Housing Market... THe Future?

[TiG]

Well i'm in the unenvyiable position of being 25 in rented accomodation and seeing house prices at stupid levels... - what is is 6 times peoples average salary at least for the High Wycombe part of the world...

The problem is as always is a question of timing, Crystal ball time would be nice to know.....

Are house prices going to crash?, if so when, interest rates keep going up, when they going to stop?.

Everyone's got their opinion but its a important decision to make as it affects my financial stability for the rest of my life heh..

Peoples views, where is it going?

TiG

[Skii]

I find it very difficult to be anything other than completely negative about the whole situation to be honest Tig, basically myself and my fiancee 'missed the boat' many years ago due to us simply not having enough of a combined salary + deposit to afford a mortgage, now the situation has escalated to the extent that the prospect of ever owning our own place has now completely dissappeared.

Sucks doesn't it

[Lee H]

join the club folks

25 and at the present time myself and a friend are living together and its a good job he's on a 1/2 decent wage to be able to afford a morgage.

However, at the present time, his morgage has rose an extra 100 pounds a month, since we moved in on October last year. We've evaluated the situation and if another interest rate occurs and the morgages raise again then we will be struggling at best to afford the morgage and the rest of the bills on a monthly basis.

Why can't the government help with building cheaper houses at fixed rate morgages for people in low income jobs as I'm sure not many people get rises each year which cover these immense increases.

I've already spoken to my mother and if worse comes to the worse I'll be moving back home. Just what every 25 year old wants really. To be living with their parents and not having a batchelor pad

[Zak33]

and on the opposite end, I got lucky and brought my first when I was 19 and my second when I was 24.

Will it crash...I hope so. Even as a home owner, its too high. Dont care what mine's worth....what I want is still more.

Interest hikes in the 1/4 % are not slowing it MUCH but it has slowed a fraction. Reading and Surrounding area was on the news last week and the average has fallen by 1% last month. But that could be apathy, cos the weather is cack, people are on Summer Hols and dont think about moving, so no house bids.

Average job security is getting bad. Big corporations are dumping staff, and treating others quite badly, SO I think consumer confidence is lower than for about 3 years.

HOWEVER, luxury items are dead cheap...PC's, Electrical Goods, Eating out, designer clothes...that is getting VERY CHEAP and I know people still have disposable income, cos the shop tills are qued with people buying bargains...but ONLY bargains. Big expensive things sell slowly...last years cast off's are selling cheap.

So what needs to happen is an electric shock....a kick in the balls to the housing market...an increase in mortgages that SCARES people. 3/4 % increase would do that. But the Government wont, becuase business will topple.

Should you buy? Yeah..you should...but buy what you want to KEEP. A home. Not a place you will wanna leave in 2 years. So if the market DOES crash and your equity is low, you dont care because it is your house. You live there. You dont wanna move.

IF you can get a good deposit AND a mortgage where you can pay in more when you have it, you can buy with the confidence that over a 8-10 year period it WILL go up, cos life gets more expensive over a decade.

Fixed rates? Questionable. I feel we should all ride the tide of varying interest. I had a fixed and got tied in...bad choice.

In my opinion, £150k-£180k gets the pick of the best at the mo

[iMc]

How much is a deposit on an average sized mortgage nowadays?

It's looking increasingly unlikely that I'll be able to afford my own place in the next 5-10 years once I leave Uni.

[Moby-Dick]

BUt to be able to Afford a 150k house , you will need to be in the 45-50k wage bracket , which I'm well on the way to , but I have a feeling i'm in the minority ?

[TiG]

Houses i'm looking at just north of Slough cost £160K, i'm lucky enough to be on 30K a year, but we're talking that really maximum i can get on mortgage is around £130K (just over 4* salary) which is not too bad, (standard is to loan no more than 3.5* single salary as a rule)

But i've got a reasonable desposit so if i did really find a nice house i'd probably be able to work together the rest, but it would basically clean me out..

But my hope is that interest rates keep rising, i'd rather pass less for the house and more through interest?, false economy?, well no, you are much less likely to be repossesed on a £120K mortgage with high interest rates than £160K. THe cost of a
1% rise is less.

The thing that really brings it home for me is that on around £120K mortgage a single % point rise in interest adds around £80 a month increase!.

so goes from £770 (at 5.5%) to £850 (at 6.5%) to £930 (at 7.5%) and.....

11.5% is a HUGE £1240!!!! a month, nearly double the original rate!!!!....

Don't know about you but those figures scare the living daylights out of me.... And i'd definitely go Offset mortgage if i can, lower interest rate than most fix rates, very low charges....

TiG

[Rave]

Right, well I reckon that the fact that house prices have continued to rise in nearly all areas of the country despite repeated interest rate rises means that a crash is getting more and more likely. Typically, I've just been told that my job won't exist in a years time- bloody Brown and his civil service cuts.

I got well wound up about this a few months ago, but now I've just decided to stop worrying and see what happens. Even if the wheels totally fall off and I can't afford my (very expensive) rent any more, my wife and I could always move in with my Mum (who owns her house outright). At the moment I struggle a bit for money but that doesn't affect my life much, it just means I have to run a softmodded 9500 rather than an X800 (for example). When my job moves I'm probably not going to relocate with it, I'm going to have a complete career change and become a plumber. In the long term, over 5-10 years, the government will eventually get off their backsides and start building lots more affordable houses.

And remember folks- the tories did this to us. Always keep that in mind.

Rich :¬)

[Eddy396]

And remember folks- the tories did this to us. Always keep that in mind.

Rich :¬)

Hu? I thought Labour inherited a good Economy and are going round completely screwing it up. Any way thats politics and I dont like political arrguments tbh.

I feel sorry for first time buys they are getting screwed. I am trying to move at the moment, mine is a first time buyer property and i'm struggling to sell it at the asking price. The problem i've got is that prices are so high I dont want to drop the price otherwise I wont be able to geta better house so there is no point in moving if the right price dont come in

I feel the whole ecomomy is on a knife edge at the moment and it could go either way. So im not going to move house and fine I cant keep the mortgage payments up in 12 months time. This isn't the BOE's fault imo a high hike in interest rates would make manufacturing extict in this country and would spark a economic collapse. The government arn't interested and i feel they are the ones to blame. But are the government going to change this when they are getting billions of pounds in stamp duty and vat in solicitors charges. And investors buying to let should be very heavily taxed imo.

[TeePee]

Average house prices in the south east fell for the first time in June, but theye are still on the way up in the North of England and will likely to continue to rise for some time. I think the market will slow and eventually reach a more stable level, to reflect the 30 year average of about 8%. As for myself, I'm planning to move North!

[IBM]

I'd have to agree with the professionals and say that it doesn't look like a crash is on the cards...the current house prices are horrible, but if there are people out there with enough money to keep the market affloat, then it's a v.simple supply & demand market...

However, given that a four bedroom family home inside of central London in a halfway decent area comes in at just under half a million, I can't see how there can possibly be that many people with that kind of money...

I'm hoping for a crash though , or even a slump...then I'm going to get a mortage using my house as security (I own it outright, so that's a great deposit) and buy two or three luxury apartments to let. Using that a 20 year investment, using the rent to pay for the mortage repayments, I should make a killing on the property value growth. Any profit over and above my mortage repayments is just a bonus...

[mark22]

Firstly I'll have to let slip that I'm in the enviable position of being a property developer at 26. As such I have talked to a lot of people about this and do some research on things all the time. I'd guess it wont crash, slow down or stop yes, but people can still afford current prices. It's only really very cheap starter homes that were 40K a couple of years ago and 150K now that might drop a bit. If they do I'll be able to buy more though hehe.

[Skii]

Firstly I'll have to let slip that I'm in the enviable position of being a property developer at 26. As such I have talked to a lot of people about this and do some research on things all the time. I'd guess it wont crash, slow down or stop yes, but people can still afford current prices. It's only really very cheap starter homes that were 40K a couple of years ago and 150K now that might drop a bit. If they do I'll be able to buy more though hehe.

Well that helps. Thanks.

[mark22]

Well that helps. Thanks.

Quit whining. I made some usefull points.

Assuming that was sarcasm.

[Skii]

Quit whining. I made some usefull points.

Assuming that was sarcasm.

It was. Please excuse the sarcy comment, you did make useful points, but also please understand how it feels to people who have been completely priced out of the market and face the prospect of paying off other peoples mortgages for the rest of their lives.

Property developers and buy-to-let landlords have done very nicely out of the housing boom, and kudos to them, they've also shafted everyone else out the prospect of owning their own homes. well done indeed.

[mark22]

No worries, I just couldn't think of a sarcier reply.

Do what I did and find a messed up old home and do it up. Or buy at auction, that seems to be a money making area but haven't tried it. But then again that's moving in even more on other peoples misery who have gone bankrupt or whatever.

It's all a bit harsh but after uni I didn't want to work in a lab and it was just good timing.

I'm not mega rich yet or anything, still owe my loans and other things but I thought I'd jump on a seemingly good bandwagon. And it is quite satisfying to see the work you have done to transform a property into something nice. (I spend my days doing lots and lots of painting decorating and other jobs)