Is now a good time to buy?
Posted on 6th January 2023 at 09:47
Is now a good time to buy a property?
There is no straight forward answer to this question. The answer depends on your personal
circumstance and the reason to why you are buying the property. Depending on If you are buying the
property to live in, invest and hold for the long term or to flip in the short term the answer will be different.
All 3 of these require different property types and market conditions. We will go over these separately in
detail.
Buying your own property
If you are looking to buy your own property to live in there is no good or bad time to buy. People of the
UK have the ideology that their home is an asset, and see that when it goes up in value, they have made
money. This is untrue. If your property increases in value so does every other property in that area. So if
you sell your property to move to another, that new property will have also have gone up value so you
haven’t made a gain in reality. The only way to realise a gain is to sell your property without buying
another. But then where do you live now you’ve sold your property?
When are you looking to buy your own home, the only considerations should be: Would you be happy to
live there? Are you happy to pay that purchase price? Are the monthly outgoings for this property
comfortable? That is it. Don’t view your own property as an investment or asset. Its your home and
should be seen as just that.
Buying an investment
If you are buying a property as an asset you want to buy below market value to create equity from day
one. That way you can tap into that equity to invest again or release that as a gain. Market conditions will
control if buying below market value is possible and how much of a discount you can achieve. In a down
market where demand is lower, you can achieve a greater discount than a hot and in demand market.
When demand is higher sellers can demand the top value for a property, with many properties selling for
more than the asking price. So, finding a deal is more difficult in a hot market, not impossible or a time to
avoid buying just more difficult. In a cold (down market) it is easier to achieve a discount on a purchase
where sellers may be more desperate to sell, and you will face less competition for that property.
However, if you are buying property to hold it as an asset for the long term, market conditions are
irrelevant as over time the value of property trends upwards with properties doubling in value on average
every 10 years. So, if your property does lose value in the first couple of years after your purchase, it will
regain that value over time as history has shown. You only lose or gain money on this investment at the
point of sale, so if you can hold off buying until the market heats up. In the time you have owned that
property you will have received rent throughout which will have provided you with an income, you may
have also remortgaged throughout that time releasing equity as you go.
If you are looking to ‘flip’ a property, which is buying a property to renovate and then sell in a short space
of time. Then now may not be the best time to buy a property as when you sell that property you want as
many sellers as possible to drive the demand and drive the asking price to maximise profit.
Tagged as: crisis, economic, financial, financial crisis, flip, home, home buyer, house, housing crisis, interest, interest rate, invest, investment, money, mortgage, property
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