House Prices are increasing!

[BigTallPaul]

Biggest AVERAGE House price increase in UK in 2013 wasn't in London.......
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It was in Manchester?!@$$
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and it was 21% (in one year!)
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Why?

[Dum-Dum]

Cos JP moved there (3 times)

[THE_Liam]

I'm glad. Bought my house at the worst part of the dip in prices a couple of years ago with council right to buy discount, so my 2 bed semi with a huge garden in a nice crescent a mile from Headingley rugby/cricket ground that I paid 45 grand for is currently valued at 130 grand

[puglove]

I'm glad. Bought my house at the worst part of the dip in prices a couple of years ago with council right to buy discount, so my 2 bed semi with a huge garden in a nice crescent a mile from Headingley rugby/cricket ground that I paid 45 grand for is currently valued at 130 grand

You lucky bastered !! So you £85k in the green out of nothing :O

[THE_Liam]

I'm glad. Bought my house at the worst part of the dip in prices a couple of years ago with council right to buy discount, so my 2 bed semi with a huge garden in a nice crescent a mile from Headingley rugby/cricket ground that I paid 45 grand for is currently valued at 130 grand

You lucky bastered !! So you £85k in the green out of nothing :O

Basically yeah, and my mortgage is £300 a month over 15 years as well! I've just spent 7 grand doing it up mind, but that means I've now got a brand new central heating system and boiler, patio doors, bathroom, wood floors, a few new windows and a lanscaped garden with a huge shed, and the valuation was before all that

Can't recommend right to buy enough.

[Scott]

45k. Wtf am I doing living in London, you couldn't buy a one room flat for that!

[THE_Liam]

45k. Wtf am I doing living in London, you couldn't buy a one room flat for that!

Off to see a mate in February who lives in Bow, she paid 325k for a 1 bedroom flat. She hates me! To be fair that's with a huge discount though, the actual market value when I bought it was 100k.

[r3k1355]

To be fair if you're living in London and not earning big bucks you're a mug.

Far far far too expensive to live down there.

[adamm306]

325k for a 1 bed flat? someone got bumped

[THE_Liam]

Pretty much average where she lives. You get a 4 bedroom semi in a posh area of Leeds for less!

[Niall]

Living in London is shite. Sooner I can get out of inside the m25 the better. House prices are just bloody ridiculous.

[Eeyore]

Living in London is shite. Sooner I can get out of inside the m25 the better. House prices are just bloody ridiculous.

+1

[Seb_Ryan]

Im currently buying my first house aswell (22 when we started going through) 103k its a 3 bed house, quite a bit garden off road parking, all the house is done up with new boiler good flooring 2 year old doubling glazing etc

[Kezzieboy]

So now all I need to find is a decent Automotive Engineering job in the Norf then, I'll start looking

Cornish house prices tend to be pretty f*cking ridiculous too, unfortunately.

[C.A.R.]

103K? That's got to be north of here

I'm not so obsessed with the idea of getting a mortgage and 'my own place' any more. Whilst it would be nice, it's quite restricting in that you're kind of stuck with the same place and its value could go up or down...

Rent is currently £715, always looking for somewhere cheaper...

[WiNgNuTz]

Problem with rent though, is that its dead money. At least with a mortgage, you're working your way towards actually owning something. I had a house with my ex-wife, she still lives in it though, and i've been relegated to a single room in a houseshare with my new girlfriend. Would like to get another house with her, but finances are horrendous at the moment.

[Grant]

Problem with rent though, is that its dead money. At least with a mortgage, you're working your way towards actually owning something.

Exactly this.


Saving at the moment for a deposit. Its a shit time to be buying a house. Yes these 5% deposit mortgages are good, but you need to be earning enough to make up the other 95% at 3.5x.

I'm waiting for a long lost relative who was a criminal and I never met to die and leave me a load of cash

[WiNgNuTz]

I'm waiting for a long lost relative who was a criminal and I never met to die and leave me a load of cash

Aren't we all?!

[powerandtorque]

its value could go up or down...

To be fair though, once you're on the property ladder the "value" only actually matters if you're looking to move - if you're not, in many ways it is academic as the house doesn't change and nor does your bank balance irrespective of what the on paper value is.

Even if you are moving, to some degree the value doesn't matter, as chances are if your house has doubled in price then so has anything you're looking to buy, and the same with price drops, certainly in the same area of the country.

The only time that you've got real problems is if you're looking to sell and the value has dropped sufficiently that you're in negative equity on the mortgage. Assuming that the economy doesn't take a major nosedive or the Eurozone implode, it's unlikely that anything you buy now will lose value in the near-medium term.

Rising interest rates will be more of a problem for most in the near-medium term, as they can't stay at the current low level if the economic recovery carries on the way it is IMO.

Obviously if you're looking to buy your first house, then increasing prices are bad news indeed given that they're massively outstripping wage inflation, effectively reducing your affordability on a month by month basis.

Renting is useful if you're moving around a lot for work etc and don't want to be tied down, but to a point it's a trap as you end up getting caught in a spiral where you can't save a sensible deposit to buy because you're paying rent each month (typically more than a mortgage on the same property would be) and because you can't save a deposit, you're having to keep renting.

[C.A.R.]

Dead money is how I used to look at it.

However, it's a means to an end. If that house burns down tomorrow, I've not lost anything (contents obvs, insurance will pay out) if the boiler needs replacing it's not my problem, so on.

Of course, in the long-term I have no equity, no assets. Until house prices become reasonable or I come into a lot of money, there's no way I can afford the basic 150k+ required for an average 2-bed house around here.

My grandparents paid £4,500 for their place back in '80, something which will never happen again. Factor in inflation then this 'subsidised' cost would still only be £16k, nothing like as expensive as even the most subsidised buying scheme gets today.

I'll continue paying rent whilst I sit back and wait for relatives to croak!!

[r3k1355]

Trick seems to be to get on the council list and into a council place, then exercise your 'right to buy' after the appropriate time.

Obviously this method has it's pitfalls.

[THE_Liam]

I've always wanted to own a house because no one in my family does, they all rent so I'll never inherit a house from my parents. I like having the security that once its paid (I'll be roughly 39 unless I start overpayment which I'm considering while interest rates are low), that's it, I never have to pay for housing again other than repairs and tax, and I can start putting away for my retirement or start my own business which I've always wanted to do. I'd love to run a small independent motor factors, and with no housing to pay and a house as equity a business loan would be easy.

[powerandtorque]

(I'll be roughly 39 unless I start overpayment which I'm considering while interest rates are low

If you can overpay, particularly in the early years, then definately do so as it makes a massive amount of difference to the term of the mortgage given you're largely only paying off interest in the early years rather than capital.

To give you some idea, I managed to pay off my mortgage in 7 years. Took a lot of hard work and being strict with myself in terms of outgoings to achieve that, but very satisfying making that final payment and knowing that (within reason) you've got a roof over your head no matter what happens and you're 10's of thousands of pounds better off over the long term.

You need to check your mortgage paperwork carefully though, as many mortgages have a limit on overpayments in the first 2-3 years. Nothing stopping you putting the money that you would have used to overpay into a savings account though and then knocking off a lump sum when any restrictions end.

[r3k1355]

Yep our mortgage guy said you can't over pay in the first 3 years.

Don't you have to re mortgage every 3 years or so to get the best deal or something?

[THE_Liam]

I can't overpay until 3 years in, but that's only 2 or 3 months away so I'm starting to think about it. Can't wait to actually have the deed in my hand as the owner, it's not a huge posh house but it's mine

[Dum-Dum]

I'm not so obsessed with the idea of getting a mortgage and 'my own place' any more. Whilst it would be nice, it's quite restricting in that you're kind of stuck with the same place and its value could go up or down...

Rent is currently £715, always looking for somewhere cheaper...

Realistically there is now chance of house prices going down, even in the recession they didn't really drop and while our population is increasing by about a million people a year without a matching increase in the supply of housing then places are always going to be in ever greater demand.

You live about as far out of london as I don in a similar commuter town and your rent is almost £100 more a month than my mortgage. I know your flat has 2 bedrooms but I've got a good sized garden, 3 parking spaces and the house next door is 2 bedroom and worth about £20k more.

Finally Ill add that (according to zoopla) my house has gone up in value over £3k in the few months I've lived here. Thinking about it thats almost as big an increase in value as I've paid into my motrgage so I've almost been living here for free.

Saving at the moment for a deposit. Its a shit time to be buying a house. Yes these 5% deposit mortgages are good, but you need to be earning enough to make up the other 95% at 3.5x.

IMO they aren't, Its nice more people can get on the ladder but the the higher your LTV rate the higher intrest rate you tend to get and considering that most of what you pay is intrest the rate changes make a big difference. I've got 90% LTV but the good interest rates don't start till 80-85% LTV.

[powerandtorque]

Don't you have to re mortgage every 3 years or so to get the best deal or something?

Yes you can often remortgage and get a better deal, but you need to weigh that up against the costs of any setup fees and the impact of new resistrictions on overpaying.

There's loads of mortgage calculators on the web that you can play around with to see how overpayments change the duration and total interest paid on the mortgage and how changes in interest rates and/or mortgage deal affect monthly payments.

You'll likely find that overpaying just £100 a month will have a noticeable impact on the amount of interest that you'll pay and save a fair bit of the overall duration of the mortgage.

[C.A.R.]

Obviously if you're looking to buy your first house, then increasing prices are bad news indeed given that they're massively outstripping wage inflation, effectively reducing your affordability on a month by month basis.

Renting is useful if you're moving around a lot for work etc and don't want to be tied down, but to a point it's a trap as you end up getting caught in a spiral where you can't save a sensible deposit to buy because you're paying rent each month (typically more than a mortgage on the same property would be) and because you can't save a deposit, you're having to keep renting.

I think you posted as I posted so I've only just read this.

Totally agree with the last statement, I'm stuck in this 'loop' with no realistic way out - coming into money isn't something you can bank on doing!

If I could go back I would have saved all my hard-earned and got on the property ladder as soon as possible - but life doesn't work like that. My Mrs wasn't around when I was earning a disposable income (wait a minute, there's a connection there...) so it all went on cars and gadgets and toys basically.

I can't move back with my parents in order to save, which is something a close mate of mine has recently done after finding that his and his partners wages were just getting eaten up by rent and bills. It puts pressure on the relationship not having your own 'space' too, but with our little girl it's also unfair on my parents to move back home!

It's a shitty cycle to get tangled up in.

[jammapic]

Cos JP moved there (3 times)

Hardy har.

Yes, they've gone up loads... *happy face*

[THE_Liam]

I was quite lucky with my mortgage in that with the RTB discount I was lending less than half the market value of the house so my positive equity is huge, so I got a 100% mortgage with an amazingly low rate as well...

I am a right lucky twat in that respect