Working From Home

After watching the extinction programme working from home, less emissions and new fossil fuel free housing and technologies must be the focus of our economy. Otherwise in a 100 years places like Bentley will become Bentley by the sea. The ice shelfs in Greenland are disappearing at a stupid rate.

 

So after Dettol did a get back to the office campaign even though their own staff are still working from home, the Green Party have done their own ad campaign

 

I recall reading somewhere that the so called " experts" reckoned, that if we left the EU without a deal, that house prices would slump by up to a third of their true value. Does anyone know, if that would be the case.?

 

Loved it, then hated it and voluntarily went back to work in my office for my own mental health, funny how its supposed to be better for your mental health.
Flexible hours are much better.

 

Personally, I love it. I've been working at home since April. However, I'm fairly experienced, I'd hate to be a new starter in this position. As an earlier poster said though, I'm lucky in that I can use my attic as an office and only come up here for work, so I still have that commute / separation between home and work (even if it is only some stairs)

 

In absolute terms, property in the UK has fallen by between 12% (against $) and 19% (against Euro) since the vote in 2016. So it is a lot cheaper for anyone with overseas funds to buy property in the UK. A "No Deal" exit could see the value of the £ fall further decreasing the absolute cost of the property.

In relative terms, property prices have (surprisingly) increased this year as people have been looking to move somewhere more suitable but price rises have slowed down since 2016. There a few future factors that could cause a reduction in house prices - COVID recession, No Deal impact, job losses, etc but also WFH is likely to increase demand in more rural areas and reduce demand in more urban areas (why pay £1m in London when you can pay £600k for more in the Cotswolds?).

Overall, it could lead to cheaper house prices if lots of people lose their jobs and can't afford the mortgage payments, but it could also make it much more affordable for anyone from overseas than for anyone in the UK.

So could house prices slump by 1/3? - in pounds, its possible in some areas but unlikely everywhere - in other currencies, its already halfway there.

 

Cheers Scoff. It all hinges on what folks will be able to afford as is the case now. Round these parts, homes on our road that we previously estimated as being worth circa £185,000, have been selling for somewhere around £220,00
to £230,000 depending on what improvements have been made to them.

They come up very rarely, but when they do, it's unusual if the SOLD subject to contract board, doesn't go
up a mere 72- 96 hours after the FOR SALE board first appears. When we came here some thirty three years
ago, where we live , is the only house that came up for sale in a period of eighteen months apparently.

We are hoping that because of these factors, they hopefully maintain their true saleable value, not that we are planning to move anywhere anytime soon.

 

Friend sold a house today in Wales. It only got listed yesterday and the first people to view it put in an offer after 30 mins of viewing it! Crazy.

 

Brilliant that though. We as a family, were trying to move to Wakefield after the Miners strike, so unfortunately not many folks had the brass to put a deposit down or afford the mortgage payments. We thought we'd sold our house in Dunsville near Donny twice, but unfortunately we got back word on both occasions.

We had had an improvement grant to provide facilities for our eldest son who was temporarily incapacitated with a hip disease re- Perthes. The chain of events when it did go were similar to your friend in Wales MT. A local lass had been on dialysis at Northern General in Sheffield and they had offered her a kidney transplant if she could find a house with a purpose built disabled suite where she could go through her daily hygiene regime to prevent any infections setting in.

Her and her husband had bumped into some friends who lived opposite us in a local supermarket and they were telling our neighbours about the treatment she would have to undergo and what they were looking for by way of a medical room in a local property.


We got a phone call and twenty minutes later they arrived at our house. They weren't bothered at looking at the rest of our house. All they wanted to view was the medical suite. They did that and went into the garden for a chat. Soon after, they came back indoors and offered us the full asking price. From start to finish after two
years of pure frustration, the whole deal took fifteen minutes to conclude.

 

The situation with house prices right now strikes me as a bit of a short sighted bubble. Hard times are coming, and I think we're at the top of the market with it being further buoyed by the stamp duty suspension. If I was looking to move in the next couple of years I'd seriously consider selling my house now and renting with a view to buying in a year or so.