Yorkshire Golden Triangle - Harrogate & Around

[Brave New World]

Hi,

We're based in Harrogate. We sold in January, have rented since, with a view to looking at the housing dip. However in the last *2* weeks we've noticed that the few properties we've had a nosey at, have gone within a couple of days. It's as if it's gone crazy buying again.

Has anyone noticed this in Harrogate or elsewhere around? I was really looking forward to an ongoing decrease but it seems to have reached a point of inflexion.

I'm hoping it'a temporary blip in demand...

Stu

Are these STC or completed?

Big, big difference nowadays.

Hang tight fella, it is not as if the economy has changed! Just the amount of ramping and spin which is conning unfortunate people into potential negative equity traps.

We have STR'd and her indoors is getting itchy feet but unless we get crazy hyperinflation i will not be buying until we hit the 'realisation' sector of the proerty cycle, starting autumn and grinding folk through 2010.

Just ask yourself - if a proerty in HG was worth 110 in 2001 why pay 180k+ in the current climate, is the economy better or worse of then or now?

Anyway bask in fact you sold this year! Where abouts did you sell?

PS have got Property Bee on the go and it doesn't seem to keep track of property - tends to list the majority of HG searches as new listings even though i had looked last week.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Brave New World

[jaspers]

Hi,

We're based in Harrogate. We sold in January, have rented since, with a view to looking at the housing dip. However in the last *2* weeks we've noticed that the few properties we've had a nosey at, have gone within a couple of days. It's as if it's gone crazy buying again.

Has anyone noticed this in Harrogate or elsewhere around? I was really looking forward to an ongoing decrease but it seems to have reached a point of inflexion.

I'm hoping it'a temporary blip in demand...

Stu

Err, you're talking about Harrogate North Yorkshire right? I've seen no 'crazy buying', just houses returning back for sale after previously advertised SSTC. Maybe the views different when you're looking out of a window on Albert Street.......

[stu531]

Are these STC or completed?

Big, big difference nowadays.

Hang tight fella, it is not as if the economy has changed! Just the amount of ramping and spin which is conning unfortunate people into potential negative equity traps.

We have STR'd and her indoors is getting itchy feet but unless we get crazy hyperinflation i will not be buying until we hit the 'realisation' sector of the proerty cycle, starting autumn and grinding folk through 2010.

Just ask yourself - if a proerty in HG was worth 110 in 2001 why pay 180k+ in the current climate, is the economy better or worse of then or now?

Anyway bask in fact you sold this year! Where abouts did you sell?

PS have got Property Bee on the go and it doesn't seem to keep track of property - tends to list the majority of HG searches as new listings even though i had looked last week.

Cheers mate. Sold our end-terrace just off Knaresborough Road we'd been in for a couple of years. Took a small hit on it, but reckon that the next house will at least have dropped by that amount - in fact they already have. We were lucky to sell but, just as you say, my better half is getting understandably itchy feet. But we are hanging on - just that I didn't like seeing sales going ahead in the area.

I do use Property Bee - have tried to keep up looking, but I guess the service relies on folk actively using it to search in order to build up the database.

George FTB - seriously there are some sales going on - search on Rightmove in Harrogate for new houses in last so-many days and add 'STC' flag on. Sales are happening on a number of them, though I would qualify that with what BNW says about STC vs. actual completions.

[jaspers]

Cheers mate. Sold our end-terrace just off Knaresborough Road we'd been in for a couple of years. Took a small hit on it, but reckon that the next house will at least have dropped by that amount - in fact they already have. We were lucky to sell but, just as you say, my better half is getting understandably itchy feet. But we are hanging on - just that I didn't like seeing sales going ahead in the area.

I do use Property Bee - have tried to keep up looking, but I guess the service relies on folk actively using it to search in order to build up the database.

George FTB - seriously there are some sales going on - search on Rightmove in Harrogate for new houses in last so-many days and add 'STC' flag on. Sales are happening on a number of them, though I would qualify that with what BNW says about STC vs. actual completions.

Of course houses are selling, but I don't see any signs of 'crazy buying' either, there will always be turnover. It's this turnover at reduced volumes and prices that's setting current market value. Use 'houseprices.co.uk' to check LR data as it comes in..

[the flying pig]

a couple of things strike me about the harrogate 'market', from looking at property bee:

(1) it's incredibly moribund - i'm looking at places in both london and harrogate and the average amount of time that harrogate places have been on the market for is several months higher in harrogate; and

(2) the discounts that people have been applying to initial selling prices in harrogate to 'tempt' buyers in are laughably low... in london there are lots of places that still look way overpriced but have had reasonably meaty discounts applied to selling price in the 10-20% range... but in harrogate there are some ludicrously tiny discounts, e.g. 1.6% on a place that's been on sale for about 3 months, 2.1% on a place that's been on sale for about 4 months, 2.4% on a place that was put up for sale nearly a year ago... very few double-digit cuts indeed... do vendors really think that these miniscule cuts will have buyers beating a path to their door? maybe it's true what they say about yorkshire people being mean [although i very much doubt that holding on will do these idiot would-be sellers any favours in the long run]

Edited May 3, 2009 by the flying pig

[tomwatkins]

yeah, i mean, harrogate is nice and harrogate is expensive, always has been in my lifetime, probably always will be. normal people on normal wages [without help from the bank of mummy and daddy or 'the inheritance'] can't live in the nicest areas and never will be able to be. these are facts that, i think, most people are comfortable with.

but these sorts of arguments can't, of course, be used to justify any prices, e.g. no-one would take me seriously if i said, "oh yeah, a three bedroomed shitheap on st andrews avenue is worth half a million quid because it's only a mile and a half from betty's tea shoppe"... i'd blatantly be lying if i said this... and i half suspect that many harrogate prices have reached a kind of topping point that, with hindsight, will be seen to be only marginally less ridiculous than my straw man set out above...

we'll see.

I partly agree with what you are saying-some parts of the country never appear to change. But remember this will be the shake out of all shake outs. It just takes a couple of desperate sellers (and they WILL arrive sooner or later) and that's now the price give or take a little. You will always get the inherited property, ones who don't "need" to sell but sooner or later the price will revert to the mean (even if it's still above the average for the rest of the country). JMHO.

[Brave New World]

I partly agree with what you are saying-some parts of the country never appear to change. But remember this will be the shake out of all shake outs. It just takes a couple of desperate sellers (and they WILL arrive sooner or later) and that's now the price give or take a little. You will always get the inherited property, ones who don't "need" to sell but sooner or later the price will revert to the mean (even if it's still above the average for the rest of the country). JMHO.

I was trying to make this point yesterday to friends, they seem to think Harrogate will be immune & now is a great time to buy . I have to watch it as folk do not really want to hear it!

Circumstance will mean that folk will always have to sell, once IRs go up it will force more people's finances - reality will dawn.

However, in my area of the market £250-160k i am seeing price drops of 10-15% on property bee, these are nice places and they are still hanging around the market - unheard of 18 months ago. Times are a changing.

[tomwatkins]

I was trying to make this point yesterday to friends, they seem to think Harrogate will be immune & now is a great time to buy . I have to watch it as folk do not really want to hear it!

Circumstance will mean that folk will always have to sell, once IRs go up it will force more people's finances - reality will dawn.

However, in my area of the market £250-160k i am seeing price drops of 10-15% on property bee, these are nice places and they are still hanging around the market - unheard of 18 months ago. Times are a changing.

I posted this on another thread. My daughter is a qualified accountant. Lives in Manchester. Salary 35K -credit very good. Just bought an apartment for 116K. Had to find 15% deposit (guess where that came from?). She honesly struggled to get a mortgage for the rest (less than 3X salary). Now let me see-average salary in the UK 25K (that's TOPS IMHO)-wages falling. Therefore average house prices still 30-40% overpriced. The forecasters can spin it all they like but those are the facts. Repo cash buyers only have so much money and once that sector cools off then watch out below.

"A son is a son till he gets him a wife, but a daughter's a daughter for all of her life". Too true unfortunately. LOL-Hey I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Brave New World]

I posted this on another thread. My daughter is a qualified accountant. Lives in Manchester. Salary 35K -credit very good. Just bought an apartment for 116K. Had to find 15% deposit (guess where that came from?). She honesly struggled to get a mortgage for the rest (less than 3X salary). Now let me see-average salary in the UK 25K (that's TOPS IMHO)-wages falling. Therefore average house prices still 30-40% overpriced. The forecasters can spin it all they like but those are the facts. Repo cash buyers only have so much money and once that sector cools off then watch out below.

"A son is a son till he gets him a wife, but a daughter's a daughter for all of her life". Too true unfortunately. LOL-Hey I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh how I would give my right gonad for some help from the bank of mum and dad. I hope she appreciates it – many of my peers see it as a natural right, oh the jealousy!

Anyone predicting a stall and bottom is foolhardy – but then that is the jist of most people who are not inclined to go foraging for their economic news. Most hear snippets on Radio 1, bit of BBC, front page of the Daily Express – whose housing market news seems in isolation in ignoring the awful bleak macro economic situation when ramping green shoots. One of my friends was merrily saying that mortgage approvals are up, which they are but it is like a boxer who has been sparked out lifting his head slightly from the canvas. Yes they are up but not when looking at the bigger picture of where approvals have been for the last 5 years.

It is scary though how people are tricked by this spin, another girl in the same group of friends has just rented out her house in Starbeck and brought a new build – this was seen as the totem of good sense!!!! I asked why she didn’t sell her old house, highlighting the potential problems with the rental market, she apparently just wanted to get into a new house asap!

You have to have other people’s money (ie mummys in this case) to make such rash and impulsive decisions, the trait of the 20 something.

Harrogate will take longer to fall but fall it will.

[bunn123]

Agree Harrogate and the rest of the golden triangle will fall.

[tomwatkins]

Oh how I would give my right gonad for some help from the bank of mum and dad. I hope she appreciates it – many of my peers see it as a natural right, oh the jealousy!

Anyone predicting a stall and bottom is foolhardy – but then that is the jist of most people who are not inclined to go foraging for their economic news. Most hear snippets on Radio 1, bit of BBC, front page of the Daily Express – whose housing market news seems in isolation in ignoring the awful bleak macro economic situation when ramping green shoots. One of my friends was merrily saying that mortgage approvals are up, which they are but it is like a boxer who has been sparked out lifting his head slightly from the canvas. Yes they are up but not when looking at the bigger picture of where approvals have been for the last 5 years.

It is scary though how people are tricked by this spin, another girl in the same group of friends has just rented out her house in Starbeck and brought a new build – this was seen as the totem of good sense!!!! I asked why she didn’t sell her old house, highlighting the potential problems with the rental market, she apparently just wanted to get into a new house asap!

You have to have other people’s money (ie mummys in this case) to make such rash and impulsive decisions, the trait of the 20 something.

Harrogate will take longer to fall but fall it will.

You know-in fairness she wanted to make me a legal 15% stakeholder. I didn't want to say that my view on the market is that my stake would probably buy me a Big Mac when they come to sell LOL. Don't worry-keep you powder dry if you are waiting to buy-cash is king now and in a few months it will be The Supreme Ruler.

[Brave New World]

Here are a couple of good examples that will test the market, all on the favourable South side of town

House 1 is a token of how far the market has risen. Nicely turned out but an absolute rip off considering these houses going for £100k in 2001!!!!!!!

House 1

House 2 next road down to first house, not as insane price but still silly money, house prices circa 2000 going rate was 60-80k!

House 2

It would be interesting to see how and why these owners could justify the massive price increases in a depression! Bet they must have very confident agents!

Feel free anyone else to add Hazzer houses that could be used as a good yardstick for price watching.

Update

After tinkering with changing the description (!!!), price drop for the crazily priced terrace....Oh and a few new shots....that'll work

230k to 220k

New Price

Maybe watching Merryn has got them thinking.

Edited May 13, 2009 by Brave New World

[the flying pig]

Update

After tinkering with changing the description (!!!), price drop for the crazily priced terrace....Oh and a few new shots....that'll work

230k to 220k

New Price

Maybe watching Merryn has got them thinking.

ten grand off, eh? a wopping two and a bit percent. that'll have buyers beating a path to their door.

how long has it been for sale at £230k for?

i would guess the best imaginable case for the vendor is that they manage to sell for a little under £200k. and i wouldn't say that £150k was even close to representing outstanding value for that place. that area is far nicer than most of the other cheaper areas in harrogate, and is reasonably near to town & hornbeam park... but we're talking about a small, simple, terraced house, with no garden to speak of, in an unspectacular area - a genuine FTB abode or that of a person on a modest wage. a price of 7-8 times the average wage is not sustainable.

Edited May 13, 2009 by the flying pig

[Brave New World]

ten grand off, eh? a wopping two and a bit percent. that'll have buyers beating a path to their door.

how long has it been for sale at £230k for?

i would guess the best imaginable case for the vendor is that they manage to sell for a little under £200k. and i wouldn't say that £150k was even close to representing outstanding value for that place. that area is far nicer than most of the other cheaper areas in harrogate, and is reasonably near to town & hornbeam park... but we're talking about a small, simple, terraced house, with no garden to speak of, in an unspectacular area - a genuine FTB abode or that of a person on a modest wage. a price of 7-8 times the average wage is not sustainable.

Has been on since January this year.

Peanuts, denialist price drop. The max sale on the road - £220k last September (bet they are happy!) - so still a completely barmy price.

You valuation is spot on - 120-140k is about right, would pay that next autumn for it.

In 2001 properties were going for 90-105k - that is value.

[Brave New World]

Much against my advice, I have given up for fear of spoiling a good friendship, someone I know is buying a place on Hay-a-park round the back of Knaresborough – Barratt….arrrgh…….New build…..arrrgh.

Was round that way and took a drive around and it is laughable what they are getting for £375k

http://www.smartnewhomes.com/property/Deta..._Yorkshire.aspx

Having seen the development myself it is awful, a wall of windows and bricks everywhere, half finished roads, scuzzy looking terrace new builds that will have the look of housing association in a few years of wear. It is not even in a nice part of Knaresborough – why anyone would move there from close to the stray – well maybe beside the river but it is craziness but then they have FTB goggles on.

I have told him not to buy now, they say they cannot wait as he wants to go self employed and she has started up a café cum spray tan place. I can imagine them having circa 75k for a deposit but that still leaves a hell of a lot of money to finance with IRs uncertain and on a new build.

Does anyone else know this development???

[Celestemmcknight]

Hi

I dont know but we have ots of members in Harrogate who may well know the answer ill ask around for you

Or perhaps you would like to come along to our Breakfast network meeting on friday 12th June?

We also have a free networking lunch on 22nd June in Ripon if youd like to come along to that too?

[bunn123]

Hi

I think the development is Persimmon homes not Barretts but same sort of shoe boxes. There are a number of affordable homes( social housing) on the site near the top end towards half penny lane. You have to get to the social housing via the detached houses. There was a rumour that the houses that they were struggling to sell were sold off to a housing association. The rumour came from a guy who worked for Persimmon,so could be true.

Hope this helps.

[stu531]

Yep.... this is a set of new houses to the north of the town, between the railway line and Halfpenny Lane. They've not sold so quickly - although ironically one of them was sold to someone I know of involved in the finance industry - apparently negotiated an amazing deal. If you're considering this area, make sure you put in a completely derisory offer. Like, 30% off for a start.

If you've got kids....King James School in Knaresborough is good; the nearest primary to this is Meadowside, although if you can get into Aspin, so much the better.

[the flying pig]

My father isn't necessarily the brightest and certainly not the best educated person ever but said something very sensible over the weekend about the Harrogate Advertiser.

Completely without prompting from me since I don't ever overdo the HPC stuff with him, talking about recent news on an upturn in house prices [something that my mother was and is desperate to believe in] he said, in more or less exactly the following words: "Harrogate Advertiser, at least they're honest about the name... it's actually the estate agents who write the articles most of the time, I try not to read that rubbish too often but almost every time I've read an article about property in it, even over the last couple of years when nothing has been selling at all, it's been written by some estate agent telling me that there's never been a better time to buy and that a really big recovery is just around the corner. SO why should I believe it now? It's like the boy who cried wolf, why should we believe them this time?... there's still plenty of houses round our way that have been on sale for a year or something daft".

I wonder how many others have woken up to these sorts of truths?

Edited July 3, 2009 by the flying pig

[mangochutney]

How is the rental market in Harrogate?

I'm hoping to move there in a couple of months time and looking for a 1bed flat (or small house maybe) to rent at the lower end of the scale. I've been looking at rightmove and was wondering if flats get let for less for the rental asking price if you make them an offer at the moment.?

The letting agency fees and deposits seem to be particularly excessive in my opinion - more so than in Manchester but I expect no room for negotiation there. It would be good to rent from a landlord directly if possible. Do they advertise their wares in the local paper?

[stu531]

Mangochutney - The best way of renting around Harrogate is to keep your eyes peeled locally. If you're looking at a 1 bedroom flat or small house you're best looking around local newsagents, or in the local paper. We've been renting from one of the larger agencies, and the amount of red tape/contract size is pretty huge - something that you don't need. But you should be able to get something - there are a fair few TO LET signs around the place, so I wouldn't worry about it. And you can argue them down a bit.

Flying Pig - if you look at the Advertiser I completely agree with you. The property section has got the usual bumph on it about how Harrogate is different from everywhere else.

Having said that.... I am amazed at how much property has sold in Harrogate over the last 4 months. It seems to be defying the trend. Houses that were up for sale have suddenly started to disappear. Personally, I think it's because very few houses are actually going up for sale in Harrogate; it's its own local market place. This is particularly true in the 250-400k sector; I'm monitoring it closely and we're still at houses selling within a day of them coming on the market. And I'm personally quite disappointed in that, because I'm hoping to buy when it settles down. Unfortunately there's not much sign of it.

[mangochutney]

Thankyou stu

[stu531]

Well, I am getting a bit fed up of the situation around Harrogate. Houses that have been on the market for a long while (>1 yr) are now starting to sell due to the severe lack of houses on the market - particularly around the 250-350k mark. It's that 3/4 bedroom family house in a nice area thing - there just aren't many in Harrogate around.

Given that mortgage rates are going to go up, I don't think even that will have a big bearing on the market. There are a lot of cash buyers around the place. Time to consider moving out of town, I think .

[refugee]

Well, I am getting a bit fed up of the situation around Harrogate. Houses that have been on the market for a long while (>1 yr) are now starting to sell due to the severe lack of houses on the market - particularly around the 250-350k mark. It's that 3/4 bedroom family house in a nice area thing - there just aren't many in Harrogate around.

Given that mortgage rates are going to go up, I don't think even that will have a big bearing on the market. There are a lot of cash buyers around the place. Time to consider moving out of town, I think .

There's not much point in trying out of town either. I live west of town and so much stuff has sold recently. Places I've been watching have gradually been sold. It's depressing but true. The spouse is scraping the barrel now, she's even considering Otley and parts of Keighley, yuck!

[the flying pig]

...Houses that have been on the market for a long while (>1 yr) are now starting to sell...

Not in my experience.

...It's that 3/4 bedroom family house in a nice area thing - there just aren't many in Harrogate around...

I don't know what you're talking about - nearly all aeras in Harrogate are relatively "nice", and outside of the very centre of town the vast majority of housing is 3+ bedroom housing rather than flats. Maybe you're getting it confused with Chapeltown or something?

...Given that mortgage rates are going to go up, I don't think even that will have a big bearing on the market. There are a lot of cash buyers around the place. Time to consider moving out of town, I think .

Maybe you could try Wetherby, I hears that one of the estate agents closed down there, might be an opening for a new one?