Property prices thread

[Gups]

Taken alone looking at figures since the 90s suggests there is a link.
However correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation and by comparing to the 50s/60s when we had a similar rate of population growth you don't see the same happening.
This suggests something else other than population growth is at work- namely not building enough.

But isn't it the interaction of both?

If you have net emigration, as we did until the 90s, and relatively low to no population growth, as in the 70s-90s, then you don't need to build much new housing each year.

Obviously population growth increases demand for houding - particularly if growth is largely adults. Nobdody needs to study graphs -it's just obvious. What the graphs do show is that the calamitous decision to forbid the reinvestment of right to buy receipts in new Council housing haunts us to this day. From 100K+ completions a year in the 60s and 70s to virtually nothing, with just a bit of mitigation from the housing associations.

There's also the very significant rise in single households over the last 30 years - you can have excess demand even if the population is stable or declining.

[Sheilbh]

I have to admit the constant claim by Brits that Britain is shit had a lot more credibility back in the 70s-90s before everybody started wanting to move there.

Yeah. I think that Britain is a relatively popular destination slightly confounds everyone. Both the "the country's gone to the dogs"/Daily Mail and "rainy fascist island"/Guardian strands of British opinion - which are not small

Obviously population growth increases demand for houding - particularly if growth is largely adults. Nobdody needs to study graphs -it's just obvious. What the graphs do show is that the calamitous decision to forbid the reinvestment of right to buy receipts in new Council housing haunts us to this day. From 100K+ completions a year in the 60s and 70s to virtually nothing, with just a bit of mitigation from the housing associations.

I totally agree and probably need to relax the borrowing rules for councils too.

There's also the very significant rise in single households over the last 30 years - you can have excess demand even if the population is stable or declining.

Although, how much of that is now a function of housing? There's been a big social shift in the last 30 years. But I think now you have people who want to form a family but aren't because they can't afford a flat, which understandably they want first before they have kids etc.

I'm not fully on the housing theory of everything in Britain - but I'm not far off and I think it has social consequences like families not being able to form because they can't save a deposit even on two incomes.

[Josquius]

Taken alone looking at figures since the 90s suggests there is a link.
However correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation and by comparing to the 50s/60s when we had a similar rate of population growth you don't see the same happening.
This suggests something else other than population growth is at work- namely not building enough.

But isn't it the interaction of both?

If you have net emigration, as we did until the 90s, and relatively low to no population growth, as in the 70s-90s, then you don't need to build much new housing each year.

Obviously population growth increases demand for houding - particularly if growth is largely adults. Nobdody needs to study graphs -it's just obvious. What the graphs do show is that the calamitous decision to forbid the reinvestment of right to buy receipts in new Council housing haunts us to this day. From 100K+ completions a year in the 60s and 70s to virtually nothing, with just a bit of mitigation from the housing associations.

Everything is related to everything. Obviously population growth is a factor. But to say it is THE factor just doesn't line up.
I do find it really curious that population growth levels back in the mid 20th century were very close to the supposedly disastrous levels we see today...yet because we had a government that actually built, and despite having just had so much levelled in a war, we didn't get runaway property prices.

And yes. For the adults vs. children factor I considered whether it'd be worth shifting the numbers 20 years. But at a glance that doesn't seem to reveal much.

As to right to buy...I'd just stop at saying the whole thing was a mistake. The idea that you can replace a lost social home one for one is just fundamentally flawed. Houses are not interchangeable, location is a key factor in what makes them what they are, and you can't have more than one building in the same location.
The problems in the UK are less a shortage of housing overall (though that is creeping up) and more a complete mismatch in where people want/have to be and where the housing is.

There's also the very significant rise in single households over the last 30 years - you can have excess demand even if the population is stable or declining.

I do think we are starting to get a handle on that in the last 10 years or so with recognition of the need for more one bed flats rising so less family homes being converted. Around me you even see many former HMOs being converted back. A quick google doesn't throw up actual numbers to check.
Again however I'd say this is an issue of broken supply rather than demand.

[viper37]

Windsor, Ontario:
 



I believe parking fees are an extra, though.

[HVC]

It's a fixer upper

[Admiral Yi]

It's a wheelchair ramp with a roof on it.

[viper37]

It's a fixer upper

She just needs some love

[Tamas]

 

Meanwhile, property prices in the UK might be accelerating down the slope (couple of percentages down so far only, though), it is a bit noticeable in my area but not enough yet to make up for the hike in interest rates. But getting there.

[Josquius]

Windsor, Ontario:
 [i



I believe parking fees are an extra, though.

I wonder what the value of the land is?
Reminds me of a lot of Japanese properties where the property itself is a negative value on the land due to the cost of demolition.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Meanwhile, property prices in the UK might be accelerating down the slope (couple of percentages down so far only, though), it is a bit noticeable in my area but not enough yet to make up for the hike in interest rates. But getting there.

Plenty of downwards pressure to come 

The correct time to buy is when friends and colleagues think you are utterly mad for doing so, 1995/6 was the last time this happened in the UK. Then we had the excellent economic growth of 1997-2008, which legitimately buoyed prices up, followed by the financial crisis and zero per cent interest rates hence the current distortion.

[HVC]

Looks like Wells Fargo is getting out of the mortgage business. Tamas you might be getting your affordable prices soon.

[garbon]

Looks like Wells Fargo is getting out of the mortgage business. Tamas you might be getting your affordable prices soon.

In an ideal world, Wells Fargo would be out of business.

[Tamas]

Saw an end of terrace that looked ideal enough to view and if decent make an offer a bit below the current (and already somewhat reduced since the start of the ad) asking.

It is marked on Rightmove as "offer received over X" or something to that effect, I asked the estate agent kid on the phone he said yeah its still available but I am thinking we are being hooked in with it.

He offered to show us two other properties while we are there we said sure why not, those two have confirmed our viewing time for tomorrow (they are clearly empty refurbishment projects), but the one we actually do want to see haven't.

The two other ones are, well, one I am tempted to just tell him we ain't bothering because a bit of research made the street and immediate neighbourhood sound very suspect despite what seems quite low reported crime rates. The other one seems more decent, but a mid terrace and not that far from that dodgy street.

Moreover, both 3 bedroom terraced ones are on offer for 385k which is actually more than our primary target which is also in a very clearly better neighbourhood. So no way we would entertain that offer.

I can already see this whole house hunting will be an exhausting process, and we don't even want to start in earnest yet. This primary target was just too nice a match to what we want to ignore.

I will probably check out those two other dumpy-er houses though, just to build some frames of reference in my head, and gauge this particular agent and agency.

[Valmy]

It's a fixer upper

Really you are just buying the lot with that kind of property.

[Josquius]

Saw an end of terrace that looked ideal enough to view and if decent make an offer a bit below the current (and already somewhat reduced since the start of the ad) asking.

It is marked on Rightmove as "offer received over X" or something to that effect, I asked the estate agent kid on the phone he said yeah its still available but I am thinking we are being hooked in with it.

He offered to show us two other properties while we are there we said sure why not, those two have confirmed our viewing time for tomorrow (they are clearly empty refurbishment projects), but the one we actually do want to see haven't.

The two other ones are, well, one I am tempted to just tell him we ain't bothering because a bit of research made the street and immediate neighbourhood sound very suspect despite what seems quite low reported crime rates. The other one seems more decent, but a mid terrace and not that far from that dodgy street.

Moreover, both 3 bedroom terraced ones are on offer for 385k which is actually more than our primary target which is also in a very clearly better neighbourhood. So no way we would entertain that offer.

I can already see this whole house hunting will be an exhausting process, and we don't even want to start in earnest yet. This primary target was just too nice a match to what we want to ignore.

I will probably check out those two other dumpy-er houses though, just to build some frames of reference in my head, and gauge this particular agent and agency.

Wise to see a bunch even if you're pretty sure they're not for you. I saw tonnes before I decided on one- often asking to visit them just because they ticked one or two of my theoretical list of criteria.  There was always the chance of a surprise.
Hell. The house I did buy was that- originally I was looking to spend sub 100k on an upstairs flat, most likely in a different town to where I did buy. Saw this house mainly because it was walking distance from where I was renting but it turned out to have a lot of appeal.