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After being outbid for the 4th time we're getting pretty sick of the house buying process.
Every time we've offered asking or slightly over, but every house has gone for £10k+ over asking despite prices being 10% up in a year already. 3 of those times we've lost out to cash buyers wanting to let out the property.
First time buyers so nothing to directly compare against, but well aware this isn't the norm, but there's no signs of it slowing at all in my area (Bristol).
Anyhow, rant over - how's everyone else getting on with house buying at the moment?
Was reading in the local paper that in our area (central Bristol) average property prices were up 42% in the last year. That's absolutely crazy, especially as everyone is supposed to be moving out cities into the countryside. Apparently 20% up across Bristol over that period and 10% nationally. Not a great time to be a first-time buyer.
Just got outbid, I bid 6% over, winner had ready cash, was in rented accommodation, and bid at least 10% over asking. We're now holding fire, assembling cash in the bank and probably renting pro tem. Sick of trips to the storage but pleased to be living lean. Jeez it ain't fun.
"we’ve lost out to cash buyers wanting to let out the property"
Property is increasingly becoming [much] more of a mainstream investment commodity as people seek to be property developers / 'get into real estate' so they can 'leave the rat race'. A LOT of people are following the advice of samuel leeds etc
As a hopeful first time homebuyer in ~2023 I'm not particularly looking forward to this bidding battle. I'm priced out of Hertfordshire, but I'm actually quite looking forward to moving more rural i.e. bedfordshire/cambridgeshire.
Housing really shouldn't be an investment vehicle at all 😡
My daughter is trying to buy in Bristol. Her experience is much the same as yours. Put in a bid of the asking price, get told there are 10 or more bids and please can she submit a BAFO on Monday. Offer 380k on a house that was for sale for 350k, and get told that the winning bid was 396k. Yeah, it sucks to be trying to buy in Bristol right now.
I’m considering building a 2nd extension rather than move house..
With interest rates as they currently are, it's not really surprising that people with some spare cash are investing in property. Something needs doing with it sooner rather than later
Around here stuff is going for well over asking and selling in days.
Housing really shouldn’t be an investment vehicle at all
Well in reality there is a need for rental accommodation and in a normal healthy market the competition between rental and buying kind of balances itself out. The problem at the moment is money is dirt cheap...If you have some there is no point sticking it in a bank account earning nothing. And investing in property is going to give you bigger returns than other investment options when you take risk into account, so stick what capital you have in property and borrow the rest on a near as damn it interest free mortgage. Then throw into the mix a lack of housing stock and supply and you have a perfect storm.
£380k for Bristol, have Chinese investors suddenly moved in and started hyping it on TikTok 😂😂
May as well move to London, everyone is trying to escape here.
Bristol has been like this for years. We’ve brought twice in the last 10 years and had to “downgrade” our neighbourhood expectation three/four tiers each time.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">
e.g. Think we can afford St Andrews (nice). Then try Bishopston (up and coming). Then Southville (fashionable and the worst for being outbid), end up in Totterdown (grotty).</span>
Of course what happens is that Totterdown ended up being the new Southville so when we sold we did alright. Now we’re in Knowle (not the s****y bit but not the awful bit either), which we were NOT expecting but it’s amazing.
Bargains to be had just south of Broadwalk I reckon.
£380k for Bristol, have Chinese investors suddenly moved in and started hyping it on TikTok
That's pretty much the the average house price in Bristol (£360k). It's one of the most expensive places to live. Can see how it would be a good investment though.
£380k for Bristol
Gets you a 2 up 2 down terraced house with a small back yard.
I feel your pain, listening to friends who are going through the same. We have only ever bought 2 properties in our lifetime, first was our flat and the other one is the house we are still in. Both were new builds as we just could not face the whole bidding wars.
My experience is a little better, outbid by £10k on the first, second Offered £10k over, accepted then, after I'd spent £1k on survey and searches, their purchase fell through and they took it off the market. Onto third one now, offer accepted at asking price, things seem to mbe moving but I've got a squeeky bum that I've bought at the tippity top of the market. Ho hum, whatever happens I know I'm very much still in a lucky position.
Housing really shouldn’t be an investment vehicle at all
Agreed, but what are you going to invest in when ISA's are paying less than 0.5% which means you are technically becoming poorer by leaving cash in savings accounts? crypto? 😉
Lots of folk buying holiday homes and pricing locals out of the housing market.
£380k for Bristol
Gets you a 2 up 2 down terraced house with a small back yard.
Move?
I bought more than twice that for less than half that last year.
I sold my old place for £60k. It was on the market for 65, offers were coming in at 50.
Do you need to be in one of the most expensive areas in the country? If you're working from home you can do that anywhere.
Move?
I bought more than twice that for less than half that last year.
It goes both ways. That £380k house will likely be worth £700-800k in ten years. You get to live somewhere nice and it's making money for you. My house makes more money than I do *. It's utterly ridiculous but it is happening so you are better off in than out.
* Obviously not real money but it'll get cashed in one day
Rent for a year, save £10/20/30k? I wouldn't be stretching to buy just now, when house prices stabilise you could be stuck with lower equity and a disproportionate mortgage for a long long time.
I own a house which I let out. Everytime it comes up for rental I’ve got to make a choice between 4 to 6 renters who want it. More often than not somebody is in tears because they didn’t get it.
So I’d say there needs to be more buy to let properties or maybe we need to do something about the shitty neighbours in areas not even a mile away where you could buy a better home for about 70% of the cost of a months rent in the nice area.
Or maybe knock some rubbish homes down and build some better ones that actually have space to live in.
That’s pretty much the the average house price in Bristol (£360k). It’s one of the most expensive places to live.
I believe it's now over £600k average here (Winchester). So plenty more headroom to go in Bristol....
Which does lead to the question
Move?
I bought more than twice that for less than half that last year.
Well, obviously it occurs to most people, doesn't it? I mean, it isn't hard to put your house value into Rightmove to see if you could buy a farm estate 200 miles away. So why not? If you want my honest answer personally, it's this: I'm from here.
The whole UK housing market is totally crackers and basically works to concentrate money into the hands of the older and better off.
I have a small one bed and a decent sized one / two bed ( mortgage free). I could rent them both out long term for less than the market rent, use that rental to finance a loan that would buy me a £400 000 house and still be making hundreds every month. thats an absurd situation
When I moved to Edinburgh as a nurse my flat cost 2.5 times my annual income. Its now worth 10 times the annual income of the same grade nurse
No government will get to grips with this as they need the votes from those older affluent people
But its totally dysfunctional and how young folk today can get anywhere to buy property in a city like Edinburgh I do not know.
Two public servants working together and living together could maybe buy an ex council flat in the city. No chance of a decent tenement let alone a house with garden
the flat I do let out last time it came up for rental I advertised it on gumtree one morning. I had 20 enquiries in 24 hours and had let it by the end of that 24 hours - and thats at what is while under the market rent an absurd amount for a small flat
A one bed flat next door to a property I own and rent out in Redland (Bristol) is on the market for £310k and will probably have offers over asking price. Where I live (Bishopston) small 2 bed terraces are going for well over £400k - even 5 years ago when I bought my 2 bed I had to bid £20k over asking price as a cash buyer and still wasn't the highest bidder - fortunately the highest bidder couldn't get a mortgage so I got the property. Bristol, which has always been stupidly expensive, is getting even worse as lots of Londoners see it as the ideal place to move to which is pushing prices even higher.
It goes both ways. That £380k house will likely be worth £700-800k in ten years.
As will everyone else's.
If you want my honest answer personally, it’s this: I’m from here.
I get that, I feel the same way. I wouldn't want to live much further away from where I am now either, it felt weird recently moving 5-10 miles down the road from my family home of 40 years. But if you could move and you're choosing not to then you've just shifted the problem from practical and financial to sentimentality and stubbornness. If your family is WFH then you could live in the Outer Hebrides or Jersey or Birmingham or California or Florida or (gods help you) Yorkshire or the Moon or Tonbridge Wells. Perhaps not the moon.
If 'not needing to be in an office' becomes the long-term new norm I would be astonished if property prices didn't significantly normalise across the country in the next decade.
it isn’t hard to put your house value into Rightmove to see if you could buy a farm estate 200 miles away. So why not?
If I could actually do that, I'd be hiring a Luton tranny tomorrow.
That sounded wrong, didn't it.
I was very lucky. I'd been renting for 10 years or so, thinking I had no chance of buying locally in hertfordshire, other than a flat, and I didn't want to live in a flat.
I started looking in norwich instead, and got a mortgage organised, then one day on a boring teams meeting at work, I looked at a local estate agent and they had a 2 bed house with garden, just within my affordability range and 10 mins drive from where I was living.
I put the offer in and moved in this spring.
Housing affordability will be the number 1 issue for the next 2 or 3 elections I think.
As will everyone else’s
I suspect your old £60k house won't. As has been mentioned you can buy a very nice rural property with less money but you still need some money and the growth from these overpriced areas can provide it. Lots of Grand Designs builds are funded by people selling their London house.
I would be astonished if property prices didn’t significantly normalise across the country in the next decade.
An interesting point. There's been a lot if talk about levelling up recently. That will likely include higher house prices.
I would be astonished if property prices didn’t significantly normalise across the country in the next decade.
depends what yu mean by normalise
It would be massive market correction to mean my flat that 25 years ago was worth 2.5 times a nurses salery and is now worth 10 times a nurses salery. It would mean a drop in value of 75%
Yes London is growing more slowly than the rest of the country. But the Levelling Up agenda - if it only leads to higher house prices, but not actual jobs - could serve to undermine the Tory's Red Wall strategy by building up local resentment as locals are priced out of local housing.
I suspect the main casaulty of this recent house price growth will be flats, which along with the cladding issues and management fees, will decline in popularity over the longer term.
And in a year's time we will see plenty of articles along the lines of, "I regret moving to the countryside now."
The problem is a housing shortage, couple this with cheap capital and concentration of work in certain geographies and you are in an upward spiral of price increases. The consequence is that housing costs Hoover up every spare penny of incone.
This is bad for both people and the economy + it concentrates wealth into property which is never released.
The only way to solve the problem is to build massive numbers of houses - but awarding planning permission for big new developments is politically very unpopular. The Tories just bottled the issue on housing targets after pressure from MPs, councillors and voters in their home counties heartlands.
Rent for a year, save £10/20/30k?
Unlikely, given salaries and rental values..
I keep banging on on here but until a huge amount of affordable social housing is built that will remain in public ownership, our housing market is screwed, our benefits system is screwed, and a lot of vulnerable people will be unable to put down the roots to ensure decent opportunities for education and jobs. The investment now would take a generation to pay back in savings to the public purse, so no government will do that, obviously
It's been crackers most of my working life with only the period 1990-1999 when it settled down (many faced negative equity for a while).
Pre 2007/8 interest rates kept them in check (a bit), but since then money has been cheap for those with assets/income and the number of properties vs demand has never kept up - consequently prices rise.
It's very location specific as flats in the block (centre of Hull) I sold in 1987 are only going for 3 times what I sold it for, so in 'mortgage' terms it's now cheaper per month (we had 10% interest rates). Whereas the house we had in Buckinghamshire now costs 3 times what we paid in 2001, and while wages have increased big-time since 1987 they haven't really shifted since 2001 (except for the very bottom/Minimum Wage).
I moved from West Lothian to Innerleithen. Sold our own house in a matter of days for 20% over asking...should have known it would be tough. First house we bid on was offers over 235, we offered 250 and were the lowest of 7. It sold for 310! Second one we went almost 20% over and were 2nd of 11. Other houses we liked were gone before we'd even had a chance to view. It's pretty crazy! In the end we got a double upper flat for sensible money. I think the fact that it's a flat put off a lot of the family buyers, but it's worked out great for us. I wonder if the people who paid 65k+ over asking on a 3 bed bungalow will ever see that back, perhaps they don't care!
People have caught a strong dose of Fear of Missing Out and that is undoubtedly making them over-bid, whipped up by Estate Agents.
It's crazy when you think about it - when would you normally bid 20percent over an asking price!
I suspect the market is in the overheated stage now and will cool down over the next two years.
Psychology of lockdown was also a huge factor in this rally - people were bored/anxious, so spent their time on RightMove, then property viewing was the only thing you were allowed to do during the lockdowns. The Race for Space and need for a Zoom room are howevever longer terms trends that were happening anyhow with the rise of WFH but Covid has accelerated the trend massively.
YouTube video by Dominic Frisby explaining high house prices and why it will never change:
We are in Nottingham.
Put an offer in and had it accepted in October last year.
The sellers took 8 months to find somewhere they wanted to move to.
I'd lost faith after 3 months and we looked at loads of other places, got out bid on some and disagreed on others.
The sellers put it back on the market as at 45k more than we had offered.
Then found somewhere with no chain and offered it to us, but at 20k more than the agreed price because the market had gone up!
They refused to accept what they had agreed to already and after viewing anything else we could afford we still wanted that one.
A house has sold at offers 25% more than we sold ours for, we have kept to the same price. Because that's what we agreed to.
I'm not enjoying house buying!
We completed a few months ago - we had offered the full asking price as a cash buyer before the house even went on the market. We managed to get to see the house early due to a connection at the estate agents, before they'd even taken pictures. Before that we were having no luck at all, we'd arrange viewings then the house would be gone before we even got to see it. This is in S Cumbria.
Seems like it's got significantly worse since then, I never imagined at that point people would be offering significantly over the asking price.
Then found somewhere with no chain and offered it to us, but at 20k more than the agreed price because the market had gone up!
They refused to accept what they had agreed to already
This would make me furious!
It's as difficult for first time buyers as it ever has been. A few pockets in other parts of the UK aside, once you come down into the bottom half of the country, average salary and average property price of a first time buyer makes it unaffordable to get on the martket there without a substantial deposit - bank of Mum & Dad, typically.
Bristol has been growing at a healthy rate for a long time and is something like 16th most unaffordable cities in the UK. Demand continues to outstrip supply for most parts of the country, mmaking trying to buy off-market your best bet in trying to avoid the bun fight.
Cougar I think you may be forgetting that young people value things like friends, things to do, job prospects beyond their current job. Buying in the arse end of nowhere just to make it cheap isn't really an option. Plus, whilst remote working is now more widely accepted it seems many industries are going with 50-60% office based targets, so you've got to stay within reasonable locality. I suspect the people leaving London are the main reason other cities are rocketing.
No government will get to grips with this as they need the votes from those older affluent people
are you the exception that proves the rule?
You can buy my place for asking price, nice big 4-bed detached with huge garage in a pleasant town with excellent schools on the edge of greater MCR.
Priced it high-ish on estate agent advice and I think the market is starting to cool a little for places over £300k.