GraemeS

Hi All,
We are due to land very soon in Perth.

We have made some great plans for our lives in Perth - but the recent price wildness has made us reconsider our most expensive plan - home purchase.

We were planning to buy a home or land straight away, but now we are going to rent to see what happens.

I guess if everyone thinks like us the property market is doomed until "we the renters" think its realistic again.

Although paying 800GBP per month in rent is massive in our eyes - 300GBP more than our old mortgage.

I do feel sorry (honest) for those who will end up with negative equity, as our UK house sale financed our own visa.

Anyone in our boat?

sj oldfield

All I can say is that it is a buyers market here in Perth at the momnet!!

GraemeS

we were considering buying as our 1st plan, but with the mortgage costs going up & up (we were considering a big loan - to us).

Houses we liked the look of meant a $2500AUD mortgage - rent is still only $1600AUD for a similar house that I know we can afford. Every 1% rise just made the choice easier to rent - pity we have always been home owners (in the UK)

Couple this with the current credit crunch buying seems further away, but it may be further away next year.

bridie

I agree

gobbyjock

Prices are coming down in my opinion - we bought recently after renting for 6 months. We hummed & haa`d over whether to carry on renting but the owners kind of made the decision for us when they wanted the house back for themselves. We knew the rental market is tight at the moment and didn`t relish the thought of another move in another few months, so we bought a home - not a house, not an investment, but somewhere that is ours and I can paint it what I like and knock holes in where I like.

GraemeS

this is probably where we will be in 6 months.....

Just hope that the interest rates & prices steady long enough to make it an easier choice.

How far do you think they are going to fall? Who knows.

NKSK version 2

Interest rates or prices?


Prices have already started falling - see other thread on here where a house was on the market for 450 and is now 380.

Article in the paper last weekend about Duncraig - a decent suburb - in Dec 06 median price was 607K. in Dec 07 it was 560K.

If we were in the UK a drop of narly 8% in selling price (not asking price) in one year would be headline news. Here it isn't - my theory is that the real estate industry has so much power through it's advertising that papers are reluctant to print the bad news.

ianhutch1

We arrived in Perth 4 weeks ago and came with the intention of renting for at least 12 months to see where the house market goes, as SK Oldfield says its a buyers market at the moment and I can only see it getting better for anyone holding out for a while.

Saying that the rental market is buoyant and can be expensive, our UK mortgage was 550 pounds a month and now we are paying $580 a week which is over 1200 pounds a month !!! Luckily me and the wife have got decent pay rises over here so our spare money is roughly the same as what we had in the UK - which is needed given the increased cost of living.

A small price to pay to live in Paradise though, wouldnt change it for the World

rockpeblar

We were going to sell our house in the UK and buy somewhere in Perth but after all the recent rate rises we figure we might as well keep the house in the UK and have the mortgage paid over there at 5.25% rather than have a mortgage over here at about 8%.
We'll wait another 6 months and see if things have improved then. Just renewed our rental lease and kept the rent payments at the same cost so quite happy to carry on renting right now.

jensteve

Hi
I reckon and please don't shout the moment the interest rates stop climbing and even come back down just a little the likes of my house will be back over the 400k again. The only reason I have dropped so much is I am rather realistic and figured I would be spending x amount on 2 mortgages so I am going to loose it somewhere so it may as well go into the buyers pocket, why let the bank have it?
If I had time I wouldn't sell now I don't really have much choice so am going to loose, if I could buy my house straight back again I would, I just need the cash out to get my other built and fingers crossed can buy back in before the rates drop too much and up the prices again to what they should be.
It is a buyers market at present, I can't imagine getting deals like they are now much later down the track people just wont sell unless they have to.
Jenny