Cameron's housing plans

degrees are pretty common these days and vary wildly in their usefulness in the workplace

I don't see it as being unacceptable that someone in a useful trade currently in demand would earn more than someone who's chosen to spend three years studying something that ends up being of minimal use to the career they then pursue - simply having a degree shouldn't entitle you to earn more, especially if you end up in a job that doesn't really need that degree in the first place

I'm talking about professional degree's not media studies :roll eyes: you know the ones where you get a job, no plumber should earn more than a junior doctor
 
If your brother is earning £15 an hour as a qualified plumber then he is seriously doing something wrong. Is he gas safe?

Yes, he is. Works for a construction company rather than self employed. I think that figure is a little out of date, he did tell me he'd negotiated a pay rise a few months back, so now I think he's on a little more than £25 ph. Will check with him tomorrow. But until very recently, he was on about £15 ph, and that was after training and with all his certs.

It's still nowhere near £150, or even £100!
 
I'm talking about professional degree's not media studies :roll eyes: you know the ones where you get a job, no plumber should earn more than a junior doctor

Why single out plumbers and blue collar workers?

A lot of sales people earning more than doctors. Stock market traders also. People who don't necessarily have any education either.

We don't and never have paid people based on how educated they are.
 
I'm talking about professional degree's not media studies :roll eyes: you know the ones where you get a job, no plumber should earn more than a junior doctor

Why not?

A junior doctor is still in training - they'll go onto earn a very healthy salary in due course as will most other professions.
 
LOL you're considered junior until you're a consultant

So what? Your comment re: pay only applies to the first 3-4 years on the job.

A registrar earns more than a plumber for example.

Why is it so bad that plumbers earn more than someone fresh out of university in their first job?
 
A system of removing ones waste (plumbing) is the biggest factor of civilisation. Nothing wrong at all a plumber earning more than a junior doctor, I'd hazard a guess that plumbing saves more life's than doctors. The only reason I can see MrMoonX doesn't want to see uneducated plebs earning a very good wage (like myself) is that they won't be brainwashed in the politically correct arts.
 
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

My brother is a plumber and he has been for a about 8 years now. He earns about £15 /hour.

Which plumbers are making 10x that? Or did you just pluck that number from the sky?

The call-out charge for a plumber in London is £150 per hour. Obviously, that doesn't translate to £150 per hour income (got to pay business costs) but plumbing is still a decent job if you work hard.

If your brother is being paid £15 per hour, he needs to start his own business.
 
£15ph is ridiculous. Gas fitters charge about £500 to fit a boiler which is about 4-5 hours work. Just doing a gas safety check is about £60-80 and takes about 20 minutes.

Something's wrong somewhere if that's his hourly rate.
 
This is my view as well. It all falls down to individual motivation to work towards what you want. You want a house? well save for it and cut back or work towards a job which will get you there quicker. I'm sorry but I cant help but feel there is such a feeling of self entitlement in this country, it actually blinds people that getting something like a mortgage wont just be handed to you.

Some of my friends got mortgages with inheritance, good for them. My wife and I worked our asses off to save for one, no hand outs, no help, just a plan. We got a mortgage which didn't make us house poor just to get one i.e. sensible. I don't get why so many people point fingers at others for their current situation.

Obviously I'm ignorant though to the "struggle".
The thing is that if every single person in UK struggled a bit more, situation wouldn't change regarding housing. Those at the top of the heap could still pick the best housing (at even more elevated prices as now) and the poor ones would still be ending into the exactly same shack that they live now in. And the rent / price of it would just be exactly as much higher as everybody's income increase from this "extra struggling" allows.

Only if this extra struggling would be specifically concentrated on building more housing, it could make a difference by increasing supply where demand is highest and thereby lowering the prices. But since most of the "struggling" is aimed at completely different things, it doesn't really help with the supply, but just with the ones personal positions in the queue of strugglers looking for housing.

Personally I'd disregard increased earnings on a national level as a solution to housing problems. I'd even go as far propose that price of housing is determined by peoples wealth / capability of paying -> no amount of increase in GDP will help, because it will just increase the housing prices accordingly.

This hypothesis might even lead to a conclusion: Increasing the construction sectors portion of GDP might actually lowers the price of housing, because then we'd have more housing being built / maintained / enhanced / etc. compared to everybody's earnings, which should lower the prices by normal supply / demand interaction.


About plumbers:
How many of these £70 and £500 gigs does a plumber do in a month on average? How much goes to maintaining equipment, car and fuel? How much time goes into writing the actual invoices, ordering the necessary parts or getting them from supplier.

It makes very little sense to compare the invoiced hours with the salary, unless you talk about contracting where you have some kind of fixed number of hours in the contract.
 
The thing is that if every single person in UK struggled a bit more, situation wouldn't change regarding housing. Those at the top of the heap could still pick the best housing (at even more elevated prices as now) and the poor ones would still be ending into the exactly same shack that they live now in. And the rent / price of it would just be exactly as much higher as everybody's income increase from this "extra struggling" allows.

Only if this extra struggling would be specifically concentrated on building more housing, it could make a difference by increasing supply where demand is highest and thereby lowering the prices. But since most of the "struggling" is aimed at completely different things, it doesn't really help with the supply, but just with the ones personal positions in the queue of strugglers looking for housing.

Personally I'd disregard increased earnings on a national level as a solution to housing problems. I'd even go as far propose that price of housing is determined by peoples wealth / capability of paying -> no amount of increase in GDP will help, because it will just increase the housing prices accordingly.

This hypothesis might even lead to a conclusion: Increasing the construction sectors portion of GDP might actually lowers the price of housing, because then we'd have more housing being built / maintained / enhanced / etc. compared to everybody's earnings, which should lower the prices by normal supply / demand interaction.


About plumbers:
How many of these £70 and £500 gigs does a plumber do in a month on average? How much goes to maintaining equipment, car and fuel? How much time goes into writing the actual invoices, ordering the necessary parts or getting them from supplier.

It makes very little sense to compare the invoiced hours with the salary, unless you talk about contracting where you have some kind of fixed number of hours in the contract.

Self employed plumbers can name their price. I needed some work doing plumbing a bathroom and a kitchen sink. About 20m run and this was first fix with just joists and open stud walls.

Contacted 7 plumbers. Only 3 turned up to quote and only got two quotes. One was 1300 and the other was 2,200!

I bought all the pipe work and fittings myself which cost £300 and did it myself in the end. The plumber who quoted £2,200 actually stated a day and half of work on his quote. No way as I paying £1,800 for a day and halfs work!

Even the cheapest one wanted over £600 a day for his labour.

And I live up in the northeast so things are cheap here
 
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Thing that irks me with this renewed right to buy scheme is that the people who are lucky enough to be in a council or housing association house suddenly have a opportunity to buy the house.

Great. Brilliant. So where's my council house then?

I'm thinking about buying my parents council house, think it would be stupid not to. But I still think most people in council housing certainly still won't be able to afford to buy the house, my parents wouldn't without me is an example.
 
Is this the sector that subsequent governments, both Labour and Conservative have failed to deliver on over the years?
 
I'm thinking about buying my parents council house, think it would be stupid not to. But I still think most people in council housing certainly still won't be able to afford to buy the house, my parents wouldn't without me is an example.

Even though they are fairly comfortable financially I doubt my parents could afford to buy their current house today, though house prices here have jumped due to development of the area (better transport links, new housing, new businesses, etc.) as well as the national trend.
 
When you say buy, you mean all cash I presume. Mortgage with a fixed rate could be a good option over renting as it becomes cheaper then actual cost of money as rates rise. Ask someone who did similar in the seventies what they remember to maybe get some insight. I think its well worth considering though obviously depends how much you're fixed to an area, I think thats always the main drawback to owning over renting
 
In my view the real need is not for more 'affordable' housing per se, but rather just more housing fullstop. Logically if you build enough houses in the right places then they should start to become affordable naturally, assuming that building costs are kept in check. One thing we will probably have to focus on in metropolitan areas is high-rise buildings to ensure we maximise living space per land area unit.

Part of the problem (if one can call it that) is that a generation of people have grown up expecting to own their own home at a relatively young age without being on a large salary. There seems to be an idea that people should be able to buy a house on an average salary even if they want to live in an expensive area. Yet if you look back historically the proportion of owner-occupiers is higher than it was 30+ years ago.

One of the slightly amusing things I noticed is that to be eligible you have to have a household income below £71k for a 2 bedroom property which means that getting a mortgage on a £450k home may not be that straightforward anyway. Even if you were able to borrow 5x household earnings you'd still need to find another £100k deposit from somewhere. It feels like the earnings threshold is too low relative to the maximum property price.
 
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