Forum menu
I know aracer - the fools .
Gordon brown must be laughing at them from his armchair. - he was the only one at the last general election who understood what needed to be done to make things right - or even understood the depth of the situation but no one wants to do things the hard way and didnt like that he told the truth.( or that some of his other policys stunk)
I have now idea what my house is worth. Is this something I should be paying attention to? 😕
We got ours remortgaged last year, for which it was valued at £140k. Zoopla says £170k.
We paid £155k just over 4 years ago, and have spent getting on for £20k doing it up.
I have now idea what my house is worth. Is this something I should be paying attention to?
No.
We view our house as somewhere to live, and we can afford the monthly payments. If it's worth more, less or the same in 20 years time, I won't really care too much.
No.
Phew. Thought I was missing something.... 😉
I went to see a house to rent in Bromley today. The existing tenant (mid-30s) said she was moving out after 6 years to move back in with her parents so she could save for a deposit. I think she had a wedding ring on too.
That's mad. How're you supposed to plan for a family and invest in your pension if you can't even afford your own place after you're married?
I really can't see how prices can even stay where they are, let alone go up if there aren't enough buyers who can raise the cash. A market has to have buyers as well as sellers... and sellers seem to be being really greedy right now
All I can say is damn the baby boomers and their lengthy life expectancy. Also anyone who owns more than one house.
It would be cheaper for me to buy a 2,700 sqft 1958 modernist house in Wilmington, South Carolina than a 2 up 2 down terraced house where I live. Property in London has become ridiculous, for us to find a reasonable 3 bed house near us we're looking at about £0.5m.
Also anyone who owns more than one house.
Absolutely - with the current shortage, surely people with more than one house, unless it's rented out long term, should be taxed until it hurts. After all who really needs more than one house?
The tax level set should be a real deterrent to second home ownership and maybe in the case of people buying homes in places like Cornwall, where locals can't afford to live in the towns they grew up in (due to the influx of second homers), maybe the tax should be put into a local fund that will pay for 'affordable' homes to be built for local people.
Oh but wait . . . don't most MP's have second homes? Guess that'll never happen then.
And whilst we're on the subject of UK house prices . . .
[url= http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/7-private-islands-that-cost-less-than-a-flat-in-london ]Here's what you could buy instead[/url]
It's madness gone mad 🙄
Is anyone asking where the money is coming from? 😯
Where are the banks and lenders getting the money so they can make and provide these outrageous loans?
I was under the impression that they had to now have some kind of liquidity ratio (or whatever its called), i.e. actual fluid reserves to cover their own outlay's. Are they all at it again? Borrowing numbers from each other in some sort of crazy merry-go-round until one of them goes tits up and it all falls down again?
And yet, like lemmings to the cliff top, the public swarm to get a foothold, to achieve their 'castle', to 'own' their own home. Its an illusion, created to ensure we all carry on working, paying taxes and feeding the system.
It will be carnage as and when interest rates rise by even half a percentage point, let alone 1%. Repossession city and the financial institutions will make yet another killing/profit.
I found out in the late 80's who actually 'owned' my home. Sure as ****, it wasn't me. With a lowly £32k mortgage (yep!) and interest rates at 16%, the monthly repayments were nearly £800 and I was earning about £700. The math's didn't stack and prices were tumbling. So, after handing my keys back to the building society, telling them that I didn't want to play their game anymore, they sell the house at auction, eventually, for £12k less than the mortgage. At the recommendation of the Bradford and Bingley when I applied for the mortgage, I purchased a Mortgage Indemnity Insurance Policy and was led to believe that this would pay out any shortfall. Which it did. To Bradford and Bingley. Imagine my surprise when I then get a demand from Eagle Star who underwrote the policy, to reimburse them the £12k they had just paid to B&Bingley!! 😯
Unreal.
I rent. And whilst it could be said that I'm paying someone else's mortgage, I don't have the liability, I don't have the responsibility/expense to maintain and to ensure I maximise the market value, and I'm not paying a lot more than the loan value over 25years in interest payments. Admittedly, I don't have a lump sum at the end of the mortgage term, but given I would have to sell to realise the lump sum to then lose some of it to repay the capital loan, I wouldn't and couldn't say if it is the right or wrong thing to do. We all make our decisions and have to deal with whatever consequences and none of us are in control of it.
Unless of course you are fortunate and wise enough to have paid off your loan, in which case, well done!
Chatting to a guy on our club ride today who's just bought a 2-bed house in Croydon for £250k. No-one likes Croydon, it's undesireable and even the Economist had an article a few months ago suggesting that the wealth is gravitating either into central London or out to the stockbroker belt and places like Croydon are heading into decline...
Anyway, he said places were being sold within days of going on the market and for over the asking price...
Coupled with the comment above about houses in Surrey which aren't selling, but being put on the market at a higher price suggests that things have gone beyond a properly functioning market and sellers are getting greedy and buyers are panicking... which looks like bubble territory to me.
Have you been living in a chinese pipe.
Is been beyond a functioning market for about 25 years.
Very good thread this. I've had some dealings with central government over the last couple of years and all the civil servants I spoke to were obsessed with getting "housing going again". Mark Carney was a political appointment - he has a track record of blowing bubbles, witness Canada which has an even bigger housing bubble than here.
When will it burst? No idea. Interest rates aren't going anywhere as long as Carney is in charge so it could have a few years left...at least until after the next election.
I've had a well presented and located house in West Yorkshire on the market since last August, in the £350K bracket (you can buy a large house for that around here 🙂 ), with absolutely zero interest. I think the property market in the south might as well be in another country!
all the civil servants I spoke to were obsessed with getting "housing going again".
If all the growth in your economy is based on people borrowing against equity in their houses to buy stuff, then its pretty essential to keep prices on the up. Not the greatest long term strategy mind....
[url= http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/oct/13/features-comment ]Charlie Brooker wrote very eloquently on this[/url] in 2008:
People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn't seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines.
Apparently, we've learned nothing.
Zoopla is pretty rubbish at estimates. We sold for a lot more than the Zoopla estimate, about 30%. So it can under value as well.