London property rising

[Cyberman]

With HMG now 'printing money', as confirmed on C4 last night, inflation will rocket and potentially can destroy pensions which can only increase by an annual 5% maximum. This is yet another reason why property is the place to put your money, because property prices and rents tend to follow inflation, wheras pensions cannot, and shares are far too risky at a time of economic depression.

[BrilloPad]

With HMG now 'printing money', as confirmed on C4 last night, inflation will rocket and potentially can destroy pensions which can only increase by an annual 5% maximum. This is yet another reason why property is the place to put your money, because property prices and rents tend to follow inflation, wheras pensions cannot, and shares are far too risky at a time of economic depression.

I disagree : though I think the reason you give will limit falls in property prices.

We are only now getting into the job cuts : hence I think repossessions will continue to rise. Until repossessions rise stops and overhang of houses are sold I dont think we will see a recovery.

[Cyberman]

I disagree : though I think the reason you give will limit falls in property prices.

We are only now getting into the job cuts : hence I think repossessions will continue to rise. Until repossessions rise stops and overhang of houses are sold I dont think we will see a recovery.

I'm referring to the long-term scenario. Whatever price you pay now for a house will be a very small percentage of the value by the time you retire in maybe 30 years time. My parents paid 25,000 pounds for a property in 1973 which is now worth approx. 500,000 pounds.
They could probably let that house for 2-3K a month which effectively is index-linked because rents tend to rise with inflation.
That would give them an income and allow them to rent a much smaller place, which they are currently considering because the house is too big for them now that the children have moved on.

[Trev16v]

We are currently looking around for our next house. Now over in my recent thread regarding letting out of our existing house ("BTL advice please") a number of guys commented, in various ways, that I'd be mad to buy a property this year.

We're in no rush to buy. We just have a pile of cash ready to grab our next home as soon as we feel really sure things aren't going to fall any further.

I had assumed / hoped that the decline would last a lot longer, to give us more time to find something ideal for us. The latest RICS Market Survey report for January makes me feel a bit twitchy now about waiting too long. They are saying that buyer interest is increasing. I keep a close eye on what properties are sold by the local estate agents here in the town where I live, and I know one of them had a pretty damn good month in January, relative to previous months, in terms of properties sold. I think the general gist of it is that prices are still down and possibly going to continue going down; but the number of properies changing hands seems to have had a little bit of a lift.

I hope that the latest reports are just a blip and that house prices continue to decline - for my own selfish reasons!