(Warning: Old Chestnut) - House prices

Worst humble brag eva! 😉

From my daily perusing of Rightmove, I sense things are levelling off, if not dropping slightly, here in our little corner of the South Manc/Peak District borders.

Worst humble brag eva!

Whilst I wish it was, we our downsizing and not through choice.

Things appear to be selling very fast indeed - house opposite us sold within 7 days of being on the market. A friend selling their flat also sold within a week and neighbours who just sold their late mothers' house also sold within a week. This is all within the last 6 weeks or so.

No idea as to % over the asking price they got, but to sell so fast I presume a heft over.

Round here prices are pretty flat from what I can see ( thats just north leith) but given how outrageous they are its hardly surprising.  when its £200000 - 250000 for  one bed flat its easy to think - I could buy a house in the 'burbs for that

Not many flats come up for sale in my block but it has a 25% premium over anything else locally

Edit:  humblebrag - my 1 / 2 bed flat is worth around £325000

Shropshire / Welsh Boarders historically a slow market.

Picked up during COVID, prices rose massively. Stuff on the market more recently isnt selling, house being reduced that are on the market

Looking at rightmove for round here, at least 50% of houses on there have been reduced in the last month. So am assuming a slowing market

Was a slowing market where we are, Chesterfield. Dunno if it will pick up now but really slow since Oct/Nov 2022.

Shedload of 2/3/4/5 bed terraces in Pwihelli going for sub 200k.

Must be because there's so many jobs around there 😉

You say you are downsizing Matt, have you considered a move the Home Counties?
Price might be a bit sporty but you could canoe from the end of your garden.
Family Home

East Fife, holiday home central. Really depends on the house, high end, desirable stuff still shifting quick. Cheaper end still very active. Middle of the market very slow indeed. Lots of mid sized stuff seeing substantial reductions and still not shifting.

Static where I am - but no major signs of price dropping. The desirable ones are still selling, just those with quirks that are sticking.

You say you are downsizing Matt, have you considered a move the Home Counties?
Price might be a bit sporty but you could canoe from the end of your garden.
Family Home

Pah, this one comes *with* the canoe. 😎

https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbabrsabs210068

Edit: humblebrag – my 1 / 2 bed flat is worth around £325000

Where the heck do you sleep?

Between Notts and Derby here - a few went up for sale in the last couple of months but don't seem to be moving.

A few "optimistically priced" new builds are really struggling, been up for a few months.

Rentals are like hen's teeth

South of Leicester, pretty dead. Mine’s been on the market for 2.5 weeks, 1 viewing 2 weeks ago, another tonight. And this is after reducing the price by 20k from what the Agent wanted to market it at. On the plus side, a right hole, with 1 bed less,asking 10k less, round the corner from us, has just had a sold sign put up, so there are buyers out there.

We had a brief period of decline in November and December, but they're already back above what they were in October and by a substantial margin. Ours has almost doubled in price in 8 years.

Looking at rightmove for round here, at least 50% of houses on there have been reduced in the last month. So am assuming a slowing market

+1 looking to market my mates house as soon as probate is granted & the estate agent doesn't seem sure of price to put it on at, we'll go to a few agents when it comes to it & take the most realistic option, at the moment we're just trying to make it look & smell like a smoker has lived there for 15+ years ☹️

Bridge of weir, houses regularly go for 35% over

I'm in North Norfolk, apart from the "Surrey by the Sea" area of the coast which is always expensive as it is all second homes, the main part of the market near us was either locals moving or retirees moving to Norfolk for the quiet life, so 2-3 bed bungalows and the like would always move quickly.

What we are seeing now though is a lot more families moving from London, Essex, Surrey to here, as people have stopped commuting so much and can work from home, local estate agents are usually asked how good the broadband is, and what local schools are like, which has meant the areas away from the richest parts, but still rural are doing well and were in top 10 fastest price increases according to one paper recently

But it is at the usual cost to first time buyers and many in local economy as typically salaries aren't the same here, and much work is rural economy (does also mean every pub has become a "foodie pub" and the local butchers has just become a deli after 40 years!)

I reckon prices in my immediate area of Bristol have fallen about 5% from their highs of a year or 2 ago. Probably similar to 2020 levels now.

Across town, we're selling my FiL's old 1-bed flat in a popular student area. We had it valued in early 2021, and it's looking likely to go for about the same as that now. Winning bid was about 2% over asking. But it went very quickly - 14 bids in the first week.

at the moment we’re just trying to make it look & smell like a smoker has lived there for 15+ years

You might have a better chance of selling it if you try to make it NOT look like a smoker has lived there. 😂

@Dickyboy Don't you need an evaluation from an estate agent for the probate application?

Don't really watch the property prices but what I do know is I wouldn't like to rent today.

A flat I used to rent when I first moved to town was on the market recently for 800 a month and went quickly.

I paid 525 a month in 2009 and considered it over priced then but it was the bottom of the market without hitting the tower blocks.

Doesn't look like it's had much work since - unless the headache inducing yellow paint tin is bottomless.

If you’re down sizing to liberate cash or reduce dept then a high prices are good for you. If you’ve already had an offer and accepted you might need a new buyer

You might have a better chance of selling it if you try to make it NOT look like a smoker has lived there. 😂

I'll ad a doh to your johndoh 🙄

Don't you need an evaluation from an estate agent for the probate application?

Already done that for IHT & probate, but all depends where the market will be in prob 6 months further down the line.

Don’t really watch the property prices but what I do know is I wouldn’t like to rent today.

this for sure.  We are now up to £900 a month for a one bed flat round here and £1200 for a 2 bed  Absurd. ( I let mine for a lot less)

Makes eldest_oab's £3900 a month for a 6 bed flat up the road from you seem a bargain.

I bought last Summer in an expensive part (relatively) of Dumfries & Galloway right at the peak when prices were going crazy. It didnt bother me at all as sold my much smaller Thames Valley house for a lot more and got rid of my mortgage and now in a much nicer house. I haven't paid too much attention to house prices since then but houses near me seem to be going for easily 10% less and sitting on the market for longer before they sell.

Things seem pretty stable near me.
I still get rightmove alerts after buying last year and I'm not seeing anything to make me regret what I paid.
I've seen some slightly bigger nicer houses for the same money, but they are in the bad areas for depravity, crime, connections, local ameneties etc...

House prices aren't really moving downwards here, houses are still selling relatively quickly, bar those that are overpriced.

Rental market is DoA here, absolutely crazy prices for renting, and seriously limited stock, can't see us being far off a proper crisis that can't be hidden, like it has been the last couple of years.

Definitely dropping round here. I've had several right move searches saved for about 18 months. Now at least a third of houses are reduced on the weekly email. Villages I never even consider are becoming vaguely affordable. New builds that were being advertised at £650k are close to £350k.
The two issues I've got local are everyone is using the same estate agent who is telling people prices are still going up. Then they just reduce the price after 6 weeks.
And virtually everything has rooms that are too small to fit furniture in. Or a bed. Or people.

We are in a funny recession.

Can’t get a seat for lunch at a Michelin star restaurant.

Interest rates up, monthly coats for houses up xx% but sale price not down.

We got a long way to go.

New build estates are advertising a lot of deposit offers locally, always a sign things are slowing down. The actual asking prices aren't shifting though so presumably it's just a slowdown rather than meaningful drops. Regular sales seem to be ticking along judging by the Sold boards and that there is plenty of Removal vans to be seen out and about most days.

Don’t really watch the property prices but what I do know is I wouldn’t like to rent today.

this for sure. We are now up to £900 a month for a one bed flat round here and £1200 for a 2 bed Absurd. ( I let mine for a lot less)

That's the starting price for those down here, South Wales is even catching up with Bristol! I'm incredibly lucky my landlord has never put my rent up in 10 years, couldn't afford to move anywhere right now.

We've just moved (across the border from East Lothian to mid Lothian) and found that houses are generally going pretty quickly (less than 2 weeks) if they've been priced and valued right. Houses are generally advertised at offers over £5000-£15000 less than home report value and a successful offer will be in the 3-5% over home report range. Our estate agent described the market as balanced between sellers and buyers but the days of 10% over home report value are a thing of the past.

Good luck.

Makes eldest_oab’s £3900 a month for a 6 bed flat up the road from you seem a bargain.

Depends on how many are sharing the bed.

We're in East Renfrewshire and prices seem have increased a bit, houses are moving fast. Currently in the process of selling our house and it looks to be going to a closing date next week.

the days of 10% over home report value are a thing of the past.

Not round my way. Southside of Glasgow, in the desirable locations like Shawlands etc, flats are going for 20%+ over HR value. Houses nearer me in Clarkston are going for 15% over HR. Probably more sensible outside the city, but there's definitely a lot of crazy money still flying around.

Agree Bob! We're in Clarkston and even 3-bed bungalows that need a good £100k spent on them are going to closing dates, pretty crazy really.

In Bridge of Allan and Dunblane

Nice area with large houses in demand and university staff with good salaries willing to pay higher prices. There's always places that are seeing house prices going through the roof ( no pun intended) and places where that just doesn't happen. T'was ever so.

Colinton Edinburgh where we are is still high prices and that's not going to change. Rare for houses to come on market and the jump in prices in 10 years is quite large. We bought 13 years ago and things are now twice what we paid. Couple of massive £1m+ homes are on the sites and a few more 'mid' market which is around 600-700k now.

Slowing down fairly singificantly in South Lakes although Barrow still expensive due to BAE (dilapidated terraced grotboxes excepted). Lexiter money has dried up a bit along with the wider downward pressures

We are in a funny recession.

Can’t get a seat for lunch at a Michelin star restaurant.

I wonder if all recessions are like this. In 2008/9, when I was very much bumping along the bottom, economically, I remember walking through London one day, marvelling at all these pubs that were packed full of Saturday afternoon revellers, and wondering how they could afford it if we were in such a big recession?

I think it's mostly the people who are already near the line, and who wouldn't have been in the pub anyway, who finally get pushed off the ledge.

I wonder if all recessions are like this. In 2008/9, when I was very much bumping along the bottom, economically, I remember walking through London one day, marvelling at all these pubs that were packed full of Saturday afternoon revellers, and wondering how they could afford it if we were in such a big recession?

At an individual level, recessions are fairly binary, either you've lost your job or you haven't (bit more complex with self employed). As a salaried employee, all the recessions in my lifetime are things I've just read about - they haven't personally affected me at all (so far), as I got paid the same every month throughout them all....

At an individual level, recessions are fairly binary, either you’ve lost your job or you haven’t (bit more complex with self employed). As a salaried employee, all the recessions in my lifetime are things I’ve just read about – they haven’t personally affected me at all (so far), as I got paid the same every month throughout them all….

Perhaps, but even then - some people will have 6 months expenses in a savings account and get a redundancy payout. Probably ride it out quite easily, maybe skip this year's holiday. But those at the bottom of the ladder won't be so well placed to weather the storm.

I suppose the nature of many recessions - GDP drops by a % or two - perhaps mean that by default, it's only the one or two percent most precarious people will really be in danger. For the rest of the country, it's just a speed bump.

House prices near us have dropped and in some cases houses just aren't selling.
A friend in Macclesfield has had only 3 viewings and no offers. Also a lady I know has moved to a bungalow and can't sell her house (now left empty), these properties are both in desirable areas. There are very few properties up for sale in our area, which is unusual for Spring.

Regarding recessions, they really do affect self employed people. In my lifetime I've been through 2 recessions. In the first I had to get a second job as my new mortgage almost doubled and my earnings halved. During 2008 the work just stopped dead and any work on the books got cancelled, my brother kindly lent me some money. Once the media mention the word 'recession', my 'sole trader' business suffers.

Skipton, North Yorks here. Up until a month ago I'd have said very static with few houses selling and price drops here and there. Last few weeks though there have been a few decent sized houses go up near us for what seem like high prices and all have sold within weeks, if not days. No idea what's changed?

Just for interest I have an email alert for property local to me (just up the road from @chestrockwell in Settle). It seems to me that a substantial proportion of notifications are price reductions, but that's possibly because the starting prices are bonkers.

The division between homeowners and renters is an absolute chasm across society. People my age and upwards - and the politicians we have elected - have completely screwed the country.