First Time French Buyer

[YCCMB]

Quillan, if you have to resort to patronising me to win your argument, then I leave it to others to judge whether or not you have been successful. I chose to type a brief reply to your last "justification" after deleting a somewhat longer one, because I suspected that you would want the last word, and I wasn't surprised to be proved right. OK, you win, the UK is in house price meltdown, its economic situation is only marginally better than that of Guinea-Bissau, and all the right-minded intellectuals have moved to France. There. Better now?

[Quillan]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]Quillan, if you have to resort to patronising me to win your argument, then I leave it to others to judge whether or not you have been successful. I chose to type a brief reply to your last "justification" after deleting a somewhat longer one, because I suspected that you would want the last word, and I wasn't surprised to be proved right. OK, you win, the UK is in house price meltdown, its economic situation is only marginally better than that of Guinea-Bissau, and all the right-minded intellectuals have moved to France. There. Better now?
[/quote]

So ONS, Nationwide, RICS and the BBC are all wrong and your right!

[YCCMB]

Jesus wept.

My right what?

[PaulT]

[quote user="Quillan"]

From the BBC so far this year Stockton-on-Tees for instance has seen a fall of -6.5%, County Durham -6.8%, Cumbria (Lake District) -5.9% and the list goes on, [/quote]

Oooh let's be pedantic - a fall of a negative amount, i.e. -6.5% would be a rise of +6.5%

Never believe figures unless you have full access as to how they have been compiled and what has been included. Selective selection can enable the result required to be achieved.

 

[Rabbie]

No sign of any fall in housing prices here in Wiltshire. My own property seems to have appreciated by about 8% over the last 2 years if my estate agent can be believed.

It does seem the areas mentioned by Quillan are all in the north of England - an area known to be suffering more than others in the recession.

 

[PaulT]

[quote user="Rabbie"]

No sign of any fall in housing prices here in Wiltshire. My own property seems to have appreciated by about 8% over the last 2 years if my estate agent can be believed.

[/quote]

Can any? [6]

[Russethouse]

I'm pretty sure that I have heard /read in the lastcouple of days that the goverments various schemes are beginning to work and the house market is picking up, more mortgages being approved etc. Of course now there are fears of the house market over heating -

[woolybanana]

But are the right people getting the houses, that is to say first time buyers and those moving up to the next step, rather than landlords who want to rent out property?

[Quillan]

[quote user="Russethouse"]I'm pretty sure that I have heard /read in the lastcouple of days that the goverments various schemes are beginning to work and the house market is picking up, more mortgages being approved etc. Of course now there are fears of the house market over heating -[/quote]

Yes you did see it, I think it was on one of those 'money' advice etc websites.

[Quillan]

[quote user="PaulT"][quote user="Rabbie"]

No sign of any fall in housing prices here in Wiltshire. My own property seems to have appreciated by about 8% over the last 2 years if my estate agent can be believed.

[/quote]

Can any? [6]

[/quote]

Their a bit like the proverbial second hand car salesman really, tell you anything to get your business or more to the point your money.

Rabbie, you might look at the BBC link I gave because if you look up Wiltshire on that somebody somewhere is being economic with the truth.

In general though the trend does seem to upward since the crash in 2007 amongst all the different sources and most of them seem to indicate that prices have yet to reach the pre 2007 crash prices as an average although they all seem to 'wobble' a bit then go up again. Some areas will do better than most. I did pick on the North because they were, quite frankly at the top of the list. I have just looked at Kent having a house in the Dover area and prices there have done down quite a bit as has Kent a little as an average.

At the end of the day how much is your house really worth, well I don't think it matters where you are i.e. England, France, Spain etc, it's how much somebody is willing to pay for it that counts. That probably make the ONS and Land Registry the more accurate because they actually register the sale price, or so they imply. Again how you wish to translate those figures is entirely up to you depending on what your trying to prove although the 'raw' data is always available. In every country there will always be particular, unique, areas that buck the trend due to supply and demand.

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="Russethouse"]I'm pretty sure that I have heard /read in the lastcouple of days that the goverments various schemes are beginning to work and the house market is picking up, more mortgages being approved etc. Of course now there are fears of the house market over heating -[/quote]

Yes you did see it, I think it was on one of those 'money' advice etc websites.

[/quote] Or, of course, it could have been because it was the front page headline in the Express and all over the BBC news. But as I am wrong about everything, I'm probably wrong about that as well. Like because a couple of sheep farmers in Cumbria have seen their crofts drop in value by 5k the whole UK housing market is in the sewer. Or because some houses were "worth" more six or seven years ago, the UK housing market is in the toilet.

[Russethouse]

 I live in what the French would call a 'development' of 166 houses, we are now back to a situation where local estate agents have lists of people wanting to live here (there are about 7 different styles of house ranging between £270 k - £350 k I guess)

I suspect I heard it on Jeremy Vine....

 Just an off topic observation: there a couple of people here who like to believe the very worst of the Uk, but who only gain knowledge from news media or disaffected Brits.....it often gives a skewed picture. Though of course distance gives a different perspective.

[Quillan]

It is not UK bashing at all. All I am saying is that figures printed in news papers about house prices rising a record amount has to be put in to the correct context.

For a start when an amount is mentioned, as in the Daily Express article, where is the house geographically located? On one hand it gives a figure then talks about 1.5% increase in general across the UK.

There was a crash in 2007/8 that is a well documented fact. If you take the value of a property at its peak just before the crash then current prices have just about got back to that amount and in many areas they still have not even managed that. If on the other hand you use 2008/9 prices (at the bottom of the crash) then the rise in prices looks really impressive, as a percentage in to double figures as an average.

House prices seem to go up because of supply and demand. If there is little demand at the bottom, or entry level, then very few move up the chain, I think we all know this however. Osbourne has created a system to help first time buyers which in turn creates a demand, more people move (to make way for them) and house prices go up.

There are areas where it is desirable to live and house prices are very high (compared to the rest of the country) like Surrey, Thames Valley, West Berks, Sussex etc and there are always those at the higher end of the market who move around in those areas and as they are relatively rich don't have a problem paying a bit extra. However just because house prices are going up in these areas by 10+% does not mean houses are in the rest of the country. One exception where house prices are said to go up in leaps and bounds is that place down near Poole in Dorset where it said on the news somebody pain £1.5m for a house just to knock it down and build another and they thought they had a bargain.

I therefore still stick to my claim that UK house prices crashed. The difference between the UK, France and Spain is that the UK is recovering slowly where as in the other two countries they are not.

[YCCMB]

According to the Economist (Google it if you wish, I read it ages ago and I've lost the will to live now) the biggest difference between France and the UK is that in France, house prices for sale or rental are overvalued by (from memory: it might be the other way round) between 35% (sale) and 50%(rental) of average income. In the UK, this is a fraction of those figures (I can't remember but I think it's something between 9 and 11%). The Economist predicted that in France, the housing price "crisis" is yet to hit properly.

And edit: on a point of order, you didn't say "Uk house prices crashed" in your original comment with which I and others took issue. You said "The UK and Spain are not the only places to suffer from a devaluation in property prices". The subsequent x number of pages where you have written reams to justify what you claim to have meant are all factually accurate, and if you were to read others' contributions you would note that nobody has disagreed with your statement that there was indeed a property crash six or seven years ago. However, what people have been trying to tell you is that there isn't one NOW. And there isn't. Whether or not prices have recovered to the pre-crash levels is largely irrelevant, as most people would accept that pre-crash, property was overvalued. And prices in the "ROSEland" area are not higher because of desirability, but availability. As has always been the case.

[Rabbie]

[quote user="Quillan"][quote user="PaulT"][quote user="Rabbie"]

No sign of any fall in housing prices here in Wiltshire. My own property seems to have appreciated by about 8% over the last 2 years if my estate agent can be believed.

[/quote]

Can any? [6]

[/quote]

Their a bit like the proverbial second hand car salesman really, tell you anything to get your business or more to the point your money.

Rabbie, you might look at the BBC link I gave because if you look up Wiltshire on that somebody somewhere is being economic with the truth.

In general though the trend does seem to upward since the crash in 2007 amongst all the different sources and most of them seem to indicate that prices have yet to reach the pre 2007 crash prices as an average although they all seem to 'wobble' a bit then go up again. Some areas will do better than most. I did pick on the North because they were, quite frankly at the top of the list. I have just looked at Kent having a house in the Dover area and prices there have done down quite a bit as has Kent a little as an average.

At the end of the day how much is your house really worth, well I don't think it matters where you are i.e. England, France, Spain etc, it's how much somebody is willing to pay for it that counts. That probably make the ONS and Land Registry the more accurate because they actually register the sale price, or so they imply. Again how you wish to translate those figures is entirely up to you depending on what your trying to prove although the 'raw' data is always available. In every country there will always be particular, unique, areas that buck the trend due to supply and demand.

[/quote]Q, while I would accept your word on property prices in your area of France I do not think you are able to make assumptions about the value of my property based on your looking at a BBC page about house prices in Wiltshire. My property is notorious hard to value as it is not a standard property where similar properties have been sold recently thus giving a pretty good idea of what people are prepared to pay.

One the factors affecting values is location and that is a major factor in ours not only holding its value through the crash and gaining it now but also makes it easier and quicker to sell when/if we find what we are looking for across the channel. We are fortunate that our town has excellent schools - both private and state - which nowadays in the UK has a strong effect on property prices. We also have good, safe access to good riding out which also has a positive effect on value.

My neighbour who is also my solicitor takes a less cautious view on the valuation than the estate agent so I don't think I am being conned. However time will tell if we ever put it on the market.

[TC]

Some truly appalling advice re mortgages and so on. As a Uk resident in full time employment you are completely eligible for a mortgage in France, and with a 50% deposit as long as your disposable income matches income I imagine the banks will be very happy to lend.

There are dozens of English speaking Mortgage brokers and Bank contacts throughout France.

BNP Paribas International are a specialist Non Resident lender and do NOT exclusively deal with wealthy clients. I can PM you loads of good contacts.

As for advising against borrowing in France due to exchange rates, that makes no sense whatsoever??? So it is being suggested that transferring the full purchase cost at a poor exchange rate rather than transferring a few hundreds pounds a month is good economic sense.

Also, extracting equity out of your UK home will do one of two things, increase your debt burden on your asset and in all likelihood max out your borrowing limits in the UK, thereby making getting any other finance more difficult in the UK. (eg, borrow a large extra sum on your house to buy a house in France, only to have some major maintenance issue occur on your UK home, you approach your bank to borrow money to rectify and they refuse because they have already lent you extra money against your house.) And I wont mention the folly of borrowing at a high ratio to asset value??

If you secure on your French property this ensures you maintain a safer debt ration on each asset, the mortgage rate can be fixed at an very competitive rate for term in France, the mortgage rates are comparable to UK and the Euribor is historically far less volatile too, if you opt for a variable rate mortgage, French mortgages do not increase the monthly payment if the rate goes up, but instead increase the term (far safer than the UK model of sudden mortgage payment increases).

I wish you all the very best in achieving your dream and I hope you find a house.

Best advice is to research the areas you wish to buy (ease of access, local amenities, weather, cost of getting there and can you get there all year around easily). Dont be tempted to buy a house with loads of land 'because it is so cheap' as maintaining it will become a burden if you are not there all year around (however a garden is very important when coming to resell, so make this a must have),  and I stress this with the best intentions. DO NOT just be led by price, all too often people buy a BARGAIN only to forget all of the other reasons they wish to own a home in France. Look at properties that meet your needs, then decide which is most suitable and if it happens to be a little more expensive, ask yourself is it still in budget and am I going to LOVE being there. Then begin negotiations. Dont be frightened of making an offer under asking price, but be prepared to come up if it really is the house you want.

Finally, it never ceases to amaze me how people on French living Forums, who probably own property in France constantly tell people how you can get bargains everywhere, the irony is they are indirectly talking the value of their own homes down too :-\

[YCCMB]

[quote user="TC"]

Finally, it never ceases to amaze me how people on French living Forums, who probably own property in France constantly tell people how you can get bargains everywhere, the irony is they are indirectly talking the value of their own homes down too :-\

[/quote]

So, talking prices UP will make it so? That's interesting. In that case, my French house is worth half a million Euros. I wish you couldn't get bargains everywhere, but I can't ignore the evidence of my eyes and ears.

[NormanH]

I used to have a T-Shirt with "I don't give a F*** about the price of your house" printed on it.

I still feel the same contempt for the materialism and greed that has for a long time been part of the housing market in the UK.

[YCCMB]

Congratulations, Norman. Not sure quite what your comment relates to, but in the event that it was my previous comment, I'd suggest you reread it in context.

By the way, I don't even give a XXX about the price of my own house. Even though I'm in the throes of selling it. It's another of the many totally artificial transactions which occur as part of our everyday lives.

[Sprogster]

I think TC has overlooked the potential benefit for an individual who's income is in sterling borrowing in sterling secured against your UK property, in that this enables you to lock in the current exchange rate for the entire purchase price on the French property, thereby protecting you against further weakening of the £.

For example, someone buying a property in France six years ago on this basis would have been able to buy euros at around 1.46 and have saved themselves the financial pain of servicing a euro mortgage at the current rate of 1.15.

Also TC has ignored the fact that French lenders are required to apply a stricter affordability criteria than UK lenders, whereby interest and repayments on a borrowers total debts must not exceed one third of their income.