Good reasons to buy property NOW !

[luke warm]

You reckon it'll drop a massive more than the 20% we got off asking price then? ... I'd expect maybe another 5-10% max at some point but we need a bigger place, and I don't really want to wait on the vagaries of the market for the massive 'mansion' drop you're on about in two years.

The asking price is not a real price. It's just some made up number that an owner (and possibly EA) thinks their house is worth. You didn't get "a massive more than the 20%" off. You just negotiated the asking price down to a more realistic level.

He would be right. In fifty years time all this would be seen as just a blip. House prices fall 1% over a month; stock indices often move more than that per day. Only evil ‘speculants’ would be worried about recent declines.

I checked into this when buying (2 years ago) as was concerned that we might be buying at the top of the market then. In the housing price 'crash' of the 80's the house prices fell by 30% over 3 years. Which is more than a blip if you want to down size. Although in the long term they more than recovered so as long as you are happy to stay in the same property for a long period and are certain that you're going to have a constant income then there's nothing to worry about...

[TimberWolf]

There's a cool house price chart here (sfw) where you can move a cursor on a graph of house prices going over the last 30 years. A 50% drop would take us back to 1991 prices, which looks unlikely. 2001 prices looks more likely (from their trend line) at around 32% drop.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/gra...ouse-price.php

[PRC1964]

You can afford something right now you know:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetai...a_n=5&tr_t=buy

What are you waiting for?

Pah, you should aim for something like this: http://www.jacstrattons.com/property...es.aspx?id=841

It even comes with "Street Parking" whatever that might be.

[snaw]

The asking price is not a real price. It's just some made up number that an owner (and possibly EA) thinks their house is worth. You didn't get "a massive more than the 20%" off. You just negotiated the asking price down to a more realistic level.

Actually yeah we did, it's a new build consisting of four houses. One two bedroom sold off plan for about 5% more than we're buying a three bedroom for with a bigger garden. I'm confortable that's we're about 20% of it's peak value.

I'm equally comfortable that in my area of London (SW Oracleslave) prices aren't going to drop 50% - they didn't raise by that much in the last two years, and the area is trending in the top ten areas of the country in terms of price falls (Top being good, in that not dropping that much compared to other places).

It's long term and we're not stretching to far so not too worried.

[NickFitz]

Prices will be 40 - 50% down in 12 to 24 months.

It always amazes me that people accept without a blink of an eye that house prices can rise 50% for no apparent reason apart from the availability of cheap credit and yet cannot accept the same fall when the credit bubble is removed.

Your figures don't add up: assuming a £100,000 house increases in value by 50% it is now worth £150,000. A 50% fall in value would take it to £75,000. Assuming you meant that it would revert to its original value (rather than to 75% of its original value) the fall would be 33.3%.

As the correction is unlikely to take prices all the way back to exactly where they were, it will probably be less than 30%.

Good point about the blind and wilful ignorance of the masses though

[HairyArsedBloke]

Pah, you should aim for something like this: http://www.jacstrattons.com/property...es.aspx?id=841

It even comes with "Street Parking" whatever that might be.

Plenty of oppertunity overseas like this 3 bed place in the USA

[Moscow Mule]

Plenty of oppertunity overseas like this 3 bed place in the USA

Have you seen that eminem film "8 Mile"?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl...22738&t=h&z=13

That property is just north of "7 Mile Road".

For that reason, I'm out.

[PRC1964]

Plenty of oppertunity overseas like this 3 bed place in the USA

That's cheap even by Milan's standards.

[Pickle2]

Prices are now falling 2.5% in one month. Even assuming an average fall of 1% per month over the next 2 yrs equates to almost 25%.

1% is relatively speaking a soft landing.

24 1% falls != 24% overall fall, as the principal amount also falls each month.

HTH

But i agree with general points of the thread. Prices are headed back to long term salary multiples, and that means BIG falls. Easily back to real values as per the begining of the decade. Anyone who brough in the last 12 months, or who is considering buying now, is, quite frankly, stoopid.

[chicane]

Easily back to real values as per the begining of the decade.

35-40% of current prices? Come off it.