UK Property prices

[ksl]

Anyone in touch with property prices in UK, how much did they drop after the economic fall out?

As the market recovered at all?

Heard people are still losing their properties due to forced sales by banks!

[JR8]

Anyone in touch with property prices in UK, how much did they drop after the economic fall out?

As the market recovered at all?

Heard people are still losing their properties due to forced sales by banks!

Hi KSL, yes I am pretty well in touch with what is going on in UK property. But you have to keep in mind that the UK market is extremely regional, so it is impossible to generalise.

My focus is exclusively central London and prices have certainly recovered the majority of their losses. I understand that they are still about 10% off the pre-crash record peak. What is holding the market back is a lack of availability of mortgage finance. That means people hoping to enter the market for the first time can't buy, which of course means people wanting to move on from their first home are facing a dearth of buyers, that of course impacts liquidity right up the chain. This is less of a problem in central London where you have international and 'bonus buyers' going in and paying 100% cash.

It wouldn't surprise me if some property is still be repo'd. 3 or 5 year fixed rate mortgages are a big section of the loan market, and when they expire you revert to an onerous 'standard variable rate'. So, many people will be coming off deals at say 2.5% or less and are now facing having to pay rates of 6% or so. Ouch.

For up to date research on the market I recommend http://www.savills.co.uk/research/ (you can sign up to receive the publications for free via e-mail).

Although FPDS are an estate agent (and a high-class one at that) I have never detected bias in their research... i.e. I really do trust their data/reporting.

Let me know if I might be able to give you any other pointers.

[ksl]

Great thanks for the update!

[aster]

Have this link bookmarked from a while back, but the info might be just as valid today given that nobody knows where we are with regards to the recent financial crisis being over or not:

http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/pr ... hart-14664

[tyianchang]

Anyone in touch with property prices in UK, how much did they drop after the economic fall out?

As the market recovered at all?

Heard people are still losing their properties due to forced sales by banks!

From what I hear in the papers, property prices in the swanky areas such as SW1 are being propped up by ultra rich Arabs, Russians and Chinese buying up apartments in the Harrods vincinity for forgettable millions of GBP. Elsewhere, the prices, as pointed out , after the 10 % drop, are nore or less stable though buyers seem to have bargaining power too, of another 10 % or more in some cases.

Not one for data and listings, I can say plainly that you'll need about 300,000 GBP up to buy a 2-3 bedroom flat in most good areas of London. One can get studio -2 bedrms in less desired locations for 150 - 250 GBP but most of the properties are dividedup houses that look the same and seem to have the permanent box room image of bathtub, bowl, sink and window.

A student's parents bought a five story ex council house ( with a room on each floormaking it a 3 bedrm with small garden ) that was in a less desired corner of a desired location for 250,000 GBP ten years ago. Today, it's valued at 400,000GBP. A good investement you'd say except that the market's pretty stagnant in the middle ground

Overall, I gather the housing situation is in dire need of vision from the government. It seems that foreigners keep the market stable (at the high end) at the expense of the locals, especially the post grads nowadays, who leave school with a debt of around 30,000 + GBP, then get jobs from 16,000 - 30,000 GBP; having to pay 20% or 40% tax if they earn, even as a couple with children, above 38,000 GBP. That , plus the rising costs in anything you can name, as well as transport fares... is all a struggle for this generation and they don't deserve it. Most of them rent whereas, even as recent as 10 years ago, they could have taken up a mortgage.

Are you thinking of moving to London?

[ksl]

Thanks everyone for the information!

[manutdfan]

It wouldn't surprise me if some property is still be repo'd. 3 or 5 year fixed rate mortgages are a big section of the loan market, and when they expire you revert to an onerous 'standard variable rate'. So, many people will be coming off deals at say 2.5% or less and are now facing having to pay rates of 6% or so. Ouch.

This seems unlikely to me. Interest rates plunged from around August 2008 and the 3 to 5 year fixed rate mortgages before then were all tagged well above 5%. Variable rates now are below 5%, so most people coming off those plans will actually be slightly better off.

I just came off a 5 year fixed mortgage a few months back - it actually reduced our mortgage payments as we moved from a fixed rate of 5.39% to a variable rate of 4.79%.

If you were talking about the tracker deals, that's a different matter!

[JR8]

Oops, yep you're quite right I meant fixed term trackers.

I recall one deal (Skipton BS I think) which was something like a 0.49% discount to BBR. When BB rates were nose-diving and hit 0.5%, there was discussion if people on that deal would start being paid monthly by Skipton if the BB rate went lower. If you're coming off a deal anything approaching that onto an SVR, that has got to hurt!