[Closed] Housing bubble.

How much longer can it last? The value of my little lease has gone up £16k in the last week and a half.

Nationwide calculator. Leatherhead.

The thing with bubbles is they have an inside and an outside.

I'm quite happy to live outside the bubble.

According to my Neighbour (who's just listed their identical house), the value of my home has increased by 32% in 18 months. When homes are in as hugely short supply as they are in my area, some poor sod may end up paying it out of desperation. This housing shortage is fueling the madness.

Nationwide calculator.

It is a bit like believing the Rightmove and Zoopla house price valuations... 😆

Nobody outside the South East (otherwise known as the Real World) gives a shit!

😛

This housing shortage is fueling the madness.

What housing shortage? Maybe getting people into the 600,00+ empty homes across the UK would help. Here in the North West there are housing developments all over the place although admittedly not many fall into the "affordable" category.

Well, I'll engage a few local Estate Agents to get a valuation, but someone on here did say that the Nationwide calculator is a lot more reliable than "Zoopla" which tends to be a bit overoptimistic...

I don't really care who gives a shit or not - I'm just interested in taking advantage of it.

The Nationwide Calculator is an index of asking prices, not sale prices - buyers making 90% offers and getting them now, whereas 10 years ago they expected to pay listing price and get gazupt so it's not always a great indicator.

As for the well-publicised housing market correction - it will come, but only when the banks are strong enough to cope with it - some large scale building projects have been given the go ahead which will effect supply in the next 6-24 months, but the BOE voted unanimously to hold rates at 0.5% for the first time in a year so it's unlikely rates will be going up anytime soon.

A good indicator of how supply can effect prices will be Cardiff - there are currently 930 houses for sale on Rightmove in the mainstream 2-4 bedrooms, £50k to £250k ranges in Cardiff, over the next 10 years they have plans to build FORTY THOUSAND new homes - increasing the total amount by 25% - even if they don't all reach completetion there will be 1500 new houses coming onto the market in the next 12 months - all things being equal - 930 houses on the market today, 2500 by the end of the year. So I personally wouldn't being going mad on getting the biggest mortgage possible to buy in Cardiff.

No idea, but we're hoping that we're far enough form the epicenter (London) that it won't crush us too badly, but close enough to Reading (and crossrail) that any crash will be offset by rises due to that.

Newbuilds on our road are selling for 18% more than we paid 6 months ago, that's mental, and ours is a much older house (read, better built) with a garden 4x the size!

The Nationwide calculator values my house ~£100k less than the figure two estate agents gave us last year. I don't think it's especially accurate 🙂

Also, mattoutandabout, there's this from "Moneysavingexpert.com":

The biggest of the home search websites, Rightmove is one of the best places to compare homes on the market. As well as boasting a dizzying number of properties up for grabs, it plots listings on a Google map for ease.

Number of properties: 800,000 for sale in the UK

So what do you know that they don't? (Serious question).

Farkme Sundayjumper, if that's the same for me, I'm minted!

So what do you know that they don't?

Because unless you have 2 identical houses in the same postcode, with identical neighbours, views, and in the same condition, and sellers in the same situation and were in exactly the same situations when they last sold. Two houses are unlikely to go up in value by exactly the same amount. All the 'calculators' do is take your last sale price, and the average increase for that type of house in that postcode, and calculate a new estimate.

You could demolish one house and be desperate to sell, completely refurbish the other and be just testing the water and those calculators would still give the same answer.

The housing bubble has been due to burst catastophically for the last 10 years hasn't it? Although there was a 'correction' at about 2009, it seems to be generally going in the upwards direction.

The biggest of the home search websites, Rightmove is one of the best places to compare homes on the market.

Result! 😀
According to rightmove my house is probably worth in excess of £1,000,000......if it was in Leatherhead.

Which it isn't.

It's in a (not very nice) town in West Central Scotland, where you can buy a flat for less than a new Mondeo and £200K will get you something with a moat and machine gun towers.

Not a million quid then. Bummer. 🙁

So long as you see you house as a home and not an investment and you can afford your mortgage you can afford to largely look on in bemusement at these shenanigans. I do feel hugely sorry for first time buyers though.

So long as [b]you bought your home sometime in the late 90's/early 00's[/b][s] you see you house as a home and not an investment and you can afford your mortgage [/s]you can afford to largely look on in bemusement at these shenanigans. I do feel hugely sorry for first time buyers though.

I do feel hugely sorry for first time buyers though.

No bubble in Brighouse

£200K will get you something with a moat and machine gun towers.

Port Glasgow?

Wishaw?

Johnstone?

It is a deliberate outcome from the policy of [s]stealing[/s] Quantitative Easing - stimulate consumption via a positive wealth effect. All a mirage of course and very difficult to manage properly

http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media/economic-insight/halifax-house-price-index/

check out the data here and then you decide!!

A good indicator of how supply can effect prices will be Cardiff

Shit. Better sell up asap.

Sold our last house almost exactly 2 years ago. Another house on the same street of the same style/design but on a slightly smaller plot came on the market just after christmas for an additional 30%. It is now sold (STC).

Three years ago we viewed a house at 300k, we didn't buy as we didn't have a sale on ours at the time. It was taken off the market unsold. Similar house on the same street recently sold for 400k. The house we viewed has come back on the market for 400k. Be interesting to see if it sells.

I worry what it will be like when my kids are first time buyers. I don't want them living here forever.

Someone I know went to look at a 3 bed house just outside Bristol, 15 minute open day; 37 people waiting to view house. House was on market for £295,000; winning 'offer' was £395,000. Sold in 24 hours.

Didn't Labour get hammered for not controlling the housing market boom?

Depends on how long you want the UK to continue stagnating and for your wages and pension to continue going nowhere I guess... you may have noticed that as prices go up, growth and wages have slowed up - which has got an awful lot to do with the fact most of us are putting so much into housing costs there's not a lot left for anything else, so companies have no-one to sell to...

But that's ok so long as we're stupid enough to believe that housing 'wealth' is actually wealth rather than an illusion as THM notes... Osbourne realises we're this stupid and has used to it good effect to win last year's election and also the tax take through amplified Stamp Duty...

I wouldn't underestimate the political risk to the Tories of a continued bubble - even hardened Tory pensioners are starting to understand its downsides as they have to give a chunk of their own unearned wealth to their kids or grandkids so they can get their own place... Osbourne is not blind to this - you can expect more attacks on BTL and more releasing of land and Planning rules I suspect.

Also worth remembering that in london in particular, transation numbers are falling through the floor. Fewer transations = less stamp duty revenue for a Chancellor who's numbers are looking increasingly ropey. A decent drop in prices would get transaction numbers back up again cos right now too many FTBers are giving up...

Neither would I underestimate the impact of wider global economic issues on London - Saudis, Russians and Malaysians are all running out of cash to launder/speculate with...

Worth remembering that in time all the Boomers will be selling up to go into Nursing Homes. You may find the 'supply' issue somewhat disappears...

Either way, cleverer people than me think the situation's looking less than optimistic...

[url= http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e85675c-2648-11e5-bd83-71cb60e8f08c.html#axzz40EyKbEFW ]Nine Elms/Battersea...[/url]

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/29/london-house-prices-most-overvalued-world-ubs ]UBS expect London bust within 3 years[/url]

UK housing is a phenomenal screw up. So some people can have some illusory wealth, we're killing the real economy, putting the younger generation into more debt than they can handle as well as holding their disposable income back for 25/35 years, and risking busting the banks again as and when a chunk of these debts go bad...

Calculators pish but works well for those remortgaging....

They valued ours at +70 k of what i paid for it

Theres no way on this earth that my house would get close to that.....

In current market conditions locally its probably worth what i paid for it not a penny more...

But its my house - not an investment.

Port Glasgow?

Wishaw?

Johnstone?

Are we getting three each?

Mine are Barrhead, Cumbernauld and "The Vale".

Here in Largs prices haven't moved in 6 years. Which is okay I guess, just means I'm not any worse off.

Supposedly a mini bubble going on in Scotland on 1 and 2 bedroom properties before the lbtt supplement on additional properties comes in on April 1st.

Love a bit of Location location location, homes under the hammer and selling houses with Amanda Lamb.
Can only laugh when you see the prices of pokey wee 1bed flats in London... Same budget up here gets you A LOT of house and land.

People have been predicting a massive (30%+) correction in house prices since the 90s and we've yet to have one down South (e.g. prices are well past the 2007 peak in Cambridge and rising).

The problem to soon arise ,house prices will be to expensive for average jo to afford on current salaries, buy to let sales will drop off for the same reason, leaving a lot of btl owners with void properties unable to repay the mortgage loan, so will get repoed, freeing a lot of cheaper houses onto the market reducing the cost of housing, and those who have borrowed a lot to buy a property will then not be able to sell at a profit.

Then factor in the huge wave of new redundancies in the year, higher overheads and the bubble will soon burst

Port Glasgow?
Wishaw?
Johnstone?

Yes. 😳

The correction hasn't happened (yet!) because successive governments have pumped billions into artificially inflating the market to make sure it doesn't! Like with the utterly bonkers Help to Buy scheme! Or printing billions in QE that never made it to business loans, as it was allegedly meant to, but farmed out in mortgages instead. The myth that property will carry on going up and up and up for ever needs to be sustained, so that property owners can carry on using their houses as cash machines, and borrowing against their supposed entitlement - ever increasing equity - to buy shiny things.

It's what passes for an economic recovery in the minds of politicians. And no matter how many billions they keep piling into it, The Market (the all-knowing sacred cow we must all revere) will see to it that it all goes horribly tits up at some point. It has too! The fact it hasn't already is testament to the huge will and monumental amounts of taxpayers money that have gone into sustaining this madness!

All three? That's unlucky 😛

I'm hoping the bubble isn't so bubbly that we can't get a house for under the 'offers over' price soon! 🙂 A lot of homes in the range we're looking at seem to be on the market for a while and have had one or two price drops.

Went to see one the other day - the woman is a single older lady living in a 5bed bungalow in half an acre of land. The next door house, which is very similar in terms of size and quality, sold for 340 last year, and she is asking offers over 400. She explained that the value was done 2 years ago and she 'knows' it's gone up since then, plus 'it'll be worth 500 in a few years', and 'I've a figure in mind'. Head in the clouds springs to mind.

By all experiences, the market across Central Scotland seems to be in a very slight depression. Some houses (first time buy family homes, like the one we'll be selling) are selling very quickly, but the next size up, detached homes with big gardens, are often slow (though randomly, if the finish is up to a certain standard they do get snapped up instantly).

I can't imagine a burst happening; the demand is still decent, and people DO still get mortgages.

I'm not talking about a single city (London) though. Looking at the UK.

Don't even... I keep kicking the table looking at some glorious homes we could buy in some of these areas, after reminding myself what the streets and schools are like!

gobuchul - Member
£200K will get you something with a moat and machine gun towers.
Port Glasgow?

Wishaw?

Johnstone?

Demand is rising at a far greater rate than supply. Can't see much change anytime soon.

This worries me, and part of the reason I've stayed put in the same house for a decade. We need to move soon due to growing family, and it I looking like it will mean signing up to a huge mortgage and the risks with it. It's that or make the shed into a nursery.

All very well saying buy an country estate in deepest Scotland but that isn't near work or family. Unless you can buy outright and have an income stream from somewhere that doesn't require being in an office in a city.

If you can find a country estate in Scotland for a couple hundred K, let me know.
Think more likely millions.

Does seem to have been reasonably steady in Scotland. We're Edinburgh based, hoping to buy later this year. But seems to still be similar vfm compared with a year or 2 ago.

Mine's been on the market for a week at £15k under what the estate agent valued it at and not sold yet. Need to escape the South East...

"The problem to soon arise ,house prices will be to expensive for average jo to afford on current salaries, buy to let sales will drop off for the same reason, leaving a lot of btl owners with void properties unable to repay the mortgage loan,"

That doesn't make sense. If prospective buyers can't buy, they'll have to rent (because people have to live somewhere). If that happens, then BTL landlords will have fewer voids, not more.

So much sensible stuff written. Teamhurtmore, pieface, brooes (spelling).

Good stuff fully agree. Nuts situation.

I'm not talking a couple of hundred k...anyway agree it is bonkers. I've been sitting tight waiting for it to correct, and prices keep going up

We sold in Buckinghamshire just under 4 years ago, house went straight away for £250k (stamp level) - just looked now and the same style of house in the same development we were on are going for £325-340k (and not as nice a plot as ours).

So the best part of £20k pa rising in value...

People are so conditioned to expect housing to be an investment that prices won't drop until people are forced to sell either through a dramatic drop in income or large increase in mortgage rates. The people who will suffer a down turn the most, will sadly be the last people on the ladder - usually those just desperate for a stable family home 🙁

The first mortgage I had was 10.5% fixed rate & I would need to be able to borrow 7 or 8 times my [u]current[/u] salary to buy back the first house I bought at the price it is "worth" now....

The first mortgage I had was 10.5% fixed rate & I would need to be able to borrow 7 or 8 times my current salary to buy back the first house I bought at the price it is "worth" now....

Governments depend on rising house prices to keep the chattering classes happy and voting for them.

What we need is a government with the balls to push for occupation of vacant properties and building affordable rental homes on brownfield sites - closer to employment and transport links - to actually deal with the underlying problem.

Any government thinking that relaxing planning laws so more detached executive houses can be built will solve the problem is frankly just....so stupid they should be barred from office!

Well said MCTD. Can we also bar the idiots that voted for them? Maybe banned from voting in the next election while they think about what they've done.

But you can't advocate building high density or high rise buildings in London without a whole bunch of racist rubbish about "Dubai-on-Thames" being spouted

Part of the problem is no one seems to be building 2-3 bed family homes. It's either 4/5/6 bed 'luxury' properties, or 1/2 bed flats (i.e. suited to people with lots of money, or suited to BTL landlords).

Market feels very very peaky at the moment and with prices increasing so rapidly this year it's the absolute classic sign of the frenzy that precedes any market bust. Prospective BTL purchasers are trying to complete their transactions before the start of April when the new BTL tax system takes effect - I suspect after April demand will drop significantly.

Don't forget when prices start to drop then they can drop fast. With the amount of leveraged BTL cash and investment property sloshing around then the market is much more susceptible to this than ever before. Once prospective property purchasers get wind of this then they're liable to sit tight and postpone their purchase, adding fuel to the fire, after all why buy a house now when in 6 months time it could be £££k cheaper?

whilst the 3% tax increase will certainly cause a slight bump-then-depression in interest (perhaps bringing forwards interested btl purchasers by up to 3 months), I don't think the additional tax will cause much impact to the market overall. House prices tend to rise by approx 5% per year on average - so the additional tax is wiped out in just 7 months of price growth - plus it can be offset against capital gains tax, so the real cost is lower.

The removal of the ability to offset some interest will make more of a difference, but I suspect it will be mostly offset by pensioners (who, generally not being in the 40% tax bracket, won't be affected by the change) cashing in their pots and buying a couple of properties with the result.

house prices are certainly rising quickly, but the only way to tell if its a long-term-trend or a bubble is to see if it bursts. down here in the south east, we've not had a significant 'bursting' in over 20 years. Its important to remember that markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

and no matter how wrong it is prices keep going up.

Not everywhere and not always.

Plus, going back to the illusion of it all - the 'gain' existing homeowners get is not real unless they sell their home and move to a cheaper area or downsize, whilst also having to spend a chunk of that 'gain' on transaction costs - stamp duty, estate agents' fees at the like.

Meanwhile, a chunk of your taxes goes on Help To Buy and Housing Benefit... so you're paying for a chunk of your illusory gains with real taxes...

The only real wealth created from super high house prices is in the banks who get to charge us even more in interest rates as the nominal amount we borrow goes stratospheric.

As Agent007 says, the current situation, where 'values' are totally detached from the fundamentals e.g. wages - and is showing all the signs of a traditional bubble... e.g. Dutch Tulips, Wall Street 1929, UK housing late 80's, US subprime 2007+... we appear to have BTLers bidding up prices by more than 3% in order to save themselves 3% in stamp duty - that's not a sign of sensible investment strategy - it's total stupidity - which usually precedes a crash. look at stockmarkets right now for e.g.

BTLers are going to find themselves in a storm of their own making as they massively increase supply of rental property available, buy at the top of the market expecting to be able to rinse tenants for the extra cost and then find the increased supply means tenants have the upper hand in price negotiations... then Osbourne's tax changes kick in next year and the BLTers find themselves losing money every month...

It is insane how much the houses cost in the South-East.

Coincidentally I live in Cobham with my family, just next to Leatherhead - we've been here 25 years, before it became the place for footballers to live.

I'm now obviously not a kid anymore, I'm with a long term girlfriend. We have a combined income of £75k a year and I can't even DREAM of buying a house around here - you're looking at a minimum of £300k for a 2 bed - and a shit one at that.

We're buggered.

"then Osbourne's tax changes kick in next year and the BLTers find themselves losing money every month..."

you keep siting this .... how ever as the tax will go up across the board - youll find rents go up across the board - even those not affected by it will use it as an excuse to put their rents up to match the others so they get more money in...... cutthroat business.

and then find the increased supply means tenants have the upper hand in price negotiations...

Absolutely tons of new build 2/3 bed houses round here, and plenty of flats too, admittedly not so many one bedders. I wouldn't say they were for people with loads of money either as older properties are a good deal cheaper round here.

you keep siting this .... how ever as the tax will go up across the board - youll find rents go up across the board - even those not affected by it will use it as an excuse to put their rents up to match the others so they get more money in...... cutthroat business

or alternately, put the property in someone not in the high-rate-tax-bracket's name (ie the wife\child), or push the proceeds into a pension, or (if they're loaded enough) form a limited company with > 15 properties which bypasses the tax entirely.

Rightly or wrongly, the tax really only affects smallish-time investors, who are highly leveraged, who do pay high-rate tax, who don't have a low-income relative to get the benefit. It will impact the rental market, but not by a huge amount

find the increased supply means tenants have the upper hand in price negotiations

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/negotiating-when-one-party-goes-back-on-the-agreement

i guess this hasn't happened yet then ?

The impact/distortion of the market created by [s]stealing[/s] the current unorthodox monetary policy is clearly illustrated in the Halifax data (see my earlier link)

In certain parts of the UK and for the UK on average, the house price to earnings ratio is at the highest level since the early 80s - although this heavily skewed by SW, SE, E Mids and London. Interestingly NI remains below the long term average.

But on one measure of affordability - mortgage repayments as a % of income all regions bar London remain below the LT average.

Quite scary stats really.

Around Surrey (Leatherhead, Cobham etc) there is essentially nothing being built.

You either get tiny 1 or 2 beds to flog to desperate buyers or you are getting massive 4/5/6 bed properties that are going for 650k++.

There is no hope of buying a property round here for anyone I know. Unless you have parents with ££££ or get incredibly lucky with your earning potential, you're out of this area for certain.

So, the big question, should we empty the savings and pester the bank for a further advance in order to buy a BTL house before the stamp duty changes? I've been looking for a while and pondering, but our plan was to wait another 18 months until the previous one is fully paid off. Are we better off swerving the stamp duty or biding our time?

So, I've RATS (mostly) and it seems that

1: There's a bubble.
2: It's not "real" money...
3: Calculators only offer a "rough" estimate.
4: Prices are rising insanely fast but there are loads of willing buyers.

Suits me. Line up the ducks and I'm off to sunnier climes. Happy days.

I think one problem is places getting PP to build extensions combined with stamp duty.

Stamp duty makes it unnattractive to move because of the financial penalty, so people that could downsize now the kids have moved out are unlikely to, and people who want more space find it cheaper to get PP and extend, so removing the stock of that sized house from the market.

and no matter how wrong it is prices keep going up.

Not everywhere and not always.

There are three houses down my road that have been on the market since September/October.
They have all recently had £100k+ lopped off the asking price.

£1m pound houses in Surrey don't appear to be selling...

They have all recently had £100k+ lopped off the asking price.

According to Rightmove there are 486 properties round here under £100k, and I don't think that includes new builds.

They have all recently had £100k+ lopped off the asking price.

£1m pound houses in Surrey don't appear to be selling...

There is no hope of buying a property round here for anyone I know. Unless you have parents with ££££ or get incredibly lucky with your earning potential, you're out of this area for certain.

As others have said, it's a London-centric and South East problem, we lived on the Hampshire/Surrey border and sold last year....there were 40+ viewings on our open house day...and the property sold that day....for above asking price, bonkers.

I bought in 2004 before things went truly nuts, I wouldn't be able to now....in fact if we'd stayed in the South it would've been a sideways move....very depressing.

So....we moved to Wales.

Lovely village location, detached cottage, 4-acres of land with stables, a river bordering one side of the property with fishing rights and some of the best MTBing in the UK on the doorstep....i'm almost embarrassed to say how much it was....250k.

Obviously I've dropped a few thousand in salary but bizarrely Mrs Deviant earns more now, seems there's good money in care and Wales has a huge elderly population.
Sorry to brag but life is idyllic, I don't spend nearly as much time online any more, I ride more, I walk the dogs more, I'm learning to ride the other half's horse etc...the pace of life is slower, people are more relaxed than down South...i don't miss it, can't ever see myself coming back....days on Cader Idris or the Brecon Beacons are priceless, I feel semi retired and I'm not 40 yet.

Try it, come on in the waters lovely!

i guess this hasn't happened yet then ?

Well, the flat I didn't rent on the basis the LL wouldn't negotiate was still on Rightmove last time I looked last week, with the rent dropped from 900 to 875 - now empty since early November... so that's roughly 3 months at £900 lost revenue... I would have been in and paying rent from before Xmas if they'd been more reasonable...

Anecdote is not data but I think the LL miscalculated on this one, and I suspect not the only one who has... there's quite a few flats coming on the market where I am with tenants in situ, being sold as 'investments'. Who would do that if BTL was such great 'investment?'

My parents were looking at investing pension money into property and they have been watching the housing market where they live in surrey and say the 1m + houses have stuck completely at the moment - their theory is the new stamps duty for that price band.

Stamp duty maybe has a little to do with it. The extra duty payable is negotiating ammo on the price, but uncertainty about Brexit is more likely. Many folk around here work in the city and there is the distinct possibility that their jobs will be transferred abroad.
Even without Brexit some City firms are rumoured to be moving to Birmingham.

There's quite a few developers that have been sitting on unsold 4/5/6 bed properties for 6 months or so.

they bought a small very run down bungalow in the end for 500K and are renovating,

And i got flamed for suggesting that looking at spending half a million and then renovating was "unreasonable". That was mostly 3 or 4 bed places as well.

I was brought up in nice part of Cobham, towards where the Chelsea training ground is now, and now live in Bookham which feels like a suburb of Leatherhead. My guess of what my house is worth does fit in with that calculator - which is about 10% less than what Zoopla/Mouseprice say. I have noticed houses around the million mark struggling to sell locally but also friends looking for places half that price were seeing prices rise quite quickly earlier last year so maybe there's some sort of price issue there - a lot more people chasing the cheaper places?

Now working on a long-term project near Cheltenham and would love to move here as like the Cotswolds and there are some lovely places to buy here, but stamp duty stops me. It would be OK if I knew it was a permanent move but that is unlikely really so I have to carry on with my weekly commute.

Lovely village location, detached cottage, 4-acres of land with stables, a river bordering one side of the property with fishing rights and some of the best MTBing in the UK on the doorstep....i'm almost embarrassed to say how much it was....250k.

Many of us in the SE could retire by moving to somewhere like that. Not sure what's stopping me!

When my parents first bought their house in Cobham in 1991 they paid £80k for it - it had a valuation last year at £585k. The house next door which was quite a bit smaller sold for £650k so I think the house is probably worth more.

To give an idea as to how unrealistic these prices are - the people living on my parents road have been in their houses for a minimum of 15 years. I would imagine 98% of the people on the road wouldn't qualify for a mortgage to re-buy their homes if they had to now.

Two houses have sold on our road in the past 5 years - one to a hotshot owner of a tech start up (has two Range Rovers..) and the other by a couple who inherited millions off the parents. Go figure.

It actually scares the bloody life out of me when I consider that at some point in time I'm going to have to buy a house - every person I know lives around here, I work in Fetcham, my entire life is here and I'm absolutely going to have to throw all of that away and uproot entirely if I want to own my own home.

Deviant - but that is what should be happening, Shirley.

Interestingly, I am advising both my sons and other students on what to do and for the first time I am [b]strongly[/b] recommending regional opportunities in a variety of professional services. Partly push and partly pull factors involved. However, I think this needs/will be the generation that breaks the natural pull of the SE and London. That would be a very good thing IMO.

Living in this corner of the Southeast (Cobham/Leatherhead/Bookham) and working in London its like a different country at times. There are people here paid salaries quite out of kilter with the rest of the UK and now huge amounts of family wealth due to the increase in the value of the housing stock (a friend on average wages bought an almost £1M house nearby in 2014 using an inheritance - which has the downside of the loss of loved ones). Coupled with no building, long term low interest rates and increasing demand for housing, I can see a slow down but not a crash.

Many of us in the SE could retire by moving to somewhere like that. Not sure what's stopping me!

Same here - had an agent round to value house the other day.

We could easily change our lifestyle and be mortgage free in the sticks, but I worry it's just a "grass is greener move" that we wouldn't be able to unwind if we didn't like it.

The general sentiment amongst myself and my friends (professionals - I work in software development and all of my mates are suits that work in around London) is that there HAS to be a crash at some point.

The problem I reckon lies with the fact that our generation cares much less about property - I wouldn't pay £500k for a 3 bed house around here even if I had the money. It's just extremely poor value.

I could move up to the Midlands and my commute time to central London would be the same amount of time but I'd be paying half the amount for my house.

I reckon as the generation I'm from become the primary earners of the area you'll see less and less people caring about being here.

Lovely village location, detached cottage, 4-acres of land with stables, a river bordering one side of the property with fishing rights and some of the best MTBing in the UK on the doorstep....i'm almost embarrassed to say how much it was....250k.
Many of us in the SE could retire by moving to somewhere like that. Not sure what's stopping me!

The only thing that's stopping me is my daughter finishing her education.
Once A levels are out of the way, we're off!

People who don't own houses keep saying that the prices will crash as if they say it enough, they will.
They will go down a bit, and they will go up a bit. There is very very little chance that this magic crash that renters are hoping for will ever happen. There is too much money at stake.