There's reports in the media today about our esteemed government considering allowing 100 year mortgages that can be passed down to your children. How does this help the average person own their house? You'll not only be committing yourself to a lifetime of repayments (basically rent) on something you will never fully own but you will also be addling your children/beneficiaries with a debt that they have not agreed to.
The housing market is broken already with social mobility stalling, rents rising faster than people's wages, house prices ballooning and no-one willing to call a halt to it all as it may upset people who see their property as their wealth/pension fund. How the hell can this be a good idea?
Agree with all that, the only people benefiting from that is the banks.
Housing costs need to come down, not try and find new ways to pay. We need more to be built and much more stringent borrowing requirements on multiples of income. If the government really wanted to help they could fund the 5% deposits people need to get started, preferably as a grant not a loan.
I'm sorry, but you seem to be expecting a good idea from the morons in Government? People who are literally only there because they have demonstrated a complete lack of financial ability, critical thinking, judgement, personality, morals, principles, or indeed any positive attributes at all?
The banks will love this - interest rates will have to be artificially high to protect them against inflation and come renewal you'll be totally stuffed.
I'm with you, the market broke when buy to let mortgages became popular, everyone should be able to afford food and shelter.
I'm not sure how to readjust the market but 10 times average salary to buy a house is not sustainable.
There should be a min of a 25% decrease as with all investment prices go up and down,the UK has always seen house ownership as a golden tcket, if the market is not cooled I can see civil unrest driven by inequalities by the haves and have nots in the not too distant future if a sensible route for the future of home ownership is not addressed.
People will happily pay 1/3 to 1/2 their income on their home.
However you fiddle with mortgage terms and interest rates, that seems to stay constant.
I genuinely don't understand the drive to own a house. Surely good quality social housing is a more sustainable and lower stress model?
If the government really wanted to help they could fund the 5% deposits people need
But the help to buy scheme led to increased house prices. Subsidising house purchases means that house builders can charge more for 'starter' homes, so the next step in the ladder gets more expensive too.
Owning second homes needs to make much less financial sense, and we need more houses to be built to try to get prices down, or at least get price increases down.
People will happily pay 1/3 to 1/2 their income on their home.
Happily? People will pay what they need to pay to have a roof over their and their families heads, it's not like housing is a luxury good.
Longer mortgages that pass onto offspring is common in other European countries I think, and seems to be a stabilising factor as people buy a house as a long term family home rather than constantly climbing up the so called ladder. So I think it can work. Why would you be unhappy if you inherit a house with an affordable mortgage and loads of equity?
Isn't this the standard in some other countries? It certainly used to be common in Germany.
100% tax on overseas buyers .
Burst the London bubble.
British houses for British people to live in.
Prefabs
More of this...
https://www.bristolstories.org/story/155
It will never happen 🙁 Got to keep the traditional house builders and landowners happy.
100% tax on overseas buyers .
Burst the London bubble.
British houses for British people to live in.
The children will have to take out another mortgage to pay for their parents care.
I genuinely don’t understand the drive to own a house. Surely good quality social housing is a more sustainable and stress-free model?
Good point. We need to have loads more social housing. It should be a common choice rather than a last resort type of thing.
The problem is that it largely doesn't exist, so you can either try to get a foot on the ladder or you can hope for more social housing, which doesn't exist now and won't be built in the future.
In fact, with the next round of 'right to buy' it's getting even worse. On top of the restrictions on local authorities who can't afford to build new social housing and can't borrow to pay for it either. So we've got very little social housing stock, what we have got is being sold off, and nobody is allowed to build any more.
5% deposit won’t even get you a mortgage with a lot of lenders. Plenty of houses being built near me, they’re just not affordable houses.
I genuinely don’t understand the drive to own a house.
Eh? It's quite literally free money if you can get on the bottom rung at some point.
seems to be a stabilising factor as people buy a house as a long term family home rather than constantly climbing up the so called ladder
How did that work out in Japan.
As above it's not a luxury it's a necessary.
This will just drive up housing costs due to lack of supply.
Gov knows that this puts the onus on us to keep working and keep paying taxes in much the same way that they did the same in the 70/80s by getting the workers into owned houses thus meaning striking became less of an option as their asset was on the line.
The way things are going with costs we are going to see more strikes.
If the government really wanted to help they could fund the 5% deposits people need
No. This would just push prices up by about 5%.
And it's not the government, its every other taxpayer. Even those who can't afford a house would be subsidising those who can.
.
The problem is demand is very location-specific. Not far from here, around Hawick, you can get a 1 bed flat for less than 30k, 2 beds for 50k, etc. You cannot get a studio in London for less than £200k. There must be a lot of people who can't afford to buy in London who could come up here and buy outright for less than their inadequate-for-London deposit savings.
The problem is where would they work?
Hopefully more WFH will see prices become more equal around the country. There are loads of places even cheaper than here, but they are not places people want to live
I genuinely don’t understand the drive to own a house.
Besides this
Eh? It’s quite literally free money if you can get on the bottom rung at some point.
It's security and stability if you have a family. A roof that your in charge of and don't get evicted from every year by a property holder who wants max return on investment.
Eh? It’s quite literally free money if you can get on the bottom rung at some point.
The key word in that statement is 'if'.
Also I said 'social housing' not 'privately rented'. Don't quote my post out of context.
Will drive prices up.
Will not solve the under supply of housing.
Its a dead cat.
It would be difficult to introduce a more stupid housing policy.
How’s it free money? My house is pretty old and always needs money spending on it.
Was a thing in Japan yonks ago, ‘90s.
I genuinely don’t understand the drive to own a house. Surely good quality social housing is a more sustainable and stress-free model
Hmm rents dead money whereas buying a house gives you equity.
If the social house rent was dead cheap then the drive probably wouldn’t be so much.
Why would you be unhappy if you inherit a house with an affordable mortgage and loads of equity?
The children will have to take out another mortgage to pay for their parents care.
There's your answer. Plus what if your kid(s) have set up their life in a different part of the country with their own lifetime mortgage? They will then have to fund two mortgages while they sell whichever house they don't want. What if they cannot afford that if the house takes a while to sell? It smacks of passing the buck to the next generation.
The broken housing market will likely bring down the government so hang in there.
It would be difficult to introduce a more stupid housing policy.
Depends what you are attempting to do,which is keep house prices high, bound to be a point where they just cannot be purchased unless they just stretch the loans to multigenerational.
Also I said ‘social housing’ not ‘privately rented’. Don’t quote my post out of context.
Modern social housing development is largely privately owned under license.
Very few council owned social housing schemes (comparitive to homes in existence and private owned social housing)
Despite me living next door to 2 council owned houses (they are seeking to auction off I understand)
Hmm rent's dead money whereas buying a house gives you equity.
It's not though, is it? For that money we get to live in a warm, dry house and someone'll come out to fix the boiler if it breaks, nothing extra to pay. Our rent goes towards paying people's wages and anything left over is re-invested in the housing stock by the not-for-profit that own the houses.
I agree that renting privately is shit (I've been there and done that) but social housing (done right) is briliant.
How many of you 'renting is dead money' types also rent their car? Just asking.
‘renting is dead money’ types also rent their car?
Nope. I mean if I did I could have much nicer car for the same money but I view it the same as my house.
Hell for what my mortgage was when I bought my house initially I could have rented a much bigger nicer house......
But for what my mortgage is now - I could rent a 1bed flat...... Inflation for you.
Loads. They just call it Leasing. Why do you think car prices are so high?
Rent never builds equity.
You always pay rent.
Difficult to downsize your rent.
Your rent is not an asset.
I agree on cars, i don't rent them either.
We dont build enough houses, there is no other cause.
X% tax on BTL
X% tax on Air BnB
X% tax on non Dom / overseas buyers
Simple. Hard to say what % tax would be effective without also having unintended consequences that also negatively impact people.
My view is that I want people that live / work in an area to own the property so you can build a decent community.
Right now many cute villages globally are all owned by investors / Airbnb’rs that is kind of sad. They are like mini theme parks with a cake shop but no rides.
X% tax on BTL
X% tax on Air BnB
X% tax on non Dom / overseas buyers
This times 100
Help those that need it penalise those that are breaking the system
But proper sustainable social housing needs to be implemented to make it work.
Why do you think car prices are so high?
Loads of reasons. Laziness, aspiration/status and entitlement are a few of them.
How many of you ‘renting is dead money’ types also rent their car? Just asking.
There a massive difference. A car is almost always a depreciating asset, a house almost always goes up in value. Buying a house is basically free (in fact better than free), which is pretty messed up.
X% tax on BTL
X% tax on Air BnB
X% tax on non Dom / overseas buyers
Totally agree.
I guess another way to look at it. Is 100 year loan is just renting a house with none of the downsides of renting but equally none of the upsides.....
Loads of reasons. Laziness, aspiration/status and entitlement are a few of them.
But also affordability, made possible by leasing.
100% inheritance tax. You want your parents house? buy it on the open market.
It would solve the housing crisis in about well, instantly. But no one would vote for it.
Short term affordability.
Kicking the can down the road if you will.
There a massive difference. A car is almost always a depreciating asset, a house almost always goes up in value. Buying a house is basically free (in fact better than free), which is pretty messed up.
Hmm. See, I look at renting a (social, I'm on about social housing not privately rented) house much like car leases, all you have to do is stick fuel (water, gas & electricity) in it and if it breaks for whatever reason (don't dredge up small print of specific leases to Make A Point please, you all know what I mean) someone'll come out to fix it.
I get that people have differing priorities, like we don't have kids so there's no need to leave anything behind us, but house ownership is not the ultimate goal for everyone and definitely not the answer for a more equitable society.
Massive investment on good quality affordable social housing is the only long term viable solution, take the pressure off the market from the bottom up.
Which would also help deal with a variety of other social issues. If we had a government and electorate who cared about such things.
Train a load more builders
Give councils money/allow them to borrow money to build a load more houses.
Build a load more houses.
Build them well!
I was thinking about the last point this morning after reading this story. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-62013797
The photo below shows the space previously occupied by two family houses: 
The footprint of them is tiny, plus there's a total of about 3 postage stamps of grass front and back.
There's plenty of need for flats rather than everyone living in suburbia, but houses like those seem like the worst of both worlds. None of the space or greenery of suburbia, but often none of the convenience (shops, public transport, etc) of city centre living.
but house ownership is not the ultimate goal for everyone and definitely not the answer for a more equitable society.
Indeed how ever it's one of only a few things you can do to protect/hedge your absolute certainty costs over your life time. I'd recommend it to anyone fortunate enough to have the choice availible to them.
Much like the 7 or so years of fairly trouble free motoring I get after the average lease has expired(natch free motoring) .....eventually (in the current system) your mortgage payment and rent diverge fairly quickly
Why would you be unhappy if you inherit a house with an affordable mortgage and loads of equity?
What about those who don't inherit a house? Rising house prices are a result of cheap credit. The easier you make it for people to borrow, the higher prices become. Which leaves new buyers with the prospect of taking on a huge amount of debt, potentially extending beyond their own lifetime. It leaves no option whatsoever for people to save a good proportion of the required funds and take a more sensible approach.
I'm not familiar with how the policy works elsewhere, so I'm not dismissing it entirely. But we all know house prices can't continue to rise forever, and anything that makes borrowing easier raises questions of kicking cans down the road. It's potentially an economic nuclear bomb.