House Prices

[Jambooboo]

Fuck knows how I'm ever going to be able to afford a house.

Even if all was 'perfect' (which it never is) ie. I complete my MA, get a entry level graduate job earning about the usual £20k a year, and buy with my partner a year or two down the line our maximum combined limit with a 3x salary mortgage would be about £120,000. This would perhaps just about buy the apartment we're renting now for £575 a month.

It's fucked. My older brother is nicely on the property ladder, having bought his first place with his wife six years back, which he sold a year ago for triple what he paid.

As awful as it sounds, I sometimes think the only time I'll be able to afford to buy is when one or both of my folks are in the ground.

 

[Kanda]

My 1st flat was a 40% shared ownership, my mortgage: 12.5k.....

Excellent starter to get on the market but fucking numpty here sold it after 2 years and moved to London, then the fecking houseprices BOOMED!!!

/selfsmack /grumble /feckingtwat

 

[Hollis]

The big difference from 10 years ago when I bought my first flat is that it cost 56k. Which is alright if you earning 18k which I was. If you're earning 18 - or even 25k now - 100k is waaaaaay out of your price range. And even if they did give 4x salary mortgages, you'd be fucked if the market tipped a teeny tiny bit.

4* is quite commmon now.. and providing you take out a fixed rate mortgage you can protect yourself: I agree though you probably need to be earning pushing 27-30k to think about it.

 

[sir.clip]

SE London is lovely

Brrraaaaaapppppp..

South east london is lovely, Moon..

 

[mentalchik]

It aint just London that has high prices, you can't get a 1 bed flat here (Northampton)for under £100,000 which is why i now have to move in with my mum, making us grossly over crowded to force the councils hand !

I earn just over £11,000 absolutely no chnce i'm EVER gonna get back into owning a house and tbh i don't want to any more !

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I see that side of it but I'm not convinced.

I've known people whose mortgages have been less than my rent, but they were still laying out a small fortune for a shoebox, whereas my rent got me a half-decent flat. Nor am I convinced that renting is even usually more expensive: sometimes, perhaps, but once you factor in maintenance etc I don't believe renting comes out more expensive.

If renting is sometimes cheaper, what do you do with the money you 'save'? Do you fritter it away on a better standard of living in the present? Or do you make more/bigger contributions into your pension?

In the long term? Well, maybe you'll end up with a property to sell to provide for old age, but for me that seems a long time off and I'm not disposed to worry about it now. Besides, you might be able to sell the house, but you won't see a fair bit of the money if there's still a humungous mortgage outstanding on it.

I figure that I'll be mortgage free by retirement age, so I won't need to carry on finding money for rent. I'll therefore have a better standard of living/greater disposable income.

If needs be, I'll be in a position to sell the property to provide for care in my old age.

In much of Europe, house-buying is much less prevalent than it has become here in the last few decades (and it's a pretty modern British fad) and people seem to manage okay. They don't have the inevitable panics about debt and negative equity that happen every so often here, for a start...

I'm not suggesting that no-one should buy their own house - just that the 'property ladder' is a bit of a con, there are a lot of risks involved, and it's as well to remember that renting is a perfectly sensible option for many.

As for the property ladder being a bit of a con -- well, I figure it's less of a con than a pension. I'd rather have my pension in the bricks and mortar over my head than in some company pension that might go bust. There have been too many instances for my liking of people paying into pension schemes for years and years and then the company goes bust and they end up with nothing. I know there are some protections in place now, but still I don't really trust pensions. And as for the state pension... by the time I retire, I don't believen there will be a state pension. As it is, people have paid into the state pension for years and end up with a pittance that isn't enough to live on...

I figure my money's going to be safer in my property than in some massive money pit that company executives or civil servants can dip into and deplete my savings.

 

[liberty]

Having just moved and having paid 10k on stamp duty and over 10k on solicitor and estate agents I have no idea how first time buyers do it now.

 

[equationgirl]

Average age of first time buyer is now in the early thirties. Many people only afford to buy through buying somewhere with somebody else, two incomes being better than one (up to a point). But that comes with its own set of problems.

Boom in buy-to-lets and all these 'how to be a property developer' programmes is doing the first time buyer no favours at all.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Having just moved and having paid 10k on stamp duty and over 10k on solicitor and estate agents I have no idea how first time buyers do it now.

I am looking at moving but the the 3% stamp duty and fees (like you) are adding £20k to my mortgage. I can afford the move but if I have kids or am out of work for a second I'm fucked.
I've got equity now of £110, that means that if I was to be in the same position I am now without buying my first place four years ago I wouldn't even be able to buy the place I currently want to move out of (too small).

 

[Giles]

I was so lucky to be in a position of buying my first place when prices were a lot lower. I bought a 2 bed flat in Willesden in 1992 for £49K, which at that time I could just afford.

It is so much more difficult for people starting out now, in London and much of the UK.

I do think that prices will come down. Once there are hardly any first-time buyers, the price elevator will have to stop, won't it?

Giles..

 

[Donna Ferentes]

They may come down, but presumably not to anything like the same levels (in real terms) that they were at, say, thrity years ago.

 

[lyra_k]

I was so lucky to be in a position of buying my first place when prices were a lot lower. I bought a 2 bed flat in Willesden in 1992 for £49K, which at that time I could just afford.

I almost bought a flat in Willesden in about 1995, to be closer to work, didn't do it because I had a nice Victorian terrace with a garden in Watford ( ) and I would have had to move to a flat.

Wish I had now. Mind you, even the house in Watford is worth silly money now, considering where it is and what I paid for it.

 

[Rohen]

IM hoping to win the lottery then I can just fuck off out of britain

Ive had enough

 

[William of Walworth]

They may come down, but presumably not to anything like the same levels (in real terms) that they were at, say, thrity years ago.

Spot on.

 

[Griff]

Well after 9 days on the market 2 first time buyers have put in offers of £250k (remember it's only a 2 bedroom end of terrace on the outskirts of London) and now they're bidding for the white goods to be paid cash.

I should be happy with 2 chain-free bidders, but I'm not as 1 couple will lose out and they both seemed really nice. Plus it's our home and we're moving out to a smaller place, albeit it's a character Victorian semi-cottage.

I can feel the stress of the next couple of months already.