Cameron's housing plans

[anything I don't mind]

You've missed the point - the reason that the larger homes stay on the market for longer is because fewer people can afford them. I agree it'd be great if we could all afford to live in 4-bed detached bungalows like they do in the USA but the reality is that with land values and planning targets, there just isn't the space for that in this country.

That is exactly what we need to reduce prices of housing. When people can't afford housing the prices come down to what they should be. Instead of making it easier through (new buy schemes) to buy properties that people can't afford. They should scrap all that and if people can't sell their houses for £100k more than they bought it, then maybe they should sell it for less.

Problem is that no one who owns a house or who is in government wants house prices to come down, they think they are winning the housing lottery every year when they make another £20k and the conservatives plans are designed to keep the house prices rising. Not to reduce house prices.

 

[scorza]

We would love to train more people. Problem is kids leave school and want cushy inside jobs working 35 hours a week nd earning £25k.

Didn't you just say that your top earners earn £24/hour? That's like >£40k a year. Have you actually told them this is how much they could eventually earn in Construction?

 

[FoxEye]

Making money is always the smart thing to do and I would do the same myself if I had the means to fund it.

Smart for the individual but disastrous for society as a whole.

Slavery was great business for the slave owners, but no so good for the slaves.

If making money is the only goal in life, and one has no social conscience at all, then BTL is fantastic.

"I'll secure my own future by destroying someone else's. It's the smart thing to do, and I'll do it because I can."

 

[Tunney]

Problem is that no one who owns a house or who is in government wants house prices to come down

I own a house and I want house prices to come down. I want my friends to be able to afford to settle in London and I don't want to have to pay a massive premium if I decide to move up the ladder.

But I'm still fairly young. It's mostly the older generations who want house prices to continue rising as they have no intention of moving up the ladder again.

 

[Greebo]

Didn't you just say that your top earners earn £24/hour? That's like >£40k a year. Have you actually told them this is how much they could eventually earn in Construction?

More like £55k to £60k as they tend to work 45 hrs or more each week.

People see it as a hard work, dirty outside job.

Yes, even up North you can easily earn £40k to £50k per annum as a good skilled worker in construction.

People still dont want to leave school and work in that industry.

Hell, even the managerial office based people are harder to find. We have had a 23 year old apply to the company with barely any experience and he wants £52k a year as a starting wage plus bonus.

 

[Freakbro]

Plenty of people out there can afford homes.

With an interest rate being held at an unprecedented artificially low 0.5% for an unprecedentedly long period of time.

Wonder how affordable people's £300k mortgages will be when we return to historically 'normal' levels of interest rates at say 5%...

Do that calculation on a mortgage calculator

 

[balky12]

Smart for the individual but disastrous for society as a whole.

Slavery was great business for the slave owners, but no so good for the slaves.

If making money is the only goal in life, and one has no social conscience at all, then BTL is fantastic.

"I'll secure my own future by destroying someone else's. It's the smart thing to do, and I'll do it because I can."

That's a bit strong isn't it? Hardly the BTL'ers fault the other person isn't financially able to own their own home?

Also no one is actually forcing him to rent? Maybe his personal circumstances force him to rent but then that means the BTL'ers are providing him with a service he needs?

 

[balky12]

With an interest rate being held at an unprecedented artificially low 0.5% for an unprecedentedly long period of time.

Wonder how affordable people's £300k mortgages will be when we return to historically 'normal' levels of interest rates at say 5%...

Do that calculation on a mortgage calculator

Banks stress test this before giving mortgage approval. Also you won't get a mortgage rate of 0.5% anyways.

In my case, if that happens, I would probably eat out less every month..

Life then goes on.

 

[anything I don't mind]

I own a house and I want house prices to come down. I want my friends to be able to afford to settle in London and I don't want to have to pay a massive premium if I decide to move up the ladder.

But I'm still fairly young. It's mostly the older generations who want house prices to continue rising as they have no intention of moving up the ladder again.

I think you are in the minority. Most people who own homes want house prices to continue rising as that is within their interest. I also think there is a tendency for a lot of people to want to move to better housing, if they had the opportunity. The problem is there is a shortage of quality housing, which means that there is nothing to move up to within their price brackets.



If the government wants to do anything it should force property developers to make less profit by producing houses/flats to a high standard. So instead of making £160k per cheap small flat, they make £140k. This way it ensures that housing is of a higher standard. The problem is that the government would never do that, instead they do schemes to ensure how prices stay high regardless of the size and quality of the flat/house and make it possible for people to buy the over priced houses/flats through special schemes.

This way people can buy a house (even though its crap) and the people who already own a house still have rising house value and the developers can still enjoy their profiteering.

 

[Roar87]

Didn't you just say that your top earners earn £24/hour? That's like >£40k a year. Have you actually told them this is how much they could eventually earn in Construction?

I did plumbing for a while when I was 16 with my Grandad and Uncle, the days were long and some of it was hard work, no one told me that the money was quite good once you're established. That's probably why I'm sat in a cushy office job (I'm "working" now) earning £20k instead of working with my hands earning more.

 

[FoxEye]

That's a bit strong isn't it? Hardly the BTL'ers fault the other person isn't financially able to own their own home?

Also no one is actually forcing him to rent? Maybe his personal circumstances force him to rent but then that means the BTL'ers are providing him with a service he needs?

No, it isn't strong at all. It's refusing to sugar coat things.

The BTL landlords I know consider it "smart" to have someone else pay their mortgages. They wonder why anyone would choose to pay their own mortgage.

Some of these people had their first mortgages paid off by their parents. I won't say they didn't work hard, because they did. But a big chunk of their capital was given to them, allowing them to get ahead of the curve. Now BTL allows them to stay ahead of the curve by exploiting people who fall behind the curve.

The way rents are not capped and routinely exceed mortgage repayments is crazy. It's even crazier that we're using tax revenue to pay private BTL landlords above-mortgage rents.

Oh, and the only "service" BTL landlords provide is keeping house prices inflated, by making sure there is competition for every house on the market, not just from people who'd like to live in it, but from people looking at it as an investment to generate more income.

 

[Haggisman]

what if there are no sacrifices left to make and its still out of reach?

im essentially resigned to (as harsh as it sounds) waiting for a member of family with property to pop their clogs.

I'm sure there are some people in unusual/unfortunate circumstances where there is literally nothing they can do, but for the majority of people "no sacrifices left to make" translates as "no sacrifices I'm prepared to make".

As I said in my previous post, there's nothing wrong with that - it just means their priorities lie elsewhere.

That's a solution for an individual. Please explain, how does moving solve the problem for the wider population over the long-term? When prices become unaffordable in the majority of the country do we start encouraging people to move to the Highlands?

How long term are we talking?

There is no permanent long-term solution, as the reality is that we live on a (relatively small, relatively densely populated) island. There is a finite resource involved (land), and as with all finite resources, as demand increases, so does cost. When that resource is depleted (or becomes too costly), the only solution (for anyone) is to move where there is more of that resource.

It's not just a lack of housing problem, it's also an excess of population problem.

Ultimately, to extrapolate from my point, when there is no space left in the UK, people will have to move abroad.

 

[Freakbro]

Banks stress test this before giving mortgage
approval.

Rubbish

Also you won't get a mortgage rate of 0.5% anyways.

Err I realise this, being a homeowner for the last 15 years, but I also realise that when the base rate rises then the current mortgage rate rises with it....

In my case, if that happens, I would probably eat out less every month..

Life then goes on.

With a 4.5% increase on a £250k mortgage, you must eat out a lot to be able to cover that

 

[bloodiedathame]

If someone was able to pluck me out of my job and retrain me as a plumber/builder/electrician I'd happily do it. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my job, but I just fancy something different. However there are 0 viable options for me to retrain. I wanted to do evening classes towards a qualification and as far as I can tell, it just doesn't exist.

 

[Greebo]

I did plumbing for a while when I was 16 with my Grandad and Uncle, the days were long and some of it was hard work, no one told me that the money was quite good once you're established. That's probably why I'm sat in a cushy office job (I'm "working" now) earning £20k instead of working with my hands earning more.

Shame. My next door neighbours lad decided to become a joiner at 16 (probably due to lack of jobs in the rural area where I live). He's now 20 and drives a one year old RS4 and making loads of money.

 

[Tunney]

Plenty of people out there can afford homes.

Plenty of foreign investors and existing buy-to-letters can afford homes. The age of first-time buyers is only going upwards.

When my wife and I sold our flats to buy a house, both sold to foreign investors. Hers sold above asking price the day it went on the market. No-one even bothered to look around it before putting in a bid (which narked me off no end because I'd spent a week painting it ).

 

[Freakbro]

With a 4.5% increase on a £250k mortgage, you must eat out a lot to be able to cover that

In fact I'll do that calculation for you

Currently a £250,000 mortgage on 3% is ~ £1,185 / month (standard 25yr term)

Rise that 4.5% to 7.5% and it becomes ~ £1,847 / month

Sure, interest rates aren't going to rise 4.5% overnight, but a 5% base rate is historically nothing out of the ordinary and it just shows how monetary policy is being hamstrung by the bubble of the housing market.

 

[FoxEye]

There is no permanent long-term solution, as the reality is that we live on a (relatively small, relatively densely populated) island. There is a finite resource involved (land), and as with all finite resources, as demand increases, so does cost. When that resource is depleted (or becomes too costly), the only solution (for anyone) is to move where there is more of that resource.

What about artificial demand? A certain % of new builds being reserved for overseas markets; the amount of property now in the hands of foreign investors?

How do you think demand would fare if we stopped allowing people to buy property they didn't intend to live in?

I know that sounds like some crazy socialist nonsense, but if we stopped people buying up the housing stock purely for financial gain we might start getting somewhere.

 

[a1ex2001]

No, it isn't strong at all. It's refusing to sugar coat things.

The BTL landlords I know consider it "smart" to have someone else pay their mortgages. They wonder why anyone would choose to pay their own mortgage.

Some of these people had their first mortgages paid off by their parents. I won't say they didn't work hard, because they did. But a big chunk of their capital was given to them, allowing them to get ahead of the curve. Now BTL allows them to stay ahead of the curve by exploiting people who fall behind the curve.

The way rents are not capped and routinely exceed mortgage repayments is crazy. It's even crazier that we're using tax revenue to pay private BTL landlords above-mortgage rents.

Oh, and the only "service" BTL landlords provide is keeping house prices inflated, by making sure there is competition for every house on the market, not just from people who'd like to live in it, but from people looking at it as an investment to generate more income.

So if there were no BTL landlords who would supply the huge amount of rental accommodation required in the UK? Not everyone can or wants/needs to purchase a property. Rents are high because there are too many tenants and not enough properties, house prices are high because there are too many buyers and not enough properties it is a simple case of supply and demand. look outside property hotspots and you will find reasonable prices and reasonable rents because supply and demand are much better balanced.

BTL is an easy one to point the finger at for people who missed the boat, which incidentally includes me!

 

[FoxEye]

If someone was able to pluck me out of my job and retrain me as a plumber/builder/electrician I'd happily do it. Not that I'm dissatisfied with my job, but I just fancy something different. However there are 0 viable options for me to retrain. I wanted to do evening classes towards a qualification and as far as I can tell, it just doesn't exist.

My brother trained as a plumber when he left school. For about 3 years, he was paid £1.50 an hour, because the minimum wage for trainees is a complete joke.

Good luck to anyone who wants to retrain and has any kind of existing financial responsibility.