Our neighbour, who is also the estate agent who sold us both our houses (and a nice bloke to boot) just came round.
He's got someone who wants to live on our close, and they've made an unsolicited 'cash' offer of £510k for our house.... this is a 4 bed (3 1/2 really!) in rural Devon btw!
That's £200k more than we paid for it 5 years ago!
We're not moving any time soon, but by God it's tempting!
(How much C&H for 200k, etc.?)
You'd still need somewhere to live. What can you get for £500k round your way?
I would sell now and wait for all the imminent repossessions to come on the market, win win 😉
While it sounds great for us home owners, unless you're downsizing it means nothing really. This rapid house price growth is good for no-one overall. We need to build more houses I guess.
Worst "look how much my house is worth " thread ever lol.
when i lived at home with my mother in 1986 she bought her council house for £7k.
my son has just bought a identical house over the road for £185k.
scary prices now.
Changes in house prices are meaningless - you still need to live somewhere.
A better way to judge your value is to look at the difference in price between where you live now and where you could live.
£500k in the Afan Valley - you can buy a row of run down terrace houses for that.
What can you get for £500k round your way?
a 4 bed (3 1/2 really!)
Do people really make offers on houses that aren't for sale? Is that a thing?
Changes in house prices are meaningless
Not always. Increasing prices allowed us to remortgage at a lower rate and release a load of cash that we then used to clear debts and save loads of money whilst still being in the same mortgage position at the end of the deal as we would have been otherwise. But I admit that is niche. A very rare (possibly the only) astute financial move on my part!
We have things. They have values as the thing, money only comes in when you want to swap one thing for another, its an intermediate step. As other have said you still need a house to live in so unless you move somewhere cheaper or down size the value is meaningless, the values is as a house where you live.
This rapid house price growth is good for no-one overall
ITs good for the treasury due to increased tax take on transactions. Overall it bad I agree, makes moving house a very expensive endever, traps people and stop them moving, make getting on the housing ladder harder and harder. Not an easy problem to solve despite what people think.
Yeah its 500k until they get the survey done. Lots waving round massive figures to secure a property, get ahead of the marketing, out gun other bidders.
Then chip you down after the survey and they pretend that reality has hit. When in reality that was the plan all along.
Then you try and buy another house in a nice location and you just can't because you are constantly outbid.
You could accept their offer and go looking and see if you can secure something you like! You don't actually have to go through with it.
in rural Devon
I suspect in 2021 that's got an awful lot more to do with it than anything else.
The folks looking to buy are probably selling a 1.5 bed in London for 500k more than they paid 5 years ago as they no longer need to be near the office.
I say take it then buy "it" back for 400 in 18 months when either they* need to be near the office again or they realise all that green space means no supermarket, no bars, no restaurants etc and that they lived in a city because they liked city living.
*maybe not your specific house and its new owners but I'd hazard around 80% of the escape to the country-ists.
(of course where to live in the intervening 18 months might be a problem with that idea)
As above really. My mortgage company wrote to me at the end of the year to tell me how much mine had gone up.
I'm no better off as anywhere I might to move to has gone up as well🤷♂️.
.
As an aside, my father bought the house across the road from where my parents live now in 1978. He paid three times the average annual wage for it. He moved out in 1982.
It sold this year for eleven times the average wage! (OK, the new owners built another bedroom over the garage but even so)
Do people really make offers on houses that aren’t for sale? Is that a thing?
An ex colleague did. Offered them over the odds as they really wanted to live there. Owners seemed keen, so keen in fact they did an open house viewing after receiving the offer. Sold it to someone else who offered £100k over what my colleague did.
Changes in house prices are meaningless
Not if you're one of the significant percentage of people with more than one house.
Out of my ( our) group of friends/ family, I think we're the only ones without one or more rental/ holiday homes.
Just stated as a fact BTW, not as some sort of sick 'woe is me' thang.
Ah, but your house is worth more, so is every bloody other one. I say 'worth', they aren't 'worth' the stupid amounts anyway.
No real winners.
Ah, but your house is worth more, so is every bloody other one. I say ‘worth’, they aren’t ‘worth’ the stupid amounts anyway.
No real winners.
+1
We paid £245k for ours in 2010, we've invested about £120k in it since, and its now worth £600k+
However, the next 'step up' has now risen to £800k+ so can't afford to move even if we wanted to.
Not always. Increasing prices allowed us to remortgage at a lower rate and release a load of cash that we then used to clear debts and save loads of money whilst still being in the same mortgage position at the end of the deal as we would have been otherwise. But I admit that is niche. A very rare (possibly the only) astute financial move on my part!
It's what I'm planning to do when our deal end in Dec. We bought it with a 5% deposit 2 years ago, put in a load of work and about £10k and now we're at 70% LTV thanks to the market shift, which is insane. Remortgage, take out enough equity to pay off the money we borrowed to fix the place up AND reduce our term by 5 years keeping the same repayments.
It's no wonder there's a panic in the market every 5-10 years, you can't just magic money out of thin air like this forever, and it's shit for people not in the market yet, I mean it was horrific trying to get on, but there's no point trying to swim against the tide, telling the Bank "I think it's stupid anyone would pay us £65k more than we paid for this place 2 years ago, so I've valued it at what we paid plus UK inflation rate, please charge us more".
Of course, the downside is that the next house we've dreamt of is now £100k more than it was, but I guess as long as it's a no-lose gamble and the bank will lend it, I'll only be getting richer by moving yeah?
Not always. Increasing prices allowed us to remortgage at a lower rate
This, which I have just done
Aye, house prices seem mental, not only that, but new builds seems to be largely big houses - I'm looking for a 3-bedroom, ideally bungalow (less things to have to hoover!), but very few around and those that are around are massively priced...
I would sell now and wait for all the imminent repossessions to come on the market, win win 😉
Nah...house prices have proven themselves to be resilient to recessions in recent years and they still continue to increase in value...they have throughout covid and back in 2008.
Unless you're downsising to a smaller and/or cheaper property then its utterly irrelevant because the money you 'make' just goes to your next equivalent property...unless you have another couple of hundred K to put in.
I'd sell now as we've just exchanged so expect a crash imminently 🙄
Yeah its 500k until they get the survey done. Lots waving round massive figures to secure a property, get ahead of the marketing, out gun other bidders.
Then chip you down after the survey and they pretend that reality has hit. When in reality that was the plan all along.
We encountered what I suspect was a lot of this from other people when we were buyers.- infuriating!
Our neighbour, who is also the estate agent...
If it's really that good a offer, why don't they sell theirs?
Nah…house prices have proven themselves to be resilient to recessions in recent years and they still continue to increase in value…they have throughout covid and back in 2008.
Yep, I've been predicting the collapse of the UK Housing market for years, I even have the dubious honour of saying I predicted the credit crunch in 2007 when I worked for RBS.
The truth is though, there is almost nothing the UK Gov wouldn't do to protect the swindle, and almost nothing the UK Public won't accept from them to do it, and it doesn't matter what colour rosette they're wearing either. Home ownership in the UK is seen almost as a basic human right, as is 'making' fortunes from it, even if you never get to spend it.
Ha, we're not planning on moving, it was just unexpected!
According to my neighbour/estate agent the offer is probably about £35-40k over what he'd put it on the market for - they just really want to live here!
Wouldn't surprise me if they'd done it to all the houses in the close - though ours is probably the cheapest - much smaller garden, though it's been extended so more rooms than a couple of them.
Do people really make offers on houses that aren’t for sale? Is that a thing?
Yes, regularly happens where my parents live as otherwise you're waiting for the owner to die and it eventually come onto the market. What happens to most of the houses is the owner dies then straight after the funeral the offers start to flood in. The decent houses never hit the For Sale websites or the estate agent's window as they have a long list of people waiting. The local estate agent is a friend of the family and they have already told us that when my parents die they have a list of people who would buy their house immediately.
Not always. Increasing prices allowed us to remortgage at a lower rate and release a load of cash that we then used to clear debts and save loads of money whilst still being in the same mortgage position at the end of the deal as we would have been otherwise. But I admit that is niche. A very rare (possibly the only) astute financial move on my part!
Did a similar thing at the beginning of the year, remortgaged for the same value at a lower rate, could have reduced our monthly payments but instead reduced the term from 8 years to 6 for the same payment.
What can you get for £500k round your way?
a 2 bed modern purpose built flat (if you add £20-£30k to the budget) or a 2 bed conversion with a bit of garden or maybe balcony but it will be noisy unless done recently with Part E compliance.
prices are up here in SE london but not massively, you can actually view property without having to grease the palms of the estate agent, good stuff sells quick, the overpriced stuff sits there and slowly gets reduced to the correct market price.
Nothing new about buying off-market, and with the current demand and lack of supply, it’s likely to be a lot of buyers best bet in securing the property they like. Some towns are seeing a 50% drop in sellers and a 50% increase in sales agreed versus 2020. This will continue for some time.
@ajantom it’s a win win for you and your Agent neighbour if this buyer does manage to get into your street as it pushes the average price up and makes it more desirable. Result.
Im sure with a bit of remodelling Kirsty could make you "love it"
Do people really make offers on houses that aren’t for sale? Is that a thing?
I live in North Wales, similar issues here with Devon Cornwall with second homes and holiday lettings investors driving the market beyond the reach of local workers. Someone recently put a post up on the village facebook page offering cash for a house - they got dogs abuse.
Changes in house prices are meaningless – you still need to live somewhere.
Not at all, rising house prices meant I went from being in negative equity (2009), unable to secure a decent mortgage deal as nobody would lend to me, barely able to cover the bills to getting a better rate and being a few hundred a month better off.
I looked up a mates house the other day on zoopla as I am incredibly nosy and it's an amazing place. The previous owners over a 9 year period saw the value increase by £750k, that's without an extension or any other major works as far as I can tell (it's not listed, but it's a period place with no major renovation done).
Yep, I’ve been predicting the collapse of the UK Housing market for years
You've been wrong so far. How many years before you're proven right? It's easy to be right eventually if you predict the same thing over and over again.
I would sell now and wait for all the imminent repossessions to come on the market, win win
Has been the advice every year since about 1995. But hasn't happened.
I should know, I spent about a decade listening to it and renting 🤣.
Do people really make offers on houses that aren’t for sale? Is that a thing?
My next-door neighbour once came to my door going "you sell house?" Uh, no, I'm living in it? Ironically, when I did sell up a few years later it was to the neighbours on the other side.
According to my neighbour/estate agent the offer is probably about £35-40k over what he’d put it on the market for – they just really want to live here!
Give them a stupid counter-offer. Tell them you love it where you are, you don't want to move, but you'd consider it for £600k or whatever it'd take to make it worthwhile for you to actually go through all that rigmarole. You'll find out pretty quickly how much they "really" want it.
I live in North Wales, similar issues here with Devon Cornwall with second homes and holiday lettings investors driving the market beyond the reach of local workers. Someone recently put a post up on the village facebook page offering cash for a house – they got dogs abuse.
wasn’t Carol Vordernan was it 🥴
What can you get for £500k round your way?
a quick search suggests that budget will buy you a small wreck down here. Reasonable village (not as pretty or expensive as the neighbouring ones), this gaff is a 10 minute walk to the station then an hour to london.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/111471023
What can you get for £500k round your way?
This was my question as £500k gets you a whole load of house round here. This is just an example but there's quite a few like this. Obvious downside is that they are all in Sunderland.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/72828940#/?channel=RES_BUY
Do people make offers on houses that aren't for sale?
I've always said that if I came up trumps on the lottery I'd knock on the door of this house & ask them how much they wanted for it......
A lot of you have passed it on the way to Fort Willy.
Onich?
