Yes, as it happens I'm in finance and fucked off with the way big lenders are happy to keep taking money off people at rates that are ridiculously high. The OP might find that he could be much better off just lumping everything together on his mortgage at bargain rates. Needs research though as loads of the heavily advertised companies are ripoff merchants.mwgdrwg said:Got a motgage you can sell us then?
House Prices
- Thread starter Griff
- Start date
Griff said:How on earth do first-time buyers cope these days, it's insane as salaries just don't go up anywhere near those percentage rises
It's an artificial market. Read the "financial" pages and see the concerns which certain financial experts have about the current state of affairs. When I bought my first house, interest rates went up to over 15% and most people still coped, but now people are worried about them rising only 1%, due to the effect it will have on their finances, so the market is far more fragile than people think. There's very little room for manoeuvre for many.
Personally I couldn't give a f*** any more. It's only six months since I sold my last property (I din't make a penny, but luckily I didn't lose anything either) but I have no interest in even looking in an estate agents window before next summer, possibly not even until 2008. I'm just about able to keep up with price rises, but I'm having a lot more fun since I no longer have the burden, which says a lot really. And I got out of the market at the right time, because prices in that area have been at a virtual standstill since this time last year. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone desperate to buy now though.
This will be one of New Labour's legacies though: creating a market where only the rich can afford to buy "underclass" property.
PacificOcean
Unhinged User
Giles said:What is "underclass" property?
Giles..
Two bed ex council flats on dodgy estates for £225k?
what a great idea - you got any spare land I can have to do the same ? - anything within 1 hours communting distance of London seems to be £100K + .
Ive got friends who are going down this path. Thye originally though maybe £20K would get tem a good sized rural plot a handful of miles from Brighton station.
I laughed out liud, but they wouldnt listen to me
one year on, realisation/ reality has set in and they are looking at up near Peterborough or 65 minutes out of Waterloo & about 150-200K for a house sized plot.
unelss you like in the Ozark mountains or somewhere, its difficult to find suitable land
Ive got friends who are going down this path. Thye originally though maybe £20K would get tem a good sized rural plot a handful of miles from Brighton station.
I laughed out liud, but they wouldnt listen to me one year on, realisation/ reality has set in and they are looking at up near Peterborough or 65 minutes out of Waterloo & about 150-200K for a house sized plot.
unelss you like in the Ozark mountains or somewhere, its difficult to find suitable land
PacificOcean
Unhinged User
Crispy said:
Have you never watched Grand Designs? It will be a disaster!
zoltan69 said:
I didn't say that you said this "time" will come.
What I asked is, under what circumstances would BoE feel it necessary to take action (putting up the base rate by 1 or 2% suddenly) that would almost certainly tip the economy into a big recession?
People talk about what will happen if or when interest rates go up a lot, but I am interested in why people think that this would happen. When would BoE decide that risking a huge crash in the housing market, big job losses, many people in debt trouble, etc, was worth it?
Giles..
H.Dot said:
I think that if you are prepared to weather the ups and downs of a property market then 25 years down the line it is very unlikely that the price of a property won't be significantly more than you paid for it. Over 5 years it's much more of a risk and if you are going to invest in property or just buy to live in you have to be prepared for the possibility of negative equity, spiralling interest rates and flying ants.
LilMissHissyFit
Disturbed in a pink bra
Welive in an area where many houses are around the £110-125K mark( depending on size etc) where they were worth only about £29K 3 years ago
a new build development is being stuck up quick as they can and are starting prices at £179,950
This in an area with masses of for sale signs and not an awful lot of sales at present
You have to wonder whether a cheeky offer of £120 for a new build might get accepted a year or so down the line if they cant sell them
The marketing blurb is definitely targetting buyers from outside the area becuase the locals find it hillarious, how different the truth is from the fiction they are describing!
a new build development is being stuck up quick as they can and are starting prices at £179,950
This in an area with masses of for sale signs and not an awful lot of sales at present
You have to wonder whether a cheeky offer of £120 for a new build might get accepted a year or so down the line if they cant sell them
The marketing blurb is definitely targetting buyers from outside the area becuase the locals find it hillarious, how different the truth is from the fiction they are describing!
vipper said:
.....is the correct answer!
The "I expect to make a shedload in 2 years" brigade will sometimes lose.
If you view it as a long-term thing, you won't lose, unless the government allow a total free for all in building new houses (which is politically unacceptable) or unless people decide that living in houses is no longer fashionable (which is unlikely).
Giles..
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
I bought my flat six years ago and the first two years were tight, but I managed.
Now, I couldn't afford to buy my own flat - in fact I doubt if I could afford to buy anyway within the city itself, except for the roughest and furthest out council estates. I'd have to live outside Edinburgh.
Now, I couldn't afford to buy my own flat - in fact I doubt if I could afford to buy anyway within the city itself, except for the roughest and furthest out council estates. I'd have to live outside Edinburgh.
Griff
Feeding the foxes
Crispy said:
Something I've looked into, and it can be done reasonably cheaply. The down side is the expense of land in the South East with planning permission to build on. Buying land without the two kinds of necessary planning permission to build on is a real gamble, as it could take years to get it.
Crispy said:
Yeh right!.....
Have you check real estate prices..
& building development planning prices.
Planning permision & Architechtual prices
material costs
labour costs..
Mate. your 100 grand in allready & the building aint even on blue prints yet..
I wanted to build my own gaff for years.. but you got to be loaded to build in the south of England..
Also because of the goverments plans to build more housing they snap up land before any one else & gets a look in..
I'm a council tenant, have been since 1991, and I anticipate remaining one until they put me in my box.
I'm not badly paid now (having been with my current employers for 17 years, the early ones very far from well paid) and at no stage since I moved to London in 1988, could I even DREAM of affording to buy any property, anywhere in London, as a single person. The early 90s 'property crash' was meaningless -- I had just become a council tenant then, and the difference between £200,000 and £250,000 (or whatever) was between absolutely unaffordable and that bit more absolutely unaffordable.
Prices were once bonkers, now they are stark, staring, raving, straightjacketted mad -- for ANY normal person on a normal to modestly good wage (ie anything less than about £40,000, and thats WAY above what I get now).
I'm staying put. I'm a secure tenant, in a well constructed brick clad block, in a one bed flat with spacious rooms. Buying anything equivalent in size anywhere near as close into London as I am now, would cost not far off £300,000, so that can fuck right off. Exercising the 'right to buy' my own place is absolutely against every principle I uphold, and I couldn't do it.
But staying off the 'housing ladder' leaves me free of financial stress, free of debt, and with a civilised lifestyle. Southwark Council subsidise my beer drinking and festival tours 
I can also afford to stay debt free and save a little bit of money. Any more money I might eventually get from my parents (and it won't be more than a few thousand) will go towards my pension.
Property/the 'housing market' is a total and utter con, I appreciate I'm extremely lucky in being able to see and say that, so no finger wagging please. It was somewhat easier for me to get housed in 1991 than now, but even back then I got lucky.
I'd have had to have left London by now, otherwise.
I'm not badly paid now (having been with my current employers for 17 years, the early ones very far from well paid) and at no stage since I moved to London in 1988, could I even DREAM of affording to buy any property, anywhere in London, as a single person. The early 90s 'property crash' was meaningless -- I had just become a council tenant then, and the difference between £200,000 and £250,000 (or whatever) was between absolutely unaffordable and that bit more absolutely unaffordable.
Prices were once bonkers, now they are stark, staring, raving, straightjacketted mad -- for ANY normal person on a normal to modestly good wage (ie anything less than about £40,000, and thats WAY above what I get now).
I'm staying put. I'm a secure tenant, in a well constructed brick clad block, in a one bed flat with spacious rooms. Buying anything equivalent in size anywhere near as close into London as I am now, would cost not far off £300,000, so that can fuck right off. Exercising the 'right to buy' my own place is absolutely against every principle I uphold, and I couldn't do it.
But staying off the 'housing ladder' leaves me free of financial stress, free of debt, and with a civilised lifestyle. Southwark Council subsidise my beer drinking and festival tours
I can also afford to stay debt free and save a little bit of money. Any more money I might eventually get from my parents (and it won't be more than a few thousand) will go towards my pension.
Property/the 'housing market' is a total and utter con, I appreciate I'm extremely lucky in being able to see and say that, so no finger wagging please. It was somewhat easier for me to get housed in 1991 than now, but even back then I got lucky.
I'd have had to have left London by now, otherwise.
sir.clip said:
'Showing off'???
What do you mean, 'nothing to be proud of'? I'm very happy about it.
And how else can I explain my take on all this without saying I was lucky and how?
If I **didn't** self out myself as a lucky bugger, I'd be getting calls of 'lucky bastard' hurled AT me by some ... I'm just pre-empting ...
It's not ALL positive, my flexibility to move/change jobs is very very limited ...
No complaints though, at least not for now
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
William of Walworth said:What do you mean, 'nothing to be proud of'? I'm very happy about it.
And how else can I explain my take on all this without saying I was lucky and how?
If I **didn't** self out myself as a lucky bugger, I'd be getting calls of 'lucky bastard' hurled AT me by some ... I'm just pre-empting ...
It's not ALL positive, my flexibility to move/change jobs is very very limited ...
No complaints though, at least not for now
you can move out of london via mutual exchange though, wow
not suggesting you clear off or anything
marty21 said:you can move out of london via mutual exchange though, wow
not suggesting you clear off or anything
It may happen eventually, but only through lengthy bureaucracy and the odd downpayment of 'removal costs'
Job's more of the problem.
sir.clip said:
'Acting oak'? What the fuck do you mean? I'm trying to explain why I'm one of those not ensnared by the property ladder. And getting comprehensibly sniped at and sneered by you in consequence.
And I don't that often talk about it anyway. Compare the numbers of posts I've done on festivals (just one example!) and all sorts of other subjects, to the number I've done about my flat, and the former far outweighs the latter.
And ... 'Son'? Rather a familiar tone, there ... do I know you, from 'earlier'?? <suspicious>
Perhaps I do as you (completely mis)percieve, partly because in the recent past I've got a TAD fucked off with being slandered by just one or two wankers (your friends, 'elsewhere', perhaps??
) as a middle class privileged Guardian reading incomer, and because I got a bit pissed off by having my politics and social circumstances lied about!The only reason I'm in any way debt free or lead a relatively comfortable life is because I have a job that's only reasonably paid because of where I live. Why the fuck for me to say that is considered by you to be 'boasting' is beyond me. And most people who were REALLY 'middle class' would consider my circumstances nothing to 'boast' about at all.
I was thinking until very recently that you were pretty cool and funny, but you're coming across as a bit of a twat a.t.m. ..
