[Closed] The housing Market! What's your current thoughts??

All the big players seem to be part exchange at the moment. Lots of unloved houses near us with part exchange, for sale signs outside. Some have been up for well over a year. I think it might come back and bite them before long.

Most of the big developers also over poor value for money too. Small houses, not so much garden, cheap bathrooms and kitchens but top money

My cycle commute passes three new housing estates that have lain dormant now all year. All three have re-started work in the last month. So from my limited experience, yes.

I'm still trying to work out if it's better to let our house to buy another or just sell and move. I'm mostly convinced on the latter at the moment. Mainly because I can't be bothered messing about with tenants.

All the smaller new stuff in the Northwest seems to be on some sort of Govt scheme for first timers, giving them a chance with no deposit. Not sure of the details but it's all done through the Local Authority.

No doubt similar schemes are around the country.

First time stuff with incentives with always shift; if you were building 4/5 bed gear I think things would be tougher.

These are 2 pairs of 3 bed 3 storey semis and one detached 3 storey 3 bed! Hope to god they sell or we'll be following many other builders down the river!!!

It's all going
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We've loadsa new build by us (peoples back garden builds) and a new development on the Strawberry Fields (booohoooo) but thats been fenced off for over a year with nothing more than sticks in the ground. The remaining new builds are only 1/3rd occupied and in general there are more for sale signs around than usual.

I'm still trying to work out if it's better to let our house to buy another or just sell and move.

We did something like that last year in order to get the new place we wanted. It worked out okay in the end but I wouldn't recommend it. Very stressful and expensive and could very easily have all gone horribly wrong.

My general thoughts on the housing market are "Thank **** I'm out of it."

3 bed on new estate down the road £145k, next door is on the market for £90k and has been for quite a while!

I reckon they'll be a while shifting them!

I reckon I might make my landlord a cheeky offer at the end of the tennancy, just not sure if the combination of interest and falling prices will be more or less than what I'm paying in rent.

loads of new build estates in rochdale ( over 500 homes in the nxt 2 years i'd guess) all started work all going at it like the worlds about to end. this in the most depressed region in the nw which is itself hardly boom town. cannot understand who is going to want these homes and who can afford the loans for them. ( to add to my 'pension pot' i just bought a very good condition 2 bed terrace in a nice part of town for 85k and a 4 bed similer in the next street for 105K)

A house near us was on at £350k, then £320k and has just been reduced to £299k and it still isn't shifting - that is one hell of a drop.

Saying that, a friend very recently 'sold' their house to their first viewer (which then fell through) then sold it to the next viewer (which did go through) - so it all depends, as they say, on 'Location, Location, Location'.

I'm **surprised that the developers don't simply let out new estates as a way of biding them over until things pick up

**caveat, I know diddly squit about housing development cash flow

so it all depends, as they say, on 'Location, Location, Location'

This. As prices are not coming down round here, they dropped in 2008 and have been going up since. There is actually very little on the market so what is sells.

here in that london even new builds seem to fill up quickly, saying that some of the big developments in brentford seem to have stalled, while others are starting

new builds are a nightmare, we looked at a few, maximising profit means no storage space whatsoever, making such places unfulfilling if not unliveavble

All our insider magazines from the other part of the company I work for reckon we're still gonna get another 18% drop.

Our neighbour's house is costing him £25m to redevelop (nearly 3 yrs and still ongoing) so I'd say there are a fair few builders/tradesmen who are doing quite well out of that. Quite a few other developments in the area too.

Dont really care to be honest. We are living in a decent house and it costs us peanuts in rent. Fair enough we have a wild game reserve out front, but beggars cant be choosers.

The main bonus factor (hopefully) is the town, lovely traditional Derbyshire town, plenty of pubs still open (which i always think is a sign of a towns prosperity) and a very well respected school that churns out good results yr on yr!!
Fingers (and trowels) crossed!!!

Developments are being built very very slowly in this area. Although they do seem to have started building a bit faster of late. When we were looking at houses they were offering large discounts from the word go so I'm sure you could negotiate down further on price.

Houses are going up so slowly that most of the big estates have houses coming up for sale before they've even been completed. The reality of a lot of the new build estates is you'll live on a building site for 5 years with part made roads.

Lots of pushing of shared ownership schemes.

Our neighbour's house is costing him £25m to redevelop

Holy cow, that's some extension!!!!

Have a look for yourself, download property bee plug in for FireFox, and search rightmove for your area. It tracks changes to listings, including prices. I suspect you will see lots of price reductions, and very few increases.

The general consensus is that plenty of people are putting their houses on the market, but far fewer people are actually buying. This will have a downwards pressure on prices. Sales volumes have collapsed... see the land registry reports for this.

Also ask yourself how are people able to afford more expensive houses? Inflation is currently pushing up the cost of living considerably, but there is no wage inflation to offset this. Net result = less money to spend on housing. Add into the mix the current global financial market instability into the mix, and you start to paint a picture......

Buy/ build it and live in it till you die and stop worrying about the price of houses.

Holy cow, that's some extension!!!!

They flattened the original country pad and replaced it with a somewhat more substantial pad (complete with multi-level underground carpark with lifts, lake + waterfall and loads more). It's a bit bonkers.

I'm **surprised that the developers don't simply let out new estates as a way of biding them over until things pick up

**caveat, I know diddly squit about housing development cash flow

Newbuilds carry a preminum of 10-20%, let it out and you've lost the 'new' bit and you're just selling a cheeply made house with no parking, storage a tiny garden and a residents association set up to bitch about the builder clamping every other car with a £500/day release fee because they only put in one space for each 4 bed house.

Buy/ build it and live in it till you die and stop worrying about the price of houses.

Yea, you huit the nail on the head, I could buy a house, or I could wait 2 years and buy it 18% cheeper? Which multipies to 40-60% less over the lifetime of the mortgage. couple that with the fact people like moving hosues when they change jobs, have kids etc, and you don't really want to have to liquidate those losses early, or worse, end up in negative equity and unable to move to a new area, or give the kids seperate bedrooms.

Feel quite 'lucky' exchanged contracts yesterday. Bought a Persimmon home back in Oct 06 for 230k sold it for 220k. Had a few buyers but 2 out of three of them just couldn't get a mortgage. I will NEVER again buy a new build. I used to be a carpenter and the quality of new builds are atrocious. awaiting on a survey on a 3 bed cottage with 3/4 acres for 174k, all in all with less council tax and mortgage will have £375 more every month. If the latest buyers had pulled out would have dropped the price by another 10k.
Had a mouthful from an estate agent in Narberth when made an offer on a bungalow less 10%, what I thought it was worth. Down in Carmarthenshire esp. Carmarthen, prices are relatively static with the houses near good schools (ours was) selling.

It's all ****ed, nobody can borrow any money now lenders are asking for massive deposits - I recently sold a house for 30% less than I wanted for it. It'll get worse before it gets better if you're selling I reckon. On the other hand if you're a landlord with low/no mortgage payments outstanding you're quids in as the rental market is buoyant.

Edit: Looking at the markets today we're in for another recession (did we ever leave 2008's?) - no money mo' problems!

That was very lucky by the sounds of it catnash. The house must have been significantly over priced when you bought it. These that we're gonna sell aren't gonna be overpriced, just gonna bung them on at similar value to a current three bed in the town. Hopefully anyway!!

Valuation is/was and remains to be a huge part of the problem.

Valuation has only ever been a game of 'follow the trend' with a few ground rules thrown in to keep things straight. That's fine in a stable and/or rising marketplace. And while you can look back now and say things were 'overpriced' the valuations were simply following the market trend until the market imploded. Like any inflated marketplace, property and housing values were never based on 'worth', neither were they ever a direct or true correlation of cost to build. They were based on market and what the marketplace dictated they could expect to fetch.

And the current problem is still valuation. But now it's a different trend - everybody's second-guessing while living in fear of buying a place at a value that will only reduce in the short to medium term...
Until that changes things will just remain stagnant.

Yes bought at the height of that market, but also sold a house at the same time to fund for it. The price they wanted in 06 was 240. Lesson learnt and didn't get my fingers burned too much. Now to stop the wife selling in the future...

I work for a mixed tenure developer in the Midlands.
We are selling hardly any new builds, with our most successful development being in Stoke /Meir Heath.
Ther majority of houses being built at the moment are HA funded for social / affordable use.
Stock plots and land banks are pretty substantial for the larger developers, so don't see any real rush to build houses in this region.

Spent the day talking to bankers and was told that money was only being lent for new build which were already sold, no money for larger speculative developments.
Still someone is building in the region of 100,000 per year which must be going somewhere.

depends heavily where in the country you are. down here in brighton, prices are just about breaching the highs of 2007 to be at an all time high, whereas oop north, some places are down 20%+. There are new build projects here but very few, (from a house perspective, probably 2-3 new houses a month come up) so they go pretty quickly as a result.

A good indicator of where 'the market' thinks things are going is to look at the shares of the big house builders (barrat, permission etc). however no-one 'knows' what the market will do next. I suspect, nationally, it'll probably be fairly stable for the next 2-3 years, anything longer term than that is a complete guess

I think estate agents are still promising (lying) to sell for in excess of the current market values, I've seen several places in Stroud go on at 300k and end up at 250k before they then sold less negotiation.

I just bought a house in the new year and we got it for 25% less than the highest previous prices paid for houses along this street,

I made an offer to the estate agent, he went to the vendor, who refused it, agent rang me back and I just said "where are you going to earn any commission before Xmas from", and put the phone down. Two days later we got it for virtually where I wanted it.

A lot of houses are being sold for the asking prices, then when mortgage company valuers are going round they are dropping the prices waaaayyyy down!

From the description, I'm guessing you're building in Duffield or somewhere near there?

I know someone who was about to buy a house in Darley Abbey, which didn't sound massively expensive for the area, but mortgage valuation turned out to be 35k less than the offer price, so it fell through. That is maybe the downside of the current market - no one has a clue on price, estate agents try and get prices high to make more money & attract sellers, banks undervalue to avoid risk.

On the other hand, part of the reason they wanted to move to Darley was to get into the Ecclesbourne catchment area, so there is obviously still something in that.

Joe

moved 2 weeks ago .

sold a 3 bed terraced for £195k , £200k was the asking price . sold it in 3 days .

a lot of houses near us dont sell , but they are overpriced by 20 to 25k .

just bought the house i'm renting, was on the market for over 12 months with no viewings, paid 25k less than the asking price which was 5k less than i was prepared to go up to 🙂

new builds still going up around Stratford and think there still
building but thats more due to the Olympics
And they probably rent the none sold ones whilst the Olympics is running.

In general most building work has been slowing down for a few years
and most people are just waiting to see how high the interest rates
are going to be.

For me I've just bought my first Holiday home near Alicante and bought at the right time.
Mortgages can go no lower than 3.25 % and no higher than 12% Not like here
has we seem to have no ceiling and the 80's was proof of that.

Personally if you can put a very large chunk down and afford and keep your mortgage
low then buy. But other than that just sit and wait for the housing market to crash.

If hardly anyone can get a mortgage does make me wonder who will buy all these new houses

Perhaps its a way of flooding the market to get house prices back to a normal position whereas first time buyers can actually buy, can't see much happening until prices are back at a sensible rate

Why didn't the government or financial institutions enforce the old style strict rules with borrowing based on earnings and a ten percent deposit required, would never have got in this mess then

my two sons work as a 2 and 1 in leighton buzzard on a large site ,on the tape and they are flat out.wages are at pre crash and the subbie as picked two new big jobs, every brickie and chippy i kmow as got loads on .just hope it keeps going

In Chester, near me, a lot of new flats where buiolt and a lot are still empty, the ones sold are empty as well ,due to people getting on the buy to let bandwaggon, remortgating their house and buying a flat to rent,they failed to price into the payments back to the banks, the cost void tenancies, and the high costs of repairs and service charges, they cant reduce the rents to get them occupied, as they need the cash to apy their mortgage, and when empty they have to pay half the council tax, there a lotr of burnt fingers out there.

Then when you take out all the many thousands of money lender jobs and council jobs lost in the last year, theres a lot of unemployment and repos as well.

Newbuilds carry a preminum of 10-20%, let it out and you've lost the 'new' bit and you're just selling a cheeply made house with no parking, storage a tiny garden and a residents association set up to bitch about the builder clamping every other car with a £500/day release fee because they only put in one space for each 4 bed house.

Luckilly my new (ish) build has only lost about 20K in valve since I bought it in what I hoped was the bottom of the slump. I've got plenty of parking, garden, inside space and it's not too shoddy. However I kind of crave an old 80K house that I'm not scared to paint in a colour that might be a little "off trend" and that might actually become positive equity before 2025. Also I effing hate gardens and my GF is working 15miles away in the city. Houses boil my urine.

 

[url= http://www.cnplus.co.uk/news/business/barratt-confirms-shared-equity-sell-off-plans/8618234.article ]Barratt confirms shared equity sell off plans[/url]

This could affect things

building 6 half mill houses up here in the highlands, lots property came on market last 6 months , not a lot selling though, interest growing on new builds though......

no-one 'knows' what the market will do next

Well looking at the fundamentals that affect the market I think we can have a good guess:

* Government cuts still to properly bite.
* Highly likely 'double dip' recession on the cards.
* Banks still hugely reluctant to lend (and this may possibly get worse once government support starts to be withdrawn).
* First time buyers mostly still priced out of the market.
* Record numbers of unsold stock on estate agents books.
* Very few transactions currently taking place - a stagnated market.
* Huge gulf between asking prices and actual selling prices.
* Interest rates can only go one way from here.
* No more self-cert mortgages.
* No more 100% or 95% mortgages and very few 90% deals.
* Interest only mortgages a ticking time bomb.
* 20% to 40% deposits required to get a decent mortgage.
* University tuition fees and graduate debt increasing.
* Demand for housing subsiding due to lack of easy credit. Demand is different from desire. The desire to own a home is still there for many, it's just that demand (or ability to buy) is closely related to the availability of credit.
* General cost of living rising rapidly but salaries are not - leaving little spare cash to either pay the mortgage or save for a deposit.
* Houses still priced at way above normal average salary multiples.
* UK housing stock still at least 20% over valued according to the IMF.

So what do you think - UP or DOWN?

So what do you think - UP or DOWN?

those with a vested interest and/or in a state of denial will probably say "it's a bit of a hotspot round here, so will only go up"

Well in East London near Olympits site is Apartment crazy
but thats just going down from Bow Church on the main road into stratford.

Everywhere else nothing being built, just finishing off

Nothern Star sums it pretty much how it is.

I think we have another Two more years of this
plus the unknown future of the Euro market.

I wouldn't buy anything unless you really had to right now

The housing Market! What's your current thoughts??

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Nothern Star sums it pretty much how it is.

+1

Nothern Star sums it pretty much how it is.

Really?? Lets take it one point by one:

* Banks still hugely reluctant to lend (and this may possibly get worse once government support starts to be withdrawn).

What utter tosh. If you have a decent deposit and a proper job then you can easily get a mortgage. Source: financial times and mortgage brokers

* First time buyers mostly still priced out of the market.

Not if they've actually bothered to save a deposit (or have help from Mum/Dad/Etc. Only first time buyers who have no career and no deposit are priced out.

* Record numbers of unsold stock on estate agents books.

Only with agents who are still insisting that having a high street shop front is the best way to sell. Agents who are getting more proactive and sensible prices are selling. Source: Rightmove

* Very few transactions currently taking place - a stagnated market.

Where have you made this up from? 78, 000 homes sold in August alone. Yes a drop from the year before but those are huge numbers compared to a few years ago. Source: BBC, HMRC

* Huge gulf between asking prices and actual selling prices.

Wrong. Current average accepted prices are 92% of the asking price and lenders valued 89% of those at the same prices. Source: HMRC and Rightmove stats

* Interest rates can only go one way from here.

What flat? Like it has for years?

* No more self-cert mortgages.

Yes you can if you look carefully.

* No more 100% or 95% mortgages and very few 90% deals.

Sorry but wrong again. Lots of lenders do 100%, 95% and virtually all do 90% mortgages now. If you've been told otherwise then your credit rating must be shocking. Source: google and high street bank shop fronts.

* Interest only mortgages a ticking time bomb.

Possibly the only thing I agree with you on.

* 20% to 40% deposits required to get a decent mortgage.

Only if you are a buy to let investor. First time buyers have loads of really good mortgages if you are prepared to shop around. Source: mortgage brokers

* General cost of living rising rapidly but salaries are not - leaving little spare cash to either pay the mortgage or save for a deposit.

Why does this affect the market? The people buying now should have started saving years ago, not now when general costs are rising. I understand and agree that your point is correct but it should have no affect on the housing market today. In 10 years maybe, but not today.

* Houses still priced at way above normal average salary multiples.

Thats been the case for decades so again why does this affect the market today?

* UK housing stock still at least 20% over valued according to the IMF

Who cares?

"Banks still hugely reluctant to lend (and this may possibly get worse once government support starts to be withdrawn)"

What utter tosh. If you have a decent deposit and a proper job then you can easily get a mortgage.

"First time buyers mostly still priced out of the market."

Not if they've actually bothered to save a deposit (or have help from Mum/Dad/Etc. Only first time buyers who have no career and no deposit are priced out.

So basically you're saying that anyone with loads of cash and earning an excellent salary, can easily get a mortgage. Well done, I bet no one knew that.

The truth is that despite you're attempt to gloss over the problem, securing a mortgage is still considerably more difficult than it was before the credit crunch. And as unemployment increases (and also young people are denied the opportunity of establishing a career) the problem is unlikely to get much better. Specially for first time buyers.

Just sold a property for more than the (sensible) asking price after being on the market for 3 weeks. The agent said things were moving steadily and generally much better than the last few years. It all depends on the area though, some areas do better that others.

I agree with the above comment; the number of interest only mortgages (mostly buy to lets) without a rational repayment vehicle is potentially a problem for the future in some places. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to have entered the lettings business with out the first idea of what they were doing. Enough to bring down the housing market? Not so sure about that, but then when was market sentiment ever rational?

I'm still bearish on house prices and think that Northstar has a valid point to make, fundamentals look pretty dire. Saying that fundamentals have looked dire for a number of years and the market still has not corrected near to historical levels.

I pay more attention to trends and market psychology for the most part. The trend is down and the psychology one of fear rather than greed IMO.

Not a good time to buy a house right now, if you ask me.

Not if they've actually bothered to save a deposit (or have help from Mum/Dad/Etc. Only first time buyers who have no career and no deposit are priced out.

This is bollocks.

For a deposit, you need to have saved multiple thousands of pounds despite paying off the huge student debts you incurred trying to sufficiently educate yourself to get that 'proper job'; despite a severe lack of all jobs (not just ones you might deem proper) which is getting worse by the day; despite no real long term job security; and despite the cost of living rising far faster than income meaning even the modest life you're currently living in rented property is costing a fortune and only getting worse.

So you can rely on help from mum and dad (not sure who the 'etc' you refer to might be), unless you're not lucky enough to be on the receiving end of such help because you're one of the millions of people whose parents funnily enough, despite the portfolio of houses they should apparently own, haven't got multiple thousands of pounds at hand to lend out to one or multiple offspring.

The price of housing means you can't go it alone as you need two incomes, which means you need to be settled down with someone, something that can be surprisingly difficult when you've had to move cities to find work and are unable to afford a social life because you spend it all on the rental pad, which is invariably the property of those lucky enough to have been around at the right time to benefit from the very boom that shafted and continues to shaft you, so in lieu of your own future, you're now paying for their retirement, something you yourself will very unlikely ever get to enjoy.

For some people off the bottom, the housing market has been disappearing into the distance for over a decade, with no signs of stopping. The recent 'problems' are just as irrelevant as the rest of it. Boom or bust, you were bollocksed either way, and now the madness has slowed all you hear is people whinging about a much needed [i]'recovery'[/i], by which they actually mean [i]'things going back to the ridiculous and unsustainable way they were before; the way that completely shafted you.[/i]

Just saying.

So basically you're saying that anyone with loads of cash and earning an excellent salary, can easily get a mortgage.

Wouldn't he have actually used those words if that's what he meant though. Surely that was the argument he was countering. Buyers with a 10% deposit (not 20-40%) and with a household income of 30-40k (not an excellent salary if there's 2 of you earning) will get a mortgage. On that sort of income level you could save a reasonable deposit in what, 3-5 years? That model is valid for plenty of areas, obviously not large parts of the SE though.

Having said that, I'd agree that things are likely to get tougher soon. I don't think I'd be buying anywhere right now and am not looking forward to selling in 3-5 years. I bought in 2008 but got a reasonable deal. Similar place was on the market for 15% more recently, SSTC in a week! Still recon I could take a bath though 🙁

Wouldn't he have actually used those words if that's what he meant though.

No I don't think so. I reckon he was trying not to sound crass. But basically he was saying that anyone with loads of cash and earning an excellent salary, can easily get a mortgage. And anyone without loads of cash and earning an excellent salary, is likely to struggle to get a mortgage. Which is undoubtedly true......see the link at the bottom.

.

It all depends on the area though, some areas do better that others.

Yep, it certainly does. Not only in terms of geographical areas, but also in the market niches - which of course tend to be very closely interlinked.

Because despite the lie peddled by the government we are most definitely [i]not[/i] "all in this together".

There are plenty of people who have not felt the effects of the global recession.

In fact, rather than this representing 'tough times' for them, it is actually more a case of very good times indeed :

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15487866 ]Directors' pay rose 50% in past year, says IDS report[/url].

And it's not just a handful of directors who are doing very well - chief executives 43% and finance directors 34%. And so it goes on, until you reach the bottom.

So I suspect that for quite a few people now is perhaps a rather good time to buy a new/better property. Which will definitely have an effect on the market.

But for millions of people, ie, the majority, right now, is pretty shite, and unlikely to get a whole lot better any time soon :

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15519934 ]Mortgage approvals start falling, Bank figures suggest[/url]

[i]"September's retreat in mortgage approvals reinforces belief that there is little evidence of any significant step up in housing market activity," said Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight.

"Prices are likely to trend down over the coming months in the face of very low consumer confidence amid persistently weak economic activity, markedly rising unemployment and muted earnings growth," he added.[/i]

[b][i]"we're all in this together"[/i][/b]

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Ref this Director's pay thing - worth pointing out FTSE directors are not representative of most company directors.

Anyhow, i think a house in a `nice' area, priced well will still sell. From my experience the housing market has been iffy since summer of 2007 - i thankfully sold my last house in November of that year and it was obvious to me, there were problems even then, but sellers were still being too greedy - asking 20k more because of a bit of outside decking and proper laminate flooring.

I currently rent very close to a major new hospital in Brum, and there is no way i could afford the prices around here.

And anyone without loads of cash and earning an excellent salary, is likely to struggle to get a mortgage. Which is undoubtedly true......see the link at the bottom.

I've read the link. This is a quote from it:

This means that you can anticipate that at 90% loan-to-value, a loan may cost close to 5% interest, but a 60% loan will carry an interest rate nearer to 2%.

So you can get a 90% LTV mortgage at 5%. Hardly unaffordable! Nothing on there about salaries btw. Find me a link that says you can't get a 100k mortgage on a 40k joint income then...

worth pointing out FTSE directors are not representative of most company directors

Of course it's not representative of most company directors, I'm fully aware of that, that's why I immediately followed with, quote : [i]"And it's not just a handful of directors who are doing very well - chief executives 43% and finance directors 34%. And so it goes on, until you reach the bottom."[/i] .....couldn't you follow what I was saying ?

That top down difference is very indicative of the situation as a whole - there are plenty of people who have been [u]completely untouched[/u] by the global recession, ie, it has caused them no economic hardships whatsoever, and unsurprisingly, they tend to be rather wealthy people. And I know this from personal experience because my splendidly wealthy sister, God bless her, wouldn't know that there was any economic stagnation if she hadn't read about it in the papers, or had seen it on the telly - it has not affected her life one iota. Apart that is, from the fact that she was able to buy a plot of land dirt cheap for cash last month.

I've read the link...........Hardly unaffordable! Nothing on there about salaries btw.

Nothing on there about salaries ? So what do you think [i]"markedly rising unemployment and muted earnings growth"[/i] is all about then ? I even copied and pasted it for you so that you wouldn't have to bother clicking on the link if you didn't want to. Talk about holding someone's hand 😕

And btw, no one has said that it is "impossible" to get a mortgage. What has been said, is that in the current economic situation, getting a mortgage, right now, is difficult. And that this has had an affect on the housing market (the topic of this thread btw) - mortgage approvals are still approximately half what they were pre-crises.

Now if you can't accept that, and you want to pretend that the situation is quite different by offering all sorts of examples which buck the trend, well then fine, go ahead, I can't be arsed. But don't expect me, or most other people in the UK, to agree with you.

something quite telling about the current situation, someone i know has been refused a mortgage on the basis they had a £7 unpaid phone bill that had been outstanding for 4 years. It was the result of cancelling a contract and just got overlooked, it was never chased by the phone company, it was completely forgotten about until they went to finalise the mortgage offer.

Went to talk to a broker a few weeks back they could offer 1 mortgage at 95%, and a handful at 90%, on affordability criteria the offer was c135k, so your looking at needing 15k ish minimum. try saving that paying off credit card from redundancy, paying rent, eating, etc etc etc.

I have also come across a fair few house sales that have failed because the mortgage lender decided not to give the money rather late in the day.

Our neighbour is attempting to sell at a price 10% higher than anything else comparable sold in the area even at the top of the market. Current estimates via valuing websites are for a 25% discount on this price, which will leave them with a substantial loss against what they bought it for.
But then they are enormously patronising and completely unthinking in how their actions affect anyone else so TBH I don't really care.