Does anyone still think the housing market isn't broken?

What's with a lot of Shared Ownership houses/flats having silly high monthly service charges and relatively small (~125 year) leaseholds?

What's with some new houses on the open market having leaseholds that might cost £20k+ to buy out?

We both are capable of only working part time, but because we have a very anti-extravagant lifestyle and my better half got her first paid job just over two years ago, we have been able to start saving for potentially a home deposit. Besides our work hours limitation, age is also against us at 43 and 38, if we are going to ever get on the housing ladder (almost certainly through Shared Ownership, even if any of our 60+ year old home-owning parents did die, god forbid).

There's then the concern of the real possibility that we may not be able to afford to take 100% ownership of the home, so what happens when we retire, will we get the rent part paid through Housing Benefit depending upon means testing results?

While at the back of my mind, it really annoys me that we have lived in this current (low end of the market) rental property for ~11.5 years, paying ~£75k in rent... ~50% of the market value of the most basic flats in the area, but much closer to ~33% of local basic homes (that I can remember being ~£55k in 1995).

The supply of housing for a growing population, where more people are living alone and until recently living longer (although they now think "generation couch potato" means we will begin to live shorter lives unless people start exercising), has been a mess for decades. Personal circumstances just made it even more messy for us and it feels like having a roof over our head is like the old pre-paid electric meters, being made to pay more for a basic right through renting.
 
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Fortunate enough in the North East to be able to achieve a pretty nice house if I put the effort in. For me though I've never had the yearning to own a big property, I'm content in a nice 1 bed flat in my town that overlooks the sea, less cleaning, lower bills and just prefer the minimilistic front in my home. That being said I'll likely never have children so I can see why for a large portion of our population they're looking at far greater property prices. People are now obsessed with their image and how they can flaunt this to others though, particularly parents at schools who get very competitive, when I see this behaviour I wonder if they're really doing it for a better life or just to get a kick out of it. Years ago I don't think the majority of the working/lower class cared where they had a home, now everyone wants a 200k new build with the same floorspace as another semi-detached house, tens of thousands cheaper just along the road.
 
You want to fix the housing market, here's some steps:

- Throw away the planning laws and start again. Nimbys have far too much power. Allow building on green belt. Huge amounts of "green belt" is golf courses or scrubland covered in dog poo and old mattresses. You could free up a generations' worth of land by shrinking the green belt around the M25 by one mile. The phrase "green belt" seems to mean pristine forests or romantic moorland in peoples' minds. The reality is very different.

- Tax land with planning permission at residential rates instead of agricultural if it has been lying unused for more than 5 years on a sliding scale. This is a large stick to stop builders sitting on land banks.

- Allow immigration for the trades. Even if everything else was in place to build the current half-million homes a year target the construction industry does not have the people to do it. The industry is massively inefficient as there is no incentive to invest in skills, machinery or new techniques. Building homes has barely changed in 50 years or more - compare that with car manufacturing.

The market is broken. The only real solution is long term investment agreed by politicians of all sides and the willingness to stand up to nimbys and other pressure groups. I think its a minimum of 20 years needed.
 
I think we all know that the housing market is screwed, but there isn't a magic-pill solution that's going to fix the problem. The stagnation that we had from 2007-2012 was the ideal solution because it meant we didn't have swathes of people falling into negative equity but house prices still fell relative to inflation.

Alas it didn't last for long and we have seen a massive spike upwards since then.

A housing crash would be a disaster because large chunks of the population would be stuck in negative equity and unable to move, so even fewer houses would come onto the market.
 
Anyone who now buys in the South, particularly in/around London in for a rough ride in the next 5-10 years.
warped-maps-of-the-uk-illustrating-the-issues-facing-the-country
 
Blaming Millenials for spending all their money on luxuries is lazy. Cars, holidays and electrical goods are more affordable now than they were a couple of generations ago. On the flip side, properties are significantly less affordable than they were.

Not everyone can move to the midlands. London is more expensive than Stoke because there’s more jobs.

What I frustrating is how this is a supply problem but all governments want to do is increase demand through help-to-buy and shared ownership schemes.
 
peterwalkley said:
- Throw away the planning laws and start again. Nimbys have far too much power. Allow building on green belt. Huge amounts of "green belt" is golf courses or scrubland covered in dog poo and old mattresses. You could free up a generations' worth of land by shrinking the green belt around the M25 by one mile. The phrase "green belt" seems to mean pristine forests or romantic moorland in peoples' minds. The reality is very different.
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I think you've missed half the reason the whole "green belt" thing even exists :s that said there does need to be a shake up of where, how and what type of housing is built.

Tunney said:
Blaming Millenials for spending all their money on luxuries is lazy. Cars, holidays and electrical goods are more affordable now than they were a couple of generations ago. On the flip side, properties are significantly less affordable than they were.
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Its been interesting how it has changed in this town in respect that when I was a kid the big houses on the edge of town often has the latest BMW, etc. or sometimes even a Ferrari sitting in the drive now most of them have like 10-15 year old Toyotas, etc. and the semi-detached type properties are more often the ones with a nice BMW sitting in the drive.
 
Assuming the value of the property continues to rise, 40 years won't actually be 40 years if you keep reducing the term every time you remortgage.

I did the opposite to most and moved from north to south and bought a house. Yeah, its more expensive and I could have bought a much bigger place for the same price had I stayed where I was but I'm happy to trade off and work up the ladder a bit more slowly because I have far more job opportunities/employment security and better wages. That's more important to me long term - especially given the current economic climate.
 
Rroff said:
Its been interesting how it has changed in this town in respect that when I was a kid the big houses on the edge of town often has the latest BMW, etc. or sometimes even a Ferrari sitting in the drive now most of them have like 10-15 year old Toyotas, etc. and the semi-detached type properties are more often the ones with a nice BMW sitting in the drive.
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I admit you do see this regularly but unless you know the person or persons inside that property then it's just a guess as to their finances and how the car was acquired. When I go back to my girlfriends house in one of the rundown pit villages in the north east their neighbour has a brand new Jaguar XJ just parked up in this dingy little backstreet, turns out he's got a really well paid job as a senior network engineer but just doesn't have the fancy for a bigger or better home.
 
We're just about to remortgage, 4 years into our 30 year term. Our house value has shot up and we were considering reducing the length of the mortgage this time around but instead we're going to lock in another 5 years at a low rate of 1.9% and overpay on our own terms. The extra cash in the bank from the cheaper monthly payments can be invested for future too, plus if we marry and have kids, I have a buffer zone :p

I don't think the market is broken, but I think that depends where you purchase. We were lucky to bag a house relatively cheap and was more or less guaranteed a significant price rise. The inevitable interest hike is what concerns me most, so I'm keen to lock in a low rate now before I'm earning much more later.
 
LabR@t said:
I am not baby boom generation but they never had it easy. Interest rates of 16% , Google your mortgage at that rate!
They didn't all drive around in brand new audi's or range rovers on payment plans, have top end electronics every year, no TV,gym contracts they went on holiday to Brighton, skegness etc.

They lived in their means.

Your post is another example of the cry baby generation, brought up to think everyone wins and life is fair.

It's not!
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Even if that was true....who brought them up to think like that........?

They are educated from a very early age to be a consumer, something that wasn't so prevelant in my day. Society has changed, the post war generation were brought up to be frugal because no-one had anything, little money and the attitude was mend and make do. That persisted until the 70's where parents were still teaching children to be frugal.

Then the 80's came, banks, businesses etc realised you don't make money with the population being frugal so they gave everyone credit and encouraged them to spend what they didn't have any pay it back later and society changed to be a consumerist throw away society

The latest generation didn't get their attitude to credit all on their own, it is taught to them from an early age and facilitated by the institutions.
 
LabR@t said:
I am not baby boom generation but they never had it easy. Interest rates of 16% , Google your mortgage at that rate!
They didn't all drive around in brand new audi's or range rovers on payment plans, have top end electronics every year, no TV,gym contracts they went on holiday to Brighton, skegness etc.

They lived in their means.

Your post is another example of the cry baby generation, brought up to think everyone wins and life is fair.

It's not!
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Whilst I agree on some part, back when mortgage rates were that high, a 3 bed detached with garage around our parts was £22k. We can't really compare the situations.
 
Housing has, and will always be, a problem. One of the main issues is a constant, that can only change naturally and that is population. Yes i'm sure some of you (given this forum leans hard to the right) think that we can start by cutting immigration. But the population will still grow despite this, we are a plague.

Obviously there are MANY other factors which do change over the years, economy, green/eco plans, policing, laws, profitability, governments etc. It's never going to be in balance and the requirements will continue to grow.
 
Freakbro said:
Even if that was true....who brought them up to think like that........?

They are educated from a very early age to be a consumer, something that wasn't so prevelant in my day. Society has changed, the post war generation were brought up to be frugal because no-one had anything, little money and the attitude was mend and make do. That persisted until the 70's where parents were still teaching children to be frugal.

Then the 80's came, banks, businesses etc realised you don't make money with the population being frugal so they gave everyone credit and encouraged them to spend what they didn't have any pay it back later and society changed to be a consumerist throw away society

The latest generation didn't get their attitude to credit all on their own, it is taught to them from an early age and facilitated by the institutions.
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This is very well put and although I don't buy a great deal on credit I still regularly make purchases of items I don't really need or could get by with a lesser/lower model. Things like TV's have became an obessession for me wanting the absolute best picture quality I tell myself I can afford then sometimes I'll just sit there and think is it really worth the £1000 I've paid over another TV that is still above the average quality. We all seem to have items now we don't mind overpaying for, you could call it a hobby but for me that word means something you get enjoyment out of working on or at which I haven't really done. I absolutely buy items like the above to try and make myself feel good but over the years have found it doesn't really do that, only for a brief period of new and shiny. You could also say it compounds the issue, as the better items we have to distract ourselves with then the likelihood of working our way out of that mindset or using the time more effectively is decreased. I know if I had a crap TV I wouldn't sit and watch anywhere near as much content as I do.
 
Housey said:
Thing is most people stretch when they buy their first house, right of passage really so no point getting high and mighty about it. The mindset is in 10 years I will earn loads more so it will be easy. That's fine if you do earn more and you don't take that as a route to go bigger and better again, same again in another 10 years, etc
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See, we did the opposite. We bought a place that either of us could afford alone if something went boobs up. As it stands we just over pay the mortgage every month and have more to spend. We bought on a 25 year term 3 years ago and are already down to 17 years left.
 
Following on the millennial bitching... the more houses get out of reach and are presented as being out of reach, the less likely people are to even try to take steps towards them. Likewise pensions. All we hear is that our pensions will never be enough, no one is saving enough, etc. If that's the case, why even bother? You're going to work till you drop anyway, so why not enjoy spending the extra money now?

Not that this applies to me, but I see why you might think that way.
 
The average house prices went up from a little under 5k to 40k, eight times the price from the 70's to the 80's. Houses were no longer considered homes but investments for the "future" except of course, everyone is doing it. This is where the problem started. Now house prices are so high, they are out of reach of many people on average incomes.
 
howiepoohs said:
The average house prices went up from a little under 5k to 40k, eight times the price from the 70's to the 80's. Houses were no longer considered homes but investments for the "future" except of course, everyone is doing it. This is where the problem started. Now house prices are so high, they are out of reach of many people on average incomes.
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Ive posted before along these lines, but here it comes again... I earn in about the 85th percentile. Do I stand a chance at getting into the housing market at the 85th percentile? Hell, no.
 
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