Petem95

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/s...312343,00.html

Seems prices are falling pretty much across the board now, less regisitered buyers with agents, lots more property coming onto the market as people try and sell at the top of market, interest rates still not peaked.

Has to be on the downwards slope now, 30% fall overall?

Feel sorry for one of my mates who jumped on the BTW band wagon this summer with a house in S.Wales - took him ages to rent it, tennants have been a nightmare, and now looks like the property will be loosing value too!

gsm1

There's been a slight dip because of over inflated prices. It won't go much lower because there still are too many buyers ready and waiting.

milo

my bet is on 20-30%.

yes there are buyers ready and waiting - and most of them are waiting for prices to fall. which will of course make them fall!

ChrisB

I didn't know we had Mystic Meg on here

NotoriousREV

You always get a slowing and occasionally a falling in house prices in Q3 and Q4 of every year. Think about it. People buy houses in spring and early summer, **** off on their holidays, then the kids go back to school, then it's Christmas and then a lull in which to buy a house the following spring. If you don't beleive me, take a look at the house price trends published by the land registry. Seeing a house with £15k knocked off it's price in the paper doesn't mean every house has just lost £15k, it just means that the house was overpriced.

The real test for house prices will come next summer. If they're lower than this year, then the market is dropping, if not, forget about it and cash in your equity or move to a house you can barely afford the mortgage on

Disclaimer: not regulated by the FSA and any advice taken at your own risk

workshy_fopp

Depends where you live. House prices in Edinburgh are forecast to rise 10-20% 2004-2005 depending on area. The more expensive areas are doing the 10% which is just the market rationalising a bit, the cheaper areas are doing the 20% which is first time buyer territory. It'll be game on again come spring time, mortgages are still really cheap.

Tiggs

stunning.....xmas approaches = less houses on market = 30% fall on the way!

load of nonsense!

paulr

It'll fall whatever it takes to entice back first time buyers.

Alas

As above - Scotland has'nt had the massive rises(although bigger this year) so does'nt have th corresponding falls (if any)
Alas

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

My crystal ball predicts property in urban areas and inner cities, especially the likes of terraced. Or property that is not so favourable (no off-road parking, or small houses needing 15K+ spend in basic improvment work) will be the first to hit the wall and depreciate. They are over priced, not desirable, and first time buyers cannot afford them.

Whilst I reckon houses outside of inner cities, within greenbelt land or countryside. That are also larger, detached and provide off road parking, will be reamain at current pricing, possibly a continued increase.

Higher-middle class homes on urban fringes, detached or semi with 4 bedrooms and parking will stay boyant - as these are in high demand from inner city migration, and expanding families. Although actual sales may drop due to a knock on effect from slower sales and values of lower class property that the buyers move up from.

There is some sense in there somewhere

gsm1

Well everyone is a potential buyer if the price is right. There is still plenty of demand compared to supply. Until that changes I don't see how the prices can fall by 20/30%.

paulr, sadly the market place doesn't care about first time buyers only who is willing to buy.

pslewis

30%

House prices rely on confidence, house prices drop and its reported as such = everyone who can, waits ..... prices drop, confidence is hit, prices drop, confidence drops ............. until, it overshoots downwards as it has upwards (then step in and buy!)

30%

Pete

fast bloke

haven't scrolled down to pslewis post yet, but i'll bet 25-30% of the value of my house that he is posting the cyclical confidnce chestnut ..... again. Pete - that only works when there are too many houses

fast bloke

just read the post -Pete ya daft git - git over it. You are not going to make your fortune on real estate. Based opn current forecasting, you would have 'got out' about three years ago. You would need the market to drop by 45% to break even......... I thought someone your age would know better

Dunk

iTrader: (1)

Too much if you're an owner & not enough if you're a purchaser.

D

Gordo

It's just the media hyping it up - chatting to a friend who's an estate agent, he's furious - prices in our area haven't moved in 2 years and he's continuing to see a good balance of buyers/sellers. Doesn't feel like a crisis (or an opportunity) to me.

Gordo

Goochie

oh shut up all of you...... you've all been saying that house prices are going to fall for the last year and they've hardly moved.

I asked the same question this time last year before I bought my house and everyone told me not to buy because a crash was round the corner. My neighbours have just sold their house for £30k more than I paid for mine.

ProperCharlie

Well two things won't happen:

1) House prices continue to rise at more than double the rate of inflation for ever and ever.

2) NSR loses all interest in what happens to house prices.

hth

shunty

did anyone actually read the article??
"Hometrack said prices fell a non-seasonally adjusted 0.3% in the month to mid-September, following 0.1% falls in the previous two months."

so that means that in the last 3 months I have lost .4% of my 250,000 house value.....that's a massive £1750...if it's true...which in my case it isnt as my house is correctly priced & not massivly overpriced. We have a house identical to ours 400 yards away priced at £315,000.....so when you see his price "slashed" by 40k everyone says the markets crashing when in fact that particular house was stupidly overpriced!!

1 other quote from that article is "Price falls were recorded in all but five of 57 counties in England and Wales, and were sharpest in London at between 0.8% and 1%."
the last part of that quote says the sharpest price decrease was in London...never I'm shocked & amazed.....what, the capital of the country who had the sharpest increase in property prices has also has the sharpest decrease....the property/financial experts are really clever.....I would never had worked that one out.
The government are very cleverly using media & television to slowdown the housing market so it doesnt crash like in 1990 (there were NO alerts in that period & that's why it did crash), the main differences this time is that their WON'T be a major crash due to unemployment being much lower, & interest rates won't rise to anywhere near the 1990 rates & they are also flagging the "possible" crash every week by paper through other media outlets etc.

shunty

ProperCharlie

It seems to me that once you get prices significantly over about £300k, the "real value" of the property becomes fairly arbitary. My mother sold her place in london almost 2 years ago (cheers mum - that was supposed to be my inheritance ). Bear in mind she paid £30k for it in 1979. Estate agent had a quick look round and told her confidently:
"Put it on the market for £975k and expect to get over £1M once we have a few buyers interested." After very little interest in the first 6 months she "dropped" the price to £950k. It eventually sold for £930k. So was this a "price drop" of over £50k? No - the market was never interested in the initial arbitary price plucked out of the air by an estate agent. A friend of mine's parents have recently taken their pile (in Norwich) off the market as no-one wants to pay £1.3M for it.

What a surprise.

TelBoy

Mortgage approvals now at a 7 month low....

ProperCharlie

Ah - since that other well documented crash in February?

fitzscoob

been keeping an eye on all these threads recently, as I am to be a first time buyer some point early next year. I have been speaking with a few mates (estate agent scum ), in our area (east herts) they all say that they are having a very hard time.

I asked them how business was, his reply was "****", too many people asking too much money for their property, and people are no longer willing to pay for it. Prices in our area have started to come down.

But its all academic really, when next year comes around, if prices have dropped or sky rocketed, I will still be looking for a place - depending on the current situation of the market will determin what I can afford.

No one knows what the market is really going to do, yes there are trends and patterns but nothing is set in stone. I for one am not going to worry about it before I need to.

TelBoy

LOL, that data doesn't suggest there will be a crash, just that the downturn in mortgage approvals is gathering pace. Seven months ago, the market was still going up - big difference...

fin

All this talk worries me a great deal!

But thinking about it I paid in Feb this year £95000 for my end cottage house.

Now my mid neighbour is having viewings at her house for £160000

So I would hope mine being the end property with off road parking and the larger garden being at least the same value.

So £160000 taking away 30% my house would still be worth £112000

So I could still make £17000 in one year.

Still not bad

Everyone seams to be an expert nowadays!

Goochie

OK..... there has been a downturn in the number of mortgage approvals...... what about the number of applications?

ALso, it could be due to people not getting mortgage quotes before they start looking at houses - I saw something on the telly the other night where a couple went out to look at houses before they even spoke to the bank, they put in their offer then the bank wouldnt give them the mortgage they wanted.

TelBoy

Approvals is a function of applications.

It could be due to a LOT of reasons, but however it's measured, it's still a downturn in activity. If the Bank of England don't hike further this year (which is increasingly likely), then the extent of this downturn could be quite modest.

ProperCharlie

Tel - do you think it is increasingly likely that they will increase the base rate or that they won't?

Not that it matters to me as I've got a fixed rate deal that doesn't run out until Feb 2008 - but I would like there to be a big trough in the interest cycle at that time. Plus if I decide that I want to leave the rat race and go and raise chickens in the countryside, I would like prices to stay reasonably bouyant in my part of the market.

(ok so I want to have my cake *and* eat it - what's wrong with that?)

TelBoy

It's becoming increasingly likely that the current base rate of 4.75% will remain as it is. Few people expect any move in October, and most people don't expect any further movement for the rest of this year, especially since the effect the BoE wanted to achieve, namely slowing house price inflation, is now materialising. The market is divided as to whether 5% or 5.25% will be the peak of this current cycle, probably first half of 2005 - unless growth (particularly in the USA) picks up substantially from its current levels. HTH

ProperCharlie

Cheers - sounds fairly favourable to me.