buy now, ask later
If I was to tell you I’ve just accepted an offer on my bolt-hole-bachelor-pad that I’ve not lived in for almost twenty years, I am more than aware of the fact that it makes me look like an evil and unscrupulous buy-to-let investor but I did buy it to live in, honestly, and did so very happily for a wee while. Admittedly, when the price dropped to less than half it’s value and interest rates rose to over 15% I did indeed call it a day, let it out and moved in with the girlfriend. Does it get me back in your good books if I admitted to letting a pal live there for the last two years’ rent free as he was down on his luck? Nah, I didn’t think it would. Or that the accepted offer is one I would have laughed at not that long ago? Put me in the stocks and let’s get it over and done with.
It beggars belief that with unemployment approaching three million, zero economic growth prevailing, real incomes falling, confidence at a living-memory low, austerity measures cutting deeper than ever imaginable, and after an almost cataclysmic banking collapse, that any part of the country could be experiencing a property boom. Alas it is happening. But not where I live.
See a property you fancy? Chances are it’s gone. Thinking of showing your hand with a cheeky opening offer of 10% below asking price? Forget it and start thinking the unthinkable – offers above asking price. Can’t view tonight? Your loss. You need a mortgage? Next please. Any ideas where? Aye, London. All of London. Again.
None of this would matter if it was just me pulling my face about the cash I could have made and the des-res I should have bought. But yet another sustained lurch upwards in prices, and the inevitable subsequent rise in rents, will surely take frustration and anger from the excluded and trapped to new heights. Young, and not so young adults, and families are already furious that the property market has turned into a double-pincer stitch up between well-off baby-boomers and buy-to-let landlords. The bad news is that it’s only going to get worse.
