Monday 27 October 2008

House-price-crash porn (4)

From today's FT:

One owner, who bought a £190,000 flat there 18 months ago, is trying to offload it for £150,000, a local estate agent said. Gary Wilkinson, of Thornley Groves, said other developments along Whitworth Street were falling even faster. The asking price for a two-bed in the W3 building had dropped from £282,000 to £209,950 in months. “There were a lot of people buying off plan who were overextended. There are loads of repossessions.” One flat in the nearby Northern Quarter bought last year for £222,000 has just gone for £151,000... The nearby Regency House building is worst hit. One flat there bought for £302,000 at the end of 2002 sold for £203,311 in July [2008].

Schadenfreude? Who, me?

3 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

What this doesn't tell you is that a lot of these areas are fast turning in to slums as nobody is living there, which will drive prices further down.

BBC London did something along these lines week and the remaining residents of the area they showed were getting really worried.

Anonymous said...

One man's loss is another man's saving. I'm still amazed so many people were still speculating - and on flats no less - right up until the end.

Paul Lockett said...

I work near many of these apartments and for the last couple of years there's been a speculative feeding frenzy of people buying city centre flats as investments. A number of those investors have bought in and then started complaining about the council giving planning permission for more flats and slowing down price growth in the existing market, as if they have an inherent right to make a profit.