Lets take a second to remind ourselves which forum we are on and why. Well obviously the Channel 4 Homes General forum and the why? Well for me I came here to follow up something from Location, Location, Location. Chanel 4 have had some very successful property programmes (LLL, Selling Houses, Property Ladder) and the price of property is integral to all of these. Even the recent Best and Worst programme gave predictions of prices for the 10 areas which (surprise) were rises of between 60% and 80% over the next five years.
And yet...
If we try to discuss property prices here the posts are removed. While at the same time numerous threads on DIY, arguably off topic to this forum as there is a separate DIY forum, are allowed to remain.
OK not everyone is interested in property prices but why don't they do the same as I do with the DIY threads, simply pass them by unread? It's clear that discussing property prices frightens people. I have no idea why.
I have to agree with Fran – the topic of house prices has been a core element of C4’s home/property shows, and was even shoehorned into the recent ‘Best and Worst Places to Live in the UK’, so it’s peculiar, to say the least, that threads on the same topic have such a low survival rate here on the forum. I can see the need to remove obvious spamming and trolling posts, but surely some of the more balanced threads could be allowed to remain?
What is the soultion to an otherwise inevitable dramatic fall in prices. One thing which will help is if vendors wake up and sell the property while they still can. It is better to reduce their asking price by 10% now rather than 20% later.
Originally posted by lee33: Why not have one 'sticky' and delete anything else?
lee
Good idea but I doubt the mods would do it.
Meanwhile why don't we adopt this thread for the discussion? So long as there's no advertising of other sites and we all remain polite I can't see why the thread should get deleted.
I had some thoughts about the Land Registry data that I posted on another thread that has since disappeared. Will dig out and repost here if this thread is still here this evening!
I agree that ideally there should be scope on this forum to discuss any property related matter but sadly we are all aware that the preponderance of trolling/spamming posts/threads is making sensible discussion on property trends nigh on impossible. What tends to happen is that the topic ends up as a ping-pong game between two or more members of ‘the other place’ agreeing with each other and posting innumerable links to bearish articles accompanied by faux ‘shock-horror-can-this-be-true!” comments. This appears to suppose that the other members of this forum do not read newspapers and confine their consumption exclusively to DIY and interiors magazines (when they’re not surfing all those property websites or watching ‘Location Location Location’ of course…) Regular users of the forum then just stop visiting rather than be patronised or sucked into a bun fight. If a full and wide ranging breadth of opinion is what is desired, and let’s face it that is the only way one gets a discussion as opposed to a soapbox style rant, then the spammers are having a counterproductive effect. Or could it be that a full and wide ranging breadth of opinion is not what they are seeking to stimulate in the first place…
I think the moderators need to realise that a large number of people are not buying houses as a means of topping up their pension or becoming a property tycoon, but simply because of the want or need to move. This however does not mean to say that they do not want to know what is happening in terms of prices in various areas. If people could move away from trying to predict what may or may not happen and stick to conversations on what prices currently are then they surely would have no reason for deleting the messages. I currently live in the north east of scotland and find it very interesting to hear peoples comments on the current state of the market and what prices are like as it gives me an indication of what is happening outwith my area. This does not mean that I want to generate a crash or scare people from buying. Infact I am in the process of buying myself in a rather bouyant scottish market.
susiecam, I hear what you are saying but I don't think such behaviour should mean the rest of us can't discuss prices, isn't that letting the 'spammers' win. Traditionally the way to deal with such posts is to ignore them.
But then does it really matter if people post links to news articles. Often the articles are relevant as they are about recently published data of exactly the kind that some of us here follow. I don't think it assumes no one else reads the papers, I take it as a starting point for a discussion. In fact the press 'spin' can be quite interesting as with the article linked to by Baldrics Brother about the recently published land registry figures. I find it staggering they stated there won't be a correction as inspite of a 30% fall in transactions, prices had risen 5%. It takes no account of the time lag in the figures, something I would like to discuss!
Like Scottishdiva, I really like to hear of other peoples experiences, especially if they give an indication of the area they are in.
As for putting off regular members of the forum, well I am one of those too and I would hope my views should also contribute to "a full and wide ranging breadth of opinion" but not if my posts keep getting deleted. If channel 4 persists with such heavy moderation I will start to suspect something untoward is going on.
Surely your concerns would be met by the idea of keeping the discussion to one thread, thus keeping the forum tidy and those not interested could easily skip it. How about that as a compromise mods?
Coati, I see you've gone for third time lucky with your Big Debate. If it gets deleted again why not add it to this thread? My thinking is to go with Lee's suggestion given the objections made about spammers above. If the house price debate was kept in one thread then there wouldn't be anything to complain about as the forum wouldn't be swamped with the one subject (not that I've ever noticed it being swamped myself so I must've missed a lot of it). Not ideal and a compromise but what do you think? For one I won't reply to your other thread, much as I'd like to, as it'd be as waste of time as it'd just get deleted again.
PS I am now saving copies of all my posts but unfortunately I didn't save the one on the Land Registry so will have to rewrite it
There was a link posted to an article (now deleted) talking about the recent Land Registry quarterly figures. Basically it said that although sales were down 30%, prices have risen by 5% year on year and so there won't be a correction in house prices.
Bearing in mind the sale is registered at the Land Registry after completion, I find that an odd thing to conclude this early in the proceedings. Two reasons:
The time lag involved. I watch my old estate and there have only been three completions so far this year. The time between going on the market and completion was 5 months, 7 months and 15 months. After completion you then have to wait for the sale to be registered and then wait for the next quarterly report that comes out six weeks after the quarter ends. This can add another 4 1/2 months after registration before a particular sale gets into a report. Quite simply the data refers to sales agreed months ago!
The other point reminds me of that classic Holmes quote:
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
There has been a huge drop in the number of properties sold and the unsold properties didn't bark. It stands to reason that the majority of properties that actually sold are going to be either the most desirable ones or the ones that found a buyer willing to offer more. The ones that didn't meet this didn't sell and therefore didn't affect the figures - Yet!
Thanks for your posts, I completely agree and find it distressing if posts are removed.
It is an interesting and relevant subject. Although we sold to relocate for work, our decision to rent has been based on the information about the market. I do not see myself as extreme about this, just a human being trying to gather information in order to make the right decisions.
On a different note, tonight is our second night in the new rental. I am exhausted having spent two days moving and unpacking, I feel as if I never want to move again
However, the house is lovely and now I have my computer and connection set up too.
I had forgotten how stressful and tiring moving is.
Originally posted by Fran Tick: Eek! There's a post been deleted and now it looks like I was talking to myself
Hmm one thing it does do when a post is deleted is to make me even more interested in the subject. I can see why Channel 4 would want to only talk the market up, as they are obviously making money from selling houses, but it is a shame that they are censoring the forum.
Originally posted by Fran Tick: Lets take a second to remind ourselves which forum we are on and why. Well obviously the Channel 4 Homes General forum and the why? Well for me I came here to follow up something from Location, Location, Location. Chanel 4 have had some very successful property programmes (LLL, Selling Houses, Property Ladder) and the price of property is integral to all of these. Even the recent Best and Worst programme gave predictions of prices for the 10 areas which (surprise) were rises of between 60% and 80% over the next five years.
And yet...
If we try to discuss property prices here the posts are removed. While at the same time numerous threads on DIY, arguably off topic to this forum as there is a separate DIY forum, are allowed to remain.
OK not everyone is interested in property prices but why don't they do the same as I do with the DIY threads, simply pass them by unread? It's clear that discussing property prices frightens people. I have no idea why.
I completly agree, the recent 10 Best and !0 Worst places was the most ridiculous programme I've seen in ages.
I was so annoyed by it, I even wrote to complain to C4.
Kirsty & Phil were trying to tell us that everything was going up by at least 50% in the next 5 years, regardless of whether the property was in the Best or the Worst area !!
How stupid do they think we are ?
These type of programmes have had their day !!
C4 please sack Kirsty & Phil now. They either dont know what they are talking about or they are lying, which is it ?
Could I politely suggest to the C4 schedule makers that the 10 best/10 worst be replaced by more "revisited" series on this years Property Ladder. A lot of them stayed on the market for months after the programme aired and I'd love to know what happened to them in the end.
Hi Kathy yes, you do forget the stress and efort of moving don't you!
How long have you signed for? I've signed for 6 months and am worried about buying a new place - have tried to register with ea's but none appear to keep 'hot buyer' lists and just say 'look on line'. This includes the one who keeps details on line not marked as 'under offer' until completion! I wouldn't mind but then they practically sneer at you when you ring about a house under offer. I'm guessing that so many people lie about having no property to sell that they can't be bothered to begin to discriminate between buyers to work out who is hot and who is not
We have viewed 2 already - one was too small and needed too much doing to it for the price. the other was too big and too badly laid out - it had a loo off one reception room and stairs out of another despite being such a big house.
I just don't get prices at the moment - the house we wanted to view, and had only gone under offer the day before, was on at 250 yet an identical one is on for 315?! They both seem to be in good nick, in fact, on paper, the 250 property has an edge as it is fully double glazed. Another house I viewed in July 2004 at 239 is now asking 269 and another identical house 295. Add to this there isn't a huge amount of property around full stop. I generally subscribe to the theory of there is no harm in making an offer but I feel reluctant to view places over 275 when my budget is 250..... it just feels so unlikely that the vendor will come down .
so, all in all I am a little nervous renting as I see no signs of anything other than less movement in my area.
Just been reading rightmove's report released 15th August.
Any dips in the average rightmove prices seem to be slow coming but that's not surprising as they only use the first asking price, so any reductions after a property has been months on the market unsold don't count, unless it goes multi-agent I guess?
To calculate average asking prices for a given week or month, Rightmove.co.uk takes the initial asking price for all new instructions on the site during the period,
Anyway, IMO they seem to be desperately talking up the situation.
On one hand they are saying how great the low interest rates are and that they are nothing like the previous post boom highs (1979 17%, 1989 14.88%) but on the other hand they are saying that to get first time buyers back we need further interest rate cuts. It all seems a bit have your cake and eat it to me, great we have historically low interest rates but, err, we need them lower to save the market!!!
It seems to me that if first times buyers are priced out with a base rate of 4.5% then they are priced out period. With such a low interest rate there's far more room for rates to go up than down and with the CPI hitting 2.3% I think a first time buyer relying on sustained lower rates to buy would be utter madness. Even if they had a lower rate for a few months it wouldn't last with such inflation figures. I think 6% would be a reasonable medium term figure for the base rate ...
Originally posted by phugoid: Don’t worry Fran, I saw the other post too, honest! So it’s not really 4 posts in a row, everyone, just looks like it.
Thanks,
quote:
Originally posted by kathy321: On a different note, tonight is our second night in the new rental. I am exhausted having spent two days moving and unpacking, I feel as if I never want to move again
However, the house is lovely and now I have my computer and connection set up too.
Glad to hear you've settled in so well kathy. Am impressed you got your computer set up so fast. We forgot to tell BT and were without even a phone for over a week. I hope you are very happy renting as we are. We were relaxing in the sunshine on the rented balcony the other day when OH pointed out something in the sky a few miles along the coast, it was the Red Arrows! We agreed this renting malarkey isn't bad.
quote:
Originally posted by susiecam: (not sure why I put that there, just thought I'd get in early...)
Reminds me of old Wrigglesworth who said the other month:
First time buyers are as rare as snowflakes in August
and you've got the whole snowman ... but I think it's really any excuse for a party
quote:
Originally posted by Irate bob: What 'other place' is that?
Sorry Irate bob, we are not allowed to name it here, the mods will delete the posts and/or ban the poster that mentions it's name, however you will know it when you see it.
I cant understand where some of you get this idea that house prices will fall. Surely property is a great investment and banks are faling over themselves with some great deals at the moment. Interest only, 5x joint income etc
Didnt any of you see last weeks programme from Kirsty Allsop where she showed that even horrible areas like Midelsboro are going to see price rises of nearly 50% by 2010.
The best place to buy is someplace called Blarney Festinerog (in Wales I think) where Kirsty estimates prices will go up by 79.4% in 5 years.
Im seriously thinking of looking into buying something there for capital gain and rental in the meantime. With an interest only mortgage and guaranteed capital growth of nearly 80% what have you got to lose ?
Anyone can go on TV and predict anything, doesn't mean it will happen. I hope for the sakes of the young people in these places that house prices don't rise at all.
Programmes like Best/Worst seem to encourage speculators to pile in, pricing average folk out of homeownership.
(not sure why I put that there, just thought I'd get in early...)
