Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Apr 2014
- Posts
- 2,602
- Location
- East Sussex
Insert joke about white knights here...
And boomers wonder why millennials are bitter towards them..
- Thread starter Scam
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Jun 2012
- Posts
- 9,898
- Location
- South Wales
Left expectancy of 30 and treated as filth by the nobles but at least Uncle Ben's was still the name.
You do take written language very literally don’t you. Yes, I would agree that it has, literally, been more difficult times to buy a property than now, certainly in the pre-human era
You apparently typed something you didn't mean, claimed it was objectively the case but now you're trying to blame me for taking it literally...
You can frame it as an opportunity people are missing out on but really an "opportunity" like that is inherently eroded as people act upon it and as a result prices rise. Property is a finite resource that people compete for, if people have greater access to cheap credit then they can better compete for it and that competition affects prices. Now of course we've seen what happens when that gets out of hand (as per a decade ago) and so access to this cheap credit is restricted a bit more these days (with good reason).
It affects affordability - we had a period of rather low interest rates and easy availability of credit and prices rose... not exactly surprising.
I’m not trying to blame anything; there is no fault, I was being light hearted with my ‘pre-human comment’ - it’s not any sort of competition that needs to be won! Although, you must concede that you are somewhat notorious for being a touch overzealous with the words chosen by others
My comment of ‘objectively harder to buy now than ever’ was framed in the context of the discussion ‘from boomers to present day’. As you have pointed out, it would not make sense in the wider, literal sense of ‘ever’, and similarly half the things that are stated to be objective are in fact merely a statement of confidence in a wholly subjective matter. But I still maintain that it was something that made sense and meant as I intended based on how those works are used in everyday colloquial language.
Yes, I’ll hold my hands up and happily take it on the chin that my language could have been far crisper, but do also allow me the light hearted amusement of the thought of your brain exploding from literal interpretation when you hear about someone ‘going down the road on time then round the corner’
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2006
- Posts
- 12,130
Certainly the thread title seems to miss the point that houses are overpriced and that social housing is now seen as a frivolous indulgence towards the young and the poor
Last edited:
That's a lot of projection tbh...
Why not try outside of London? Pretty obvious the most sought after place in the Uk won't be cheap.
The other posted (who I replied to) claimed (and later corrected themselves) than a 1-bed in London costs 130k. I asked them to show me an example. That was all.
To be honest you're pretty much the only person here who reads every post with the intention of taking it apart word by word.
You can call that "your style" or make a passionate defence for your approach, but others do genuinely find it very tiring.
We’re already almost as dense as Japan in terms of population per square miles. We need to start building entire cities given that our housing shortage is already in the millions.
Or converting them
Well it’s your choice to engage and your choice to post bad takes.
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 8,305
- Location
- Aranyaprathet, Thailand
High interest rates absolutely affect whether you can get on the ladder. It may have been true that deposits were smaller - 5% of £100K is obviously less than 5% of £200K - but try repaying a mortgage at 10%
100K @10% = £910 per month and £272000 over 25 years
200K @1% = £750 per month and £226000 over 25 years
Obviously people have variable rates but interest rates weren't always this low! 1979 -17%, 1989 - 15%. In fact from 1979 to 1988, the mortgage rate averaged 10.9%. Those boomers paid an awful lot of interest to get their houses.
100K @10% = £910 per month and £272000 over 25 years
200K @1% = £750 per month and £226000 over 25 years
Obviously people have variable rates but interest rates weren't always this low! 1979 -17%, 1989 - 15%. In fact from 1979 to 1988, the mortgage rate averaged 10.9%. Those boomers paid an awful lot of interest to get their houses.
Yeah but house prices will have reflected the interest rates, i.e. you don't pay a lot for the house but you pay more to the bank, otherwise no one would have been able to afford a house.
But people weren't taking 100k mortgages then either, the Avg house price in 1980 was 22.5k (which is about 75k in todays money) so on your figures 22.5k @ 10% = £204 / month and £61,000 over 25 years.
That house is now worth £231,000 - as the Avg house price in 2020
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 8,305
- Location
- Aranyaprathet, Thailand
House prices were lower but so were salaries. I was just answering the comment that interest rates don't affect affordability. They absolutely do. I nearly handed in my keys when interest rates hit 17% in 1992.
In the period you mentioned house prices were about 4x average salary. Now it is over 8x times salary.
Lets expand on that then
1980 : Avg wage £6,000 : Avg house price £22,500 = 3.75 x salary
2020 : Avg wage £29,600 : Avg house price £231,000 = 7.80 x salary
That's why houses have become more unafforable to people starting out