House prices climbing

What is the housing market at the moment where you live?

You might think that due to the pandemic and lockdowns that housing sales would slump and prices would fall. But the opposite has happened in the UK. Maybe because many people were furrowed and actually using their houses. A lot of people, including us, had building work done this year. And many seem to have been moving house.

We had our house valued last year by a surveyor for a mortgage renewal and the value had increased £40k since we purchased it in late 2015. We thought that was great.

But prices have suddenly been climbing a lot since then. A house in my road went on the market this week. A 3 bedroom semi detached 1930s house with a garage and small garden. It's listed at £335k. Last year that would have been about £285k. That means our house could have easily gained another £50k. Possibly more now we have had work done plus the art studio/log cabin installed in the garden.

Of course it also means every other house has gone up in price too, so although you can sell for far more to move up also not costs more and the gap between property levels has grown.

Just looking at doing their usual "Ker-Ching" thing.... :dry:

Originally Posted by :
What is the housing market at the moment where you live?

It's booming, utter madness. The rental market is red-hot and sky-high. House prices are also shooting up still.

Whilst at first it seems nice to have an assets (or, um, assets) that increase in value JUST BECAUSE that 's how the system currently works, it does make me very nervous for the future.

Surely increases like this can't be sustainable. When we bought a house in this town ten years ago, it was for around five times my annual salary, and in the period since we bought it has pretty much doubled in value even though we have not really done much to it. But of course, when we wanted to move to a bigger place, any potential purchases had also increased dramatically too.

My current house, is very nice but it is certainly no palace, and yet the purchase price was almost nine times my annual salary... and the valuation keeps going up.

If this continues, how are our kids going to be able to afford to buy houses? Or anyone who wasn't able to get on the 'ladder' when we did? It feels like they will be trying to jump on board a train that is already moving and accelerating away from them. It feels like we were very fortunate with our timing and situation, not by any particular skill or method.

Of course, if we sell up and move out past whoop whoop (or just downsize), we'd have done pretty well out of it, but would never be able to get back in.

Some Building Materials have gone through the Roof as well. - Timber is up 50%, Cement Products up 30%....

Bullshit inflation for the Greedy to be greedier! :thumbsdown2:

Yeah, I've been noticing building materials rising in price. And DIY stores are limiting purchase quantaties. Max of 5 bags of cement f.ex. I'm suspicious of increases in price as it could just be cashing in on demand. As for limited supplies. Yes people were furloughed and entrepreneurs maybe cement manufacturers and other material suppliers maybe, but building sites and quarries have been fully back up and running for some time. Seems a bit strange. Is it actually availability or supply chain issues?

I'm a bit worried because we are meant to be getting our patio replaced next week. Really hope he can get the supplies needed, especially the sharp sand and cement for the base.

@JT. House prices are getting quite silly in some areas. These days most can only borrow about 4 times their wages, so you have to have a large deposite to cover the difference. Only existing house owners who's houses are riding in value have an advantage here, because value increases also increases equity.

In my area you can't really buy anything for me then £300k and that's a 3 bed house that needs a lot of work. For anything half decent you are looking at £400k minimum, and for someone really nice at least £550k.

As for young people and new buyers I'm not sure what they can do. Although it's probably relative. Consider in '76 my Dad bought a new house for £26k. Average wages were £75 per week then. That's as big a gap between wages and house prices. He was laughing in the end though because by the mid 80s his house was worth £90k