How far will house prices fall [volume 5]

[Hitch]

The current boom in activity doesn’t surprise me as all spring and summer 2020 demand has been released on the market at a single point. That includes a slug of built-up Brexit demand released by the increased certainty since the election.

No doubt a lot of people will be bringing forward retirement and ‘escape to the country/coast’ plans because COVID has reaffirmed a change they were already minded towards. The tax change is icing on the cake for those who had already planned or were thinking about moving.

Demand will fall as we head past September as it always does and will then be impacted by terrible economic news over winter. Plus Brexit.

We’ll hit the bottom faster than the credit crunch because the commercial impact was global and immediate this time. I think Q1 2022 will be the low point. Somewhere 15 to 20% below Q1 prices.

If I wanted to move now I would but only if I found the perfect property. Then suck up the drop and wait for the rise.

[A.J.M]

Gf and I saw a couple of new to the market houses in her town.
Both bungalows, quiet areas and owned by older people, reasonably priced.

But, we can’t view them together.
Only people from same household can view.
You need to send in proof of address etc.
You also have to be in a position to buy to view.

Anyone else found this?

[Carl_Manchester]

fiju said:

Near Croydon. Not sure about SE, I'd rather go more towards SW. SE just seems more scummy to me lol. I'm not ruling it out, I'd just need convincing.
And I definitely don't want a garage En Bloc.

You need to get the other side of keston common, nothing wrong with Sidcup.

SW London is alright but the rail connections are trash compared to SE.

Croydon is and probably always will be a warzone.

[kingston12]

fiju said:

Near Croydon. Not sure about SE, I'd rather go more towards SW. SE just seems more scummy to me lol. I'm not ruling it out, I'd just need convincing.

]

You need to look at specific areas really. SW is generally nicer than SE, but there are lots of nice and lots of bad bits in both.

The price differential has definitely gone down between like for like areas as well. I looked fairly seriously at areas around Beckenham a few years ago, partly because it’s nice and partly because the prices were massively lower than where I am in Surbiton.

Now in 2020 there is a much smaller difference in price.

As already mentioned. the train connections are better in the SE too - far more stations, choice of providers, tram and tube in some parts as well as talk of further development, compared to just SWR in most parts of outer SW.

[Mining Subsidence Man]

menousername said:

In a few days you’ve gone from quiet / great depression is coming, to executive burn out....?

Slightly longer than that. It's a load of anecdotes which form a part of a bigger picture.

Too much sitework is a nightmare in terms of fitting in the time to do the writeups along with the other desktop stuff.

I could use a graph to explain myself better.

[z4RRSchris]

check out this lads garage...

250
bentley 3 litre
something else

Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, SG14
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

[Previous]

z4RRSchris said:

check out this lads garage...

250
bentley 3 litre
something else

Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, SG14
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

The garage is the most 'normal' thing about the place! Stuffed Noahs ark on entry is, err, interesting...

[Previous]

A.J.M said:

Gf and I saw a couple of new to the market houses in her town.
Both bungalows, quiet areas and owned by older people, reasonably priced.

But, we can’t view them together.
Only people from same household can view.
You need to send in proof of address etc.
You also have to be in a position to buy to view.

Anyone else found this?

We had the same, in that no one even wants you to view unless already sold.

We only put ours on the market when we saw a property we liked....by the time we'd sold it'd gone.

One of the factors that helped us decide to continue our sale and go into rental for the time being.

[OzzyR1]

Previous said:

z4RRSchris said:

check out this lads garage...

250
bentley 3 litre
something else

Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, SG14
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

The garage is the most 'normal' thing about the place! Stuffed Noahs ark on entry is, err, interesting...

WTF is going on there?

Photo 6, is that really what it looks like on my phone screen? A small, taxidermied polar bear with a bow-tie and waistcoat levelling a shotgun at the room??

Also, two baby giraffes suspended in the double-height hallway?

"Nowt as strange as folks" my gran used to say.

Edited by OzzyR1 on Sunday 19th July 23:23

[anonymous-user]

z4RRSchris said:

check out this lads garage...

250
bentley 3 litre
something else

Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, SG14
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

Lambo Espada.

The house seems like a set for Through the Keyhole.

[anonymous-user]

OzzyR1 said:

Previous said:

z4RRSchris said:

check out this lads garage...

250
bentley 3 litre
something else

Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire, SG14
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/prop...

The garage is the most 'normal' thing about the place! Stuffed Noahs ark on entry is, err, interesting...

WTF is going on there?

Photo 6, is that really what it looks like on my phone screen? A small, taxidermied polar bear with a bow-tie and waistcoat levelling a shotgun at the room??

Also, two baby giraffes suspended in the double-height hallway?

"Nowt as strange as folks" my gran used to say.

Edited by OzzyR1 on Sunday 19th July 23:23

Or the door to nowhere under the Giraffe.

[tim0409]

I was reading an article yesterday and some of the large mortgage companies are predicting a fairly modest contraction in house house prices (5%) before picking up in subsequent years. Given the bleak unemployment news filtering through every day and the impending end of furlough I would have thought this was a tad optimistic?

As previously mentioned, I have a closing date tomorrow with a view to renting for 6-12 months before buying another project. Hopefully my timing is right.....though with my luck a working vaccine will be discovered on Wednesday and house prices will rise dramatically in the next few months....

[Leicester Loyal]

Tried to organise 3 viewings this morning, first day back out of lockdown, all 3 houses had pending offers and the owner isn't accepting anymore viewings.

[gregs656]

menousername said:

In a few days you’ve gone from quiet / great depression is coming, to executive burn out....?

Don’t forget the labouring to keep food on the table.

Or the teaching.

All a bit weird.

[menousername]

Confused by this- I’m in the SE - decent enough commute into London - for daily commuting it can be a bit of a slog but if you were predicting a 2 or 3 day working week it would be the perfect place to relocate to.

Plugged the same filters into RM - Usual 3/4 bedders, drive, garage etc - nothing is selling. Same houses advertised, with a few modest reductions, and with barely any new listings and hardly any that have recently gone STC.

[Bullet-Proof_Biscuit]

Keep coming back to this idea of the furlough & job losses somewhat restricted to predominantly hospitality / below average or average earners. Those whom do not tend to buy property and only rent for the majority of their lives. Ergo property buying power is not going to be massively affected, granted owners of the business loosing the staff after shutting up shop will have reduced buying power but they’re a fractional 1/5th - 1/10th minority of the above mentioned doomed workforce.
I’d be willing to suggest those doomed workers would be set back some margin from being in the position to buy and therefore will be in rented accom for an even longer foreseeable, which bolsters house prices where rent yields are good (basically anywhere).

HH

[djc206]

menousername said:

Confused by this- I’m in the SE - decent enough commute into London - for daily commuting it can be a bit of a slog but if you were predicting a 2 or 3 day working week it would be the perfect place to relocate to.

Plugged the same filters into RM - Usual 3/4 bedders, drive, garage etc - nothing is selling. Same houses advertised, with a few modest reductions, and with barely any new listings and hardly any that have recently gone STC.

I’m between Southampton and Portsmouth both of which have a good but fairly lengthy connection to London and there are loads of new listings around here. Where we are on the property ladder the stamp duty holiday is a real bonus so there seems to be quite a lot of activity particularly around the £500-750k mark which round here gets you a decent 4-5 family home or something with a bit more history and character out in the country. Anecdotally I’ve noticed a lot of fresh for sale signs popping up in the last week or so and some of the nicer properties I’ve spotted on RM have STC very quickly.

[menousername]

Bullet-Proof_Biscuit said:

Keep coming back to this idea of the furlough & job losses somewhat restricted to predominantly hospitality / below average or average earners. Those whom do not tend to buy property and only rent for the majority of their lives. Ergo property buying power is not going to be massively affected, granted owners of the business loosing the staff after shutting up shop will have reduced buying power but they’re a fractional 1/5th - 1/10th minority of the above mentioned doomed workforce.
I’d be willing to suggest those doomed workers would be set back some margin from being in the position to buy and therefore will be in rented accom for an even longer foreseeable, which bolsters house prices where rent yields are good (basically anywhere).

HH

Interesting point but it would / should have a downward pressure on rent levels

[T1547]

We've just gone on the market (actually we've just signed the paperwork, not yet online and have already had a couple of positive viewings just from people on the agent's books). We were thinking of moving at some point in the next few months/year but spurred on by the SD removal.

Had a long chat with a mortgage broker this morning to go through our details and what we can achieve mortgage wise.

We're looking at 90 or possibly 85% LTV depending on the purchase price of next property and sale price of ours. Our broker has said there are only 3 or 4 mortgage providers currently offering 90% LTV products at the moment - the best is 2 year Fix at 2.24% (hardly amazing but not terrible) but is with HSBC who apparently have a sizeable back log and just logging on to put the application through is difficult (they limit the amount of mortgages per day apparently). Other offerings are 5 year fix at approx 3.5% - not great. 85% LTV opens up some much better deals (1.7% over 2 years) and access to wider amount of lenders.

Will have to see what we can get for ours and price of onwards, but if we are hoping to be quick about it looks like 85% min. LTV would be very advantageous.

[kingston12]

menousername said:

Confused by this- I’m in the SE - decent enough commute into London - for daily commuting it can be a bit of a slog but if you were predicting a 2 or 3 day working week it would be the perfect place to relocate to.

Plugged the same filters into RM - Usual 3/4 bedders, drive, garage etc - nothing is selling. Same houses advertised, with a few modest reductions, and with barely any new listings and hardly any that have recently gone STC.

How was the market there before? It appears that in a lot of places have just paused for CV19 and then carried on with previous trends.

I'm in Surbiton and that's what's happened here. The more expensive part with easy access to the station and river seem to have higher prices than last year and a lot seem to be going under offer, whilst the cheaper part has a few reductions that are new lows for the area and are still not selling. Flats struggling all over, just as before.

I still think that the more expensive part of town will be a 'net loser' if 2-3 days WFH becomes widespread. It's a nice area, but you are paying a reasonably large premium for the commute and I can't see why a lot of people would do that if they aren't using it as often. We'll see.