stilover

Disagree with you there Mike.

I stayed at my parent until I was 28. Reasons?

Wages before then weren't great so affordability was an issue.
While living at my parents I wasn't paying them any rent, so put that money into a savings account for a deposit.
As I didn't have a mortgage I had disposable income to have a life. Going out with friend/girlfriends, cars, holidays etc.
As I was able to save for a deposit, my mortgage was alot less than it would have been moving out several years earlier.

Result?
After just over 5 years, I'm now mortgage free. Only possible because of the large deposit I was able to save while living at home. Also helped by increased wages of course.

I always tell young people I know, stay at home with your parents as long as you can. That saved deposit money goes along way to reducing your mortgage debt.

lozgti

My mother fleeced me

stilover

My argument was "I never asked to be born. You wanted me, you pay for me. Now get Fcuked".

Yes, I was a spoilt b*stard

Mus

iTrader: (2)

some very intresting points and views,
as an estate agent the current market we are experiencing is a buyers market.people are open to offers and are much more realistic to when you go round and value there properties.

so i would say buy if u have the money even if ur not gona live there just yet. as long as the rent covers ur mortgage ur sorted.if this market is good enuf for investors then its good enuf for any one.

stilover

I'll disagree with you there.
Too many appartment/houses up for rent round here. As seen on TV last week, it's also a renters market.

If a Landlord needs £600/month to cover mortgage payments, and he's competing against other landlords for the same tenents then he's going to have to lower his rent to get the tennent.
What are you going to do as a Landlord. Rent it at £450/month at a £150/month loss or hold on hoping for a mug to come along and pay £600/month? Don't rent it, and you're losing £600/month

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

I'm about to put the flat I bought 18 months ago up for sale. I live with the GF (no share in the property) and bought the flat to get on the ladder before it was no longer affordable. Has been rented out since.

Reasons:

1. Demand here is still strong, but prices have flattened off.
2. The rent covers 80% of the mortgage, so I'm paying capital off myself
3. I'll have a nice big deposit when I buy again (currently 100% mortgage)
4. At least with savings I'll get guaranteed 4-5% net of tax.
5. Average wage here is £25k, my 1 bed flat is £120k. Nearly 5x, something doesn't add up there.
6. Rent yields are about 5% now, with mortgages 6%+

Feel free to argue with any of my reasons as its not on the market yet!

MikeCardiff

iTrader: (2)

I think a lot of the lenders are having a kneejerk reaction by withdrawing their mortgages and tightening up on borrowing. While I cant see us going back to the 110% mortgages and 6x salary that werent uncommon recently, I think the banks will loosen up a bit, especially if the housing market slows a lot and nobody is borrowing from them.

Of course, it doesnt do the banks any harm to charge more for people to borrow from them ( notice how quickly the mortgage rates went up when the interest rates rose, but the savings rates were a lot slower, and with interest rate cuts you can bet the mortgange rates wont quickly drop in line with them ! ) and whack on big setup fees for 100% mortgages.

Even though prices have rocketed, I cant see a massive crash happening - what I think may happen is that price will drop 10 - 20% and only rise very slowly over the next 5 to 10 years, so in maybe 10 years time prices will have corrected themselves and be somewhere back to normal.

The biggest drops are going to be in FTB's flats and small houses - so many of these have shot up recently, maybe to target the BTL brigade, and lots seem very overpriced compared to more expensive houses.

stilover - didnt you want to have your own place at that age though ? 28 is pretty late to stay at home - OK, you benefitted from it, but for me leaving home at 16 and having my own place was great - particularly when it came to having somewhere to take girls back to - I may not have had a car, but give most girls the choice of 'do you want to come back to my flat ?' or 'do you fancy a quickie in the back seat of my Fiesta down a side street ?' I think most would go for the former.

john banks

fast bloke, they try to protect themselves against inflation, although it is hard. I've been trying to do that with equities, gold and RPI linked savings where possible, with modest success so far - I'm well ahead of the house price indices anyway.

Some believe we'll see inflation, some deflation, citing a commodities bust as the start of it. At the moment it seems the market can't decide? When it becomes clearer I'll try to rearrange things to suit as best I can. If things go inflationary which I believed they would until recently given the increases in money supply, we would expect gold and equities to do well until the real interest rate is positive? Many are mumbling about an equities rally at present. It would be about time...

If we go deflationary, cash will be just fine. Whatever, I can move things around in some cases in minutes, in some cases days, you can't do that with property and debt in the middle of a credit crunch.

Would you go and buy a house in my position?

For those who believe in a gradual slowdown, can they quote historical precedence for an asset class tripling in about 10 years and then drifting sideways over the next 10? You'd need rapid wage inflation... real wages appear to be decreasing?

Renting is just great... I have been an owner occupier with and without a mortgage, and a scabby tenant. The latter is just fine

It would be really nice if the UK did something other than financial services and buying and selling each others' houses!

skoobidude

I was ready to leave home at 24 and did so by renting. It was so expensive that I was back at my parents 6 months later . I had a nice car at the time and perhaps should have sold it but at that age my car meant a lot to me
Was ready to buy a couple years later but the price soar had began so I foolishly waited and waited for it to stop... But it didn't
In hindsight I'd have bitten the bullet but so many people were convinced the prices would come back down again.
Rented with my misses at 29 then eventually bought my first house at 33 on a good plot and extended it a year later

By the way I went with older women back then. Most of whom had their own places...

Nick

stilover

To be honest, I wasn't that bothered about having my own place before i did. OK, if I could have afforded it I would have. But cars, clothes, beer etc was a priority at the time.

Parents didn't mind girlfriends sleeping over, so that wasn't a problem.
Caused all sorts of problems in relation to my sister though. Dad wouldn't let any of her boyfriends stay over