My wife was speaking to her cousin over Christmas. A friend of hers was looking to buy and saw a house they liked at 500k. They couldn`t afford it and placed an offer of 399k which was accepted - nice!
I hope this is just the beginning

That is a nice drop in price!

Still overvalued IMO but I suppose it depends on what you can afford.

over 25% drop.....bear food mmmmmmm

20

over 20.1% drop.....bear food mmmmmmm

just spotted this

http://www.propertynews.com/brochure.php?r...mp;p=CPCCPC1302

'priced for immediate sale'

nothing too new there, the kicker is in the last line of the add.......

Even the EA is admitting the game is up now.




49 Glendower Street, Cregagh, Belfast, BT6 8PD
BACK TO RESULTS
PRINT BROCHURE
ADD TO FAVOURITES
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AGENT


TypeTerrace Bedrooms2 Reception2 Offer StatusFor Sale Estate AgentCowley Property From

£ 125,000

EUR 185,039*
US$ 253,862Features
2 Reception rooms
2 Bedrooms
Kitchen air gap to bathroom area
Highly sought after locality
Description
Priced for immediate sale.


Situated off the bustling Cregagh Road this property is an ideal investment opportunity.


This property is owned by a member of staff

hehehehehehehhehehe

And there's plenty more where that came from Just click on this link to see what EA's are offloading their stock. I'd expect that figure to rise daily.

Now remind me again - does VI stand for Vested Interest or Village Idiot?

Anecdote:

A friend of a friend is a medical doctor and has been for the last couple of years. She purchased an apartment last year (or maybe late 06) but is currently having to work not only her regular scedule, but every moment of free time to make the payments...

Just enter 'staff' in the search box, the number is even higher.







I feel for her, her apt is probably is negative equity already.

Yes, but at the same time one cant feel entirely sorry when a bit of common sense really should have prevailled. She is meant to be one of the smarter ones amongst us...

A relative in the Portrush / Coleraine area knows someone selling a property.
The seller told by EA to drop £20k off. EA claims he hasn't sold a single house in 5 months.
AFAIK the property is also in or around the wider Portrush / Coleraine area.

RE the doctor being in negative equity, it depends what her LTV was when she purchased, not just that the value of the Apt has fallen since the purchase price. If her LTV was 90%, or 95% then yes, as the value of the Apt has probably fallen by more than 10% so is less than the loan outstanding she is in negative equity. However,she had a sizeable deposit and the LTV is 60% or 70% then although the value of the Apt has fallen, then she will not actually be in negative equity unless the Apt value falls by over 30% or 40% to become less than the debt secured on it. Could be on the cards though.. I hope she didnt get a 100% (or more) mortgage, nursing (excuse pun) big loss esp if she did buy at top of market....

negative equity - the indebtedness that is produced when the market value of a property falls below the amount of the mortgage secured upon it.

Watch Tonight Programme later this week (was briefly mentioned at end of last nights programme). It will be about property price falls in UK. One analyst reckons 40% fall over next 3 years....

Britain's Biggest House Price Falls: Tonight
ITV 1

Investigation into the current downturn in Britain's housing market, revealing the areas of the country worst affected and asking not just who stands to lose out, but who stands to benefit from the slump

Tomorrow on ITV 1 from 10:00pm to 10:30pm

edit - i will be posting it on youtube anyway

Well, that is true.




OK, good point. But it doesn't matter - if the apt has fallen in value then she's lost either her own hard-earned deposit dosh or is in NE. TBH, if she'd had a sizeable deposit she maybe would (and should) have gone for a house instead.

Oh, and if prices plummet, those with 100% loans are ironically more free to walk away and emigrate to get away from the mess. Those with 20% or more capital tied up are more likely to try to work through it, and probably end up thousands worse off in the short-medium term (i.e. at least a decade) while their less responsible counterparts escape scot free!!

And remember, banks writing down loans is highly deflationary!

hi tara747, good points ... I was just clarifying the negative equity term as it appeared that it was being used just to describe that the apartment had fallen in value from purchase price - sorry if it appeared nit-picking.....

Tonight programme tomorrow night is going to be very interesting.. I wonder how all the investors who have recently contracted to purchase BTLs in new developments will feel about it as the new build flat market will no doubt get a special negative mention methinks.....

I mentioned a while back about a friend who put his house on for 365k in September. EA told him it would have got 400k in the Spring! He is sale agreed on a newbuild. No offers and one viewer by November and the builder had threatened to pull out of the agreement by end January.
Down to 340k now, builder has knocked 30k off his price (600k! ) and is sticking with him (no sign of other interested parties obviously)

There are quite a lot of properties in the same development up for sale and he is keenly priced

Keep us posted Vespasian.

Potential flippers that I know have decided that now is not the time to sell and will continue to rent the house out for now.
I suspected this would happen quite a lot - people refusing to sell at a bubble price and prefering to divert other savings into their "investments". Not everybody is skint you know and there are probably plenty who can afford to lose a lot of money and still keep grinning politely. This sort of behaviour could mask just how rotten the market is without ever showing up in any stats.

Thought this was an interesting read.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30400-1305601,00.html

I don't see much relevance for NI there though. Prices in NI in terms of any measure whether rental returns or whatever seem to be more ridiculous than anywhere else.