Your chances of owning your own home?

Only yesterday I said how bad new builds are

Many new houses in the UK are "shameful shoebox homes" which are too small for family life, the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has said.

It says average three-bedroom houses are 8% smaller - the space of a single bedroom - than the recommended minimum.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14909066
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My parents house built in the 60s, front and back garden, drive way, garage, 2 big bedrooms and 1 small bedroom, you are lucky if you get a drive and a front garden with these new builds, granted land is more expensive

If I was looking for a house I would be going for something built pre 1970s

My sister bought a terraced house that was over 100 years old and apart from the wiring and living room floor that needed relaying it was sound, now we have all this space saving crap and energy saving materials that make the new builds feel hollow.
 
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cheets64 said:
Only yesterday I said how bad new builds are
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Dunno I can't complain about mine tbh... 'bout 600 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment, sliding doors from both the bedroom and lounge onto a big balcony - its not massive but its a reasonable space for 1 person. Walls are fairly well insulated so I don't get bothered by neighbors.

I guess it depends on the developer - I did see some that just looked shoddy - poor layouts and just general bad design of the building itself.

Having said that I like conversion properties most (for flats at least) - a friend of mine lives in a flat in a converted school building with double height ceilings, the space is incredible. If money was no object then I'd have gone for a converted church or school building etc...
 
I feel like the government is caught in a trap of not wanting to build more homes because it would devalue homes already owned by voters, but by not allowing more builds, forcing a generation of people to pay way over the odds to live anywhere with decent jobs going.

Just as an aside I'm currently eyeing up this house in the US town I'm going to be moving to. It's $300k (£180k) and nothing I could afford in the UK even comes close. I could just about get a 2 bedroom flat in a crap part of Cambridge for that.
 
i can't see myself living in anything that is 20th century tbh. even my parents house (built in the 60's) as nice as it is, it is not to my taste at all. my house may only be 2 bedrooms but they're good sizes as are the rooms for an end terraced and if i convert the loft then it will be a great size. the bathroom is huge and importantly on the first floor, the back garden is a good size too and it has the all important front drive which can fit two cars on. i really would have to spend a lot more or move to a less desirable area to find the same in a more modern house.
 
dowie said:
Dunno I can't complain about mine tbh... 'bout 600 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment, sliding doors from both the bedroom and lounge onto a big balcony - its not massive but its a reasonable space for 1 person. Walls are fairly well insulated so I don't get bothered by neighbors.

I guess it depends on the developer - I did see some that just looked shoddy - poor layouts and just general bad design of the building itself.

Having said that I like conversion properties most (for flats at least) - a friend of mine lives in a flat in a converted school building with double height ceilings, the space is incredible. If money was no object then I'd have gone for a converted church or school building etc...
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While you will get the occasional decent spec newbuild of decent dimension the vast majority are thrown up (understandably) the absolute cheapest way possible planned from the outset to extract the maximum bedrooms for a given developments land availability.

This leads to very poorly built and badly laid out developments which i always look at in utter amazement when i see that people actually buy them. Just look at virtually anything built by steamroller companies like Barratt.

Its been the same for years mind (mid 80s era onwards i guess is where you really notice it) when looking at developments much larger than a handful of properties on a single site.
 
sammo62 said:
I feel like the government is caught in a trap of not wanting to build more homes because it would devalue homes already owned by voters, but by not allowing more builds, forcing a generation of people to pay way over the odds to live anywhere with decent jobs going.

Just as an aside I'm currently eyeing up this house in the US town I'm going to be moving to. It's $300k (£180k) and nothing I could afford in the UK even comes close. I could just about get a 2 bedroom flat in a crap part of Cambridge for that.
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nice house but not a fair comparison as the US has way more land to build on than we do. the government isn't caught in a trap of not wanting to build more houses, developers are faced with problems such as brown belt, green belt and flood plains. bottom line is, there's too many people coming into the country, same problem with the roads, there's too many cars on the roads. we're a tiny island in all reality.
 
cm1179 said:
nice house but not a fair comparison as the US has way more land to build on than we do. the government isn't caught in a trap of not wanting to build more houses, developers are faced with problems such as brown belt, green belt and flood plains. bottom line is, there's too many people coming into the country, same problem with the roads, there's too many cars on the roads. we're a tiny island in all reality.
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I've never bought into the green belt nonsense. This country is absolutely huge in comparison to the amount of houses built on it. Ever looked out of the window when flying over the UK? It's 95% fields that could easily be built on - why do we need such a ridiculously high green belt / urban ratio?
 
sammo62 said:
Just as an aside I'm currently eyeing up this house in the US town I'm going to be moving to. It's $300k (£180k) and nothing I could afford in the UK even comes close. I could just about get a 2 bedroom flat in a crap part of Cambridge for that.
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Build costs have never been the issue. That house has no value due for many reasons and is totally non-comparable to the situation in the UK.
 
Jez said:
Build costs have never been the issue. That house has no value due for many reasons and is totally non-comparable to the situation in the UK.
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Well it's comparable in the sense that for the price of living in a crappy, cramped flat I get to live in a nice big house. That makes my life better for the equivalent money. Not using it as a yardstick against the UK market, just making a point about UK prices being very high.
 
to op, that is a complete misunderstanding about renting. There is a bit misconception that renting is wasting money. That is completely incorrect. You are enjoying the use of the home for the time that you rent it for.

You only benefit from owning a home if the mortgage payments are less per month than you would pay in rent for the same property.

owning a house:
1) more risk, could lose your deposit and go in to negative equity
2) you have to maintain everything in the house yourself, added cost.
3) you get to do the house up as you want and you get security of not having to move at the end of the lease.

renting a house.
1) no financial risk
2) if something breaks the landlord has to pay and replace it
3) you don't want to spend money on the property so often have to deal with poor quality appliances to the ones that you would have if you owned the house.

I do not want to own a house in the uk because i think they are inflated at the moment and the idea that house prices will keep rising for ever is foolish. Eventually they will adjust, the only thing that is stopping the same sort of adjustment we saw in the states is the BOE and their rates.

Now the banks require even more deposit after assisting to push the prices up to high levels by giving out easy loans, they have now restricted loaning standards and have decided that they want more down payment. So the risk increases for the borrower and banks risk is reduced as they tend to win either way.

But there is still guys at work that insist on buying a home is that path to being rich. They think that they can keep buying and selling their houses and keep "moving up the ladder" as they say.

I think those days are gone. Some people got very rich off property, bought houses from the government for £10k and sold them for £300k, even adjusted for inflation. There has been a lot of gain with property prices over the last 30 years.
 
sammo62 said:
I've never bought into the green belt nonsense. This country is absolutely huge in comparison to the amount of houses built on it. Ever looked out of the window when flying over the UK? It's 95% fields that could easily be built on - why do we need such a ridiculously high green belt / urban ratio?
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i don't agree with all of it. interesting (slightly old) articles if you want a more indepth view.

http://www.uklanddirectory.org.uk/greenbelt-discussion.asp

http://www.uklanddirectory.org.uk/building-on-agricultural-land.asp

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3649663.stm
 
sammo62 said:
Well it's comparable in the sense that for the price of living in a crappy, cramped flat I get to live in a nice big house. That makes my life better for the equivalent money. Not using it as a yardstick against the UK market, just making a point about UK prices being very high.
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I dont understand why you would even make the point which you are making if that is literally it?

The house looks good as its own entity, but look where it is, it is in destitute no-mans land 2.5 hours south of a city which is practically in ruins with unemployment.

Property is worth vastly different amounts depending on where it is, even within the USA there are massively expensive areas which rival prices in the most expensive places here, the difference with their market is that their country is so physically large that you also have areas which have almost no value at all, such as the one which you have posted.
 
One of the main reasons why property is so expensive in the UK, is because of the complete lack of supply. The lack of supply is created by the government restrictions on land and building. Also the government social housing requirements restrict the supply and push prices up. The government is one reason why house prices are so expensive. The other reason is the banks giving out mortgages to people very easily and the estate agent estimators who keep pushing up prices to increase commission.

That is why building a house is significantly cheaper than purchasing an existing one.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Nice one mate.. Must be quite a relief. I have a few years to go.. but nearly there :)
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I mean finalising the mortgage application:p It'll be a number of years before I've paid it off although the process should be made slightly less painful as I'll be renting out the other two rooms and possibly a third if I decide to convert the dining room into a livingroom and close off the living room to make a third bedroom! So far as I've heard applying for the motgage is the biggest obsticle to pass when buying a house so at least that's almost out of the way.
 
Jez said:
The house looks good as its own entity, but look where it is, it is in destitute no-mans land 2.5 hours south of a city which is practically in ruins with unemployment.
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:confused::confused:

It's in Champaign, IL home of the University of Illinois, a nicely sized town of about 120,000 people with an economy that's doing well (at least it seems to be the last 5 times I went there) and my fiancee has a good job there.
 
Thats great for your personal situation, but geographically speaking you can surely see why it has no real value even in comparison to other areas within the USA.
 
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