Big J on radio 4..

[Stubby]

9 minutes ago, monkeybusiness said:

I think you are correct. Most farmers know everyone/everything that is going on in their area - their’s isn’t a business that pops up overnight.

It is moving away from the point to suggest that it is difficult/impossible to deal with farmers though - they (and this is a generalisation based on my experience) tend to be incredibly shrewd, and often successfully run much much larger businesses than appearances may suggest! They are as good at doing deals as they are at turning sunshine into milk/wheat/lamb etc! 

I sometimes recon they think they are being shrewd but ...One lovely old boy who was a personal friend of mine ( sadly passed away recently ) had one of the laborers use up a few   boxes of stick weld on a sub soiler/plough   thingey   then  angle grind them back , and the best part of a day doing it , ( Sussex flint ) rather than going down to Goodrows and buying some new shear blades and bolting them on . ( down time would be 20 mins or so ....)

[Big J]

5 hours ago, eggsarascal said:

I agree with the vast majority of the above but, J says he's a first time buyer that wants a big family home with sheds, or the room to build sheds and a few acres of land, I'm afraid that isn't how it works unless you are rolling in money. Most folk from the 'baby boom' generation who are sitting on property worth big money started with a terraced house, or a semi. They didn't just rush out and buy a big house in a big plot of land.

 

Why not? Given the cost of moving house (stamp duty, principally), it's made more sense for us to invest in the business for the past ten years in order to get ourselves into the position to buy somewhere half decent. 

 

If you were to speak to many people in rural locations around Europe, our desire for a 4 bed house with a few sheds and a few acres would not be regarded as ostentatious. A terraced house or semi detached (unless it came with a lot of land) would be not use to us at all. I'm nearly 40ft long with the big van and trailer, where do I park that? What if I bring the tractor and trailer home? Similar issue. Where do I store a forwarder weighing 16t, let alone work on it? 

[eggsarascal]

4 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

Why not? Given the cost of moving house (stamp duty, principally), it's made more sense for us to invest in the business for the past ten years in order to get ourselves into the position to buy somewhere half decent. 

 

If you were to speak to many people in rural locations around Europe, our desire for a 4 bed house with a few sheds and a few acres would not be regarded as ostentatious. A terraced house or semi detached (unless it came with a lot of land) would be not use to us at all. I'm nearly 40ft long with the big van and trailer, where do I park that? What if I bring the tractor and trailer home? Similar issue. Where do I store a forwarder weighing 16t, let alone work on it? 

Why not? Because working hard for 10 years and investing in your business doesn't give you some sort of entitlement to have a big pitch, it never as done and never will unless you are earning serious money. I got half of my bungalows value less what was owed (not a lot) when me and the mrs split up, could I buy that property at the going rate now?, probably not, tuff luck Eggsy, go elsewhere. Sell all your new gear and replace it with mend it and make do stuff. I don't see companies that seem to be getting on ok like @aspenarb running around with new kit. Cake and eat it, I'm afraid you can't have.

[Big J]

9 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

Why not? Because working hard for 10 years and investing in your business doesn't give you some sort of entitlement to have a big pitch, it never as done and never will unless you are earning serious money. I got half of my bungalows value less what was owed (not a lot) when me and the mrs split up, could I buy that property at the going rate now?, probably not, tuff luck Eggsy, go elsewhere. Sell all your new gear and replace it with mend it and make do stuff. I don't see companies that seem to be getting on ok like @aspenarb running around with new kit. Cake and eat it, I'm afraid you can't have.

I don't accept that argument. We build the smallest houses in Western Europe, we have the most unequal land ownership in Europe and the housing market is fundamentally broken. The cost of housing and land for housing bears little relation to the actual cost of construction and the market is destined to bust as it's propped only by unsustainably low interest rates.4

 

Developers are able, through cost cutting and economies of scale, to get the average construction cost down to below £1000/square metre. My brother's house in Exeter is a new build and a very modest 90 odd square metres. 3 bed, 3 bath (totally unnecessary, but it seems to be the trend to have loads of loos). Construction cost will definitely have been under £100k, it sits on a plot of about 200 square metres (so including roads, about 15 houses per acre). It cost them £330k. It's not worth £330k, materially. Not even close. The only reason why the developer (Persimmon) can charge as much as that is that banks are willing to lend it. But given that the money doesn't actually exist, you have to call into question the whole stack of cards. 

 

With affordable land, I could build what we need for about half of what we'd have to spend if we were to buy the finished article. I've just spend 10-15 minutes perusing Rightmove, and the number of shitty old barns with Class Q planning for hundreds of thousands of pounds is staggering. Ramshackle old sheds that would have been worth £20-30k before Class Q are suddenly worth 10 times as much. It's just preposterous.

[difflock]

Well then, "J" to be proper blunt, fuck off back to Germany.?

Or Poland, or Hungary or Bulgeria or somewhere.

Simples!

Edited August 31, 2019 by difflock

[eggsarascal]

16 minutes ago, Big J said:

I don't accept that argument. We build the smallest houses in Western Europe, we have the most unequal land ownership in Europe and the housing market is fundamentally broken. The cost of housing and land for housing bears little relation to the actual cost of construction and the market is destined to bust as it's propped only by unsustainably low interest rates.4

 

Developers are able, through cost cutting and economies of scale, to get the average construction cost down to below £1000/square metre. My brother's house in Exeter is a new build and a very modest 90 odd square metres. 3 bed, 3 bath (totally unnecessary, but it seems to be the trend to have loads of loos). Construction cost will definitely have been under £100k, it sits on a plot of about 200 square metres (so including roads, about 15 houses per acre). It cost them £330k. It's not worth £330k, materially. Not even close. The only reason why the developer (Persimmon) can charge as much as that is that banks are willing to lend it. But given that the money doesn't actually exist, you have to call into question the whole stack of cards. 

 

With affordable land, I could build what we need for about half of what we'd have to spend if we were to buy the finished article. I've just spend 10-15 minutes perusing Rightmove, and the number of shitty old barns with Class Q planning for hundreds of thousands of pounds is staggering. Ramshackle old sheds that would have been worth £20-30k before Class Q are suddenly worth 10 times as much. It's just preposterous.

It doesn't matter if you agree with the argument, it's the fact of the matter. 15 years or so ago I put a sealed bid on a run down place place that sat in a good plot at £250k, didn't win.If local word is right the winning bidder put £440k on it, I thought I'd been hard done by, then I got a grip.

[Big J]

10 minutes ago, difflock said:

Well then, "J"to be proper blunt, fuck off back to Germany.

Or Poland, or Hungary or Bulgeria or somewhere.

Simples!

Easy for you to say with you bought and paid for farm. Resorting to such personal insults only serves to undermine your position.

 

You're not addressing the issue, which is that there is no correlation between the material cost of a build and the 'value' of a finished property. The only thing that links it is this mysterious enigma called "market rate" which is facilitated by the banks' ever increasing willingness to lend money that doesn't really exist. 

 

A similar scenario would be if you wanted to buy a new BMW. It has been £40k, but it's now £60k, but it's OK but the bank has looked at your income and you can afford the payments. It doesn't mean that the product is worth £60k, it only means that can get finance for it. There is a distinct difference. 

 

When my parents bought their first house in 1982, the average UK houseprice was £21k. It is now £225k. Almost 11 times more, when inflation has been 3.5 times. Appreciating that interest rates were higher then, in real terms, houses cost three times as much now as then. How is anyone actually meant to get on the property ladder? Especially in the south of the UK, where average property prices are much higher. 

[briscoe]

Why not wait until either you have the income/money  to buy a 650K property or see if Brexit will effect property prices? Most people at your age couldnt buy a 650K property. In the mean time buy a small house and rent a bit of land from a farmer - plenty in Devon.

[Big J]

8 minutes ago, briscoe said:

Why not wait until either you have the income/money  to buy a 650K property or see if Brexit will effect property prices? Most people at your age couldnt buy a 650K property. In the mean time buy a small house and rent a bit of land from a farmer - plenty in Devon.

It's a false economy though. We just want a home, and the British obsession with buy to invest, sit on it for a few years, sell on at a profit and upsize doesn't sit well with us at all. We're in a position where we could afford to build all elements of what we need, except that planning law means that 10 acres of woodland/pasture is £50-70k, but the very same 10 acres with the permission to build a single house could be 10 times that.

 

Is there anything along the lines of a Croft provided for in rural planning down here? I realise that in the narrow terms specified, I wouldn't meet the criteria of being an agricultural business, but we are a rural business and I don't regard the distinction between land management by farming or by forestry as being materially significant.

 

Edit: As I mentioned before, we've spent £170k on rent in the past ten years. It's money down the drain and all you're doing is lining someone else pockets. It's not sustainable.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Big J

[difflock]

56 minutes ago, Big J said:

Easy for you to say with you bought and paid for farm. Resorting to such personal insults only serves to undermine your position.

 

You're not addressing the issue, which is that there is no correlation between the material cost of a build and the 'value' of a finished property. The only thing that links it is this mysterious enigma called "market rate" which is facilitated by the banks' ever increasing willingness to lend money that doesn't really exist. 

 

A similar scenario would be if you wanted to buy a new BMW. It has been £40k, but it's now £60k, but it's OK but the bank has looked at your income and you can afford the payments. It doesn't mean that the product is worth £60k, it only means that can get finance for it. There is a distinct difference. 

 

When my parents bought their first house in 1982, the average UK houseprice was £21k. It is now £225k. Almost 11 times more, when inflation has been 3.5 times. Appreciating that interest rates were higher then, in real terms, houses cost three times as much now as then. How is anyone actually meant to get on the property ladder? Especially in the south of the UK, where average property prices are much higher. 

As a younger man, I too failed to have the wisdom to accept that what I could not change, which is what I perceive  you are doing during the course of this discussion.

btw, My comment was entirely facetious, but you are rather banging on about a subject you are very unlikely to change, unless as someone said the "Project Fear" campaign is correct and the UK economy collapses post Brexit.

See there might be a silver lining in there for you "J"

Edited August 30, 2019 by difflock