House Prices #2 Property market, buying and selling

[Chuff offohc]

With so many estate agents selling to cash buying investors this year I can see things getting worse as time goes on because the investors arnt going to employ the estate agents to sell them on in the future are they.
One estate agent in October showed us a house we fell in love with. I called 3 times to make an offer and twice was told someone would call me back the 3rd person laughed down the phone and told me she had spent the day waiting for an offer from a cash buyer which she had now got. Fast forward to last week the same woman called me to ask if we was still interested in making an offer no hun!
We completed yesterday and have the keys to our forever home, offered asking price and start to finish took 10 weeks to go through the whole buying process. Although it's an absolute shed and needs complete renovation, one room at a time we will get there. Such a relief to have a place to call our own after a year of no viewings and being constantly out bid.

 

[Holidaybobs]

Barrett homes are proposing to build 200 homes in my village, considering the whole village only has 600 homes this is insane, they have no plans to build any schools, doctors, shops etc. We have no amenities in our village bar a pub an a corner shop. We have to go to the next county for the Doctors (which has so many issues within itself due to crossing NHS trusts) and our nearest supermarket is 6 miles away! I just cannot see the demand considering they will start from £500K I expect.

I don’t understand how they are allowed to do this? By law it’s a requirement for them to either build a new school or improve the current infrastructure to accommodate the influx of new residents

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I don’t understand how they are allowed to do this? By law it’s a requirement for them to either build a new school or improve the current infrastructure to accommodate the influx of new residents

I know that they’re allowed to build the low income housing off site, they tend to do it in cheaper boroughs here, I wonder if the same can apply to investing in infrastructure? Or they delay it by saying a x year commitment

 

[JoeBloggs]

I don’t understand how they are allowed to do this? By law it’s a requirement for them to either build a new school or improve the current infrastructure to accommodate the influx of new residents

Sadly we live on a county line, so they are technically building in the next county. Our county is fighting it because not only are they proposing to build on land what was granted protected status (not green belt) but the country they are building in is happy to not force them to invest in the local area because it is on our boundary so is our issue and will impact us more. I seriously hope they get refused, this will be the forth site in the area with only £50K of infrastructure investment between them. Our Parish Council are pretty resilient so I hope with us and them the stance of objection works!

 

[Anne1448]

There is also a huge gap between the solicitors/estate agents who own all the good homes and the small agents who only have crappy homes.

The big agents buy all the small agencies and take their portfolios with them while the small agencies end up with terrible options. This create a false sentiment of "options" when in fact you have to buy from these massive agencies with insane fees if you want to buy a house.

One of my colleague wanted to buy a house but the agent was so dismissive, kinda like what you went through @chuffoffohc , that she declined to even visit it. It is so infuriating because now 12 months later the house is still on the market with the same awful solicitor.

God knows how many people are refusing to buy a property due to the attitude of the agents.

 

[Holidaybobs]

Sadly we live on a county line, so they are technically building in the next county. Our county is fighting it because not only are they proposing to build on land what was granted protected status (not green belt) but the country they are building in is happy to not force them to invest in the local area because it is on our boundary so is our issue and will impact us more. I seriously hope they get refused, this will be the forth site in the area with only £50K of infrastructure investment between them. Our Parish Council are pretty resilient so I hope with us and them the stance of objection works!

Ahh you are in a bit of a predicament then. It depends what was agreed in section 106 etc. Best of luck with it but, unfortunately the developers tend to get their own way!

 

[Anne1448]

Rory Hearne: Costly home truths mean many will never afford their own home

For 90% of earners, the average rent in Ireland is now unaffordable, forcing many to take on unsustainable debt levels and pay ridiculous house prices just to get out of the private rental sector, writes Rory Hearne

www.irishexaminer.com

Our capital, Dublin, is way past the 2008 crisis levels in terms of house cost.

The Central Statistics Office in Ireland said that you have 14 times more chances of being poor if you are renting in today's era.

Child poverty, suicide rates and depression has never been higher.

I wonder if another crash is coming next year since there is one every 13 years.

 

[theweekend]

Had my quarterly argument with my mum re the housing market yesterday. She says that her having to buy her first house in a ‘not nice’ part of London is the same as my SiL and her husband having to buy a 30% share of a shared ownership flat outside of London. “Well we all struggled” she says

 

[Warpaint]

Rory Hearne: Costly home truths mean many will never afford their own home

For 90% of earners, the average rent in Ireland is now unaffordable, forcing many to take on unsustainable debt levels and pay ridiculous house prices just to get out of the private rental sector, writes Rory Hearne

www.irishexaminer.com

Our capital, Dublin, is way past the 2008 crisis levels in terms of house cost.

The Central Statistics Office in Ireland said that you have 14 times more chances of being poor if you are renting in today's era.

Child poverty, suicide rates and depression has never been higher.

I wonder if another crash is coming next year since there is one every 13 years.

Watched a documentary a few years ago about renting in Dublin. It was like 1500 Euros for your average flat. People were living in box rooms for extortionate prices well. And then there's the homeless problem that was massive at the time, not sure what it's like now.

 

[Lisdiz]

Had my quarterly argument with my mum re the housing market yesterday. She says that her having to buy her first house in a ‘not nice’ part of London is the same as my SiL and her husband having to buy a 30% share of a shared ownership flat outside of London. “Well we all struggled” she says

I feel ya, It’s frustrating because the previous generation just don’t seem to get it.

 

[Anne1448]

The average rent in Dublin is now 2,049€. It's completely out of touch with reality.

I am very lucky to be part of the few young people who work in IT, so my salary is higher than the average worker. However, even with 1000€ in savings per month I feel like I cannot catch up.

Every time I feel like I am close to my goal, the houses go up by 20-50k.

I don't even smoke, drink, buy loads of clothes or anything like that. It's like trying to trap smoke with my bare hands.

 

[mindlessness]

Had my quarterly argument with my mum re the housing market yesterday. She says that her having to buy her first house in a ‘not nice’ part of London is the same as my SiL and her husband having to buy a 30% share of a shared ownership flat outside of London. “Well we all struggled” she says

I don't know if she would be receptive to it, but could you show her the increase in house prices compared to wages over the years?

House prices over 174 years - and the 70 year period they got cheaper

House prices have only ever been as expensive as they are now compared to wages twice in the past 120 years, but surprisingly before that they were considerably more costly, a deep dive shows.

www.thisismoney.co.uk

UK houses now cost almost eight times average earnings, says ONS

Average house price to earnings ratio hits 7.77, up from 7.6 in 2016 and the highest in the official time series going back to 2002

www.independent.co.uk

How UK house prices have soared ahead of average wages

The average house price is 65 times higher than in 1970 but average wages are only 36 times higher.

www.newstatesman.com

The New Statesman article has a good graph from 1970 on.

 

[Former_Antelopee]

I’ve got a question if anyone can help?
I had my survey done and had a valuation included in it which they valued the house at 8k less than my offer. I tried to Google what usually happens if this is the case but it just came up with bank surveyors for mortgages rather than the building inspection surveyor. My mortgage got accepted, so the bank surveyor must be ok with what I offered. As all I could find online was about banks not accepted mortgages if their surveyor didn’t agree. Would you try and negotiate the price or just stick with it, just wanted to see if anyone had experiences and if it’s worth trying or not. Hope this makes sense!

 

[lurkingaround123]

I’ve got a question if anyone can help?
I had my survey done and had a valuation included in it which they valued the house at 8k less than my offer. I tried to Google what usually happens if this is the case but it just came up with bank surveyors for mortgages rather than the building inspection surveyor. My mortgage got accepted, so the bank surveyor must be ok with what I offered. As all I could find online was about banks not accepted mortgages if their surveyor didn’t agree. Would you try and negotiate the price or just stick with it, just wanted to see if anyone had experiences and if it’s worth trying or not. Hope this makes sense!

I brought a house (completed last month) the survey said the house was worth 5k less than my offer so I offered the price the house was valued at and they accepted it which was a bonus.
Apparently if they don’t accept it, often the bank will only lend based on what the house is valued at so you might have to put a higher deposit down to cover. Not sure if this is always the case or just in mine. Good luck with it

 

[Former_Antelopee]

I brought a house (completed last month) the survey said the house was worth 5k less than my offer so I offered the price the house was valued at and they accepted it which was a bonus.
Apparently if they don’t accept it, often the bank will only lend based on what the house is valued at so you might have to put a higher deposit down to cover. Not sure if this is always the case or just in mine. Good luck with it

Thank you. I did have to increase my deposit but that was before the bank went for their valuation. I had to increase it to 15% on application. The bank did their valuation on the 10th and accepted the mortgage on the 16th. I got my survey back today, I emailed the estate agents to see if the owners will be willing to negotiate if not I’ll have to decide what to do

 

[HoGi]

Thank you. I did have to increase my deposit but that was before the bank went for their valuation. I had to increase it to 15% on application. The bank did their valuation on the 10th and accepted the mortgage on the 16th. I got my survey back today, I emailed the estate agents to see if the owners will be willing to negotiate if not I’ll have to decide what to do

Did the survey identify work that needs doing that means it is worth less than you offered?

I have had experience of this twice. Once the mortgage company valued it at less than we offered (it was a small development where little had sold so their desktop valuation was miles off) the seller wouldn’t lower the price and we couldn’t get the cash to make up the difference between the mortgage and offer so had to pull out.

the other time mortgage was approved butsurvey showed there was damp that would cost around 2k to repair so was worth 2k less than offered. The seller agreed to do the work so we paid the original price. The other option on the table was to reduce the price and we get the work done, but we didn’t want to go down that route.

ETA if your mortgage has been approved then I wouldn’t worry too much. The bank wouldn’t back a price that is miles off

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Did the survey identify work that needs doing that means it is worth less than you offered?

I have had experience of this twice. Once the mortgage company valued it at less than we offered (it was a small development where little had sold so their desktop valuation was miles off) the seller wouldn’t lower the price and we couldn’t get the cash to make up the difference between the mortgage and offer so had to pull out.

the other time mortgage was approved butsurvey showed there was damp that would cost around 2k to repair so was worth 2k less than offered. The seller agreed to do the work so we paid the original price. The other option on the table was to reduce the price and we get the work done, but we didn’t want to go down that route.

ETA if your mortgage has been approved then I wouldn’t worry too much. The bank wouldn’t back a price that is miles off

Theres nothing really on the survey just small general maintenance things. So just just be what they value it as? I asked my mortgage advisor and she said they banks valuation came back as satisfactory for the offer I put in so that it was worth the offer. I’ll see what the vendors say. I just wanted advise to see what peoples experiences have been. I already lost money pulling out of another house after surveys were done so I hope it doesn’t happen again

 

[HoGi]

Theres nothing really on the survey just small general maintenance things. So just just be what they value it as? I asked my mortgage advisor and she said they banks valuation came back as satisfactory for the offer I put in so that it was worth the offer. I’ll see what the vendors say. I just wanted advise to see what peoples experiences have been. I already lost money pulling out of another house after surveys were done so I hope it doesn’t happen again

Hmm that's odd then. I would just take the surveyors valuation with a pinch of salt then.

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Hmm that's odd then. I would just take the surveyors valuation with a pinch of salt then.

I ended up asking if the owners would accept a lower offer and they said they’d accept 5k lower! Glad I asked now

 

[HoGi]

I ended up asking if the owners would accept a lower offer and they said they’d accept 5k lower! Glad I asked now

Happy days!