What an earth is going on with the housing market?

[Bailes1992]

I'm in the middle of trying to buy a house.
House A - 3 bed semi in need of gutting in a half decent area up for £92,500. Sold for £95,000.
House B - 3 bed semi also in need of work in the same area up for £92,500. Sold for £94,000.
House C - 3 bedroom dormer bungalow, dated in need of redecorating, up for £104k. Sold for £108k.

All 3 are houSes I've been interested in, most of which have been up for months. Yet all 3 sold within days of each other and above the asking price?

Looks like I'm going to give up trying to buy a house as the way it's going I can't afford anything
If I do get an offer down on something it's highly likely in going to get gazumped.

[steve_earwig]

It's another property bubble! For a while now estate agents have been trying to move prices upwards by saying prices are moving upwards again, now the government's using their figures to prove that the recession is ending so people are believing it and starting to panic. I remember when I was first looking to buy a house and my dad kept telling me I better pull my finger out as those prices just keep on rising. I didn't listen, I didn't like any of the houses I could afford anyway so f*ck it. Then house prices crashed and my dad said (I should have got this one in writing really) that I did the right thing I knew lots of people that lost a packet on it. Well buggerin' hell, the only time n my life where doing absolutely nothing turned out to be the right thing to do

I suppose the bottom line is don't rush into anything just because you're worried about being outbid. I presume you're not living on the street...

It's a good time to sell though...

[gumby6371]

I really don't get it, we are told over and over to tighten our belts...austerity...austerity...blah, and in the next breath encouraged to buy new cars we can't afford to run and houses we can't afford the monthly mortgage payments on!
Earn less...spend more!

I can still remember the last time people over mortgaged and it didn't end well!!!

[lozz]

Theyre handing out Mortgadges on a plate again,
so houses will be sold quicker, or the shiters no bodywants will actualy now sell,

ithink the sh*t will hit the fan again in a year or two,

[Welly]

Maybe those 3 houses of Sam's were snapped up by investors, looking to tart them up and rent them out....collect rent....sit on it....then sell in a 15 years time....Hello Pension!

There's an almighty shortage of housing in this country so on that basis the prices can only really go one way and it aint down.....

Echoing what Grumby said about belt-tightening; we've had to extremely frugal with household spending in the last 2 years especially suffering the rising cost of Food and Gas/Electric but then you go down to the 'Retail Park' and it's f*cking heaving with punters laden with shopping bags....so is the Restaurants.....and Cinemas.....and Fast Food places......am I the only one being cautious?

[trufflehunt]

I really don't get it, we are told over and over to tighten our belts...austerity...austerity...blah, and in the next breath encouraged to buy new cars we can't afford to run and houses we can't afford the monthly mortgage payments on!
Earn less...spend more!

I can still remember the last time people over mortgaged and it didn't end well!!!

There is a General Election in 18 months, and the only thing that matters to the government is to try to stay in power.
That is why they are stoking up a housing bubble to create the illusion of prosperity.

I've already received leaflets through my door from a party candidate. A piece of Tory lowlife, as it happens. However, I
expect the others won't be too far behind.

[steve_earwig]

I'm expecting workhouses if the contories get in again...

Theyre handing out Mortgages on a plate again,

I did see something about making mortgages easier to get (my mind tends to glaze over when I see this kind of stuff) but I thought that mainly applied to houses half a million quid upwards, you know, second homes. Still, if it gets people onto the endless conveyor belt of life-long debt-enforced slavery...

Maybe those 3 houses of Sam's were snapped up by investors, looking to tart them up and rent them out....collect rent....sit on it....then sell in a 15 years time....Hello Pension!

With interest rates at less than 1% and "official" inflation at 2.7% (so in reality it'll be at least twice that) it makes more sense than sticking it in a bank or the highly volatile stock market (remember, share prices can go down as well as plummet).

[lozz]

uphere,up norf anyone can get a Mortgage, ithink all you need is about 5 grand down and then your ball and chained

ifell for it just before the last credit crunch, alls ican say is iwished ididnt but ah well to late now,
ihope they've changed things so people no longer fall into that trap.

Best way to get a house is rent one off the council for a month or so then fire a R.T.B in,

[waue1978]

Best way to get a house is rent one off the council for a month or so then fire a R.T.B in,

If you get one. Round here it's all Housing Association & Right To Acquire is nowhere near as attractive a proposition as Right To Buy was when people were buying £120k houses for £25k. That''s not even mortgage money as I've seen unsecured loans offered for that much!

[rwb]

There should have been a house price crash, but economic botchelist extraordinaire Gordon propped the market up. Now the government is stuck continuing that policy because house price crashes don't go down too well with property-owning voters. And younger people (who are less likely to own houses) are less likely to vote.

Given the high house prices, rents can only go up as buy-to-let bastards try to cover their costs and make profit.

It's pretty f*cked up.

[lozz]

Best way to get a house is rent one off the council for a month or so then fire a R.T.B in,

If you get one. Round here it's all Housing Association & Right To Acquire is nowhere near as attractive a proposition as Right To Buy was when people were buying £120k houses for £25k. That''s not even mortgage money as I've seen unsecured loans offered for that much!

ah rite,not like up here then,

every other council house is bought r.t.b & half of em has never done a days work in there life

[Bailes1992]

Me and the girlfriend seen another two houses today. One seemed to having some sort of Dutch auction going on because it was an ex repo and one was in a posh area but far too small.

We've decided to wait until the new year and see what happens.

[STALLED]

Low interest rates...

It's the same here - people are borrowing like crazy, fixing terms in for 3-5 years. Good luck with the economy picks up afterwards and the rates skyrocket!

Me thinks a fair few people will hit the wall...

[Captain Jack]

I have two houses. The first one I bought with my work colleague back in 2006 on a 95% mortgage. Banks were handing these out like sweets then. It was supposed to be an investment property with a a view to sell it in a few years time. Of course, we all know what happened there....

We moved out of the house in 2009 - me to live with my ex in London and my colleague for another job in Swindon. So the house has been a rental property since then. One of the tenants we had there pretty much destroyed the house in 2010 but after kicking her out, we had some lovely people there and it's maintenance free. Because the mortgage is paid by the tenant's rent, we are not in a rush to sell it - especially as it only gained about 8k in value since 2006

The second house I bought with the above ex in Tunbridge Wells in 2010. The house itself was fine but the area dear Lord... Basically a war zone - not something I would have expected from Tunbridge Wells. Needless to say, the tension eventually contributed to our break up and the house has been rented out since 2011. I desperately want to sell it, just to get my name off the mortgage, but it probably gained far too little value to justify it. Since the ex's dad put the deposit in for us, she isn't keen on selling as she doesn't want to risk losing the money if it goes for less than we bought it for - plus, of course, the solicitors' and estate agents' extortionate fees on top. It seems to be a seller's market at the moment, so hopefully I can convince her to sell.

[lozz]

Sorry to hear that,

Me and the mrs nearly split over the house we had.
we got hit in the credit crunch,original mortgadge company sold us out too a another company then went bust.
from then on we had to go to interest only, boiler blew up and other major repair work after that everything else was sacrifices to save
bricks & mortar we'd never own not unless we had won the lottery,

tried renting it out but after estateagent fee's etc wed still be no better off so I fired the keys back to them.