The 'other' housing market, where house prices have regressed 60pc

[Sysman]

Even if nice houses up north can be bought for £20, nobody in London is going to be interested (other than speculators). There is no work up there and it is not a nice place to retire or holiday (too cold and grim).

Too many Southerners up north already.

The UK housing market has fragmented.

Shattered?

FUBAR might be a better description.

[shaunbhoy]

How do you get past them with your Scottish accent?

A heady mix of Wit, Charm, Style, and Ability.

[AtW]

Not to mention a hefty-sized brown envelope to give to the Devon Border Guards before we allow you jellied-eel dependant barrowboys access to our beaches.

How do you get past them with your Scottish accent?

Let me guess - you are one of the guards?

[shaunbhoy]

Even if nice houses up north can be bought for £20, nobody in London is going to be interested (other than speculators). There is no work up there and it is not a nice place to retire or holiday (too cold and grim). The UK housing market has fragmented.

Just make sure you have plenty of equity in your Londonistani home before you sell up for retirement. You will have to pay top dollar for anywhere down here in the English Riviera! Not to mention a hefty-sized brown envelope to give to the Devon Border Guards before we allow you jellied-eel dependant barrowboys access to our beaches.

[swamp]

In my area of London prices are well above peak. A lucky few got on board during the housing 'crash', but otherwise things are BAU.

There will be no crash here, but the market may top out as people slowly drift to cheaper areas. There is still work in London, unlike the rest of the country, and as long as that holds the house prices will remain sky high. In fact I expect a lot more northerners to migrate to the gold-paved streets of London in the next coming years, and this may push prices even higher.

Even if nice houses up north can be bought for £20, nobody in London is going to be interested (other than speculators). There is no work up there and it is not a nice place to retire or holiday (too cold and grim). The UK housing market has fragmented.

[MrMark]

The housing market is reverting to its natural level. Wildly over-priced in the South-East, far lower in the north. As late as 1999 you could buy 3 bedroomed terraced houses in many northern cities for < 50k. What distorted the market was the creation of various public sector jobs by NuLab (plus the era of easy credit). Now those public sector workers are being made unemployed, and they can no longer get a mortgage, the demand for private housing in those areas has slumped.

[AtW]

Good. Don't forget your friends who encouraged you when you're rich and famous

Naturally. You'll need to tell me your address in London, I'll send you a bottle of cheap whiskey, it would also help me ensure I don't move anywhere near you

[sasguru]

It's going well, few more years and I might be able to afford an eco shed

Good. Don't forget your friends who encouraged you when you're rich and famous

[AtW]

Anyway how goes it you old Russkie? Business going anywhere? I wish it would.

It's going well, few more years and I might be able to afford an eco shed

[sasguru]

Aye.

btw, can you stop using such a long password to your account? It affects quantity of posts!

Anyway how goes it you old Russkie? Business going anywhere? I wish it would.

[AtW]

Indeed. With his Swindon background he probably felt like a big fish in a small sea up North.

Aye.

btw, can you stop using such a long password to your account? It affects quantity of posts!

[sasguru]

The rents there are probably dirty cheap, which is probably why our own DimPrawn moved.

Indeed. With his Swindon background he probably felt like a big fish in a small sea up North.
Then his hubris led him to enquire about London, which soon put him in his place.

[AtW]

Ooh, look, say the Barclay Brothers who made their fortune out of property in London, "Let's get one of the assistant editors in the paper we own to bash the North East and persuade everyone to move to London". No conflict of interest there.

Do you really think they give a tulip about articles like this? It's not like North East needs bashing.

The rents there are probably dirty cheap, which is probably why our own DimPrawn moved.

[Sysman]

One could be rather cynical about that report.

Ooh, look, say the Barclay Brothers who made their fortune out of property in London, "Let's get one of the assistant editors in the paper we own to bash the North East and persuade everyone to move to London".

No conflict of interest there.

[AtW]

Even the row of terraced houses in North West London where I live has managed to put the housing crash behind it; these relatively modest late Victorian properties again sell at record prices.

Yet stray beyond London and the South East, and you see an altogether different picture, one that goes largely unrecorded by the established indices for measuring the UK housing market – Halifax, Nationwide, Rightmove and so on.

To see this "other" housing market, I've been to Newcastle and its surrounding areas in the North East, the region that gave birth to the folly of Northern Rock.

Like all property markets, prices in the region are highly calibrated. There remain sizeable pockets of prosperity, where values, though still significantly off, have held up reasonably well. As in many parts of London, it's easy to imagine from these relatively well to do districts that there never was much of a housing crash.

Unfortunately, they are more the exception than the rule. Little more than a stone's throw from these posher areas lies a tale of catastrophic decline and value destruction to match the very worst the sub-prime crisis has managed to produce in the US. Tens of thousands of houses in the North East alone will have fallen in value by 30-60pc since the peak, and by the look of it, still have further to go.

More from the source: The 'other' housing market, where house prices have regressed 60pc - Telegraph

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Depressing reading - if things weren't bad up north they had DimPrawn move in...