Credit Crunch/housing slump - has it affected you?

minimeeze

minimeeze

Suspended / Banned
Messages
7,512
Name
Cheryl
Edit My Images
Yes
Just wondering if anyone else out there has been affected by the 'credit crunch'.

We've just put our house up for sale (couldn't have picked a worse time if I'd tried!!), only to be told by the estate agent that it's now worth £10K LESS than when it was valued 6 weeks ago :eek: How can a house lose so much value in so little time? He was also telling me that some people are struggling to get anywhere near what they paid for their properties in the last 2 years. I feel a sense of 1980's de ja vu!
 
Good news for first time buyers!
 
My house is still worth more than when I bought it 3 years ago.
 
My house is still worth much more than when I bought it 3 yrs ago - I'm just surprised that the valuation has plummeted so much in the space of 6 weeks. The price would have to drop by another £60K for me to be in negative equity, so I'm not worried yet ;)
The estate agent said that houses are still selling - just slowly and for a lot less!
 
At least two of the building sites I inspect have been moth-balled, nobody can get a mortgage so they build the show house & wait to see if they get orders for any of the plots.

If it carries on like this then the only thing getting built in the UK will be the Olympic stuff (that's if the Building companies don't go bust first)
 
minimeeze said:
Just wondering if anyone else out there has been affected by the 'credit crunch'.

....I feel a sense of 1980's de ja vu!
Click to expand...

We are going to wish it was only like the '80's.
The bust in the late 80's was a mere glitch caused by the greed of a speculator, John Major's stupidity signing us up for the ERM and the intransigence of the Bundesbank. When it happened the nation was in the black and peoples personal debt was relatively low. The treasury used £27bn of our reserves to arrest the crash.

This time we have national and private debts of epic proportions. The government have been lying about inflation for a decade and artificially suppressing the interest rates to create an illusion of prosperity. Their propaganda machines have been working overtime to pursuade us that we need to spend, spend, spend on houses. When it comes crashing down this time we have nothing to catch it with. We are looking at a depression like the "great" one.

Did anyone else see the Dispatches program a couple of years ago where Andrew Dilnot told Ed Balls what was going to happen and he just laughed at him?
Either our former chancellor was even more monumentally stupid than he has made himself appear over tha last 11 years or it's all part of the master plan. Make the pound as worthless as the Euro and a country on it's knees will welcome the single currency with open arms over the economic disaster it is in. And all the jolly traitors will take their place at the palace of the Union of European Socialist Republics.
 
Prices seem to have levelled here at the moment compared to prices they were selling for last year there wasn't much in it. A flat near me sold for £164,000 last year and there is another for sale at the moment for £169,000. A house near my late Dad's house is currently up for £359,000 same as they were selling at last year, proof will be what they sell for and when.
My Dad's may well go on the market soon, just waiting on a property developer to see if he is interested first. The house needs some work but with the scope of a possible £70,000 profit for him, we're hoping he says yes. Then again he may decide to rent it out after and ride out the storm.
 
I know of a scaffolding company who are scaling back their workforce by about 45%. That's 60 people out of a job due to the market conditions.
 
My business is Personal Finance, and our secured loans depo is offline, and Mortgages have almost dried up completely too. Loads of other products keep us going until the market bounces back in a year or so.

Gary.
 
Last edited:
I really feel for people like Min at the moment who want to sell just so they can get their money and leave the country, rather than do so for massive monetary gain.

Yep, we're getting quieter too. Although it does tend to drop off over the summer as people go away on holiday anyways.

All the big agents we work for (and a couple of them are international companies) are struggling to make sales at the moment. Up until a month or so ago they were getting plenty of new instructions too. Now they're slowly drying up alas.

Restricting the availability of mortgages can only have one effect, less people moving house. Less movers means it'll slowly become a buyers market as supply starts to outstrip demand so prices will naturally come down.



AND ABOUT BLOODY TIME TOO!

I am soooooooooo fed up with not actually being able to buy a house or even a flat in the town I live in because greedy bloody speculators are getting rich off the recent property boom and using the massive equity they've gained as a basis to purchase of a string of buy-to-lets. We've got masses of unlet rental properties in Bath right now but no affordable housing whatsoever. Give it another 6 months or a year and they'll all be on the market when the owners nice cushy fixed-rate runs out and they realise they can't afford 16 mortgages anymore and the supply of BTL mortgages has dried up so they're left with one option. To sell up!

I for one am rejoicing in the fact that property will be 30-40% cheaper within 18 months.
 
Gandhi said:
I for one am rejoicing in the fact that property will be 30-40% cheaper within 18 months.
Click to expand...

Me too. I think that the overheated property market is the biggest economic problem in the uk. It has resulted in massive debts, serious hardship and increasing divisiveness in society.

There is a one bed cottage (tiny, tiny, tiny - floor area of the house cant be more than 50 sqm) down the street from me with an asking price of £150K. Local paper shows that typical salary is around £18K.
:rules::bat:
 
Min

I know exactly where you are, I've just had my house valued and the leach said the house would have been worth 20K more 3 months ago :eek:
 
If mortgage companies hadn't been willing to give 5x loans then people wouldn't have been selling houses for stupid money. And as for supposedly responsible mortgage companies giving 120% loans , FFS !!!!

Something is only worth what somebody is willing/able to pay as my dad would say.
 
Last edited:
digitalfailure said:
I've just had my house valued and the leach said the house would have been worth 20K more 3 months ago :eek:
Click to expand...

Indeed, it's all relative though. Surely that means that most properties in your area are down by the corresponding %?


Not all agents are munsters y'know.

A majority, yes. But there are some out there who actually enjoy what they're doing and have the best intentions of their clients at heart. Only seems to be the more upper-class agents for some reason though :thinking: ;)

Sorry, just felt I had defend the few I know that are good people.

Most of them are indeed leaches though and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw their shiny suits and bmw mini's.


I wonder if this massive fall in house prices that's predicted is going to be further fuelled by the fact that many people who've seen massive equity gains are now going to panic and think that they're losing wads of cash and throw their house on the market? Or are people going to have the nouse to stay put and weather the storm?
 
have to agree the market went too high too quickly and nothing was done to slow it down. everyone was predicting a crash 5-6 years ago when i bought my house. i was worried for a year or so about neg equity. i reckon my house is worth bout double what i payed for it, but it doesn't matter as it isnt going on the market yet.
The price encreases are taking the mick a bit now though, at work we have been hit with a 61% on steel products in the last three months. that to me is absolute madness.
 
losing money on the house actually works for me in one aspect.....but could cause potential hurt in another.

it's all very very confusing :D
 
hepburn said:
I know of a scaffolding company who are scaling back their workforce by about 45%. That's 60 people out of a job due to the market conditions.
Click to expand...

Small estate agents are going under around here along with solicitors,it's also the knock on effect, carpet fitters,removal firms, curtain makers,all the businesses associated with moving into a new house are going under.

All the building sites have stopped dead, they aren't even finishing 1/2 built properties, saturday morning i saw a sign on a lampost, NEW SHOWHOME OPENING TODAY,I bet that was a quiet day :D
 
Not directly related to housing but the bank offered a credit card with an 8k limit and plus another 16k on a low rate loan if you want :nuts:

They sent a reminder last week about it and I'm tempted because I could shuffle a few things around and save a few quid :thumbs:
 
wack61 said:
Small estate agents are going under around here ............
Click to expand...

My heart bleeds for them, estate agents and mortgage lenders were all too ready to appear on the BBC news every morning and big up the house prices.."prices are only ever going to increase, you must sell both kidneys and buy now!" Nothing to do with increasing their commission then? :suspect:
I know so many people who were suckered into mortgages they will never be able to afford because they "have to buy now". :bang:
 
currently in the process of buying a house, 1st time buyers with a 95% morgage :D how lucky am I!
 
Two years ago my son gave up his job and sold his house in Farehm , Portsmouth to move to Crawley in Sussex for a much higher salaried position. He decided to give it a few months and rent until he was certain the job was for him.
He is now in a great position to buy having sold his house at the right time just before the slump started.
 
The recession will be nothing like the 90's as im sure you mean. well maybe the very late 80's.

Since the bank of england now control inflation-it is estimated ther will be a 2 year slump with prices balancing and back up to average 10-13% increases within 3 years-just bite ya lip and see it out-thats what im going to do.

Yes its bad times-but I think it will be ok in the long run.
 
digitalmaniac said:
just bite ya lip and see it out-thats what im going to do.

Yes its bad times-but I think it will be ok in the long run.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that is not an option for me :( I have a job lined up in Canada and am due to start in October :eek: It is an opportunity that has taken me alot of hard work, money and stress to acheive and there's no way I'm giving it up. I have to take whatever I can get for my house and run!
 
minimeeze said:
I have to take whatever I can get for my house and run!
Click to expand...

I take it you've looked into the possibility of using a letting agent and renting it out for a few years? Not much help if you need the capital though.
 
I'm one of those old fashioned types and have virtually no debt - only half of a small mortgage.

My father was in debt all his married life. He started off by furnishing a house on HP. Later he had a series of car loans, always buying an oldish car which died almost as soon as the loan was paid off, so there was always another car loan. He had an overdraft with the bank that was only just cleared off each month when his salary went into the account, and the rest of the month was spent sliding into another overdraft. He was just crap with money and couldn't plan or save.

I guess I learned the lesson he didn't. I don't like debt and other than the mortgage I don't have any. I have one credit card and use it as a charge card. Everything else goes on the debit card.
 
Its a real deflating feeling isn't it Min. We have finally got probate sorted on my OH's aunts flat in London, and we already know that its value is some 10k less than it was at time of death over a year ago [long story as to why its taken so long to sort out] Luckily for us the sale is basically capital, we dont need it to move properties ourselves or anything, but its annoying that we have had to pay IT on it at a higher figure than its now worth and its now probably going to be much harder to sell. :bang:
 
LadyLens said:
Its a real deflating feeling isn't it Min. We have finally got probate sorted on my OH's aunts flat in London, and we already know that its value is some 10k less than it was at time of death over a year ago [long story as to why its taken so long to sort out] Luckily for us the sale is basically capital, we dont need it to move properties ourselves or anything, but its annoying that we have had to pay IT on it at a higher figure than its now worth and its now probably going to be much harder to sell. :bang:
Click to expand...
Don't forget to claim back on the IHT. You'll only get 60% of the difference back, but don't let the tax man keep it. That is assuming the property is still under the Estate or in the name of the Administrator.
 
woadrage said:
I take it you've looked into the possibility of using a letting agent and renting it out for a few years? Not much help if you need the capital though.
Click to expand...

That isn't really an option as I need the money from the sale of the house to establish my business in Canada. No NHS like here - midwives are self employed :eek: so I have to literally set up a business.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top