into his cornflakes (especially if he works for Shell)

Asked a couple of boys at football last night and it is pretty much all natural wastage over the next 3 years

[maxdiver]

It's supposed to be over and above the natural wastage - the real number of losses could be much higher - given the number of people in the industry who are approaching retirement age.

I don't know what retirement age is in shell - but they could force through early retirement on their guys.

Probably a big mistake as the demographic challenge all companies are facing is more important than the roughly £10-25 million pounds a year they'll be saving by getting rid of people.

Presumably the savings in salaries and pensions etc... will be accomanied by reduction in value of assets that these old hands bring.

[quine]

The quarterly ASPC figures have just been announced (report can be found within the information section of the ASPC website).

The last page of this report states “The average property price in the Aberdeen Housing Market Area for the first quarter of 2008 is £202, 661, an increase of 2% on the previous quarter figure…” so I phoned up the chairman, named on the last page of the report, to ask him if the figures referred to were advertised property prices or sold property prices.

He was very defensive at the outset and demanded to know if I was an “MOP” (I then discovered this is legal talk for a member of the public). He then told me that this was the first time in 40 years that an MOP had called him and queried his report (how very dare I !!) He then told me that “of course it’s sold prices” to which I again pointed out that this wasn’t made clear in the report. He wanted to know why I should want this information or query his statistics and he ranted on for some time.

I told him that my solicitor had advised me that properties were selling for under fixed prices and the market was slowing considerably in Aberdeen with properties not obtaining the amount the sellers hoped for and he told me my solicitor was not telling the truth!

He appeared extremely agitated and when I queried his defensiveness he told me he was only being “assertive”.

What is going on? After the conversation we had I think there may be something amiss. Maybe an MOP (member of press!) will find a story here?!

PS The quarterly report states that property has increased by 2% in Aberdeen in the Q1 2008 which might seem slightly positive news at the outset but bear in mind that it fell 4% in Q4 2007.

[brownbootcuts]

Good effort quine

[maxdiver]

Dear MOP.

I don't know if you saw the graph i put in above - it gives you a breakdown of sales and for sales in aberdeen for the last few years.

i have created a new graph - one that is even more interesting as it clearly shows a change in the aberdeen market.

basically i took the quarterly data - made a 5 year average for houses sold/for sale per quarter and compared the quarterly values to this.

What you see is that the number of houses for sale has remained pretty constant - although there is seasonal variability if you look at the numbers - evened-out this is fairly constant for the last 5 years (although the 7-year trend shows an increase over time)

the number of houses on the ASPC tells a different story - the numbers fell fairly consistently over the years 2002-2006.

But in Q1 2007 the number on the ASPC started to increase.

Since then = 1 year later the number of houses on the record is roughly 140% higher (i.e 2.4 times as many) than Q4 2006.

Conclusion - the number of houses selling is remaining the same but the houses for sale reduced for 5 years until Q4 2006 - thereafter the number for sale has jumped.

Given that we seem to have constant demand - what happens when we increase the suplly?

Also - how will the credit crunch effect aberdeen? how will numbers change.

this is dynamite stuff - makes you think that aberdeen is heading towards a cliff.

P.s. looking on ASPC i have found 2270 houses on the ASPC register - i've put this point in the chart too - but it is not 100% ASPC certiified.

But it shows you what way the wind is blowing!!!

[maxdiver]

Yesterday's P&J "Your Home" was 40 pages long!

It think that is the longest it's ever been - certainly big.

The main thing that i noticed was the increase in developments being advertised - there were pages and pages of them.

They must really be struggling offloading them at the minute - given that other places were hardly advertised in the past and they got snapped up quickly.

Now Kepplestone is offering a 105% swap if you buy a place there and other junk offers

[brownbootcuts]

Yesterday's P&J "Your Home" was 40 pages long!

It think that is the longest it's ever been - certainly big.

The main thing that i noticed was the increase in developments being advertised - there were pages and pages of them.

They must really be struggling offloading them at the minute - given that other places were hardly advertised in the past and they got snapped up quickly.

Now Kepplestone is offering a 105% swap if you buy a place there and other junk offers

Yeah I saw that myself.

A guy in work lives near the Aurora development, he reckons the place is still empty.

I have also noticed that the new development on Willowbank Road has a few properties at fixed priced on ASPC. Good thing is that it looks like some of the sellers are trying to undercut one another.

[brownbootcuts]

Just been looking at the figures from around the same time last year:

ASPC is very well established, and doesn't really have a lot of new estate agents appearing, so I think it's probably quite useful to monitor the number of properties on sale and how long they've been there.

From a post I made on 21st May:

For sale : 963

Added in last week : 183 (19%)

Added in last month : 667 (69%)

Over a month : 296 (31%)

As of today the 7th May 08

For Sale: 1461

Added in last week: 146

Fixed price: 303 (20%)

I cant give the figures over the last month etc but they at least give an overview.

Edited May 7, 2008 by brownbootcuts

[klee]

The quarterly ASPC figures have just been announced (report can be found within the information section of the ASPC website).

The last page of this report states “The average property price in the Aberdeen Housing Market Area for the first quarter of 2008 is £202, 661, an increase of 2% on the previous quarter figure…” so I phoned up the chairman, named on the last page of the report, to ask him if the figures referred to were advertised property prices or sold property prices.

He was very defensive at the outset and demanded to know if I was an “MOP” (I then discovered this is legal talk for a member of the public). He then told me that this was the first time in 40 years that an MOP had called him and queried his report (how very dare I !!) He then told me that “of course it’s sold prices” to which I again pointed out that this wasn’t made clear in the report. He wanted to know why I should want this information or query his statistics and he ranted on for some time.

I told him that my solicitor had advised me that properties were selling for under fixed prices and the market was slowing considerably in Aberdeen with properties not obtaining the amount the sellers hoped for and he told me my solicitor was not telling the truth!

He appeared extremely agitated and when I queried his defensiveness he told me he was only being “assertive”.

What is going on? After the conversation we had I think there may be something amiss. Maybe an MOP (member of press!) will find a story here?!

PS The quarterly report states that property has increased by 2% in Aberdeen in the Q1 2008 which might seem slightly positive news at the outset but bear in mind that it fell 4% in Q4 2007.

Of course it's sold prices, sound like your just trying to find any reason that his report is wrong! Yes some properties are going for under the fixed price, that's the ones which are way over priced in the 1st place. Remember the 2% increase is the 'average' of Aberdeen meaning some prices have risen and some have fallen.

[klee]

Yeah I saw that myself.

A guy in work lives near the Aurora development, he reckons the place is still empty.

I have also noticed that the new development on Willowbank Road has a few properties at fixed priced on ASPC. Good thing is that it looks like some of the sellers are trying to undercut one another.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were empty, who in the right mind would pay £320k for a 2 bedroom flat?

[maxdiver]

This week's P&J supplement has 44 pages!!!

that's a 10% week on week increase!

(that's a bit tongue in cheek - but the trend is your friend - i'm going to see if i have any old ones and see how many pages are in it)

[delboypass]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were empty, who in the right mind would pay £320k for a 2 bedroom flat?

Looks like some idiots will...but i really wonder what price they swapped hands for

i got a few friends that around same age as me 30ish so moving 2 beds to houses, and developer just giving cashbacks so house price looks static on Land registry...

means the developer can just price high and negotiate...Buyer thinks he is getting a good price compared to Land registry but developer can haggle with everyone to differing levels depending on interest...

Such a crime..

And of course..there will be one sucka that doesnt haggle and pays over the asking price lol..