House prices rose 7.3% this year, average now almost £250k

[Haggisman]

Erm... wut? IIRC I haven't had much to say about inheritance other than - again at the lower income brackets - care home costs will eat many people's inheritance before they get a chance to see it.

Sorry, I may have gotten you confused with another poster on that point then, apologies.

And I never described my happiness (or otherwise) with my situation, so you are making a lot of assumptions I'm afraid.

Well, either you're happy living with your parents (in which case what's your issue?)

Or you aren't (in which case my previous question applies - why not move out to somewhere you can afford to buy?)

 

[moon man]

can you buy gigantic lighters and extra large rolling papers?

Abolutly!!! Pretty much everything, a lot of dodgy dealings though, pirate, rip off stuff

 

[HACO]

London is one of the cheapest places to rent relative to property value (~3.5% of the purchase price per annum rental yield, vs 5-5.5% somewhere like Manchester), so you've actually got a better opportunity to save in London than elsewhere

It makes no mathematical sense to buy in London versus renting. Rent is significantly lower than mortgages and if you invest the difference, you’re always ahead versus dumping money in a house. That just means prices are astronomical, likely thanks to foreign investors buying everything they can get their hands on.

 

[NVP]

Yeh it's hell ,would much rather be going down Dewsbury market than Polzeath today

http://www.johnbray.co.uk/webcams/webcam-polzeath.html

Wanting sensible policies that help people is not moaning. It's called progress. Any policy that benefited people started from those of us who pointed out to problems and searched for solutions, and those people faced opponents like you who blamed everything on the victims and told people to get over it.

The only people I see moaning are people who are triggered that others are mean to almighty landlords and don't have their best interest at heart. Do you want to turn landlords into a protected class? Would that stop you from moaning about how unfair everyone is to poor landlords? You're the one moaning while telling others (who don't moan) to stop moaning.

Well this post quickly went from a decent point to defensive projection.

When did you start buying your houses, like what decade?

The one just gone, bought my first house in Sept 2012.

 

[NVP]

 

[413x]

London is one of the cheapest places to rent relative to property value (~3.5% of the purchase price per annum rental yield, vs 5-5.5% somewhere like Manchester), so you've actually got a better opportunity to save in London than elsewhere

Feels like its opposite here.

Rent was 550 for a 1 bed 1st flat.
Mortgage on 3 bed detached with garden is 800.

250 different. Crazy
Just 250 more


Could rent the spare room for 400 ish

 

[Scam]

London is one of the cheapest places to rent relative to property value (~3.5% of the purchase price per annum rental yield, vs 5-5.5% somewhere like Manchester), so you've actually got a better opportunity to save in London than elsewhere

Except that tenants couldn't give a stuff about the sale value of the property that they're renting, as it doesn't affect them in the slightest. The only part that matters is rental affordability when compared to income. In which London is (obviously) the worst;

https://advantage.zpg.co.uk/insights/reports/rental-affordability-in-great-britain/

See how there are plenty of regions from the Midlands upwards where it is between 25-30% of income, whereas in London it is between 35-45%. Why don't people understand this stuff?

 

[rG-tom]

Except that tenants couldn't give a stuff about the sale value of the property that they're renting, as it doesn't affect them in the slightest. The only part that matters is rental affordability when compared to income. In which London is (obviously) the worst;

https://advantage.zpg.co.uk/insights/reports/rental-affordability-in-great-britain/

See how there are plenty of regions from the Midlands upwards where it is between 25-30% of income, whereas in London it is between 35-45%. Why don't people understand this stuff?

Tenants clearly would "give a stuff about the sale value of a property they're renting", if they're looking to purchase a similar property? The higher the yield, the more they're spending on rent relative to the purchase price. Unless they're buying in a completely different market to where they're renting.

Obviously, affordability numbers like the above are skewed in places where the mid to high earners earn hugely more than the lower earners...somebody stacking shelves at Tesco on a tenner an hour, won't (and arguably shouldn't though I'll be slaughtered for mentioning that in this thread!) be able to buy somewhere in London, but would still hugely pull down the "average" salary vs people in "professional" careers. In the north east the difference will be much smaller.

But don't mind me, I have no idea what a renter or someone buying a flat in London might want. My only experience is from moving to London, renting a flat, and then buying that exact flat from the landlord a few years later. Hint: I cared what the value of the flat that I was renting was.


(and, adding weight to my point, my monthly outgoings are quite a lot higher AFTER buying than before)

 

[NVP]

But don't mind me, I have no idea what a renter or someone buying a flat in London might want. My only experience is from moving to London, renting a flat, and then buying that exact flat from the landlord a few years later. Hint: I cared what the value of the flat that I was renting was.

 

[rG-tom]

 

[pp111]

Problem is with all this, we don't have that much land. We are a small country. Really the main blame as I see it is the governments instance that we increase the population without any decent plan as to what we do will all the extra people.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Problem is with all this, we don't have that much land. We are a small country. Really the main blame as I see it is the governments instance that we increase the population without any decent plan as to what we do will all the extra people.

A handful of people 50 own 12% of the UK

Foreign interests make up a significant proportion of top 50 places. These include larger companies such as Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, and also individuals like Anders Holch Povlsen and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.

You are talking hundred of thousands of acres per each of them. 12.3 million acres across 50 people or companies.

Plenty of land in their hands.

In fact why don't you take a drive around the UK. From London to Inverness and you will see vast swathes unoccupied.

Scotland has a population of 5 million yet 60% the size of England with over 50 million.

It seems to be mainly an English problem.

That's because they control the wealth and the money pours into and out of London. Having the stock exchange there, etc.

Anywhere there is wealth people from poorer countries will flock to. Anywhere they speak English they will flock to as well as it's a universal language.

I'd wager places like Australia have mass immigration too due to it's wealth and it's English speaking. It's on the other side. But there aren't many countries in that region that speak English natively.

 

[HACO]

Anywhere there is wealth people from poorer countries will flock to. Anywhere they speak English they will flock to as well as it's a universal language.

I'd wager places like Australia have mass immigration too due to it's wealth and it's English speaking. It's on the other side. But there aren't many countries in that region that speak English natively.

This however is very disproportionate in the UK. Just look at population densities (number of people per square miles):

South Korea: 1339
Japan: 862
UK: 725
Germany: 603
Switzerland: 539
France: 319
US: 87
Canada: 10
Australia: 9

Admittedly a lot of the land is not easily liveable in countries like Canada and Australia (also true of Scotland). However, the scale of this is just mind blowing and quite clearly shows UK population is way out of hand. I agree that we do have land to build, but we don't build.

Population projections show that we'll reach ~75 million in 25 or so years and that's excluding climate refugees and immigration from Hong Kong. Depending on how mass migrations from climate change work in this century, it's pretty conceivable that we'll get to ~150 million or more by the end of the century as UK will be prime target for African and Middle Eastern climate refugees, and there are 1.6b people living there (and growing fast).

So yeah, we have some land we can point out to, but nowhere near the amount we need for our out of control population now and in the future.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Our mortgage payments are £730ish but previously we were renting an objectively worse and smaller house for £850...

Getting the deposit together was a struggle though for sure - we lived as frugally as we could but on such a high rent it was hard to save tons... but then my wife's mum died and we ended up with ~£10k inheritance... combined with the few thousand we had managed to save ourselves and the Help2Buy scheme we clawed our way onto the ladder. Without both of those things I think we might still be struggling to save up now...

Something I haven't seen mentioned above though is that the problem kind of compounds as well - if it takes longer to get the deposit together then the likelihood is the size of property you might need also goes up. In our case by the time we were in a position to buy it would have been stupid of us to go for a cheap 1 bed flat because we knew we wanted to start a family in the near future

 

[Scam]

Problem is with all this, we don't have that much land. We are a small country. Really the main blame as I see it is the governments instance that we increase the population without any decent plan as to what we do will all the extra people.

I will continue to make every effort to correct people that regurgitate the usual NIMBY-esque nonsense that comes with these arguments.

The great myth of urban Britain

Having looked at all the information, they calculated that "6.8% of the UK's land area is now classified as urban" (a definition that includes rural development and roads, by the way).

(snip)

In England, "78.6% of urban areas is designated as natural rather than built". Since urban only covers a tenth of the country, this means that the proportion of England's landscape which is built on is…
2.27%.

Yes. According to the most detailed analysis ever conducted, almost 98% of England is, in their word, natural.

Elsewhere in the UK, the figure rises to more than 99%. It is clear that only a small fraction of Britain has been concreted over.

In short, there is plenty of space in the UK.

 

[dowie]

Plenty of space if you want to just concrete over everything... We are however a small island with high population density. If you discard places like Gibraltar, Monaco, Vatican City etc.. then England has the second highest in Europe, behind the Netherlands.

 

[dowie]

If it's so bad, why haven't you moved away, e.g. to the Midlands, where houses are cheaper and there are more jobs?

I live with parents. This is actually becoming quite normal in Cornwall

Thus the question - if things are so bad there then why not move elsewhere to look for work... it isn't much good just complaining about an area being unaffordable relative to the jobs available, if that's the case then perhaps it would have been better to look elsewhere for work. I'm not saying you should do so... I mean if you are happy living with parents and with local job prospects then that's cool... the other people it affects could move though.

I mean if someone grows up in some old mining town in say Wales or somewhere up north etc.. and the previous big source of employment that used to sustain the town has long gone then perhaps exploring options elsewhere would be worthwhile... It does seem that people are reluctant to move within the UK.

Perhaps it could be a bit moot post-Covid with more and more jobs involving working from home - less of an excuse then even if staying put at least for anyone in an industry/line of work that lends itself to remote working.

 

[EdGey]

We need new generation of "council housing", the amount of money being paid to private landlords is criminal.

Perhaps if the Govt stopped practically giving them away to those who have simply lived in them for a long period, then that wouldn't be the case.

Oh you've lived in a council house for 20 years? Well then, I suppose you could buy it for £30k now So nearly the same return as the person who got a mortgage then....

 

[HACO]

Plenty of space if you want to just concrete over everything... We are however a small island with high population density. If you discard places like Gibraltar, Monaco, Vatican City etc.. then England has the second highest in Europe, behind the Netherlands.

Third after Netherlands and Belgium.

 

[dowie]

Third after Netherlands and Belgium.

Nope, per km^2, Belgium is 376, England is 424 and the Netherlands is 521.