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BoldAsBrass

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  1. I thought I would drop by and provide an update. After selling up in 2017 with a view to downsizing and retiring, we lived with one of my sons until we found a place to buy. We bought a small bungalow in West Dorset in the spring of 2019. We rented a place down here for 3 months and basically viewed a property a day for 3 months. Despite virtually all of them needing work and having some major disadvantage (too near the A35 being the most common one), vendors would not accept offers. Sometimes they wouldn't drop by a grand, never mind, say, five grand. The place we bought is in a nice town with amenities - shops, pubs, cafes etc and a nice community feel. The countryside is beautiful and the jurassic coast close enough to walk the dog there several times a week. Our bungalow needed lots of work - but it has great views from the back garden. I had a builder in for a while after we bought it - knocked down a wall to make kitchen bigger, rewired, replumbed, new flooring, new plastered ceilings, new kitchen, created an en-suite, refitted the bathroom, redecoration throughout. We probably spent £50k on it between the Spring and Autumn of 2019. We moved here in October 2019 and a few months later Covid appeared. Once the lockdowns started I confidently predicted a house price crash! Again. (I have regularly predicted them before and rarely been right - and then only half right). I watched in amazement and astonishment as, despite estate agents being 'shut', property not only continued to sell but prices went up! Despite the widespread predictions of economic turmoil, job losses etc. - the market went up. So, to sum up, it has become clear to me that a house price CRASH is an illusion. Occasionally the market stagnates. Occasionally prices harden - a little. Rarely - only once in my lifetime (late 1980s - early 1990s) have they actually, really fallen to the point where the market has reset at a lower price. Even the 2008 financial crash didn't really do much to lower house prices - certainly not if you take virtually any 5 year period. As long as banks can create money out of thin air and lend it as mortgages, the market will never, actually fall. And, to top if off, as it were - our bungalow has gone up by at least 25% (on top of the 50k we have spent on it). Property is still selling quickly here as the exodus from the South East continues. I keep meeting people who have just moved here. The book club I joined has 13 of us in it - only one member has lived here for longer than a few years. We are all incomers - bringing money into the area.
  2. Another little anecdotal update - one might think looking at the London market that prices are falling in the UK. One thing I have learned is that there is no such thing as 'the property market' - there is just the market where you live. I bought a place in West Dorset earlier this year. The market here is driven by second home owners - some of whom buy cottages for holiday lets - and by people moving here to retire having sold up - generally - in the Home Counties. The result is a 'ticking over' sort of market where properties might be a bit slow to sell but vendors are very reluctant to drop prices. Even empty places we looked at - being sold by executors - the vendors would not budge. So, yes, a quieter market - less transactions that when things are booming - but it's a steady market. You see the For Sale sign and, sometimes within a week, generally within a couple of months - you see the Under Offer sign. Meanwhile, back in Berkshire, notwithstanding our plans at one time to extend our house so our sons could have their own spaces - one of our sons bought a new build near Wokingham for £515k - which included about £10k of extras a previous buyer had paid for.This would have been two and a half years ago. He was showing me the releases for the next phase the other day - they had stopped building the house type he bought - but they have started to offer it again. It's almost identical but the new one is about 1.2m narrower. The new one is going on at £620k. Despite my concerns when he bought it - my warnings about taking on such a big mortgage and (surely!) house prices must have peaked - it seems to have gone up about 20% - against the backdrop of Brexit, uncertainty etc. One feels the housing market is, generally, an unstoppable juggernaut. I am a bit relieved to be back in the market as a property owner.
  3. I am now in the market to buy … it's funny how no matter how quiet the market is - or how much doom and gloom there is about - it is very hard to find a vendor who is prepared to accept (much) less than the agent valued it at, or they think it is worth. My experience of falling housing markets before is that it takes at least a year for people to get their heads around the fact the market is not on an eternal upward curve and for agents to have so few sales that they, finally, start telling vendors the facts of life. That said, we are now awash with on-line agents and people can put their house on the market at any daft price and only risk losing a few hundred quid.
  4. A little anecdotal. Apologies if already posted the first bit. Thinking in terms of house price indices - one I just saw shows a decline of 0.5% in the South East. Sold our house in Berkshire earlier this year. Bought it in 2010 for £422k. 4 bed detached estate house in a nice area. Spent a fair bit on it - new kitchen, bathroom, en-suite. New fireplace - redecorated from top to bottom, new flooring to ground floor, new carpets upstairs, bit of work on the gardens etc. It was an ex-rental when we bought it, and we turned it into a nice family home. It went on the market for £720k in summer 2017. First offer was £695k. Timewasters who pulled out. Second offer was £665k which we accepted - as we were keen to move on and we had also had an offer of £650k. Second buyer's buyer couldn't get the mortgage they needed so they pulled out too. Buyer number 3 offered us £670k which we took. And this went through, 9 months after first going on the market - in April this year. We seemed to have not too much trouble getting offers, but finding someone who could go through with it seemed tricky. The third sale dragged on for about 4 months even though there were only 3 in the chain. Anyway, round my son's house this morning - he had an agent round for a valuation. First time since 1990 I've heard an agent utter the words 'the market is falling'. Quite how the house prices indices factor in my house baffles me. All they know is we bought it in 2010 for £422k and sold it in 2018 for £670k. On the face of it the house went up 58% in 8 years - but the index has no idea how much we spent on the house.
  5. I occasionally look in here to add a little anecdote and, of course, to read what others are saying. I think I have probably posted elsewhere that my sons bought a new build house using Help to Buy last year - in June. They had a card through the letterbox the other day from a local estate agent trumpeting the news that a house near them had just been sold for (I think, can't remember the exact figure) 60k more than was paid - just a few months ago! This is a large new estate too - huge. Must be a couple of miles square. Looking at the houses currently for release my sons' 4 bed terrace house has gone up by almost 100k in 8 months. All I can say is - the mind boggles and how right my sons were not to listen to me when I warned them against buying what I thought was already an overvalued house. It seems this market just goes on and on and on. I have been waiting for a crash since 2002.
  6. When you reply to posts, how do you get their post to show in yours - so it is clear what you are replying to. I click the Quote button below posts but it doesn't seem to do anything?
  7. Can any foreigner buy a property in the USA and become a landlord? I.e. Legally own a property and enter into a legal tenancy agreement of some sort? Can you remit the money out of the USA? Where must tax be paid on it?
  8. This reply is to AndyT's latest post (this forum software is weird - you click Quote under a post and it opens a window at the bottom of the screen to reply in ... you are not sure if your reply will appear where it should. Anyway ... I never thought I would say this, but I would advise and encourage you to do whatever you can to buy something. Lifelong renting is not desirable unless you have a sensible rent and an assured tenancy - neither of which are available these days unless you get to the top of the 50 year council waiting list. I've been into this 'house price crash' thing since before the original HousePriceCrash site was set up. Post 9/11 we had, at the time, a 50 year low in interest rates (yes, 3.5% base rate was a 50 year low then!) - house prices were rising and I was convinced we were in for a repeat of 1988 when we did actually have a house price correction (I won't say 'crash' as house prices are very, very sticky on the way down - whereas they go up at the drop of a hat (or an interest rate). I sold in 2003, rented, and gave up in 2010. I think my foray into renting (which was horrible, by the way) did save me about £50k. But, back to the present day. Base rate at 0.5%. Massive mortgages have been doshed out at 1.99%. House prices are still very high (in the areas of the country where the work is and people want to live) You can't earn money leaving it in the bank. The stock market has been essentially flat for 20 years. You can't put your capital at risk in the hope of getting a dividend yield as dividends seem to up and down like yo-yos these days The ONLY place you can get a reasonable yield is property and your capital, although at risk, seems to be less at risk than in the stock market All I can see is the present situation continuing. Anyone with a bit of spare cash will sink it into property. And this will keep the house of cards standing. If you can, buy. Edit. And, no, this reply to AndyT did not appear under his post, or connected to it in any way, despite my clicking the Quote button under his post.
  9. Sorry for delay replying - don't look in that often. Deposit was about 30 grand I think. They used help to buy and have a mortgage of £385k which is fixed for 2 years at 1.99%. What will happen if/when interest rates go up who knows. That said, they could move home and rent it out if things get sticky. And they are both relatively at the beginning of their careers so should earn more as time goes on. I was in two minds about their decision to buy. On the one hand it seems nuts, but we have been waiting for a correction since the early 2000s and, even with the 'global financial crisis' of 2007/2008 - prices didn't go down that much (where we live) and recovered again within a few years. They only moved in a couple of months ago - but the house was reserved by someone else 6 months earlier but they failed to complete. My sons bought it at the '6 months ago' price. Now, let's say about 8 months on from when that house was first reserved, houses on the next phase (which are a little bit smaller and not so well specified, are going for £40k more than they paid.
  10. Just reading the post above about Barrat's - I thought I would have a look at the share price of Berkeley Homes - the developers of the house I mentioned in the post above. Their share price went from 3285 on the day of the referendum down to 2685. So they fell 18% while Barrats fell 50%. I wonder why Barrats fell so much more.
  11. Well, after a fair bit of discussion, my two sons recently decided to bite the bullet and bought a new build using the Help to Buy scheme. We had saved money for each of them throughout their childhoods - intending it to either help with university costs or as a deposit on a house. So, they used it as the deposit on a house costing just over half a million. Yes, I know. They both earn decent money and, despite being young (the youngest is 21) they earn over 100k between them. I gave them the old 'buying at top prices at the lowest interest rates in history may not be a good idea' speech. But, I've certainly been giving my eldest lad that speech for a number of years and, for him, it had worn thin. His mates were somehow getting on the ladder and he felt he was going to be left behind. So, early days yet ... but they bought a house which had been released for sale about 6 months ago. The people who were originally going to buy it never exchanged and the developer offered it to my sons who went ahead. They've been in a couple of months now. Similar houses on the next phase, a bit smaller though, and with no garage, are going for £30k more than they paid. The house next door (identical) has been bought by an investor and is being rented out at £1900 a month. My lads' mortgage (at 1.99%) is £1200. No wonder anyone with a bit of cash is still sinking it into property. The madness continues.
  12. Help to buy distorting the market? I have two young adult sons - both earning decent money (say, about twice the UK average each). They have been looking at getting on to the bloody 'ladder' and, if they buy together, can get a mortgage of getting on for half a million. (I know, I know.) They have been looking at local new builds (East Berkshire in 'Silicon Triangle' between Reading, Bracknell and Basingstoke) and I am now convinced that builders are simply adding on the 20% help to buy discount to the price. A new build 3 bed semi was sent to them the other day - in a (reasonably pleasant) road in Wokingham - with excellent ability to hear the M4 just up the road. The builders want £595k for it. Which is probably £150k over the top. There is a bit of volume housebuilding going on in the same area - all bang next to the motorways. The prices are eyewatering - a 4 bed town house with a back garden barely big enough for a table and chairs - £485k - AFTER THE DISCOUNT! I tell you, the builders are adding the 20% on to the price. So much for helping first time buyers. And a final little moan - what on earth are planners up to these days? The car parking on new estates is a joke. There is an estate near Bracknell with about 1500 houses on it - you get wheel clamped if you park on the main road! Most of the houses are about 4 feet from the pavement - so, no chance of off road parking, and the larger (I use the word loosely) 4 bed houses - have a single garage and one parking space - buried somewhere out the back. Yet if you have the cheek to want to build an extension on your house, the idiots demand two or three additional off road parking spaces and a turning circle. The world is going nuts.
  13. This topic has intrigued me since it opened in 2008 with something like 'we are witnessing a once in a lifetime event'. Well, here we are 7 years later (and 13 years after HPC started) and still nothing to speak of. House over the road just sold for £150k more than it last sold for in 2010. My house has been valued at £180k more than I paid for it - also in 2010. Identical house to mine just sold ... hence agents nagging me to sell mine. It feels like nothing has changed ... that somehow, weirdly, houses are still selling at prices that 90% of the next generation cannot afford. A family member (generation below me) is moving 'up the ladder' and buying a semi in a nice village in Surrey for half a million - can only assume at least a 300k mortgage is involved. There seem to be enough youngsters earning big money to keep the thing going. Looks to me as though this thing may never play out .... we baby boomers are dying off over the next 20 years and the money will move down and keep things ticking along. All, of course, now based on low interest rates. Will they ever go up again? Again, we all seem to have adapted to low interest rates.
  14. Yes, on the subject of garden/growing food - I'm very focused on that. I keep telling my (adult) kids 'if we can get ourselves into the position where we are all housed - and you lads have enough room to have your own family - and we can grow some of our own food - then you can enjoy your lives without the constant worry and stress of always having to be in highly paid jobs just to get by'. Once you get past a certain amount of money - property with a couple of acres is on the cards and, often, these types of properties have an additional 5 or 10 acres you can buy at a sensible price. Not enough to be self sufficient, but enough to make a dent. Yes, I'll have a look at your OTP story.
  15. Haven't been on this site for a while ... thought I might provide my anecdotal view of the world. To recap: Sold to Rent in 2003 (yes, almost 11 years ago now!) - because I thought the market was about to crash - just as it had in 1988. Had intended to rent for a couple of years and buy back in when prices had fallen. I did not allow for New Labour's determination to keep the credit boom going and ended up renting for 7 years. For the first 5 of those 7 years, we did okay in the sense that the money in the bank more than paid the rent and, at least at first (2003-2005), house prices did fall a bit. But, of course, after 2008 interest rates were slashed and suddenly the money in the bank wasn't paying the rent. In 2010 the landlord wanted to sell up and we found to rent a similar 4 bed house would cost £1800 to £2000 a month, instead of the £1100 a month we were paying. So, we bought. Still convinced, deep down inside somewhere, that house prices must fall. Well, here we are 3 and a half years after buying and, unbelievably, we could sell our house now for at least £150k more than we paid for it. My adult sons are reconciled to never being able to afford their own place. We are selling up again - moving to a slightly cheaper area and buying a 6 bed house that we are going to extend so that we end up with 3 separate living spaces - each with 2/3 bedrooms. My sons will need smallish mortgages - probably of about 50k each but it means they will live in a nice area with their brother and mother and father on hand for baby-sitting duties etc. - if the day comes and they settle down and have children. Upside for them is a small mortgage and a nice place to live without having to struggle all their lives. Downside is the fossils will always be next door and if they want to sell up and move on to their own place it will be difficult. As a further anecdotal - my eldest brother is about to do something very similar - they are extending to create a granny annexe and their daughter and her family are moving into the house. In the early days I used to post on the HousePriceCrash web site until, one day, I got banned for not spouting the party line (i.e. pointing out that the crash most of us had fervently believed would happen, wasn't going to.) Now, I still see posts with people predicting the crash or the correction. What can one say after 11 years of this? Give it up? I have to say I no longer believe there will be any sort of serious correction. The longer it goes on, the more people are sucked in, the bigger the debts and the threat to the whole system. I think we have ample evidence that 'they' will do absolutely anything to keep the market going. More and more people of my baby boomer generation are now making changes to, in one way or another, accommodate their children. This, I think, is the future and is simply born of necessity.
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