Is the tide turning in the UK?

Moorf · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:39 am Post subject:

Hi Wilson - I can answer this one since hubby is busy tip-tapping away to millie!

We sold our main house in Scotland and this gave us lots of capital to be able to move / take risks etc.. however, we are keeping the flat we are in now, which I bought in 1991, to rent out as we make double the mortgage payments in rent... if we didn't make that much we'd sell it NOW as it is at its peak price (IMHO).

We also intend to rent when we get to NZ - primarily so we can suss out areas, track house price trends etc etc (see hubby's post (Woz) on similar subject under real estate header).

I think it is definitely sensible to rent for at least the first 6mths to a year.

Moorf

wilson182 · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:42 am Post subject:

Thanks moof, how are you plans going. Is everything on track

Moorf · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:47 am Post subject:

All is on track Wilson!! Getting excited and want to go NOW but, alas, our flights aren't until 21Sept!!

I can't help feeling we should be "doing" something but there really isn't anything we can do until we get there...

Must be strange with hubby over there already - how do you cope? How long has he been there and when do you join him?

wilson182 · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:56 am Post subject:

I know how you feel about "doing" something, cause I felt the same when we were waiting to go.

It is strange not having him here, but the whole process has been quite a roller coaster ride. We have a web cam, so we can see each other, and we spend a fortune on phone texting. I am hoping to be out by the end of August fingers crossed

milliemoon · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:58 am Post subject:

Hi Woz,

To be honest,the developer was only interested in the land.
The main reason being that Mr M works for this parents and their shop joins onto our house. 2 second commute to work Laughing

This is made more difficult by the fact that the shop has no loo/running water etc, so they use our house.
If we sold up, not only would Mr M be out of a job, but the shop would have to close. We were planning on staying after the house was built, but Mr M's line of business is almost dead anyway, so he couldn't just start up again somewher else in this country

Our house as it stands i.e complete with big garden is worth about £260k
The loss of the garden would reduce that to about £245k

The estate agent said if we did the 'selling houses' bit it would cost us a minimum of £5k and take it back up to about £260k, so that would blow our savings for a trip over very sad

He also said houses round here are taking on average 3 months to sell, but that is slowing down.I didn't ask him if the house was on cheap enough,if that might help with the garden bit. The house they're planning to build won't be overlooking us, but I guess that might still concern some people Hmmm

I guess we'll just have to hold fire until we know what's happening with the garden, but I don't want to leave it too long because of the kids rain cloud

Thanks for your thoughs anyway, always nice to get a second opinion Nice One

Moorf · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 2:00 am Post subject:

Yay - not long now then Wilson!! Nice One

wilson182 · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 2:02 am Post subject:

Dave & Sandra · Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 6:56 am Post subject:

Hi Debbie

Maybe we will be going out at the same time fingers crossed

Lee&Nicky · I Like It Here Joined: 15 May 2004 Posts: 70

Thanks everyone for the posts - their is a growing angst in the UK property market isn't there? More about interest rates, property prices etc in my newspaper today so its not going to go away for a while yet.

We have agreed a sale at 95% of the asking price and I have to say I am relieved. It is at the lower end of the range we were quoted by the Estate Agent four weeks ago, but the way I look at it is that it is still more than we were expecting when we started looking at things last year. Also our purchaser is a cash buyer so we have no chain worries with them, which made their offer more attractive/palatable. The evil that is property chains seems to be very much around at the moment, and it only takes one problem or one link to get jittery......

We hope to complete end of August and we will rent for six months. This would take us to end of Feb 05, and we are planning to leave sometime in Feb 05 so hopefully timing should work for us in this respect. We can rent somewhere smaller for the same as our mortgage, so that would be neutral and we can put the house sale proceeds on deposit for six months so generating some extra cash that way.

You can't accept silly offers for your home, but it may be sensible to work out your finances on a range of potential sale values and then you will just need to judge offers from that. I think the good news with the house market cooling off is that a crash should have been averted, but there will definitely be less active buyers than there were creating competition amongst sellers (ie it is becoming more of a buyers market). The rental market where I live is hot at the moment, a fair sign that people are sitting tight before committing to buy to see where, and how far, the "market correction" goes.

There may well be a general election in the Spring of 05 (the earliest the Government can call one), Labour will almost certainly get back in, although probably with a greatly reduced majority. This is not because Labour are so great, its just the opposition still has not got its act together. If Labour get back in, expect some tough measures from Gordon Brown, there is a huge gap between the spending plans and the planned revenues and this will have to be narrowed as quickly as possible. The council tax rises referred to earlier in this string is likely to be just one of a string of such "stealth" measures. Oh, and don't be fooled by the opposition bleating on about stealth taxes, they would have done exactly the same thing had they been in power. Fact is, increase in direct tax as it impacts peoples pockets are vote losers, so public revenues have to come increasingly through a back door. We only have the mindset of the UK population to blame - personally I back the case for simplifying the UK tax system (eg merge income tax and national insurance) and go for one, realistic set of tax rates. But I can' t see it happening!

Lee

Lee

kiwidebs · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 1:38 am Post subject:

Reading all this is scaring the living daylights out of me Eek

. We are definately going in a year or two - no matter what (we need to get to NZ before our oldest starts school) but if we can't sell the house we will be in deep you-know-what!! I watch the property markets (NZ and UK) and the exchange rate and do a little regretful sighing!! We should've gone last year!! When we first started looking seriously at going we could've afforded a mortgage free house in Stanmore Bay (our preferred suburb in Auck), now we're looking at a largish mortgage. What happened? Confused

Debs

Lee&Nicky · I Like It Here Joined: 15 May 2004 Posts: 70

Debs,

Hopefully the UK market will just slow down over the next year or so, which is probably the best for everyone. If it does it should mean that it may take a bit longer to sell and you may not get top dollar for it, but hopefully avoid the dark days of the late 1980's/early 1990's. I think you need to work out what the minimum is you can sell for and still be within your plans for the next couple of years. Easier said than done I know and Estate Agents are not the people to ask for prospects for the market - they just react to what is going on and you would probably have just as good a view from reading the daily press as they would. We said from the start that our property was overvalued and after three days on the market we asked for it to be put on at a price just above what my wife and I had first thought just from watching local property pages etc over the previous few months. Guess what? The Estate Agent said that they thought our value was a more realistic one for a sale! Come again? What exactly do they do for their fee exactly!?

Whoever invents that crystal ball will be minted for generations to come......

Lee

kiwibound · Testing The Water Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 5

Raeven,

Here's a suggestion if you don't want to convert US currency over to NZ with the unfavorable exchange rate.

Most of the banks in NZ offer bank accounts in US currency. You can wire the money over, and open up one of these accounts to put your US $ in there. Then, as US dollar gets stronger, as it surely will when Fed starts to raise interest rates, you can gradually convert your money over.

I think these accounts are subject to minimum amount and fixed terms, so do you homework and investigate. Here's the contact info for ASB Bank, which offers it:

Transactions on the account are all administered in Financial Markets and
they can be contacted by telephone: +64 09 302-3055, or fax: +64 09
302-0992.

Kiwibound

[quote="Raeven"]Hi, Lee&Nicky,

I'll keep you posted.

Our house goes on the market next week here in California. The real estate market here has been absolutely nuts. Most properties going on the block in the past couple of months have been selling within hours at their asking price or above. Despite short-term interest rates rising, long-term mortgage rates have just bumped down a bit, which we believe will fuel the market even more.

With the US currency exchange rate dropping like a rock, we'll need our house to sell for top dollar. I have horrible dreams of selling the house -- which I love dearly and have struggled hard to part with -- for our asking price, then watching as the currency rate bottoms out and makes our dollars worth less than the Pacific Peso before we can get into the NZ market... gaaahhh!! Please, somebody wake me up!!

Whose idea was this immigrate-to-NZ thing, anyway?

Best of luck to you in selling your UK abode! - Rae[/quote]

Raeven · Posted: Wed Jul 21, 2004 11:36 am Post subject:

Hi, kiwibound,

Thanks very much!! Your post was extremely timely, as we are just discussing this issue. I am not, as I'm sure you can tell, sophisticated in these matters. Your willingness to help is very gratefully received!

All the best, Rae

MC · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 3:20 am Post subject: House Sell

I've had my house on the market, privately via interney site, for the last 2 1/2 months with very few people coming thru. There was an offer but they hadn't done their sums before hand to be serious. So now have resorted to a local estate agent Sad

So there goes my removals/airfare and kiwikat pool of monies. People are buying but have seen an awful lot of auction boards up in South London recently, is the interest rate rise hitting people that much!

hamish65 · Testing The Water Joined: 15 Aug 2004 Posts: 6

The situation in Scotland is crazy. House prices rocketing and the population falling.