Hi,
There's many different viewpoints on the whole 'buying a property' aspect to many of the UK's population's lives. It depends on your own experiences and interpretation of it all as to what you think and what you'll perhaps do.
For me, given my own personal experiences of actual property ownership, my experience working in the financial IT sector when in corporate life, also being involved in the family business with a large commercial property purchase and employing around 28 people at our peak - I'm more of a cautious spectator.
The UK's housing market is frankly beyond insane and successive governments over the last 50-60 years haven't done enough to prevent it becoming an issue. More and more of the UK's regions are becoming overpriced to the extent first time buyers simply cannot get on the housing ladder at all. The asking prices for houses are beyond a 'sensible' salary multipliers for vast sections of the population. Flats and studio's are more accessible in terms of purchasing power but a big part of the buying population need bigger places than those offer.
I've said it to people I know, but a simple(r) element of a solution would be to build higher. There's 4 brand new blocks of flats being built within a few hundred yards of where I live and although one is big with upto 11 stories (I think the upper 7 only have a few units) the other's are 3/4 stories high only. Another 2/3 stories I think would help. The issue of course is the environmentalists start complaining, the developers are prevented from going higher as the politicians/local council and lets not forget local residents have a moan as well. Add these factors together and historically it's why the UK hasn't build higher up and instead has spread across more land that's ever more restricted, hence the overheating of where urban development has taken place over these last decades.
The last few years have seen the UK recover from the brink of disaster created by the combination of reckless borrowing and spending by the previous government, banks and people who also overborrowed, and we're now approaching an election which 'theoretically' could put another party in power and the chances of the above catastrophic things could well be higher. It's that 'uncertainty' that spooks markets and as a result, the housing market is seeing less people putting their properties up for sale until it's seen how the country votes. I personally, if I had the money for a property wouldn't be looking to buy currently, and also in the short to medium term given some political party thinking is to try and break up the UK as a nation and to also try and come out of the EU as well - both of which will cause big issues financially if they actually happen. If I was selling right now, I'd bump my asking prices up - which is what's happened over the last couple of years generally speaking.
Other viewpoints will differ, but as per above, it comes down to individuals assessment of their own finances, needs and requirements as to try and purchase a property. The combination of all the above, political factors, potential/suspeced underhand/controlling influences, demand etc for 'buying a property' has become insane recently. I for one, if the country remains on a course of recovery economically will ideally not be purchasing a property in the UK again with my own current and mid term requirements.
For those who are looking to purchase, I do wish you good luck in finding a suitable property and I hope the country remains on a more solid economic future to try and prevent a 'serious' pricing correction in the next few years or so.
Cheers, DtM! West 'overpriced' London & 'too expensive' Slough UK!
