Owning your own home

Renting is also a PITA

I guess everyone is expecting interest rates to increase so 5 year is sensible

I'm sure by that time the properties value would have increased too...

But @Quincy said this thread is terrifying

When we were looking we were getting pushed hard to 'just up your budget! you qualify for more than you're looking at!'

We had exactly the same experience, and ended up doing exactly what you did which we think should at least mitigate the stress/pressure if things do go awry.

I know you should be grown-up enough to make an informed decision when buying a house, but I do wonder how those that have been encouraged to stretch to the top of their budgets will manage when the first mortgage deal runs out.

Well the risk is that the increase in rates is what pushes prices down (as growth has been built on cheap credit), so be cautious with that argument.

There just seems to be no winning

Easy to win, just be someone who bought in 2012

(speaking as someone who bought in 2015)

Exactly my worry.

South will be effected far worse though.

And I've read through the current planned improvements and they sound decent.

i for one am looking forward to this thread moving on from being a glorified interior decorating boast-post fest to becoming a support group for the newly destitute.

^^Depends I think on what things used to be - much of the development on what used to be mud-flat will be in trouble, the older parts of the South will be better off as they predate the barrier.

^I hope that things don't go as badly as they look like they shall, but based on the current performance of our rulers it's not looking great.

"Owning your own home. For the moment, at least."

I for one look forward to buying up swathes of SE26.

In other news: can I sell now and buy a house in Euro land and never come back?

50% or so off current prices would do me (back to circa 2009 levels). Would mean a vague chance of actually being able to afford a house in London. My flat shooting up in value is all well and good but in reality it just means the distance to to buying a house has doubled in actual terms.

I don't think it will happen though. In the sub £500k bracket I can see maybe another 10-15% coming off, maybe a little more in sub £1m. There just aren't that many properties in London so demand will keep the prices inflated.

Saying that, I wouldn't buy as an investment. You want somewhere you'd be happy to live if it does go tits up.

You could get a supply-driven shock if ‘buy to leave’ / ‘buy to launder’ investors get scared of London and run for the exit. It’s hard to know quite how many of these properties there are, though.

You could move to the Low Countries.

I'm looking forward to buying a lot of Brexit voter's foreclosures and using them to run private medical practices from. With everyone on food rations and the Tories selling off the NHS I should make enough to build that wall around London.

This sounds fantastic, sign me up.

Of course, for those betting one way or another on something happening on March 29th 2019 will all get royally screwed when the UK and EU agree to defer the deadline for another 3/6/12/whatever months.

Don't plan on there being any certainty by or on 29th March 2019, we could be in limbo for even longer...

Don't plan on there being any certainty

That's sound advice.

Limbo sounds great for shorting Sterling.

Don't plan on there being any certainty by or on 29th March 2019, we could be in limbo for even longer...

It hadn't even occurred to me that anyone would think that there would be - 29th of March just marks a specific milestone on the journey we are on.

We'll be "doing Brexit" for the next ten years - look at the Swiss, they're perpetually trying to change their relationship with the EU in one way or another.

The Swiss despise the EU but tolerate it because they're much better off having a relationship with it than not.

If only we had a fuckload of nazi gold underneath a mountain. We'd be laughing.

It's a really quite interesting. They've had swexit referendums before where they have voted to leave but the government overrides the result on the basis that it would badly damage the Swiss economy and impact the quality of life that they enjoy there.

And this is Switzerland, a country with an astonishingly productive economy. From memory, luxury goods and chocolate are barely in their top ten exports.

If we had an economy anything like the Swiss one, I'd be far less worried about leaving.