El Capitan

Well done lyric and good luck with your move and happy retirement (jealous, me? ....... yes, but). I "suffered" two previous crashes, one in Scotland and another in England and it was just about 8 years each time before you could really say there was fulll recovery.

lyric030250

Yes I think my agent is a tad optimistic, one reason we decided to go with an offer which is less than we really need, the other just being an overwhelming desire to get away from here for good, yesterday was the first dry day in August here but grey overcast all day, and some of the items on the news ........

El Capitan

If you have not yet bought in Spain, the good thing is that it is very much a buyers market here too. The bad thing at the moment is the exchange rate in the direction you need to transfer funds.

Justlookin

Nationwide say over 10% drop in house prices (average) over the year. Add the exchange rate and it is sure slowing us down in getting to Spain.

The trouble with dropping your price is that someone is always going to try to knock another 10% off. Sorry that is just not going to happen! Don't need to sell,just would prefer to but may well give renting home out a close look.

bigglesworth

I realise just how lucky we have been to actually sell, but SWMBO is in the property rental game. Says there is a flood of property coming on from owners who would like to sell but cannot. Rental values have been very steady over the last few months but really cannot see that icontinung.
I am also involved in housing indirectly in a different fashion, and the government is ow financing a number of quangoes in the rental business too. They are also quite likely to monetise some of the new low cost mortgages. Do be very careful. This train wreck has been due a long time and it sure aint over yet. Sterling is collapsing becauise the markets have spotted that the government is too scared to raise inyterest rates. It is cheap credit that got uis into this mess, and it is only dear credit that will get us out. It looks as though if they cant get us one way they will get us another. So be very careful if looking to rent, rental values lmay well fall too. An fingers crossed for all of us.

billgates

Renting is a good idea if you don't have a mortgage on the property, but if you do then you had better be prepared for lots of competition and months at a time without tennents (but still having to pay the mortgage of course). Also, you may have to get permission from your mortgage company if you rent the property out and don't live there.

Why not simply drop the price of the house and just cut your losses and take what you can get now rather than chasing the market down and eventually having to settle for a much lower price.

Or are you one of the many people that think your house is worth X hundreds of thousands just because some idiot estate agent said so, but the reality is that it's only worth what you can sell it for at today's prices. Come tomorrow and it will be worth even less. Think about how much money you will be losing on a daily basis by simply holding on to it and refusing to accept the obvious.

bil

Nothing is truer than that.

A thing is only worth what people will pay for it.

Personally I think that Spanish prices are going to come down worse (particularly certain types of property, so altho you have to take a hammering in the UK, at the Spanish end you might just benefit.

Justlookin

Couldn't agree more

If we have reached the stage where our No.1 Building Society is closing so many of its estate agency offices there is not much to smile about for those of us trying to make the move at the moment or for some time to come

http://www.financemarkets.co.uk/2008...e-53-branches/

Still just as you are doing if you really want it to happen (the move to Spain) you are going to do your best to achieve your goal - All the best to you Linda

bigglesworth

Bil is absolutely right. ANYTHING is only worth what someone else will pay for it. If something looks cheap there is a reason. Nobody wants it very much.

The trouble is it isnt actually us who pays for houses. It is banks and mortgage companies who lend us the money. Money they make from us admittedly. But they have been losing money hand over fist on property, particularly those nice flatted developments the government have ben pushing them to build, which have often halved in values, taking their(our) money with them. And they wont have the money to lend again until they have rebuilt their balance sheets. And will be wary of lending money on property for some time.

They lent money on the assumption that the market could only keep going up, (remember "No more Boom and Bust" -hollow laughter) encouraged by an economically illiterate and certainly innumerate government, one so deep in debt it has to keep interest rates low to pay the interest on their own borrowings. No matter what harm it does to us.

Now the game is up for all of them. But it is, as always, the ordinary Joe who pays the price. It is after all our money they all use banks and government alike. But this is the stupidest government the country has ever known. (And just think how difficult it is to make that call after the likes of Major and Callaghan etc).

El Capitan is right. I have been a trader all my life. Prices move in cycles. In the UK property market the cycle is 15 to 17 years. We probably have another year or two of softening (which could yet go a long way) followed by 4 to 6 years of stabilisation before prices start edging up.

Spain may be different - obsession with property values is newer over there and there is no history to guide us. Prices will go lower yet but could stabilise sooner than in the UK.

The downside for all of us, newbies and old hands, is that the Government has plainly decided to inflate their way out, hoping to avoid a wipeout at the next election. I thought (wrongly) that the troubles in Euro economies would take the Euro down. The markets are making a different judgement.

So interest rates will be cut. Sterling could reach parity with the Euro. The cost of living in Sterling based incomes is going to increase. We are in for a rough old time.

GCM

Love the last post - full of common sense.

From my point of view here in the Costa Blanca and I'm talking to people all the time, very few new people seem to be arriving. School starts very soon and I'm sure there will be some missing faces.

My opinion would be that as the rental market seems strong in the UK - that if you want to move out here - don't bother sitting waiting to sell your house - rent it and rent here with the proceeds - there are now many long-term lets in Spain due to the property crash here - people can't sell so they are desperate to cover their expenses until prices recover (if they ever do!).

Mark

El Capitan

Excellent bigglesworth. I dont know how many times I have been confronted by people who say that government, companies etc are all rich and should spend, spend spend. They just could not see that the government spends OUR money, well it takes it from us first then spends it.


As retirement approaches I was rather looking forward to a fine "old time" but c'est la vie.

poshnbucks

I think you should all buy yourselves some of this.......................

Red Devil

Should I be thinking of getting a mortgage in Spain now, this is the question ?? We have property and come over regularly. Now my daughter wants to come over and start a business and has found the ideal property. We are to help out and get a mortgage, which is taking forever, but is it really all doom and gloom over there. Any opinions, please !!

Hillybilly

IMHO now is not a good time to be starting a business here. Unless it's 100% recession-proof (and certainly not dependant on expat clientele). Whilst property prices are supposedly falling ie it's a buyer's market, again IMHO only buy if you are a cash buyer. If you're not a cash buyer then rent. Otherwise if things don't work out you could be saddled with a mortgaged/unsaleable property.

Unless you're filthy rich...in which case, go for it!

scampicat

My word, having read all this about house sales, I'm so glad our situation was the way it was.

My mother-in-law bought, with my husband's help, a little Council prefab bungalow under the Right-to-Buy scheme in the early 1990s.

When she died it became my husband's. He rented it out for a while, but then we decided to sell it to finance our move to Spain.

We put it on the market in 2003 for £35,000 and it was snapped up straight away by a lady who'd already sold her house and wanted a little bungalow for her retirement. She'd waited for one of these prefabs to come onto the market as they are a really cheap way of getting a detached bungalow.

Our Spanish house cost exactly the same as we got for the bungalow. This was our budget, we could not go any higher.

This meant we were able to keep our own family home in the UK and our son looks after it for us, with a lodger or two to help pay the bills. It has no mortgage now as we have owned it for over thirty years.

If we'd have had to have had a mortgage or sold up completely, we would not have come here. We can't afford rent or mortgage on our income at the moment.

I hope everybody trying to sell up has some luck soon.