Last week my mum had her bathroom adapted for old age / disability.

The three builders / plumbers I spoke to all said that house prices were now falling. Independently, each said that in the past few years they had made extra money from buying up houses and doing them up for sale. However, there is no money in doing this anymore, house prices are falling and they didn’t want to get caught with a house they couldn’t sell on.

Additionally, I also ran a house price poll with 11 semi-naked people in the gyms sauna on Sunday. The results being that; 7 out of 11 semi-naked sweaty people thought that houses prices were falling! 2 thought still rising ( you can tell an estate agent even by their trunks), 1 dunno and 1 not interested

sounhds reliable to me,not sure it'll carry much weight with IPSOS MORI though

on a seperate note, the amount of housing being built in mk is astonishing, totally overpriced and it is not selling, mk will be hit hard by the coming hpc for sure.

What, your not slobbering over the richard rogers vision of the future?



Actually I don't mind the design , but British copy German engineering, I think not. A good breeze and they will fall over.

(photo source http://www.flickr.com/photos/iqbalaalam/22...7603934755477/)

there are these 2 bed penthouse flats by the lake in the south west of mk up for sale for 1/2 a million, not sure if the walls are plated with gold? whats that all about?

Adult size Legoland imo.........

I'm still undecided, even though my heart wants MK to crash hard so I can FTB in the future.

Milton Keynes is one of the four government growth areas for housing - 170,000 new units to be built up to 2031 (so plenty of supply). But the area remains the top UK city for employment growth (so plenty of new demand). I moved here for a job, so do 1000's of others a year. It also offers a pleasant family house for the price of a pokey london flat and has good transport links (so london commuter demand). Theres also more government infrastructure cash in the pipeline to extend train links to Oxford and eventually Cambridge (new commuter destinations).

I have no idea how MK prices will go, so any thoughts are welcome. I think the price trends for FTB properties and family homes will decouple in the next year or two. The city centre investment newbuilds "The Hub" etc. are destined to fail (no way can rent cover an IO mortgage+service charges on them). As they plummet in price, it will pull down prices for most other FTB properties that lack the nearby transport links, quality of finish etc. FTB properties will crash. The FOR SALE signs on flats are staying up month after month and getting weather-beaten ...

Family homes I'm not so sure. New staff with families are still buying where I work (although they are getting 15% ish off asking prices). Families relocate here looking for a 'fresh start' and that mentality means buying a home, often a newly built by Wimpey etc, and sending kids off to the new school constructed specially for that development. Family homes may not crash too much in MK, there is this constant 'fresh start' demand driven by an influx of new workers. I notice that FOR SALE signs are still turning to SOLD on good family homes in the right area.

I think it will *should* return to the affordable decent housing that it had before, and the reason why it grew.

The problem is that the planners have totally lost the plot, the mkdc got it right with what they planned, and it should now be time to go back and change what didn't work, based on the areas that worked well. Instead they have built stupid flats in the center , that should have been offices, and have gone crazy on west bound plans while ignoring the better road connected areas to the east. Then for the final part of wrecking the place they want to mess with the grid system, the very thing that makes the whole place work, they want to turn it back into dodgy A roads and guaranteed traffic jams.

I think there is a high risk MK will totally fail over the next 20 years, it could go either way.