My house hasn't appreciated in value in 12 years
Discussion
Chicken Chaser said:
AB said:
I try not to think about it.
£1.85m purchase price, £300k spent so far in last 18 months (£180k of that on new windows and kitchen!), add in the stamp duty on it and it's worth nowhere f'ing near what we've spent and won't be for a very, very long time!
If you keep a running tally, you'll always end up kicking yourself if you've done it purely for financial reasons.
How many windows do you have?!£1.85m purchase price, £300k spent so far in last 18 months (£180k of that on new windows and kitchen!), add in the stamp duty on it and it's worth nowhere f'ing near what we've spent and won't be for a very, very long time!
If you keep a running tally, you'll always end up kicking yourself if you've done it purely for financial reasons.
Pit Pony said:
If houses didn't keep going up in value, we wouldn't bother to maintain them. We'd just burn them down and buy another.
This is the Japanese approach. Land has value, but the building on it depreciates and is replaced with another (expected life 30-40 years or so) Partly cultural adaption to frequent earthquakes, so traditional Japanese houses were deliberately flimsy/ lightweight construction (faster/ cheaper to rebuild, and less likely to crush you)
Pit Pony said:
The house that I bought for £56k. (In 1998) There was one around the corner with a brand new kitchen for £65k. "Beautifully" decorated throughout. Expensive fire place.
Both my wife and I couldn't pay £9k extra for someone else's hideous choices. Could not fault the quality. Could fault the aesthetic vibe.
I'm still kicking myself. It had a bigger garage.
In similar vein, when we got to one of the houses we viewed last time we moved, the estate agent proffered CSI plastic overshoes to us, saying the owners had just had brand new carpet fitted throughout the house. Both my wife and I couldn't pay £9k extra for someone else's hideous choices. Could not fault the quality. Could fault the aesthetic vibe.
I'm still kicking myself. It had a bigger garage.
White....
Not cream, not beige but absolutely, totally white, like a fresh snowfall on a bright, sunny day in every single room in the house bar the kitchen!!!
It was lovely quality, clearly really expensive and still had a really strong new carpet smell, but who on earth wants a completely white carpet in a family home with young kids?
Our feedback to the agent was that we liked the house, but that we'd have to consider the cost of completely recarpeting if we did make an offer. He said we were the fifth showing in the property and everyone else had said exactly the same thing. I didn't envy him having to go back to his client to tell them that the many thousands of pounds they'd just spent on this new carpet had directly reduced the value of their home!
Craigyboy143 said:
this is why property isn't a good investment.
if you want good returns with tiny fees and easy to sell, stocks are the only way.
Worked for me. Bought my first house for £65k with cash. 2 up 2 down mid terraced cottage, no garden, no parking. Spent about £2k on new bathroom and kitchen. Lived there for 4 very happy years until I married and moved into what is now our forever home in the same town. Here's the 'uplift'..........if you want good returns with tiny fees and easy to sell, stocks are the only way.
£100,000 in 4/5 years Kerching !!
dickymint said:
Worked for me. Bought my first house for £65k with cash. 2 up 2 down mid terraced cottage, no garden, no parking. Spent about £2k on new bathroom and kitchen. Lived there for 4 very happy years until I married and moved into what is now our forever home in the same town. Here's the 'uplift'..........
£100,000 in 4/5 years Kerching !!
yeh but the OP is factoring in 12 years of mortgage payments against that uplift£100,000 in 4/5 years Kerching !!
he's missed that its been a place to live for 12 years and factoring in the alternative rental costs during the same time period
Good thread.
There’s an obsession in this country about how high house prices are, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
I’ve always thought that it’s one of those media induced madnesses where everyone wants to believe that their house price will make them rich because they “want it to be true” so are prepared to ignore the data….
I.e, Everywhere you look there are articles saying that house prices are too high and have been rising forever but if you actually look at the numbers and factor in inflation, they’ve barely risen at all in the last 25 years which is when lots of us here probably first bought?
The graph on https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwi... clearly shows that they haven’t risen for 20 odd years.
I don’t know why people let themselves believe that house prices were going up when the (inflation adjusted) data doesn’t show it.
And if you consider the cost of maintenance etc, just as the op does it’s not such a great investment at all.
That said, I subscribe to the “house prices don’t really matter” philosophy. The real value of a house is the fact that once you’ve paid off your mortgage you get to live in it for another 30 years rent free at which it point doesn’t matter if it costs twice as much to begin with because it’s still cheap overall
There’s an obsession in this country about how high house prices are, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
I’ve always thought that it’s one of those media induced madnesses where everyone wants to believe that their house price will make them rich because they “want it to be true” so are prepared to ignore the data….
I.e, Everywhere you look there are articles saying that house prices are too high and have been rising forever but if you actually look at the numbers and factor in inflation, they’ve barely risen at all in the last 25 years which is when lots of us here probably first bought?
The graph on https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwi... clearly shows that they haven’t risen for 20 odd years.
I don’t know why people let themselves believe that house prices were going up when the (inflation adjusted) data doesn’t show it.
And if you consider the cost of maintenance etc, just as the op does it’s not such a great investment at all.
That said, I subscribe to the “house prices don’t really matter” philosophy. The real value of a house is the fact that once you’ve paid off your mortgage you get to live in it for another 30 years rent free at which it point doesn’t matter if it costs twice as much to begin with because it’s still cheap overall
you've summed up the biggest con of this century. a few made big bucks the rest just signed up to the debt imprisonment without knowing it.
I am being a bit harsh as we essentially pay for the roof on our head but its not this life changing asset people harp on about especially if you ride it out to a full term of 25-35 years
I am being a bit harsh as we essentially pay for the roof on our head but its not this life changing asset people harp on about especially if you ride it out to a full term of 25-35 years
k takes into account mortgage interest in considering whether their property has increased in value? Never heard anyone do that before. 
fat80b said:
Good thread.
There’s an obsession in this country about how high house prices are, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
I’ve always thought that it’s one of those media induced madnesses where everyone wants to believe that their house price will make them rich because they “want it to be true” so are prepared to ignore the data….
I.e, Everywhere you look there are articles saying that house prices are too high and have been rising forever but if you actually look at the numbers and factor in inflation, they’ve barely risen at all in the last 25 years which is when lots of us here probably first bought?
The graph on https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwi... clearly shows that they haven’t risen for 20 odd years.
I don’t know why people let themselves believe that house prices were going up when the (inflation adjusted) data doesn’t show it.
And if you consider the cost of maintenance etc, just as the op does it’s not such a great investment at all.
That said, I subscribe to the “house prices don’t really matter” philosophy. The real value of a house is the fact that once you’ve paid off your mortgage you get to live in it for another 30 years rent free at which it point doesn’t matter if it costs twice as much to begin with because it’s still cheap overall
This is exactly what I am getting at.There’s an obsession in this country about how high house prices are, but it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny.
I’ve always thought that it’s one of those media induced madnesses where everyone wants to believe that their house price will make them rich because they “want it to be true” so are prepared to ignore the data….
I.e, Everywhere you look there are articles saying that house prices are too high and have been rising forever but if you actually look at the numbers and factor in inflation, they’ve barely risen at all in the last 25 years which is when lots of us here probably first bought?
The graph on https://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwi... clearly shows that they haven’t risen for 20 odd years.
I don’t know why people let themselves believe that house prices were going up when the (inflation adjusted) data doesn’t show it.
And if you consider the cost of maintenance etc, just as the op does it’s not such a great investment at all.
That said, I subscribe to the “house prices don’t really matter” philosophy. The real value of a house is the fact that once you’ve paid off your mortgage you get to live in it for another 30 years rent free at which it point doesn’t matter if it costs twice as much to begin with because it’s still cheap overall
The whole thing is disingenuous and a bit of a scam.
Sure, it's better than renting, but buying a house that already has more modern fittings and investing the difference in a global tracker is probably the better move.
tight fart said:
I’d say this thread qualifies as one of the most stupid I’ve seen.
That's quite an achievement, thank you!JackJarvis said:
This thread is like the retirement ones, seems to only exist to facilitate the humble brag.
No idea how you came to that conclusion, did you miss the point where I said I am basically in negative equity? Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff