With mortgages granted in the UK in August being only 2% of what they were a year ago the answer is without doubt resolved - to few to support the property market in Spain.

Bearing in mind the events since the end of August where do you find anyone who is likely to sell in the next month or so.

And , after today's latest day carnage at DJI/S&P/Nasdaq, Footsie and all ,
maybe the focus will move to Hungary , Balkans , lesser-known parts of Asia?

Unfortunately this cuts both ways. We were ?lucky? enough to sell in the Spring.
For the sake of those trying to sell - we did not cut our price at all. I know several others who also did. OK, we are in the South East which helps.
The rate of decline seems to depend very much on that old saw - Location Location Location. And precisely what it is you are selling.
What is collapsing (sorry Singlemum,) is flats. For some reason, we generally dont like flats in the UK, but as it is government policy to take 40 percent of the land (at a substantially lower than market value) on any development over 5 properties to build social houses, the only way the developers could make the numbers stack up was by building more properties on less land -which meant flats. The increased density requirements further reinforced this. There has therefore been an enormous expansion in the amount of flatted accommodation. Much of this has been bought on cheap buy to let mortgages from B & B and Halifax. I know of some blocks in South London where flats that sold for 280K a year or 18 months ago are looking for buyers at half that. And they wont find a buyer until the credit market frees up. Which is going to be a long time coming.
So there are two points that flow from this. Given the calamitous drop in flat values, the law of averages says that houses have not been as badly hit. Therefore it may take a little while, but once the credit markets do free up, house owners should find themselves able to sell, hopefully at not too great a discount to current prices.
Flat owners are in it I think for the long haul. So Single mum, if you are (as I think you said) able to rent the flats out - do so, even if they just wash their face. If they do more than that, then if you are very brave, it might be worth thinking of looking at flatted property again next year, when the developers are forced to off-load the rest of their stock.

Incidentally, for all those thinking "Lucky Devil" for selling, just think how lucky we feel with our life savings sitting in banks?

Not as lucky as me sitting with money in shares

Touche!

"We are all doomed!!!" said with strong Scottish burr

Welcome to Mitzy's millions!

You are right. The flats worth nothing at the moment. Although the estate agents are trying to be optimistic advising to stick to the asking prices, to me its a waste of time. The prices have fallen to what they were in early 2006. I fear that in January/February they would fall further to what they used to be in early 2005.

Sorry but this is not going to happen!

Whilst I accept what you say about flats it simply isn't true that house prices and sales have not been hit badly, even if as you say not as badly as flats.

Flat sales would have taken up what percentage of the overall market?

If we say 50%, which I doubt but can accept, then house sales of all types have been hit in that they too are not selling (overall sales have to be down somewhere in the region of 98% from last August). I dread it but I think recovery will take a long time.

I am afraid that there may still be a long way for things to fall still and the credit recovery you refer to will be a very long time a coming.

Just off now to see what the financial institutions are doing to make us all happy!!!!

Sorry, I was not clear. And perhaps I should have posted on the no doom thread instead!
I absolutely agree that the credit markets will take a long time to recover - if ever. it is questionable if they ever should. Trouble is, pumping more liquidity into a system where government banks and borrowers have been playing Chicken Little for years will not solve the underlying problem of solvency.

IMO what we are seeing is the "cracking" of government attempts to keep interest rates at or below the rate of inflation and spending by inflating the money supply.

Certainly flats are a small proportion of the housing stock. But only a few per cent of total housing stock changes hands every year, and self evidently a large proportion of that share is flats. I am absolutely not saying that houses have not been hit. But some of that hit is probably opportunistic buyers, who may have less clout next year.

Here

How I envy you.

Without a doubt the worst property market since well beyond the 1970's.

In 48 years I have never seen so many estate agents closing nor solicitors offices.

Whilst redundancies have been heard of in London mega-firms when two firms of solicitors amalgamate I have never heard of the widespread redundancies we now have. Three day weeks are common. The latest edition of the Law Society Gazette should have borne the banner headline "PANIC EDITION".

Now I don't expect you to get out your hanky and know many will be well cheered by this news but it does show just how bad it is in the UK. ( I'm not playing down the plight of many more now made redundant. It's just that the recession is reaching places it hasn't for over 48 years).

Bank of England just said that the UK is now in recession, and that it is going to be a serious one that will last most of next year. Unemployment at 1.86 million, and likely to be 2 million by Christmas

I think we can safely say the sh!t is about to hit the fan

[QUOTE=bil;6580228]If you have less than a certain amount of money, well, you have nothing to lose. If you have more than a certain amount you have little to fear. QUOTE]

Exactly my point recently to a KPMG employee here in Barcelona...

I said that the recession was unlikely to effect me very much as I have no property, no private pension nothing of any great value and a job that pays me enough to live each month and little else and I have hardly any debt. I am also very flexible as I am young, I have no kids and I have qualifications and experience in a range of industries...

Those who have worked hard and have built there life around the typical dream are likely to be worst hit - especially those who have over stretched themselves or have accumulated a disproportionate amount of debt.

His point was the recession wouldn't hit the 'rich' that badly as they will always know where to put there money. I begged to differ, but then I realised later that his idea of 'rich' was probably very different from mine!

[QUOTE=Sarleon;6966465]