TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Just metres from grimest Blackthorn. Who'd want to live in a house like that there? I'd happily live in a house like that, I wouldn't happily pay anything close to the asking price, 50% is about right considering where it is. Anyways, the madness continues: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36428066.html 4 bedroom detached house for sale£330,000 Battalion Drive, Wootton, Northampton This is the sort of 2007 asking prices we were seeing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Just metres from grimest Blackthorn. Who'd want to live in a house like that there? FWIW, admittedly it only has 4 beds, but we're renting a house not dissimilar to that, spacious, double garage, smallish-garden etc, for a mere £700 pcm. Why anyone would pay triple that is beyond me. And this is the view from our back garden: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecrashingisles Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 FWIW, admittedly it only has 4 beds, but we're renting a house not dissimilar to that, spacious, double garage, smallish-garden etc, for a mere £700 pcm. Why anyone would pay triple that is beyond me. And this is the view from our back garden: Very nice Is it in the same part of town though? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 9, 2012 Share Posted January 9, 2012 Very nice Is it in the same part of town though? heh, no, it's on the Northants/Warwickshire border. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Hey Exiges, Is this one of the houses you were keen on: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-21523404.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 (edited) Is this one of the houses you were keen on: It was one my missus was keen on, then we viewed it. It's built in someones back garden (pet hate as you know), and the house is just too small in every aspect (for our needs and for the price) Looks like it's changed EAs. This one is more compelling (albeit out of Northants) http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-16974795.html Was £1,375,000.. now £869,000.. still quite a hill of beans to be spending, but that's some £500,000 (36%) off the original asking. It's massive inside, 5000 sqft + 600sqft garage ( I know you like your square footage calculations), "wine cave", gym, cinema room, study, garden room.. and is pretty energy efficient. Only snag is there's not much in the way of a garden, and what it does have is on a slope. Edited January 10, 2012 by exiges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 This one is more compelling (albeit out of Northants) http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-16974795.html So much so, I went and viewed it today.. and I viewed this one: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-17765499.html "But", I hear you say.. "you were supposed to have exchanged last week right ?".. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 So much so, I went and viewed it today.. and I viewed this one: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-17765499.html "But", I hear you say.. "you were supposed to have exchanged last week right ?".. Are you buying two ? What happened with the exchange ? I like the windmill place. The other new build place looks nice but looks like a garden grab and not the best location for an 850K house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) A cool quarter of a million off the asking price: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29907577.html?premiumA=true 11 January 2012 * Price changed: Guide Price £1,600,000 £1,350,000 * Status changed: from 'Available' to 'Premium Listing' P.S. Is it my imagination...or are lots of sales falling through now and/or price drops...it's like there is...well....a HPC !!! Edited January 11, 2012 by TheCountOfNowhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the stig Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Blimey. You're seriously looking at ~£1,000,000 properties? All i can say is, how have you made your money, and can i have some please?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Blimey. You're seriously looking at ~£1,000,000 properties? All i can say is, how have you made your money, and can i have some please?! You seem confused....he's looking at half million pound houses that the owners are trying to sell for a million Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 (edited) What happened with the exchange ? I stalled for a day or two because I was panicking. My missus and son are in Kenya on holiday (I'm just launching a new business so I'm holding the fort). Today was D-day.. exchange or be damned, and I had pre-wedding jitters "am I doing the right thing" etc. "what else can I get".. I phoned the missus to say I was having the heeby-jeebies, but rather than freaking out at me (like usual) she said "OK, if you've seen other places, go see them then".. so I did.. I've not viewed a house alone before, it was quite liberating ! The windmill was nice, but as always they only show you the nice bits in the brochure.. and the house was a 1970s timewarp, the guy (Tom Wheatcroft, he of Donington Raceway) had spent serious money on it in the past, but his tastes hadn't kept up with everyone else. The other problem with the windmill was the windmill blades, they were HUGE, and would need constant painting and although uncanvassed I wouldn't want to be near them in the recent winds we had.. Every single room had to be gutted, purple bathroom suited, green tiles, formica, convection air heating, the lot. So it had potential, but you wouldn't want to live in it and it wasn't going to have my money.. and for the money that it'd take to do up, you could have bought a lovely £1.4m house already complete. The other one was in complete contrast, hardly any land, and all very modern inside. But the footprint of the house is relatively small but on 3 floors so there's lots crammed in.. It was very similar to the house we sold in 2008, same 5000+sqft, but with a bit more garden than we had but only just (we had about 12ft sq) dunno, it felt very claustrophobic being garden grabbed.. No wonder they didn't get £1.4m for it. And then there's the horror stories from the EA about pipes leaking under the house causing unknown and untold damage, I figured it was best to walk away. So with my morning recce out of the way, it was back to the house we had in mind.. I only had a look from the outside to make sure I was doing the right thing, called the missus to confirm, and we exchanged about 20 minutes ago. EEK ! I've officially called the top of the market, I always do, so the crash may now commence. have fun guys, thank me later. Edited January 11, 2012 by exiges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I stalled for a day or two because I was panicking. My missus and son are in Kenya on holiday (I'm just launching a new business so I'm holding the fort). Today was D-day.. exchange or be damned, and I had pre-wedding jitters "am I doing the right thing" etc. "what else can I get".. I phoned the missus to say I was having the heeby-jeebies, but rather than freaking out at me (like usual) she said "OK, if you've seen other places, go see them then".. so I did.. I've not viewed a house alone before, it was quite liberating ! The windmill was nice, but as always they only show you the nice bits in the brochure.. and the house was a 1970s timewarp, the guy (Tom Wheatcroft, he of Donington Raceway) had spent serious money on it in the past, but his tastes hadn't kept up with everyone else. The other problem with the windmill was the windmill blades, they were HUGE, and would need constant painting and although uncanvassed I wouldn't want to be near them in the recent winds we had.. Every single room had to be gutted, purple bathroom suited, green tiles, formica, convection air heating, the lot. So it had potential, but you wouldn't want to live in it and it wasn't going to have my money.. and for the money that it'd take to do up, you could have bought a lovely £1.4m house already complete. The other one was in complete contrast, hardly any land, and all very modern inside. But the footprint of the house is relatively small but on 3 floors so there's lots crammed in.. It was very similar to the house we sold in 2008, same 5000+sqft, but with a bit more garden than we had but only just (we had about 12ft sq) dunno, it felt very claustrophobic being garden grabbed.. No wonder they didn't get £1.4m for it. And then there's the horror stories from the EA about pipes leaking under the house causing unknown and untold damage, I figured it was best to walk away. So with my morning recce out of the way, it was back to the house we had in mind.. I only had a look from the outside to make sure I was doing the right thing, called the missus to confirm, and we exchanged about 20 minutes ago. EEK ! I've officially called the top of the market, I always do, so the crash may now commence. have fun guys, thank me later. Congratulations. I hope it works out well for you. I thought about going to see the new-build 5000 square foot place just out of interest but, do you know what, I think I came up with the same conclusion as you without having to view it, looks like a small footprint and 3 story houses are a big no-no as far as Im concerned, if it was a 5000 square foot bungalow + an acre of land, that would be different. Best of luck in your new place, you can start property ramping now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HouseDog Posted January 11, 2012 Author Share Posted January 11, 2012 I've officially called the top of the market, I always do, so the crash may now commence. have fun guys, thank me later. Congratulations ... Now, take a few days rest before dividing the garden up into small plots for garden grab! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Congratulations ... Now, take a few days rest before dividing the garden up into small plots for garden grab! And don't forget to try and sell the original plot/house for 100K more than you paid for it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 (edited) Congratulations. I hope it works out well for you. Best of luck in your new place, you can start property ramping now Thanks for your kind wishes guys. My expectation is we'll continue to see nominal drops, maybe 0.5% a month on average, give or take. Prices are simply unsustainable at their current level. Thing is, we've been waiting until 2008 for a decent crash and the missus is not happy living with all our stuff in storage, our son needs to have his name down for a school before September (and she doesn't want to pull him out of school to move) . And you know what happens when the missus is unhappy, you end up losing privileges, and we can't have that ! Some things are more important than getting a great deal on a house, having a happy homelife is priceless. We gave it our best shot, held out for 3yrs, but it's time to throw in the towel. Even if there are nominal drops in future, our house is losing the same value as the next house we'd be moving to.. I'd be more worried if we had a mortgage and therefore losing equity but still having an amount we had to give back to the bank back.. Then we'd be unable to trade sideways. I've done a Zoopla estimate on the house we're buying based on what they paid 15yrs ago, and we're paying less than their current estimate, plus the owners have purchased some additional land since then. (I can kid myself I'm making a shrewd move, see, delusion is setting in already !) This website is my second-home online so you haven't got rid of me yet, keep posting the stupidly overpriced Rightmove links (no, not the advert for my house !) Edited January 12, 2012 by exiges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Thanks for your kind wishes guys. My expectation is we'll continue to see nominal drops, maybe 0.5% a month on average, give or take. Prices are simply unsustainable at their current level. Thing is, we've been waiting until 2008 for a decent crash and the missus is not happy living with all our stuff in storage, our son needs to have his name down for a school before September (and she doesn't want to pull him out of school to move) . And you know what happens when the missus is unhappy, you end up losing privileges, and we can't have that ! Some things are more important than getting a great deal on a house, having a happy homelife is priceless. We gave it our best shot, held out for 3yrs, but it's time to throw in the towel. Even if there are nominal drops in future, our house is losing the same value as the next house we'd be moving to.. I'd be more worried if we had a mortgage and therefore losing equity but still having an amount we had to give back to the bank back.. Then we'd be unable to trade sideways. I've done a Zoopla estimate on the house we're buying based on what they paid 15yrs ago, and we're paying less than their current estimate, plus the owners have purchased some additional land since then. (I can kid myself I'm making a shrewd move, see, delusion is setting in already !) This website is my second-home online so you haven't got rid of me yet, keep posting the stupidly overpriced Rightmove links (no, not the advert for my house !) Can't argue with any of that. It's maybe time for us all to move on, get the best deal you can and batten down the hatches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HouseDog Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 Has anyone seen a new to market property worth viewing this year? The market seems really dead. And why do we never hear from Simon Bond anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Has anyone seen a new to market property worth viewing this year? The market seems really dead. Nope, just recycled crud from last year (as per the Count's thread) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 (edited) Has anyone seen a new to market property worth viewing this year? The market seems really dead. And why do we never hear from Simon Bond anymore? Not much going on. I'm seeing a lot of reductions and sales falling through though, which always warms my cockles. Have a look at: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36610892.html looks like a repo. Most importantly: Asking price 425,000 Floor space: 3700 sq ft Price per sq foot: £114 That's crash price, BIG TIME. Not even at auction. if I wanted to live near rushden and the location was OK. I would buy that one. That is probably the best priced house we have seen for the last 12 years, Edited January 19, 2012 by TheCountOfNowhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Asking price 425,000 Floor space: 3700 sq ft if I wanted to live near rushden and the location was OK. I would buy that one. There's a few important "ifs" there. But yes, that's alot of house for the money, compared to other stuff out there. Garden ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uptherebels Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Garden ? Never mind that. It's got a lift!! I'm in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disenfranchised Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Having not be able to find much online beyond the bullish remarks of local EA's, I thought I would try to get a handle on how over-valued my local market is at present. I decided to do this by looking at the exact type of perfectly nice but very average house I grew up in as a sprog, a 3 bed bay fronted semi in NN3. A quick raid of rightmove yields 3 up for grabs at present... http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-20348676.html Spinney Hill - £214k http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-20421723.html Westone - £195k, extended on ground floor. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36609194.html Headlands - £190k Mean average advertised price = £200k - doesn't meant they will sell, so I'll knock off 5% for 'speculative pricing' in declining market... = £190k average, a bit above the current sold price UK average, as you may well expect for a respectable well screwed together 30's-50's semi just about in commuting reach of Laaandan by train. I have attacked the issue of valuing what they SHOULD cost to buy in 3 different ways... Rent VS mortgage repayment guestimate On the basis that rental prices rise and fall more gently than house prices, and are therefore a better reflection of the true supply and demand and ability to pay - lets assume rental value is actually the true indicator of affordability! A bit of a stretch I know, but bear with me... Similar properties up for rental on rightmove: Spinney Hill - extended ground floor, £895 PCM Wellingborough Road - £850 PCM The mean of the two = £872 PCM. Paying £872 PCM on a 25 year mortgage, borrowing at 4.5% would allow you to grab £155k, lets ignore the credit crunch and assume 10% IS an acceptable deposit(!) - that values the property at about £171k today. Affordability guestimate using the HPTE ratio The long run average of house price to earnings is 4, so you can perhaps assume that this is somehow the "right" level because it is basically fairly affordable and the market seems to revert to it. I grew up in one of these houses in this area in a nuclear family of 4, the 'rents bought it as second time buyers, so I know they could afford it back then (1983). Dad probably earned slightly over average. Since the current median average income is about £25k give or take, I am going to assume the modern equivalent to what he earned back then would be about £30k now. Mum quit teaching for several years to have us, and so only worked part time in a shop when we were small - if I call this in today's money 15 hours a week for £6.50/hr, thats another £5k a year. So I banged these numbers into the HMRC random benefit calculator, with 5 & 3 year old kids (the age we were when they moved there) and got just shy of £500 a year in family tax credit to add on top, giving a grand total of about £36k income. So, for this typical lower middle class house and family, based on my own families' reality from the early 80's when the market was neither boom nor bust... £36k income above multiplied by 4 makes the house "worth" about £144k. Cost of borrowing guestimate The cost of borrowing is, of course, very low at present - this in turn makes the higher prices more affordable. Apparently, the long run average base rate is about 5%, not 0.5% - so, lets assume that this too is about "right". If I assume I have a goodly deposit and can currently get a fixed rate mortgage deal at about 3%, if the base rate was at it's average, this deal would be more like 7.5%. I went into a mortgage calculator, and worked out what the difference in repayments is at these two different rates. If we assume that a return to the longer run average cost of borrowing would precipitate a similar change in housing values due to a plummeting affordability... a massive 35% has to come off the current £190k price, giving a true value of £124k. Interestingly, this valuation also smells OK on another measure of affordability - using the allegedly "traditional" maximum of 3.5 times loan to income ratio, you'd need to earn a minimum of £32k to buy this house at 10% deposit and a minimum of £28.5k to buy it at 20% deposit - according to google, this puts it just about in reach somebody in an average respectable lower middle class profession such as Police Constable (£30k average) or a Primary School Teacher (£21-35k scale), so perhaps it doesn't actually sound too ridiculous? I expect that if I just came out and said prices were 35% over-valued, I would be branded a wally, and I also harbour some doubts we will ever quite get back to that level of affordability, certainly not quickly or without significant building to address the supply / demand situation. Summary: Firstly, I am absolutely by no means experienced or knowledgable about these things - I know virtually nothing about economics whatsoever. I'm just googling, making wild sweeping assumptions, and smashing away at a calculator, so I suspect my guestimations have many flaws. The rental based one, I think, suggests what the market correction should be in the short-term, or what the discounted price should be if you actually want to shift one of these properties. The other two are longer term predictions - I think a sharp 25-35% correction is really quite unlikely without some sort of further really significant economic turmoil precipitating it. I reckon it could ultimately be headed back towards my HPTE ratio guestimate, but probably not right down to my cost of borrowing estimate - not least because I suspect these 30's-50's houses with decent gardens in reach of ammenities and parks will not fall half as far as the horrid modern "postage stamp sized plot on a narrow cul de sac outside the ring road" equivalents... Also, given that living in these houses as a tennant in the meantime will cost 10k per annum, the fact they still look well over-priced doesn't neccisarily mean that buying one for a good discounted price in the next 12-18 months from a desperate seller is particualrly silly in the longer term? If you followed all of that without nodding off, then post up your thoughts please!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HouseDog Posted January 23, 2012 Author Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) Hi, Nice to see you here .. So my initial thought was that you'd chosen three "interestingly priced" houses! Could I suggest something similar which is a tad cheaper, where the sellers have not priced as if they were still living in 2007. Now, I think these three are still overpriced - clearly two out of three are still for sale and have been on the market for sometime. 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale £169,995 (was on before in January 2011 at £179,995) http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-21638397.html 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale £169,995 (was on before in July 2011 at £174,995) http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36609650.html or 3 bedroom semi-detached house for sale £169,995 http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-31212277.html (I think this one has sold now) I would expect these to go for 155K in the current market but in two years time that may well be 125K to 130K. Nothing much is selling at the moment. EAs are desperate for any sale. It also won't take much economic shock to bring prices tumbling down. Are you looking at sold prices http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices.html and using PropertyBee http://www.property-bee.com/ Edited January 24, 2012 by HouseDog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HouseDog Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 (edited) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-16545080 £90m Northamptonshire school sale plan criticised A county council which hoped to make £90m from the sale of redundant school sites in 2007, has so far raised less than £5m it has been revealed. When Northamptonshire middle schools were scrapped in 2007, 16 of the sites were put up for sale, but five years on only three of the sites have been sold. The Conservative-controlled council said it did not want to "flood the market" with sites. But the Lib Dem group has criticised the strategy. In 2007 Northampton changed from a three-tier to a two-tier school system - leaving some school sites redundant. At first, the council tried to sell 15 of these sites to developer Barratt Homes but the deal fell through. 'Horrendous cost' Chris Stanbra, the Liberal Democrats spokesman on finance, said the council should have sold the sites individually in 2007. He said: "When the decision was first made to sell these sites to one company we said this was the wrong thing to do. "The cost to the county council for the deal not going through has been horrendous." A spokesman for the council has defended its marketing strategy. The statement read: "The council's cabinet agreed in September 2009 to put four of the former school sites in Northampton for sale while retaining the other sites until the property market recovers. Of those four, three have now been sold. "It would not have been prudent to flood the market by making them all available at the same time. "We will continue to develop commercial strategies and pursue market opportunities to achieve best value for its assets." -------- So the council thinks that the housing market will recover! I wonder when houses will be built on the school ites the council has sold. A few thousand new houses coming to market around central Northampton would be great news. Edited January 24, 2012 by HouseDog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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