Aviator

But right!

helcat12

It is true that people get upset by what they have "lost" on house prices when they never really had it in the first place.

I must say that the OH and I never felt as if we had lost any money on our house because, as several posters have said, we never actually had that money anyway.
What profit/loss we have can only be realised when we sell.

But we bought our home over 10 years ago, so we were always going to make money over what we paid.

I feel very sorry indeed for anyone who borrowed on a mortgage, bought their home at the top of the market and expected it to continue to rise because many have come out of it with zero equity when they sold or possibly negative equity.
They have suffered an actual financial loss.

Couple that with the drop in the exchange rate over that time and you have quite a huge drop in what an applicant has available to fund their emigration and the combined effect has perhaps made some people unable to emigrate at all.

That is a sad situation to be in and it isn't their fault. When you make plans you cannot know what the future will bring but even if you were prudent and built in quite a big margin for change when you applied in 2007, the combined exchange rate and house price drop could easily have scuppered you.

It is a great shame to own a house and put in all the maintenance and upgrading and then find that all that has profited you nothing.

dbd33

Not their fault, certainly. Sad, not so much. Generally people emigrate because they expect to have more stuff if they do so. The realisation that they have as much stuff where they are as they ever will should come as a relief, they're saved from disrupting their lives, rushing halfway around the world, on the off chance of having a second ride-on mower.

helcat12

Surely everyone is trying to better themselves when they emigrate. Is that wrong?

We certainly didn't emigrate to have more stuff and we are not the only ones.

Lots of people have other reasons, such as wanting to give their children a better upbringing and more opportunities.
That isn't about more stuff and is a laudable reason, even if you personally think it is folly and won't turn out to be true.
(Lots of immigrants to Canada would disagree with you on this, though and do think that Canada has turned out to be better for them and their families.)

If you are in search of a better life in whatever way that means to you then I do think it is sad if you are denied the opportunity to search for it through emigrating if that is what you want to do just because of bizarre fluctuations in a monetary system that is run by the rich to make rich people richer and keep the poor poor.

Realising that you are forced into a stagnant life with limited possibilities to change it just because of lack of money is not a relief, it is depressing .

FlyingDutchman6666

It's true that I'm in negative equity now, but if I could roll the clock back, I'd do it all over again. Owning a house has been a huge quality-of-life boost for me. Simple things like not being bothered by a nosy landlord, being able to keep pets, and let's not forget the sense of security. It all has its price.

I wouldn't want to be stuck in the UK rental market right now. At least in my part of the forest, decent rental properties are scarce and rents are absolutely shooting through the roof. Don't pity my negative equity, but rather spare a thought for today's young people: debt-burdened by their education, hardly any good jobs to be found, house prices *and* rents completely unaffordable... Much of it caused by previous generations' naked greed. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes right now.

Question for the more mature readers among us: would you be able to afford to buy your first house again at today's prices and starter wages?
What about if you had £20k student debt and severe job insecurity?

Robin (The Gadget family)

I haven't read through all the posts on this thread, but to answer the OP's question......we dropped our price by 3.5% after 5 months and sold a month later for 6.5% below our original asking price.

We were happy with that and it was just in time to make the purchase on our house in Canada.

dbd33

No, but I wasn't able to then either. That's why I went to the colonies.

dbd33

Sure it is, it's just stuff for them rather than for you.

helcat12

Thanks for that info! Glad to hear it worked out well for you

Almost Canadian

Could you please explain that? How is the exchange rate system run by the rich for the benefit of the rich and to the detriment of the poor? How often do the poor need to exchange currency?

AliceApple

We accepted an offer £25,000.00 below market value -

R I C H

You mean you accepted a market value price that was £25k below your realtors over optimistic estimate

helcat12

Not the exchange rate, the monetary system as a whole.

Alan2005

The renminbi is a good example of currency manipulation. Whatever the politics of it, china keeping the trading band with USD artificially low has been exploited by corporations and effectively taken money out of the hands of ordinary people in terms of jobs by bribing them with cheap $30 DVD players from wal-mart.

Aviator

What do you suggest? Is it not the economy and wealth creators that keep the rest employed? Opportunity to be successful is there for all to take, some do some don't.

Plenty of people started with nothing and became wealthy through hard work, risk and a dash of good fortune. Now those that did not do the work or take the risk want a slice of it!