Delaying buying a house, time for a little honesty from some.

[haroldshand]

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

[spunko]

Depends on what type of house you want to buy. It took me 2-3 years to find my first home because I wanted a 3 bedroom detached in a village. Rare as hen's teeth. I would have put off buying for 5 years if I couldn't find the right home.

There's a real dearth of supply at the moment so if I was buying now I'd probably be waiting it out. No point rushing in, though I admit it depends what kind of house you're happy with.

[No One]

Listening to the TOSers back in 08/9/10/11/12/13/14/15 yes. It was a mistake. The TOSer thesis did not include government intervention. Any thesis needs to include government agenda and the interests at play. For example, it is clear the Tory government has several vested interests both in terms of donors and voters, and these are sacred, boomer pensions, housing developers, international finance etc, whilst labour has public sector, benefit class, immigrants, etc etc

But now I think falls are priced in. This is based on data.
Too many black swan events in too little time, the government can't prop everything. 

High inflation that causes:

-Higher IRs
-Crashing pound
-Systemic failures in localised areas, such as DB pensions
-High energy prices that eat up disposable income

etc

This time I'm going to time it, (or if the opportunity arises leave to a low tax high income nation as an ex pat)

[No One]

Follow this thread where I post local listings volume, @HousePriceMania does something similar in a larger area. 
 

 

 

[Don Coglione]

14 minutes ago, haroldshand said:

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

Portugal on hold, then?

[haroldshand]

Just now, Don Coglione said:

Portugal on hold, then?

That's the favourite option by far at the moment 

I am really looking back at the last several years to be honest

[Noallegiance]

For me my only mistake was underestimating the lengths our cunt class would go to over the last decade.

Couldn't afford to buy a family house as two full timers in 2014. Had to rent to start the family.

4 rentals and 8 years later we're now looking at moving to a 4 bed rental as the family is outgrowing the rentals we've tried to stay in to keep costs down (lived in a village way out and two or three bed bungalows of not very good standard or space).

£1600 p/m to rent the new gaff if we get it. Would be £670k to buy. Still working as much as we can as well as sorting kids schools and hobbies, spending time with them, not going into debt. Between me and Mrs N were on about £70k and unable to have a family place of our own.

Staying in the area as born and bred, friends, brothers and sisters, aging parents who will need help, kids love their school and clubs. It's a decent enough place to live with the private sector still more prevalent than the scroungers.

Some days it's all a bit much, though given that we've pretty much done all we can to swim against the current. But I stop once in a while to look about and with advancing age simply feel like we've gone backwards.

Edit to add: I've struggled with my mental health for 20 years. Never put myself out of work, though. Simply got something more suitable to allow myself the time and room to attend to myself but carried on working at all times and adjusted life accordingly. These fucking excuse-ridden layabouts make me fume.

[HousePriceMania]

8 minutes ago, Noallegiance said:

For me my only mistake was underestimating the lengths our cunt class would go to over the last decade.

Couldn't afford to buy a family house as two full timers in 2014. Had to rent to start the family.

4 rentals and 8 years later we're now looking at moving to a 4 bed rental as the family is outgrowing the rentals we've tried to stay in to keep costs down (lived in a village way out and two or three bed bungalows of not very good standard or space).

£1600 p/m to rent the new gaff if we get it. Would be £670k to buy. Still working as much as we can as well as sorting kids schools and hobbies, spending time with them, not going into debt. Between me and Mrs N were on about £70k and unable to have a family place of our own.

Staying in the area as born and bred, friends, brothers and sisters, aging parents who will need help, kids love their school and clubs. It's a decent enough place to live with the private sector still more prevalent than the scroungers.

Some days it's all a bit much, though given that we've pretty much done all we can to swim against the current. But I stop once in a while to look about and with advancing age simply feel like we've gone backwards.

Edit to add: I've struggled with my mental health for 20 years. Never put myself out of work, though. Simply got something more suitable to allow myself the time and room to attend to myself but carried on working at all times and adjusted life accordingly. These fucking excuse-ridden layabouts make me fume.

Don't forget who did this to you come election time....Labour AND Tories.

[Noallegiance]

20 minutes ago, HousePriceMania said:

Don't forget who did this to you come election time....Labour AND Tories.

Absolutely. It'll be the first time I've voted since the early 2000s.

[Axeman123]

The question reminds me of an interview with someone serving a very long sentence for big-time drug-smuggling that I saw, WTTE of "if you knew you would end up getting caught, would you do the same all over again?" and the reply was WTTE of "bloody stupid question, if I knew when I would get caught I would just do all the loads that I got through succesfully and then stop...or come up with a new concealment and keep going". The post 2008 era wasn't rationally predictable, and wasn't innevitable IMO. It was a rogue wave, and caught a lot of people out doing the right thing while making idiots look like geniuses.

To benefit from post 2008 meant knowingly betting on an extreme tail event, or blundering in with both eyes closed and a gaurdian angel. Neither of which are strategies I want to adopt, as sooner or later sanity prevails. It hasn't been easy, but I am not interested in regret etc. A wise man once said "be careful what you get good at, it is who you will become".

Looking forward I am excited by investment opportunities in gold miners, emerging markets, and the inflation trade. I hope to become a tax exile in the next few years, and sometimes daydream about building a sailing catamaran. Imagine if instead of these interests and opportunities I had just been unlucky enough to buy a house, and had put all my energy into reading and talking about "not making any more land" "house prices only go up" etc. What a withered little stump of a life that would have been.

[Bobthebuilder]

1 hour ago, haroldshand said:

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

If I would have had to make a decision on buying a property in 2018, I would have put it off, everything seemed so stacked up against it. I have to admit, the convid boom in the shires caught me completely off guard, wasn't expecting those sort of rises at all.

I have always dreamt of a bolt hole in Dorset, that dream seems as far away now as ever.

[Formerly]

5 hours ago, spunko said:

Depends on what type of house you want to buy. It took me 2-3 years to find my first home because I wanted a 3 bedroom detached in a village. Rare as hen's teeth. I would have put off buying for 5 years if I couldn't find the right home.

There's a real dearth of supply at the moment so if I was buying now I'd probably be waiting it out. No point rushing in, though I admit it depends what kind of house you're happy with.

I've been looking fairly seriously for over 2 years. In that time only 3 houses have come up that I was seriously interested in. None have met all my criteria, one was close enough to offer on and one I never even got a chance to view inside (some dodgy estate agent/developer dealings I suspect as it was sold subject to contract the same day it was listed).

[JoeDavola]

5 hours ago, haroldshand said:

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

If you don't think you want to buy in the UK any more, how can it have been a mistake?

[Wight Flight]

39 minutes ago, Formerly said:

I've been looking fairly seriously for over 2 years. In that time only 3 houses have come up that I was seriously interested in. None have met all my criteria, one was close enough to offer on and one I never even got a chance to view inside (some dodgy estate agent/developer dealings I suspect as it was sold subject to contract the same day it was listed).

I have found one I would buy, and am living in it now.

Sadly it isn't for sale.

[gibbon]

6 hours ago, haroldshand said:

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

From what I recall took about 5 years after 2008 for house prices to reach their bottom, so could be a good call.

[With a crooked smile]

7 hours ago, haroldshand said:

Realistically I have probably put off buying another house for 5 years now at least, I had good a conversation this weekend with friends and I am starting to put my hands up now and saying it was probably a mistake, maybe. Really not beating myself up about it though and with a good chance now prices will fall, maybe(yet again) and the fact it has probably even made me  wonder if I even  want to buy in the UK now.

Good and bad things came out of putting it off but weighing things up I think it was now probably a mistake.

Anyone else?

I personally would hold off for 12 months and then see. You'll never be able to judge bottom and that's a mugs game. That said I'm seeing a few once in a generation type properties hit the market (the small minority of houses that people talk about and go I'd love to live there places with turrets and stuff. With these it's harder to make a judgement call. I'd say if you want one of those sometimes you have to pay the permuim and they will always sell anyway.

[humdrum]

It is the luck of the draw.

We had picked up a useful piece of change more or less by accident, didn't like the idea of leaving the money in a bank (it was the time of the Banking Crisis) and the Rural Slum came on the market at an attractive price because the owners had already pissed away their inheritance and were up against it. As soon as we signed on the dotted line the price went south, but so what? We had somewhere to live until the next upturn and/or wanted to sell.

As far as I can see there is never a good time to buy or sell a house. Just find a place you like at a price you can afford, buy and then park your bum until you find some better for less

[spygirl]

16 minutes ago, humdrum said:

It is the luck of the draw.

We had picked up a useful piece of change more or less by accident, didn't like the idea of leaving the money in a bank (it was the time of the Banking Crisis) and the Rural Slum came on the market at an attractive price because the owners had already pissed away their inheritance and were up against it. As soon as we signed on the dotted line the price went south, but so what? We had somewhere to live until the next upturn and/or wanted to sell.

As far as I can see there is never a good time to buy or sell a house. Just find a place you like at a price you can afford, buy and then park your bum until you find some better for less

I think its more being proceedable..

Having a large dollop of cash, mortgage on speed dial, and earnings within banks comfort zone.

I dont doubt Ferrell be a lot of houses coming up. 50% of io mortgages 2002 onwards remain unresolved.

[Wight Flight]

20 minutes ago, With a crooked smile said:

I personally would hold off for 12 months and then see. You'll never be able to judge bottom and that's a mugs game. That said I'm seeing a few once in a generation type properties hit the market (the small minority of houses that people talk about and go I'd love to live there places with turrets and stuff. With these it's harder to make a judgement call. I'd say if you want one of those sometimes you have to pay the permuim and they will always sell anyway.

You would think , but it isn't always the case with unique houses. Took nearly two years to sell mine.

[onlyme]

12 hours ago, spygirl said:

I think its more being proceedable..

Having a large dollop of cash, mortgage on speed dial, and earnings within banks comfort zone.

I dont doubt Ferrell be a lot of houses coming up. 50% of io mortgages 2002 onwards remain unresolved.

The auctions might become interesting again and somewhere where the guide price is not little more than a work of fiction to entice yet more buyers into the room.

Not so sure 2008 was so unpredictable, the BOE and their ilk would have you believe it was a black swan, it wasn't, it was a collapse baked in after rampant speculation and gambling fuelled by the central banks, well they done it again.

You can't time bottoms (like tops) but you can swim around in them at more leisure and not be forced into buying the next property that comes up with a vague match to what you are looking for. 

 

[King Penda]

Once mum gets the kids back I will buy another I simply don’t give a shit what’s going on with house prices,however my advantage is low house prices and the fact I’ve aready got in the region of 125/130k.if I borrowed 30k that gives me a budget of 160k.if push comes to shove I will simply save another 10/12k and buy the next one without a morgage and you can actually get a decent 3 bed semi in stoke for 140k.

[Frank Hovis]

I would suggest that to purely look at from a financial angle is missing a lot of reasons for buying.

If one can easily buy a house in which you would like to live for the next ten or more years then the only reason I would have for not buying would be that you are fairly confident that there will be major price reductions in the near future (next couple of years) which would leave me with a lot more money left over after buying that or a similar house.

I am in a similar position with regard to changing my car.  I want to buy a mid age (pre AdBlu diesel or petrol) Berlingo type but they are still priced at pre-Covid levels plus 50%, or nine grand for a car I think is worth six grand. I can easily buy it, I know I want it, but with the "cost of living crisis" I am expecting people to start giving up their cars so plunging the prices back to pre-Covid levels or lower.  I am of the opinion that it will cost me an extra three grand now compared to my waiting a year or two.

My current car is barely depreciating and I'm not holding my money in depreciating cash so for now I will wait.

 

Will house or used car prices crash in the near future?  That's a personal call; nobody knows.

(I was throwing in the car as a personal example of the same decision process as buying a house, there is already plenty of discussion of used car prces on the motoring forum so best to leave it there)

[Boon]

One of the things I see with this is comparing yourself to others who are not necessarily in the same position as yourself. 

There are plenty of tangible (and intangible) aspects to why you may wish to buy a certain house at a certain price. Schools, for instance. Security of tenure. Intended length of stay. Those mean different things to different people.

Also the aspect of opportunity cost is worthless to someone who has a 90% mortgage, thus needing the rest of his money to be liquid. And property is really the only way people can lever up, with the risk greatly reduced as the asset also gives off utility.

Two people could have bought and sold at the same time and both could be right depending on their own circumstance.

 

[Frank Hovis]

8 minutes ago, Boon said:

Two people could have bought and sold at the same time and both could be right depending on their own circumstance.

 

Indeed.  Though I could never see myself going STR as that's seriously disrupting your life for speculative financial gain.

If for some reason I needed to rent in another location I would rent it our rather than sell it as I don't want to start switching in and out of the property market and worrying about the right time to buy or sell.

Plus as well as being a home it does double up as being a financial investment to add balance to shares and so on.

[AWW]

6 hours ago, onlyme said:

You can't time bottoms (like tops) but you can swim around in them at more leisure and not be forced into buying the next property that comes up with a vague match to what you are looking for. 

This is what I'm waiting for. Being herded around a house with twenty other people for five minutes when you're spending the best part of a million quid is borderline offensive customer service. You get treated better in McDonald's.

5 hours ago, Frank Hovis said:

If one can easily buy a house in which you would like to live for the next ten or more years then the only reason I would have for not buying would be that you are fairly confident that there will be major price reductions in the near future (next couple of years) which would leave me with a lot more money left over after buying that or a similar house.

My thoughts exactly.