Crying their eyes out

[Draytek]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8237366.stm


Everyone was jumping on the bandwagon at the height of the market and as the Developer says, nobody offered him any money back when property was doing well.

I wonder where the Ulster Bank are in all of this who have billboards all over town saying how thet are "helping" people getting mortgages?

Slap it up them I say!

[bikerben]

time waster

[grillpan]

Yeah but what about people who put down deposits on apartments, the developer has gone bust and buggered off with their deposits.

Have no sympathy for developers frankly.

G

[MrNuts]

Serves them right, as regards developers going bust that has nothing to do with that article.

Sue the feck out of them i say, useless gits.

[grillpan]

My point is though that if developers can just get away with taking peoples money on a promise of building something, dont deliver, keep the money and get away with it then why cant it work the other way round?

A lot of developers have been "caught out" by the bubble bursting but have still managed to weasel out of it. Just declare yourself bankrupt and back in business the next day.

G

[chucky]

I'd say the big differance is alot of developers have got the 'sense' to keep their private finances from their buisness finances. From the offset they have got the backup plan of bankruptcy.

Most normal folk, put it all their own personal savings, with their homes as a guarantee. In alot of cases they wont be able to go bankrupt before loosing their homes.

Its a case of naive or selfish? (on the purchasers part)

[simon]

putting a deposit on an appartment that hasn't been built yet and hoping that by the time it's built is gereally referred to as speculating, when you speculate there is a chance you'll lose your money. These people were daft enought to sign a contract that meant that they couldn't just walk away from their deposit if their speculation didn't pay off.

no sympathy, greed has got us all in this mess, somehow everyone thought that there was free and easy money to be made. Someone always loses

[ciaran-77]

Pushing up the ante, I know you've got to see me,
Read 'em and weep, the dead man's hand again

Mind you I'd be pissed if it was me on the receiving end

[Steveb]

putting a deposit on an appartment that hasn't been built yet and hoping that by the time it's built is gereally referred to as speculating,

Or it's called buying somewhere to live. Ya, a lot of these people will have been property speculators but also a lot will have been people who entered into the contracts with the plans of actually living in them when completed. I suspect most of these people have defaulted on the contract because they can no longer get mortgages to complete the purchase.

There is a lot of blame floating around the property market nowadays, the reality is no one is fully to blame and no one is completely innocent. Property developers pushed prices up as high as they could because then they made more profit, but then buyers overstretched themselves and paid the prices because they all thought they wouldn't go down in value and say it as easy money. But the biggest blame, almost all of it I say is with the banks.

I bought my first house in about 1886, cost me £15k, today it would cost about £150k I reckon. In real tersm the only people who have gained from this incredible price rise over a 25 year periods are the banks, as people need to borrow ever increasing amounts of money to buy them. Today the person buying the little flat for £150k is getting exactly the same that I got for £15k 25 years ago, but the bank is getting ten times more interest.

It's not a co-incidence that in the early to mid 80's the building societies (who then all became banks) literally took over the estate agent industry by buying them all up and so started controlling the price of houses. Before this point the housing market had been stable for decades, since this point the housing market has seen two massive boom/bust periods yet prices on average are still 1000% higher now compared to then.

[Bloom]

I bought my first house in about 1886, cost me £15k,
Thats a serious price back then.

[Steveb]

LOL.

Typo or Freudian slip?

[jacks2ts]

Sorry, I've edited this post as it was making the page hugely wide!

[simon]

feel for anyone who was actually buying one to live in but haven't seen any of them crying on the news it's all been "investors"

I've been left pretty stuck by the system falling a part so I know there were many sides to the greed from the people remortgaging houses to buy a car or go on holiday to the mortgage lenders and estate agents putting over inflated valuations on stuff just to push it through (and as you say being far to closely tucked up with each other). In a house that I don't owe much on but can't get it sold and can't get it rented and move on as don't have a big enough deposit just yet for second home

Think my biggest rant could be about interest only mortgages but i'll save that for another day......

[AndyL]

Does anyone who wants to live in a flat buy a property they've never seen off a drawing or plastic model and sign a contract to buy it at a set price in two or three years time?

If so, that'll tighten them. Sure, pay a deposit and take your chances, but agree a price now for a few years down the line? Madness.

What gets me is the mortgage companies offering 8, 9 or even 10 times your salary as a capital amount on the mortgage. In the good old days, the most you could get was about 3 times your salary, as the banks reckoned you could afford to repay that amount. So when did that ratio change, and change so much?

People overextended themselves, because they were allowed to by the banks, and the sellers, gladly took the money and ran. Wouldn't you? So when times got tight and the money ran out, people couldn't afford their own mortgages, defaulted, flooded the market looking to get rid, prices fell and everyone who'd bought at big money was shafted.

So now we are nearly back to the good old days. Deposits to prove you could save some money and more affordable levels of lending to those with a good enough credit history to get a mortgage.

And the bankers who fecked it all up get bailed out by the govt, actually, no, I mean by US, get their massive bonuses anyway, and laugh all the way to the... bank.

[keyserni]

LOL, I wouldn't blame anyone for not coughing up for Woodlands Manor it's laughable as a piece of architecture and even to the layman it an ugly POS. It will be one of those buildings that lies half empty then gets knocked down in a decade.

[jacks2ts]

or maybe a suspicious fire :rolleyes:

[pwadjo]

Why would anyone feel for the developer? No-one came to you to give you 50,000 back because you are a money grabbing **** who would build a house on his mother given half a chance.

So now that we are in recession the developer still feels as though he should make the same profit as before and that it is the purchaser who should take the whole hit by buying a property worth less than the agreed initial sale price because of some contract? Balls I say.
There are 2 sides to the story and until the developer agrees to a compromise he won't be getting any money.

[AndyL]

Pwadjo, If you sign a contract you enter into a legally binding agreement. Simple as that. The people signed the contracts, I'm pretty sure they didn't have a gun to their heads at the time, so it's pretty much their fault. Now they cant get the rest of the money as they wont get a mortgage for the agreed price, because the place is worth less than it was sold for two years ago. But they were daft enough to sign a document guaranteeing a fixed price two years down the line...

The buyers gambled and lost, its like playing the stock market, agreeing to buy a commodity in two years at a fixed price. If the price goes up, you win, if it falls you lose. And if you dont have the money to pay for it, you'll go bust.

Of course the developer should be paid what the BUYER agreed to pay for it. Thats what the contract and the courts are for, so people cant just pull out if it doesn't suit them anymore. Just be careful what you sign...

[ryan]

Why would anyone feel for the developer? No-one came to you to give you 50,000 back because you are a money grabbing **** who would build a house on his mother given half a chance.

So now that we are in recession the developer still feels as though he should make the same profit as before and that it is the purchaser who should take the whole hit by buying a property worth less than the agreed initial sale price because of some contract? Balls I say.
There are 2 sides to the story and until the developer agrees to a compromise he won't be getting any money.

So, if people bought these apartments with the intention of selling them on, i.e. "flipping" them, in what way does that make them less "money grabbing ****"?

[keyserni]

Woodlands Manor was nominated for worst building in Britain! Another Belfast firm (Hamiltons) won the worst building in Britain (if you can call it a win) for a building in Liverpool.

[pwadjo]

So, if people bought these apartments with the intention of selling them on, i.e. "flipping" them, in what way does that make them less "money grabbing ****"?

Yes, exactly "if" people bought them to flip them but not all of them did. I'm sure people also bought them to live in them but since we are generalising, yes its all the purchasers fault.

[SFN]

Yes, exactly "if" people bought them to flip them but not all of them did. I'm sure people also bought them to live in them but since we are generalising, yes its all the purchasers fault.

Well it is, isn't it? Who else is to blame? The fact is, whether they bought the apartments to live in or sell on, these buyers bought off plans two years before completion in the hope of getting a cheap deal, so they decided to become property speculators, but got stung. Tough. Pay up and shut up.