Why are house prices rising so fast in a pandemic?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57260261

by bananapear • 5 years ago

28 88 5 years ago

bbc.co.uk

jokethrowaway• 5 years ago

There is definitely more demand now and the lower stamp tax helped.

I wonder what's going to happen once that's over, especially if the economy won't be doing good.

hnlmorg• 5 years ago

We're already seeing what happens next because any houses on the market now wont sell in time for the "stamp duty holiday". This has pushed house prices down and slowed the market.

The BBC article is already out of date.

arnvald• 5 years ago

There was a similar situation in the Netherlands. Normally stamp tax is 2%, but for a few months this year it was 0% for people buying their first apartment.

Today I talked to agent that helped me buy my place and I asked him whether the prices finally plateaued since that tax incentive is gone now. He said they didn't, the demand is still so high that prices keep growing, even in Amsterdam where they're already very high.

lr4444lr• 5 years ago

High demand for more space due to WfH and a desire for home leisure time due to lack of venues to visit, combined with low interest rates to shore up the markets. Is this really a mystery?

yarky• 5 years ago

It is when too many people can afford it.

xnx• 5 years ago

Plus years of low construction and now high material costs due to supply chain disruption and more boomers opting to age in place.

stuaxo• 5 years ago

There seems to have been a construction boom in the last 10 years, it's just not sold to people who want to live in them, or people who even live in the country a lot of the time.

simonjgreen2• 5 years ago

If you read beyond the headline you'll see that no, it's not a mystery

raverbashing• 5 years ago

The map also supports that story.

belter• 5 years ago

It is a mystery and a warning of a serious bubble. The bubble will grow to levels never seen in history. Future generations will be saddled with historical high taxation levels. Some Central Bankers will show up at the US Congress or European parliamentary inquiries.They will pull another Greenspan - "I had no clue how the economy really works" type of excuse while getting back to their golden retirements: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/oct/24/economics-c...

For example at least commenting from an European perspective nothing makes sense:

- Real wages (for example in the European Union) are decreasing or stagnant for years - Example data point for 2020 for ex: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264605/development-of-re...

- Most companies are only alive due to governments subsiding jobs, that in reality, do not exist anymore. Ex: KLM and Air France pilots receiving some of the highest salaries in the world, while their airplanes sit on the tarmac.: https://simpleflying.com/air-france-klm-traffic-drop/

The main issue is that very shortly, the increased debt that most countries were forced to incur will be due soon. Very soon and in, ( what else ? ), increased taxation: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-coronavirus-global-d...

All this should mean most persons should thing two times before paying inflated values. Clearly is not not happening. In Europe it is common to see interviews with couples who just got into the so called property ladder. Most are actually ashamed of confirming how much they paid for the microscopic house they just purchased...

- Not sure in the US, but in Europe very few young workers are able to get permanent contracts instead of temporary 2-3 years contracts. By law, most countries require those to become permanent contracts after 2-3 renewals but that is not happening. European banks in the last few years, significantly increased the requirements to qualify for a mortgage, requiring both spouses working, permanent work contracts required,minimum apportion of capital sometimes of 10% to 15 % of the value of the house. Just a minority can rely on the "Bank of Papa and Mamma". So this also fails to explain some of the bidding wars seen in the last few months.

It is mostly driven by speculators flush with cheap money and central banks complete irresponsibility. It also shows another massive failure on the part of banks to perform their due diligence concerning future prospects.

Cue now a US budget that throws away 100 years of economic theory and the world will be in for a very VERY rough ride: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/business/economy/biden-pl...

Initially will be a party worthy of the scenes in the Wolf of Wall Street. The core question here is at which point does THIS matter ? : https://www.visualcapitalist.com/20-trillion-of-u-s-debt-vis...

simonh• 5 years ago

I think there are two effects at play right now that both feed on each other. One of them is mentioned in the article, there aren't many properties actually on the market at the moment so it doesn't take many transactions or many buyers with the resources to drive up prices.

The other factor is that some people did very well during the lockdown. Overall yes a lot of people suffered, but if you had a well paid job that you could do from home, and didn't need to pay for a season ticket to go to work, buy lunch, haven't spent on a big holiday, haven't been out to the theatre or restaurants, then you may well have expanded your savings quite significantly. With the low number of houses on the market, there doesn't have to be huge numbers of people in that position for them to move house prices.

croutonwagon• 5 years ago

Yeah. The pandemic wasn’t the start of that either.

The market was nearing peak numbers, akin to 2006-2007 pre crash, before the pandemic shutdowns.

Partially because variable rate loans are still a thing. And the FED has kept prime rates at basically 0 since the last crash. And add in a pandemic where there’s now a desire for home office setups….

dasudasu• 5 years ago

I’d add fear of all the money being injected leading to high asset inflation and permanent higher prices if you don’t enter the market now.

throw0101a• 5 years ago

Also: demographics.

The oldest Millennials are 40, and more and more of that contingent are arriving in their 'family years', especially given the higher average ages of both marriage and pregnancy.

adflux3• 5 years ago

Lower borrowing rates are probably the most influential factor, as people can borrow more money to buy a house. Furthermore, investors are being forced into the housing market because their savings evaporate every day due to lower interest rates and inflation. There are so many investors buying and then subletting houses that the rents have actually decreased in some cities in the Netherlands

gambiting• 5 years ago

So here in UK it hasn't worked out quite like this - yes the interest rates are much lower, but because in general the borrowing risks have increased, banks have massively increased the deposits required. Couple years back you could get a mortgage with as little as 5% deposit, 10% to get the "good" interest rates. Nowadays it's 10-15% minimum, but if you want to see those 1% interest rates you have to put 20% down. That made it a lot more difficult to buy a house for first time buyers.

adflux3• 5 years ago

That made it a lot more difficult to buy a house for first time buyers.

Yes, but not for investors?

dmurray3• 5 years ago

The explanation in the article (people are moving out of London and seeking bigger properties elsewhere in the country) doesn't match the data (prices are flat in London, up elsewhere, up overall).

A move from the expensive city to cheaper regions would generally decrease house prices: the rise in the regions should be more than offset by the fall in London.

So we have to look further for the reason. Perhaps the move is disproportionately driven by Londoners rich enough to have bought a second home, either temporarily or permanently, so there hasn't been selling pressure in the London market. Perhaps there's a worldwide asset bubble and low interest rates, and Northamptonshire houses are just one small part of that.

simonjgreen2• 5 years ago

I suspect house prices rise easier than they fall, because people will not willingly sell in to a negative equity position

ludamad• 5 years ago

When doing calls to secure a mortgage, I definitely got a lot of "... And when your house appreciates in value...". On principle, I didn't want that getting to my head. Especially as I really do rather hope prices fall sharply for Canada's sake, my equity be damned.

That being said, if things were down I definitely wouldn't be looking to sell

dmurray3• 5 years ago

This only has a small effect, though. If the median London house was bought 10 years ago, it already appreciated 50%+. Selling into a 10% slump wouldn't put anyone in negative equity.

Majromax3• 5 years ago

A move from the expensive city to cheaper regions would generally decrease house prices: the rise in the regions should be more than offset by the fall in London.

Only if the people moving out of London owned their homes and were putting them on the market as new properties. If a renter moves out of London, it would show up in these statistics as a net increase in demand for owned housing, and any price effects would take time to percolate through via rent changes.

dmurray3• 5 years ago

Also a good explanation. In this case it's a version of the "wealthy Londoners going from owning one home to two", in which they instead move from zero homes to one.

beachy2• 5 years ago

When I lived in the UK last century, there was rampant house price inflation.

It seemed to me to be at least in part due to the bizarre contractual setup where even after a vendor had accepted an offer, they could still pull out and sell to a higher bidder. This led to purchasers paying over the top, just in order to try and prevent someone else "gazumping" them.

Of course we bought at the top of that cycle, and a year later our house was worth only 70% of what we paid for it. 2 of the 4 owners in our little row handed their keys to the bank and abandoned their properties as they were well under water with mortgages of significantly more than their property values.

That scarred me for life and I told plenty of people along the way that prices can go down as well as up.

Though with the benefit of hindsight, that's rare and houses are usually ... as safe as houses.

thaumasiotes• 5 years ago

It seemed to me to be at least in part due to the bizarre contractual setup
Of course we bought at the top of that cycle, and a year later or house was worth only 70% of what we paid for it.

Had the contractual setup changed over that period?

n4r92• 5 years ago

There was a crash in house prices in the UK in the early nineties, which may be what OP is referring to. The govt increased interest rates up to 15% in '92 in an attempt to protect the value of sterling, causing mortgages to default and house prices to fall.

beachy2• 5 years ago

I'm not an economist but it seems that gazumping and it's evil twin, gazundering (where the purchaser demands to pay a lower than agreed price, or they will pull out) don't necessarily cause increases in prices over the long term, but instead they increase volatility.

When prices are rising, gazumping makes them rise faster, and when the market is tanking, gazundering makes them crash harder.

Just my theory based on observation.

as367• 5 years ago

Properties are being gobbled up for any price, sight unseen, by wealthy investors flush with cheap low-interest cash, based on their expected future cash flow from renting to tenants. This is especially prevalent in the single family home market.

Eventually only the super rich will be able to afford to own a home.

Is this what the world economic forum meant by "You will own nothing and be happy."?

chrisseaton3• 5 years ago

sight unseen

This is a weird phrase when you think about it. Doesn't unseen imply sight? What does 'sight unseen' mean over 'unseen'?

Tsiklon• 5 years ago

I think perhaps it implies that the person hasn’t viewed the property in person, over having just viewed the photographs provided on the listing.

Someone who has viewed only the photos could be argued to have seen the property, yet still remain sight unseen of the property

croon• 5 years ago

I would assume the phrase originates from "sight" as a noun.

throwaway9980• 5 years ago

In this context sight has a couple of meanings. The first is like the sighting of land from a ship. The sight of the house is a glimpse of it. The second is simply the condition of the house.

I might tell my kids, “I can’t stand the sight of your room right now.” Which means I am upset by viewing the condition of their messy room.

ppf3• 5 years ago

Try explaining that to the "any death with Covid must be avoided at all costs" crowd. There is a good chance that the months preceding the global lockdown will mark the high point for all forms of progress on wage, wealth, and gender equality, and that the post-lockdown world will strongly favour the already wealthy and powerful.

It really makes me mad how predictable this has all been.

api2• 5 years ago

We’ve been on our way there for a long time my friend. The downfall of the US middle class started in the early 1970s. COVID may have accelerated some of those trends, but on the flip side it also vastly accelerated telework which allows people to escape cities with insanely high costs.

throwaway0a5e• 5 years ago

Those people got played like a fiddle by the people who are too smart to let a good crisis go to waste.

gremlinsinc2• 5 years ago

"all costs" could be avoided if conspiracy nuts would just wear masks, stay home when not needed, avoid crowded spots, and get vaccinated.

But "my freedumb" is more important than other's lives. So the only choice officials have is "force" us to take this serious since we can't be responsible adults.

Guest42• 5 years ago

I find it peculiar that this part goes mostly unmentioned although it accounts for a large portion of the purchases (forget the numbers off the top of my head).

api2• 5 years ago

It’s a big world. The best workaround for this is to move. Leave the overpriced cities and even overpriced countries. If enough people do this these rent seekers will not get a good return and will start unloading property.

On a related note it’s important to fight for telework culture or this can’t work. Remote work could be the single best thing to happen for the middle class in a generation or two.

throwaway6734• 5 years ago

Move to places with cheaper housing

dukeyukey• 5 years ago

People are - there's a heatmap in the article of where house prices are increasing the most. Increases are highest in poorer, generally rural areas (central-North England, Wales, South-west England) and the least in the most expensive areas (London, South-east England, Oxford/Cambridge).

jp5552• 5 years ago

I heard there are more realtors in the US than listings.

That'll do it.

kgwgk2• 5 years ago

It's not clear how that would explain that UK house prices are soaring.

jp5552• 5 years ago

I just mean that generally when supply is limited and demand goes up (which I think is the case in the UK as well), prices rise.

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

Also, middle class people are saving tons of money on everything from daycare to restaurants. I frequent personalfinancecanada and have spoken to a few co-workers about this.

Plenty had 3000 a month daycare bills. Not anymore. Plenty spent 1500 a month on restaurants. Not anymore. In Canada at least, we got to the point where 30% of income was being saved.

The savings rate in the second quarter of 2020 surged to 28.2 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. [0]

[0] https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/household-savings-in-...

LatteLazy3• 5 years ago

Not just the middle class. My lodgers used to spend 1 evening a month moving balances from one interest free credit card to another. The pandemic has meant they've paid their debt off. They suddenly asked about ISAs (British tax free savings accounts) and buying things for the house.

No booze, no eating out, fewer drugs, no entertainment events, no holidays, it cuts across economic groups.

MattGaiser2• 5 years ago

More accurately in my comment anyone who kept their job/source of income. But yes, a lot of people are doing well in all of this.

newsclues• 5 years ago

Lots of lower income people have been hit hard by inflation and stagnant or drops in income.

onlyrealcuzzo• 5 years ago

At least in the US - the increase in savings rate is tightly correlated with the stimulus payments. I'm pretty sure you got a lot of stimulus in Canada, too.

90% of adults don't have kids in daycare.

Even if you assume that all toddlers 1-5 go to day care and all of them have two parents (over 18) and no parents have two toddlers, the max is ~12% of the population. In reality, it's probably closer to ~7%.

Majromax3• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure you got a lot of stimulus in Canada, too.

Stimulus programs in Canada have been targeted towards loss of income, whether on the individual side through a job-loss cash benefit or on the business side through a wage subsidy program.

To my knowledge, no large jurisdiction in Canada has given out cash payments equivalent to the US stimulus money, so a family that has not suffered job loss (partial or full) will not have gained gross income.

teekert2• 5 years ago

Same in the Netherlands. People couldn't spend their savings on an expensive holiday, interest is super low, demand is super high, supply is very low.

So now when a house is presented online, sometimes within a day it says: Please don't respond anymore, our firm can't handle the amount of emails and phone calls. We invited 30 people/couples and then will assess.

Sometimes you can engage in the bidding war without reviewing the property, of course the chance of getting it is highest if you forego any rights you may have to step away from the deal should you run into financing issues. This presents a high risk because couples opt for loaning the maximum amount they can by both working full time. 10 years ago all my friends said: "we're sticking to a property we can afford on 1 salary, for safety and if we run into trouble."

It's already annoying if you have a house to sell for a ridiculous price but imagine what it's like when you are looking for your first property. Hopeless.

I'm glad I live in an acceptable house, but if we were in the market of 10 years ago (when realtors would only negotiate with one person/couple at a time) I would have moved on by now, to something more rural, bigger and with more land.

I feel stuck, it's crazy how different the situation is from 10 years ago.

I think we just needs start building, a lot, and fast. In stead we seem to be stuck on the amount of fixed nitrogen we produces, putting a break on everything (including construction) [0].

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-nitrogen-headach...

adflux3• 5 years ago

Even in rural area's prices the velocity of the market is nuts. Friend of mine sold a house for 1.3 million euro in 1 week... Insanity. A few years pre 2008 it was normal for houses in that price range to be on the market for at least months

madcows• 5 years ago

It's already annoying if you have a house to sell for a ridiculous price but imagine you are looking for your first property. Hopeless.

Yeah, we had to "strong arm" our landlord into selling to us be essentially breaking our lease and being huge pains in the asses. That is, we refused to allow open houses and showings in June/July of last year. Basically, it was "sell to us or good luck selling some crappy tenants."

It worked out though!

vishnugupta• 5 years ago

I had to sell my house in the Netherlands when I moved back to my home country in Q3 last year.

I was apprehensive if it'd sell fast enough or not because it was super challenging to arrange for the monthly mortgage. Even the broker didn't seem all that positive about selling it in the coming months because apparently the demand wasn't too great due to corona. She suggested we price it such a way that I don't lose money.

But. The very first person who viewed the house bid for it, 5% over the quoted price, signed the purchase agreement in like two weeks. I was over the moon, I even made a profit when all I was looking for was to just wrap up things at Netherlands.

It was a clear sign that housing demand was red hot in Amsterdam. The prices were already increasing since ~2015 due to a bunch of factors like Brexit and what not but then this pandemic pushed it to a whole new level. Craziness.

teekert2• 5 years ago

Yeah, I see people getting bids 15% over what they put the house up for. And it's considered normal to get more than what you "demand", it's more a "let's start the bidding at" price nowadays.

christkv• 5 years ago

Material prices for new builds are also rising fast. Wood prices have doubled and steel is up as well. I know this as we are looking to build a house.

edejong• 5 years ago

Rates are persistently low preventing mass inflation which is a risk due to increased money supply. So, property is a nice holding zone, increasing demand thus increasing prices.

In other words, nobody wants to hold liquid asset at the moment.

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

Yup, 10-20 years ago things were a bit crazy because you could get savings accounts with 5, 6% interest. Nowadays you get nothing for putting money in savings, so people look for other locations to put their money. It's boosting the stock market and the housing market both, as does low mortgage rates (1% now, 10 years fixed) and in my country at least, a massive housing shortage.

DebtDeflation• 5 years ago

It will be interesting to see how long the Fed can maintain ZIRP amidst twin bubbles in equity and real estate AND an inflation rate of 3-4% and accelerating. Given that markets seem to have priced in ZIRP Forever, the slightest shift away from that will almost certainly lead to a crash.

JCM9• 5 years ago

Housing supply isn’t something that can’t change very fast. Housing demand can. The last 18 months has seen as dramatic a shift in housing preferences as we’ve seen in a while. It’s not all up though. Prices in urban cores in some places struggled a lot while the surrounding suburbs are super hot. Being stuck inside, a rethink of how much one is in “the office” and other factors led to a sudden shift where people value their own grass, larger living spaces and such over living as close as possible to an urban center. For places with good public transit this accelerated even faster.

Majromax3• 5 years ago

This also implies that prices may steady (even if they don't return to "normal") over the longer term even if this demand shift continues.

Many of the exurban and rural areas seeing house price increases have not historically been places of high housing demand. It's not hard to build a new house there, it's just that until recently nobody wanted to. A covid-preference-induced exodus from large cities could be the best thing possible to revitalize small towns that, a generation or two ago, saw all of their young people drawn to work opportunities in the city.

durnygbur• 5 years ago

Exists there a country in Europe where housing is not hopeless for a salaried non-owning individual?

Cthulhu_2• 5 years ago

Every European country (except maybe the tiny tax havens) has 'desireable' and 'less desireable' areas, it's usually inversely proportional to the distance to well-paying jobs though. But if you're not bound to a location for your job - a privilege that IT workers have - you can live comfortably anywhere in most countries.

gher-shyu3i• 5 years ago

Another factor is money pumping by the government resulting in devaluation of currency. People want to put their money in hard assets that are resistant to inflation.

silicon24012• 5 years ago

One must keep in mind foreign investors. Competition gets a lot more fierce when a whole 1/3 of properties are being purchased by rich foreign investors in China [1], let alone your local rich. While I may be looking for a home to enjoy for years and years, somebody with 10-100x my wealth or more could just be looking for somewhere to throw their money.

1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-23/chinese-b...

gremlinsinc2• 5 years ago

I have to wonder... could China be buying up homes in USA to essentially de-stablize American markets?

If it forces more people into poverty, it could possibly benefit the CCP.

dariusj18• 5 years ago

I would seriously doubt that as the intent, but I'm sure the possibility would factor into their allowing it.

silicon24012• 5 years ago

Absolutely possible, crazier things have happened

Why are house prices rising so fast in a pandemic?

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