Cornwall's broken housing market

Ayahuasca said:
7.5 hours a week is a significant amount of time when you can't do anything else if you're driving.

It's not too bad if it's on a train, and some sensible employers will include it in your working hours if you can do some work on a laptop during that time.
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My commute is 40 minutes each way, driving. Absolutely love it, the only alone time I get!
 
If we simplified the planning process and removed various obstacles then we could alleviate this problem. The NIMBYs are rarely representative of the local area, they're just people with lots of time on their hands but the council members listen to them.

If various projects continually have months of delays and additional costs then without that more homes could have been built and we'd have much less of an issue.


413x said:
Yeah it'll be split 5 ways. (my 2 sisters and my two step siblings).

My partner would also inherit a similar (probably more) amount as there are only 2 of them.

Ive actually thought of this of late and it's made me question if it's any point saving anymore.
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Presumably, there are other biological parents too on your side and/or theirs who may have houses. In the typical case there will just be two kids, ultimately while the population is growing thanks to immigration the number of native brits isn't really increasing so much, the middle-class boomers with family homes are largely going to end up passing those on to middle-class millennials.

The typical middle-class millennial couple will perhaps receive half of a family home from each of their set of parents respectively.
 
nightwish said:
Possibly not until their 50s or 60s though...
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Yup, quite possibly and then perhaps millennials will be the new "boomers" everyone loves to moan about.

Of course in cases where some millennial couple is in a little flat they just about managed to buy and some boomer parents are wondering if they'll ever be grandparents while living in a 4-5 bedroom detached house as a couple then perhaps they can think about the tradeoffs.

Is it worth staying there or is it worth passing something on earlier... do they perhaps sell up, buy a bungalow and offer to buy part of the equity in a new home for each of their kids... which they maybe retain initially (protects the kid financially in the event of a divorce too as he/she would only be dividing up their half share of the home if the parents own the other half).

Not that they should be obliged to, it's their money, they could go cruise the world for the next decade if they like. It's just somewhat ironic if millennials are complaining about childhood homes now being worth 700 or 800k and their retired parents are still living in such homes while not really utilising them as they no longer need 4 bedrooms.
 
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My commute about 17 miles each way but its nearly always a clear run apart from when the royal Cornwall show is on so i do it in 30 mins ,back in Yorkshire that would have been double, The folks at work from Newquay have it worse though
 
dowie said:
Not that they should be obliged to, it's their money, they could go cruise the world for the next decade if they like. It's just somewhat ironic if millennials are complaining about childhood homes now being worth 700 or 800k and their retired parents are still living in such homes while not really utilising them as they no longer need 4 bedrooms.
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Don't overlook retirement and/or care costs. My parents-in-law are downsizing to be able to retire - neither of them has much of a pension, so a lot of their equity will be gone before we see it. My grandfather-in-law is still alive (101, I think) - he used to have a decent sum to pass on, but it's all gone on care costs (60k a year, something like that).
 
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nightwish said:
Don't overlook retirement and/or care costs. My parents-in-law are downsizing to be able to retire - neither of them has much of a pension, so a lot of their equity will be gone before we see it. My grandfather-in-law is still alive (101, I think) - he used to have a decent sum to pass on, but it's all gone on care costs (60k a year, something like that).
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I'm not, I mentioned that earlier and it's actually capped. The current lifetime cap is £86k for example so if you're in a £750k house then there's plenty left over. Granted if they're already selling the house because of financial issues then it's kinda moot, the point applies to people who are otherwise in those large homes/have those assets.
 
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I have a 4 hour round trip to one of my offices that I drive to twice a week. And 2 and half hours twice a week to my other office. Friday I work from home.
 
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dowie said:
I'm not, I mentioned that earlier and it's actually capped. The current lifetime cap is £86k for example so if you're in a £750k house then there's plenty left over. Granted if they're already selling the house because of financial issues then it's kinda moot, the point applies to people who are otherwise in those large homes/have those assets.
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I'm not an expert on it, but your link already says "The cap will not cover the daily living costs", and I imagine that the cap only applies to public care costs. I doubt there is any cap for private care. As I say, I belive my grandfather-in-law's total costs are a healthy 5-figure sum annually.
 
nightwish said:
I'm not an expert on it, but your link already says "The cap will not cover the daily living costs", and I imagine that the cap only applies to public care costs. I doubt there is any cap for private care. As I say, I belive my grandfather-in-law's total costs are a healthy 5-figure sum annually.
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Ah true, but that's optional. For example, if people don't wish to move to a care home and will pay for additional carer visits privately etc. in order to carry on living in their own home.
 
ci_newman said:
You say that as if those are mutually exclusive. I'd bet there's a good portion of people living in Cornwall that have multiple properties too.
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They definitely do, I stayed in a holiday apartment in Cornwall previously, the owner was a local guy who lived in the apartment below.

That could be a good way around the NIMBY issue, find a block of flats in a desirable area with some land or brownfield nearby, offer to knock it down.. incentivise the current owners with not only a new, modern replacement flat but a free flat that they can sell on or rent out. (Would obvs only be feasible financially in situations where significantly more homes could be developed on a given site.)
 
Werewolf said:
It's 45 minutes each way after a 12 hour shift. That's probably going to work out at closer to 14 hours a day away from the house.
Two young children (under 5)
It's 45 minutes away from the support network for the family, so no more ability to have the grandparents/uncles etc to easily pick the older kid up from school if there is a doctors appointment, no easy ability to have baby sitters etc*.
It's an entirely new school for the older child who already has issues and has just started settling into his current school (the new place is small enough it looks like they only have one small middle school, same for primary and no upper).
It's an entirely new GP's practice for his partner who has spent several years starting to find out what some medical issues she has are, and potential treatments (I can't actually see any GP's within several miles of where they'll be).

45 minutes isn't a terrible commute if it's something you've chosen and taken into account when you've looked for your job.
When the move also removes you from every element of support you've got, and at the same time massively increases the load on your partner that's an issue.

As I think I said, it's also going to require them to get a second car as the local services are pretty poor, and with 2 under fives getting on the few busses is going to problematic.

He's grateful for the chance, but at the same time it's going to be a very difficult change for them to make and it's going to make their lives more difficult in many regards, but it's the only option they've got and he's probably going to have to look for a new job if they do move as he'll probably need to be at home more to assist in childcare.

In short, yeah 45 minute commutes aren't too uncommon, but it's definitely not something you can just shrug off. He specifically quit his old job a few years back to get one closer to home when the first little one was on the way (and lucked out into a job that was actually better paid and has good bosses, most of the work around here is minimum wage).


*At the moment they live within 10-15 minutes walk of myself, my sister (his mum), his father and another uncle so if there is any problem they've litteraly got help minutes away
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You make it sound like it’s moving from the Shire to Mordor or something.

Good luck to them.
 
bakes0310 said:
I have a 4 hour round trip to one of my offices that I drive to twice a week. And 2 and half hours twice a week to my other office. Friday I work from home.
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That's a bit mental, tho. It's not good for you or the planet, and I don't understand why (some) people seem to view a long commute as a badge of honour.
 
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