£15/hour

[Mark Bolam]

House ownership is a privilege, not a right.

Retired Climber has made a very valid point.

[Mark Bolam]

I do feel sorry for the first timers though.

 

Young couple - ‘Can we have a mortgage?’.

 

Bank - ‘No, you can’t afford £500/ month’.

 

Young couple - ‘We are paying £1000/month rent now, we can afford £500/month mortgage’.

 

Bank - ‘Well how come you can’t raise a 15% deposit then?’.

 

Young couple - ‘Because we are paying £1000/month rent).

 

Not an easy problem to fix.

 

[Squaredy]

4 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

I don't think that I agree, but it's not as simple as whether you own it or not. 

 

I believe that everyone has the right to stable, secure, high quality accommodation. Owning your own house in the UK gives you the best chance of achieving that. The rental market is fraught with insecurity for the tenant, as well as being very unaffordable in many areas.

 

The difference is that other countries manage to have a wonderful system of social housing and private rental properties. It is in places so good that private house ownership seems like a pointless goal. Like, why would you send your children to a fee-paying school is the local comp was outstanding? 

 

 

I've hypothesised in the past about why UK housing is so terrible, and my best guess is that we became a largely urbanised nation in the 19th Century, with the vast bulk of housing by provided by the industrialists who also provided the employment. As such, we absolved ourselves of the responsibility of building our own housing.

 

The UK housing market is entirely in the hands of a few large developers, who are rather effective at lobbying the government to maintain very low building standards, both in terms of building materials used, but also house design and space. 

 

Couple that with the demise of UK manufacturing in the 70s and an exponential increase in investment in housing as a form of income production (fuelled by the right to buy scheme) and you're left with a situation where Joe Bloggs on the street is:

 

• Not interested in building their own house
• Not interested in the actual quality of the house, as it's only a step on the ladder/investment

Then pack in historically low interest rates and money from quantitative easing and you've got crap housing, bought by people disinterested it it's crappiness, funded with money that doesn't actually exist and with interest charged on the amount that is so low that it's below inflation in some cases. Whilst all the time the property magically becomes more and more valuable.....

 

I don't think the bubble will burst imminently, but it can't be far off.

I remember thinking back in the nineties that there must be a limit to how high house prices could go, as eventually if they got too expensive buyers would not be able to afford them.

 

Sadly what has happened is that a mixture of foreign and domestic investors have kept pushing up prices well beyond what is healthy.  And of course more and more people ending up going to the bank of Mum and Dad or Grandmum and Granddad.

 

I can't believe that many people think it is healthy to have house prices in many areas totally out of reach of even people with good jobs.

 

If I still lived in the area I grew up in (Kenley, Surrey) I would be absolutely certain that my children would never be able to buy a nice house in the area.  Actually, that is almost the case here in Newport South Wales.  A tidy house in a reasonable road near me now is at least a third of a million.  Building plots can be over £200,000!

[eggsarascal]

5 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

I remember thinking back in the nineties that there must be a limit to how high house prices could go, as eventually if they got too expensive buyers would not be able to afford them.

 

Sadly what has happened is that a mixture of foreign and domestic investors have kept pushing up prices well beyond what is healthy.  And of course more and more people ending up going to the bank of Mum and Dad or Grandmum and Granddad.

 

I can't believe that many people think it is healthy to have house prices in many areas totally out of reach of even people with good jobs.

 

If I still lived in the area I grew up in (Kenley, Surrey) I would be absolutely certain that my children would never be able to buy a nice house in the area.  Actually, that is almost the case here in Newport South Wales.  A tidy house in a reasonable road near me now is at least a third of a million.  Building plots can be over £200,000!

It's madness, £15/ hour is out of the way, my mate is in the process of buying a 3rd of an acre that he can't build on, it's basically a big garden... £80k. I kid you not.

[Squaredy]

4 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

It's madness, £15/ hour is out of the way, my mate is in the process of buying a 3rd of an acre that he can't build on, it's basically a big garden... £80k. I kid you not.

And there are landed estates up and down the country that won't sell off any land, simply because they don't need to.  My landlord (of my work site) has such vast estates he has certainly never visited half of them.

[trigger_andy]

Mortgages are back down to about 3 1/2 times annual income.
If you’re on £30k you can probably buy a bathroom these days.
 
It’s a big problem, and I don’t know what the fix is.

Buy where you can afford?

My brother just gave up a £50-£60k managerial job in London to move back to Scotland to take a gamble at being self employed. He was on over £1500 a month in rent and that was discounted as his boss owned the place. He now has a 2 bed ex-council house and has a £400 a month mortgage.

If you want it to happen it will.

[trigger_andy]

Let's presume you are renting a room, (around here) at say, £550/month. How do you save for a deposit on a mortgage?

By working hard?

[trigger_andy]

 
Emigrate. 
 
It's not our only reason for going, but it's one of the main ones. Given the choice between paying off a mortgage for the rest of my life (given that a normal 4 bed house here is £500-600k, that's £20k a year on the mortgage for the rest of my working life) or buying somewhere outright for the cost of a 15% deposit here, the choice was pretty clear.
 
Not being an oracle, I can't predict the future of the housing market in the UK, but logic dictates that if the young can't get onto the property ladder then the whole thing comes crashing down. The increases in National Insurance and inflationary pressures aren't going to help either. 
 
The UK has a pathological issue with housing. It can only be blamed on decades of successive political mismanagement from administration after administration. There is a list as long as my arm that illustrates this, but it's late and I just can't be bothered. 
 
You're f*cked if you want to buy a house now if you're not already on the ladder.

What you’re dining is trapping yourself into a corner. I’m sure Sweden will suit you to the ground, but if it does not then…..

You say the U.K. market is gonna come crashing down then you say you’re farked if you’re not already on the ladder. Make your mind up J [emoji16]

Personally I think the U.K. will end up like many island nations like Japan. Multi-generational mortgages. No crash, no implosion just a slow but steady increase in “value”.

Im quite sure you’ll never return to the U.K. J, and I don’t blame you. The world is your oyster now, but not the U.K. Once you’re out the game here it’s gonna be next to impossible to buy here again. Unless you come back to Scotland 🤣

[spuddog0507]

This might be a bit boring but its based on facts that i can remember,

I bought a house in 1985 at a cost of 22.5k, at that time i was self employed on £3.50hr labouring for a builder, at this time a pint in the local was 70p a pint, so to put that in to perspective for the cost of my house would of been 32,000 pints of beer,

i have just looked at what simular houses sell for today and i would be looking at around the 200k mark, i dont know what a average person earns today but i do know what ale costs and its getting close to a fiver today, so a 200k house would be 40,000 pints so something has changed ? this above is based on a simular property that i bought but there is 2 bedroom flats available for 120k which puts it in to a better perspective for todays first time buyers,

Then there is several other things to take in to consideration which all add to the equation, if you run a car/van today the insurance when you have past your test is outragouse today at around 2-2.5k, my first van was at 17 and was a Bedford HA viva van and the insurance was £42 for the year and at that time it was just over a wks wage, So with todays youngsters paying stuppied amounts like that this will hamper saving, 

Then today we nearly all have a mobile phone in our pockets and this comes up on every expence sheet when applying for any sort of finance as today it is taken for granted that you have a phone and it is a expence, but back in the mid 80s mobiles where just about here but not many had them, if i wanted to make a call i had to find a Phone box and hope i had either a 2p or a 2 bob in my pocket,

In our small town back in the 80s we only had 2 chippy.s and there was only one of them open after 7pm ,we had no Indians, Chinese, or Italian take away,s today we have 2 Indians, 3 Chinese, 5 Italian take aways and a subway plus many other day time take away,s and there is all ways some one in them, We dont have a Mcdonalds, Kentucky or Burger king as yet but what we do have is several ice cream parlours and sit in desert bars ! well thats what i call em, 

So to sum it up YES things have changed but i dont think someone in there 20s to buy there first property is out of reach by a long way, its just all the other costs they have that we did,nt back in the 80s/90s, when it comes to that expence sheet there will be a phone contract, car insurance, credit card, loans etc this lowers the chances of being able to qualify for a mortgage today, and with the expences they have today that are now taken for granted hampers saving for that deposit !, and then its like do they need to go and get a Pizza at 10pm eat half of it and bin the rest, No they dont, i used to get them when we got our first Pizza take away and i could,nt eat it all i did,nt bin it i took it to work day after for my dinner, I think its just the way the younger generation spend there money and its not wisely i am afraid, there is one saving they do make tho that my generation didnt and that is they dont buy records today or as my kids called them early versions of CDs i used to buy a couple every wk and they was about 75p a go, So i just think todays youngsters just have to much to spend there money on that we didnt have back when we was saving for houses,  

[eggsarascal]

15 minutes ago, spuddog0507 said:

This might be a bit boring but its based on facts that i can remember,

I bought a house in 1985 at a cost of 22.5k, at that time i was self employed on £3.50hr labouring for a builder, at this time a pint in the local was 70p a pint, so to put that in to perspective for the cost of my house would of been 32,000 pints of beer,

i have just looked at what simular houses sell for today and i would be looking at around the 200k mark, i dont know what a average person earns today but i do know what ale costs and its getting close to a fiver today, so a 200k house would be 40,000 pints so something has changed ? this above is based on a simular property that i bought but there is 2 bedroom flats available for 120k which puts it in to a better perspective for todays first time buyers,

Then there is several other things to take in to consideration which all add to the equation, if you run a car/van today the insurance when you have past your test is outragouse today at around 2-2.5k, my first van was at 17 and was a Bedford HA viva van and the insurance was £42 for the year and at that time it was just over a wks wage, So with todays youngsters paying stuppied amounts like that this will hamper saving, 

Then today we nearly all have a mobile phone in our pockets and this comes up on every expence sheet when applying for any sort of finance as today it is taken for granted that you have a phone and it is a expence, but back in the mid 80s mobiles where just about here but not many had them, if i wanted to make a call i had to find a Phone box and hope i had either a 2p or a 2 bob in my pocket,

In our small town back in the 80s we only had 2 chippy.s and there was only one of them open after 7pm ,we had no Indians, Chinese, or Italian take away,s today we have 2 Indians, 3 Chinese, 5 Italian take aways and a subway plus many other day time take away,s and there is all ways some one in them, We dont have a Mcdonalds, Kentucky or Burger king as yet but what we do have is several ice cream parlours and sit in desert bars ! well thats what i call em, 

So to sum it up YES things have changed but i dont think someone in there 20s to buy there first property is out of reach by a long way, its just all the other costs they have that we did,nt back in the 80s/90s, when it comes to that expence sheet there will be a phone contract, car insurance, credit card, loans etc this lowers the chances of being able to qualify for a mortgage today, and with the expences they have today that are now taken for granted hampers saving for that deposit !, and then its like do they need to go and get a Pizza at 10pm eat half of it and bin the rest, No they dont, i used to get them when we got our first Pizza take away and i could,nt eat it all i did,nt bin it i took it to work day after for my dinner, I think its just the way the younger generation spend there money and its not wisely i am afraid, there is one saving they do make tho that my generation didnt and that is they dont buy records today or as my kids called them early versions of CDs i used to buy a couple every wk and they was about 75p a go, So i just think todays youngsters just have to much to spend there money on that we didnt have back when we was saving for houses,  

It's not out of reach, my nephew and his partner have just bought their own place, his words to me, "it's fecking expensive getting a house ain't it, Simon".

 

When I asked my brother, his dad why he hadn't helped him, he said, "I let him sweat it, now he's got a place I'll pay for all the furnishings".

 

Harsh in my eyes. But shows it can be done.