I’ve been looking at houses. Totally depressing experience. Back when I bought my first house, it cost me ???79K – for a two bedroom converted church in a rural area in the middle of a field bounced by rivers on two sides. These days I’m finding it hard to find anything under ???130K that isn’t in a ghetto. What happened to the market?
Being in the market for houses is incredibly distracting. I’m looking for somewhere in a rural area, ideally near the coast. Obviously it needs to be in a broadband-enabled area (which thankfully is just about everywhere).
Turns out we’re in the middle of a housing boom in Northern Ireland. A building society revealed that prices in the province rose significantly in the first quarter of 2006, jumping by 17.6 per cent, three and a half times greater than the British average increase for the period. Northern Ireland had been the cheapest part of Britain to buy property, but it is now more expensive than Scotland and the north of England, seeing average house prices of ???129,321.
This conflicts with another report which reports that overall average price of residential property for Northern Ireland for the fourth quarter of 2005 is ???145,987. That’s even more depressing. A mortgage of 130K (at 4%) means payments of ???700 a month for 25 years. No wonder I know some first time buyers who are taking 100% mortgages over 40 years rather than 25. A friend of mine can’t buy near her parents because their house cost them 6K but the house three doors down now costs a whopping ???195,000.
BUGGER
On other news, we may be about to hit a bit of a slowdown in development which we hope will not cause a release slip. Just kidding