Doesn't look that fine to me if this is what is in store:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...ity-moves.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...-10-years.html

If the Tories are voted out at the next election you end up at the same place anyway if a different (talk is cheap anyway) approach causes interest rates to go through the roof and Sterling to go through the floor - though manufacturing might get a boost. The UK has to pay the piper.

and the economy is getting worse by the month.

Fine if you have the cash to buy a house but even then, in light of the above, the value is most likely to steadily fall from here unless you buy in parts of London. Only opening the floodgates (again) to immigration and a complete (less than now??) absence of building can help it from here if the banks continue to charge what they do for mortgages and are so tight on lending.

I really don't think that painting an overly rosy picture of the UK today is doing the average potential BE returner any favours at all if it causes them to not take their own particular circumstances/job requirements/finances/justifications and think them through properly and very carefully. If you (in general) have successfully returned with cash or the means and skills etc. etc. to set yourself up satisfactorily in the UK with your particular set of circumstances then well done you but it is highly unlikely that things will fall that easily into place for Mr and Mrs, or Mr or Ms Average in today's economy, particularly if they have dependents. I'm not aware of a single 'successful' recent returner who has even stated what their specific area of work is, apart from beedubya and huddm and let's face it that along with your qualifications and yes your age plus location of choice might have a bearing on your chances of success.

I'm sure you are right but this problem for these hold-outs seems to often be that they cannot afford to lose the equity that they think they might have at a certain price level as they will need it now that the banks vary their mortgage interest charges significantly according to the level of deposit you put up and might deny you that mortgage if you end up actually being 'under water' today, unless you have something in the attic or under the mattress. Estate Agent induced denial!?

So they hold out for the unrealistic price because they have to and create an immobile workforce amongst other things to boot, unless they rent-out and rent in the interim.

Yes, you are preaching to the choir in this case.

If I (hopefully) get the opportunity to move, I am one of those who will have to deal with the reality of this situation rather than sticking my head in the sand or asking every estate agent until I find one that will tell me my house is worth what it was in 2007 (i.e., lie in order to get me on their books).

But this is arguing against reality. They want their house to be worth 250,000 but no one's going to pay more than 200,000. Nothing's going to change that. If they have to move, they have to move with less, or even no money. If they can stay, they don't have to lock in the loss, but that 50K is unlikely to suddenly turn up any time soon. It's gone just as if they'd put it in stock in a company that went bust.

It gets really tough for people in negative equity. That's really between a rock and a hard place.

I'm not being unsympathetic. I understand how hard it is to lock in a loss. We sold one house for a lot less than we wanted, but there was no point sitting there hoping reality would change.

Bev

I've kind of lost serious interest in Uk real estate at this point but I was poking around on Rightmove quite a lot earlier this year. I noticed that some properties were stuck at a particular price for many months on end, a particular one for about a year before the price got adjusted downwards in what was known to be a steadily declining market, even in that specific area.

On the other hand, I have recently checked one property in an area I've had a long-standing interest in, which was for sale and for rent and within I would guess six weeks of listing the price for sale was adjusted downwards from 286,000 to 256,000.

I guess having ZERO viewings can do this to you.

Reality comes hard for some it seems and the strange thing is that if ever there was, in economist-speak a perfect market, it would have to be UK real estate where it is really hard to get more for your place than it is actually worth from its position in the overall market unless there is something really special about it which creates a sense of urgency for a particular sort of buyer, even in the London Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

It's not like the Republic of Ireland where the market was known to be so over-priced that the glut was just sitting there doing nothing and then after the passage of time they had to stage some big clearance auctions if only to re-establish what market prices should then be for Dublin apartments and Cork semis.

That said, there are things that can clobber or enhance your property value in an instant, such as changes in traffic flows, closure of the village store or even an addition of a much-wanted local feature such as a very good supermarket, a local state school getting in the big league, or the closure of a nearby noisy RAF airbase though this last item could have pluses and minuses.

Golly, what a barrage of wide-ranging negativity. Maybe I should go slit my wrists now.
You are of course welcome to your opinion and the outlook depends on one's own view and priorities but then our viewpoints will be different because I am here (with my brackets and curves) and you are not.

I actually thought Pistolpete2's post was one of the most balanced opinions on a part of the forum that, understandably, leans towards a bias of opinion in favour of painting a return in a favourably light.

I've stopped reading all the stuff in the papers and just judge on the people I know. I have friends of all ages, living in various parts of the country and everyone I know is doing well. I have some friends in their late 20s who have just had a huge wedding and had a fantastic hoonymoon in Thailand and Singapore. I know people who have bought houses and sold houses, and absolutely no-one I know who wants a job, hasn't got one. I have some friends on maternity leave, and some who have quit to look after their children. I also have some friends who have just returned to the workplace after having children, they didn't seem to struggle to find jobs. I have some friends with really good jobs, and I have some friends with very average jobs.

I'm beginning to think the at least 95% of the people out of work, don't actually want to be in work. Or more actually don't want to be in the kind of work their education and knowledge qualifies them for.

Everyone I know there also seems to be doing fine or much better than fine. Even new graduates have found jobs and one relative who has really severe health problems has found a little job.

Agreed, I know 3 people from the same family who have all graduated within the last 3 years. Not only have they found jobs, they all found very good jobs. 2 of them have bought houses and the other 1 spent 1 year travelling to some really fantastic places.

When they say, "Things are really difficult here" it turns out they mean something like it's going to be congested during the Olympics.

The Great Yorkshire Show was cancelled yesterday, that will have been difficult for some of my former neighbors

I thought his was a well-reasoned post on the housing market. In contrast, merely saying "it's a good time to buy" just isn't very helpful, absent significant rationale for the opinion.

Interesting that different groups get a different feel.

In my circle, I know a fair few folk who are struggling to find work/worried for their job safety/ awaiting redundancy. This is all in London and SE area and a variety of skill sets. Probably about 50/50 people who feel secure versus those whose jobs are flaky/cannot find work.

Two new grads have joined us at work- they did internships as this seems to be the only way to kick start a career. Both (different unis) said about 50pct of their course output took the same path. Internships are completely new to me (only heard of them in USA before).

Me too. My brother was unemployed for a while but he has found a very good job now with a stable company. All my other friends are doing great. Which of course reflects the reality that unemployment is at 8% not 75% the way some people make it sound. The Tory austerity policies aren't helping bring that down, but it's still only 8%.

As for houses, I guess I don't get the obsession with making a profit. I was lucky to make a profit on my last house, but I didn't think about that when I bought it. My approach has always been not to buy a house until I know I want to be in that area for a good long while, and then only buy a house I love. Life is too short to worry about money that we can't take with us when we go - if we're lucky enough to live in a house we love, what more do we need? If we lose some value when we eventually sell, haven't we more than got our money's worth?(And if we can't afford a house we love, or aren't sure about staying, then we should be renting IMO).