Saturday, April 12, 2008

Money For Nothing

On the local news there's a couple who've had their house on the market for six months without a single viewing. The house is in rich rich rich London. How much and when their first ever mortgage was is not stated. I'd guess their original investment was something in the region of £6,000 and by doing fuck all apart from a bit of selling and buying they now have a house worth probably £800,000. A family home in a nice residential London street.

Now they've missed the boat. Maybe they want to retire to the country. But they're just too late. House prices are on the way down. Potential buyers are staying put.

"We do think we've missed the boat. I think if we'd put the house on the market this time last year it would have flown out the door."

15 comments:

  1. Prices can go up and down like yo-yo's.

    That's what Mark Knopfler said anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3:20 PM

    I quite like the idea of a house flying out of its own door. Might set up some kind of wrinkle in the space-time continuum.

    Geoff, when I started reading your blog we were the same age, but now you're a year older, so perhaps the wrinkle in time already exists.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Another quote (slightly altered, from today's Guardian) from a 48 year old man in Dudley where house prices are falling fast...

    "We've been trying to sell our 4 bedroom detached house since November. I want to move closer to my golf course so I don't have to drive so far and I want to make an easy profit on what we paid for the house so I can give my partner's three kids a leg up in life and help them buy their own places. There are 3 children who have a stake in this house and what happens to its value. WE HAVE HAD ABSOLUTELY NO LUCK WHATSOEVER."

    Murph - You've got to look in the long term. The long walk of life.

    Bob - I wonder if she saw herself on the telly and wondered, "Did I really say that?" I am aging a lot faster than you. It's my hedonistic lifestyle, LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My mate's parents died last year.
    He inherited a garden shed contaning hundreds of back copies of the Radio Times and a deadline from the council for clearing out the house.
    He'll be so sympathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, the poor diddumses.

    This is Thatcher's/Major's/Blair's/Brown's home owning democracy where the sky's the limit for wealth creation for greedy mums and dads and their greedy offspring. There's no such thing as society, remember.

    ReplyDelete
  6. How do people buy houses over there? Do they have 75 year amortizations?

    Why modern Bankers think that house values will rise exponentially is beyond me..
    don't any of them take any Economics courses?

    ReplyDelete
  7. It would take a first time buyer with below average income 75 years to pay for the house my grandparents used to rent from the local council.

    There's going to be a correction but I can't see it being anything like it should be to get back in line with wages. Mummy and daddy are going to have to substantially downsize.

    ReplyDelete
  8. “I was sent here by MJ from Infomaniac.”

    But I do have a comment of my own: Hello!

    Yeah, I know. It's too early for me to be witty and coherent...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hello IDV.

    I know it's you...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fairly brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm not ashamed to admit I did weep.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oops! Yes, I forgot which Host I was in - It does get so very confusing...

    It seems your local housing-buying couple are, too. "Missed the boat" they say. "Flown out the door"? Do they want a house or one of those planes that can land & take of on water?

    ReplyDelete
  13. "take off", is what I meant.

    * tuts *

    As you can tell, even at half past five I'm neither witty nor coherent.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Maybe they should have bought a houseboat.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Luckily I bought my home when this part of town was unfashionable (still is!) and the houses underpriced. After 20 years its value has doubled and even with the crucnh it's unlikely to drop down to what I bought it for (admittedly I had to pay off my ex and have20 years of a mortgage to pay, but luckily it's a 1989 sized mortgage).

    ReplyDelete