Hi,
I cannot understand how you all are so desperate to buy at the moment.
Isn´t it clear enough, that most of the buyers, especially first-time buyers, who buyed in the last two years are f***ed ... I mean financially?
The last three month we have seen the property market falling apart and thousands of building workers went unemployed.
Although I predicted a fall back of only about 25% after christmas, I understood that we have at least 50% to 60% by now.
Only because many of foreign workers are going back home for longterm or for good, the employment situation is getting kind of a bit more relaxed. But out there it is still very quite and it will last for a while.
Banks have sent their troubleshooters out to the developers and there is a trend to rather renting the developments out than to keep them empty.
Banks and developers negotiate to change short term loans into mortages, to save businesses, big sites are closing or slowing down massively.
And last but not least, we have seen price cut offs of up to more than 20% only between January and end of February.
I would reckon, that the developers do not drop further at the moment on two reasons:
1. They hope and pray. And they cannot afford to give the wrong signals to the market.
2. The building costs in the last few years have been risen so high, due to inefficiency and incompetence (incompetence not all over the place), that they still would lose too much money if the would drop more. Anyway, longterm they will not have any joice than either to sell as quick as possible or to bancrupt their limited companies. Only a few will step in with more private money.
There we have the next point. I cannot imagine, that too many developers will buy their own built appartements and houses back from the bankloans, using private capital. The quality is just too bad.
Does anybody over here have a clue, how the buildings are built, for them you are interested? Did anybody visited the sites or has an idea on technical basics?
Apart from the quality, nearly all of the currently built houses will NOT COMPLY to the upcoming new standarts, ie. building regulations, wich only try to keep up to the standarts that apply on the continent since years. And where planning permission is given before the regs come into effect, the buildings have only to apply to the old regulations!
And by the way, ever heard about energyratings?
But even the best rating ... once that comes into effect ... would be worth not the paper they are written on, if they would be done only off the plans and by calculating out of the whatsoever good or bad specifications.
A realistic rating for new built houses can only be any good for a house owner, if they stand a testing aswell. Only the tests like blower door or thermographic tests can actually proof that the building is actually BUILT like the designers specs show.
Understood?
So WHY buy NOW?
Greetings and good luck,
macbeth