We don't actually know who is buying them. Most are purchased through blind trusts. I've first hand experience of this in central and west London via my air con business. Customers move and when I ask for the new owners details they literally have no idea who just purchased their £3M plus home!
But surely, nobody seriously didn't expect a crash did they? I mean come on, prices have become so unrealistically high for far too large a percentage of the population, it's been clear as day for months if not years that it's simply unsustainable. Oligarchs and the like are only interested in certain properties, and possibly less so now as I'm sure they're concerned about being exposed or investigated for one reason or another. When it comes down to it you have a lot of estate agents in the UK, many having only recently popped up trying to jump on the bandwagon, and without sounding too disparaging of them all, most just regurgitate the same old shit over and over to fairly soft and vulnerable buyers. Oh there's lots of - "Put your money in to bricks and mortar, you'll never lose money buying a house, house prices have continuously risen for the last X years"....and so on and so on. Eventually the cogs needed to keep the churn going grind to a halt, and they won't start again until some trying to sell start undercutting the market, which they will, and then you'll start seeing drops happen everywhere. Supply and demand works both ways. Whilst you may think that there's lots of demand, the problem is that the supply available isn't within budget for those who actually demand. Therefore you can have as many expensive houses that you want, but if nobody is buying them they're not worth shit, or at least not what you're being told by an estate agent who believes their own hype. when the ceiling has been hit for the consumer, and you want the run rates to continue, there's only one way prices can go, and that's down.
A correction in house prices is a good thing if its caused by prices freezing for a number of years, a crash on the other hand has implications to the economy as whole as people get trapped in negative equity which can take years to clear which in turn makes borrowing money very difficult as effectively families are insolvent. The reason it is Brexit related is because no one wants to keep their assets in Sterling as they expect another fall in its value in the near future. its also why the FTSE is so high as it's seen as the safest form of investment in Sterling at the moment.
So while we have been in the EU there has never been a housing crash, and prior to voting out the house prices were not over inflated? You should write a book on economics! But you'd be shit at it and the book would be behind finm's book in the sales charts: my life in politics
The rich buying houses is just another one of those lets blame the top 5% for everything wrong in the world Try this, go into rightmove, select London, do not select bedrooms or type of house then type in to the price search £1 to 1 million. At the time of typing it was giving me 35,810 results £1 million to £2.5 million, 10,628 £2.5 million to £5 million, 2,436 £5 million and over, 940 So who has the biggest impact on the London house market and where are these thousands of billionaires speculating? Yes a few of the buggers are there but again, lets all blame something on a group that has little to do with it because they have more money than us.
always awake loz. it's just my levels of interest that vary. yip forgive the spelling folks, i just figured you wouldn't read an opposing point of view. anyhoo. my interest has now been exhausted. ZZZzzzZZZ. batter on my strange-lings
I do worry about him. Ever since Nic basically shelved indi 2, he seems to have lost heart, lost his passion, he seems to be no longer funfin but more resignedfin, we need to keep an eye on him I can offer a biscuit of hope? https://wingsoverscotland.com/
Hey, finm's back, better than ever! And he's brought his *fingers* this time! No more typing with your wingwang, eh funm finm?
humour me, what in your view is a 'correction' vs 'a crash' ? Do you not agree that house prices have risen beyond the means of the average person, even more so the young families of Britain? So freezing prices isn't going to help them, as that would be status quo, only prices going down will help them. Therefore would that be a crash? Or is a crash dependant on the percentage drop, if so what percentage is that? Because in your fairly pessimistic view (of which you're entitled) it seems to suggest that when some people get caught in negative equity, which they will with ANY useful reduction, then its bad for the economy. Yet as prices are , many people cannot afford to even buy a property, so i presume thats better for the economy? Genuinely intrigued as to the theory because i know where i stand, and that is house prices are clearly over inflated, and I'm saying a 10% drop at least is due. Now, i appreciate that negative equity isn't 'ideally' where you want to be, but there are always winners and losers in all financial trades. Unfortunately by default, unless something keeps going up in price and that something was financed, then it will devalue over the term vs what you actually owe on it. Admittedly that's not always been the case with houses but a small return isn't what most people have been enjoying recently, they've been making 10000's in very short time frames and that's what's fueled the situation. However, should your house value reduce vs what you paid for it over the next 5-10 years, then as long as you weren't looking to flip that property or move within that time frame you're largely unaffected. Just hold your ground. Houses shouldn't make people multiple £10,000's nowadays, its just not realistic to think that whilst at the same time complaining people are being paid less and have less free cash to spend. Something cannot simply keep going up in value especially when it's reducing the amount of buyers able to afford it, things are only worth what people can or will pay. At some point property in the UK will fall and by double digit percentages, many may be unaffected especially if they haven't purchased recently, many who have purchased recently will also be unaffected IF they didn't intend on moving that quickly. Some will be affected, but many struggling will benefit. So in my view it's a better scenario than what's been happening
