Incidentally, many of my friends emigrated to Australia after the turn of the millennium mostly in recognition of the state of housing in London/ South even back then…in retrospect, they made a very smart move.

Depends where you go, Sydney isn’t much better than London.

If you’re banking on inheritance to bail you out of poor life choices (and they *are* poor life choices – like the choice to dick about at school instead of learning, or the choice not to continue learning, paying for courses to further a career so you increase your employability and earning potential) then you’re a fool.

You know the thing about averages? About half of all people people are below average, maybe more IIRC. Think about that.

I answered nearly every point, I guess you just did not like the answers.

You didn’t answer mine and I asked it seven times.

Many of my own questions have gone unanswered e.g why is student loan debt at 6% when interest rates are near 0?

Aside from this being abject whataboutery and bugger all to do with the subject in hand,

Not all debts are bad (spoiler, a mortgage is a debt and this is seemingly awesome) and the student loan is one of the best debts going. You don’t start paying it back until you’re earning over a certain amount of salary (about £20k IIRC), and the entire thing is written off after 25 years. You’d have to be unfortunate, but it’s possible not to pay back a single penny.

I understand, you and many people like you don’t think there is a problem

You demonstrably do not.

So he got inheritent wealth, access to credit (presumably guaranteed by parents) free education and house prices were much more affordable. See the problem with the situation today?

Funny, I thought the usual Boomer narrative was bloody Millennials having it all too easy, everything handed to them whilst “we” had to work for it.

I saved 80k over 12 years because the bank would not lend me enough to house my children without this deposit.

Even at current abnormally high 20% deposit rates that makes for a £400,000 property. Either that or for whatever reason you were considered a financial risk.

I’ve just sold my entire house for less than your deposit. This is what I meant by managing expectations, your entire complaint is “people making a profit” yet meanwhile you’re in a position to pony up for a near half-a-million pound property and are whining about it? And have the brass neck to blanket-assume that no-one else could possibly “know what it was like”?

You are way off with your numbers, which is not surprising as you are quite happy to round up 400k to half a million.

Not that is matters but the house was 265k, average salary (freelance work could not count) + 2 kids means I could only borrow 180k. The house had not been touched since the 70s and did not have central heating – a long way off the picture you are painting of a luxery lifestyle I am demanding.

Please tell me what question you are asking, because I have no idea.

Yay!, my bro has finally managed to buy a house (see my comment back on page 1), He bid over asking price (i sold my 36yr old mk2 golf 16v, ill never drive it again anyway-not with progressive ms) with £5k from myself. Nice house (nice enough compared to his rented 1bed flat anyway) that is ready to move into with a decent sit ooterie shed thingy. Well chuffed for him as he’s been trying to buy summit for the past couple years, and the sale of my golf has let me update my 11 year old MacBook to a new iMac 27″ and new computer chair so we’re all now happy and content.

bro’s new hoose

No inheritance here – just hard work. Disadvantaged? Try single parent family where the single parent was an abusive alcoholic.

Quit whining about how hard the world is and work your ass off

While you are clearly awesome not everybody handles things the same as you have and don’t have the ability to study harder, continue in education and so on. And you may feel you had it hard but you still had some fortune on your side to get out of it.

When you stop work at 55 maybe become a tory MP, you are a natural…

^ I haven’t seen any other viable alternative proposed by anyone else. Things are the way they are, you can sit and moan and wait for the Glorious Revolution, or work hard and deal with the real world.

you can sit and moan and wait for the Glorious Revolution

The people moaning will be the first against the wall 😉

I haven’t seen any other viable alternative proposed by anyone else.

I’ll say it again;

social housing

SOCIAL HOUSING

SOCIAL HOUSING

SOCIAL HOUSING

Clear?

@somafunk that’s nice! Those houses are solid, my aunt’s lived in one like that for about 40 years now. Better than even my ex LA mid 60’s build.

@somafank – round by the football pitch, no?

I’m liking the space outside but inner shelter for a quiet coffee..ace.

Yeah, On the road heading down to football pitch, Just got to get him a decent espresso machine as moving in gift and sort out mains power to shed.

That house is ridiculous, for the same price where I live you’d get 60% shared ownership of a 1 bed flat. Which isn’t a humble brag it just shows how **** the market is

Probably so but up here its minimum wage/lowest pay area/very poor job market in scotland and very little/no amenities that you more than likely enjoy where you live, my bro is on minimum wage @ 40yrs old and recently left his minimum wage job in local fish factory to now retrain as apprentice plasterer with good local firm, he’s also a retained firefighter in town so needs to stay close to station. Mortgage for house is £100 less/month than what he was paying for 1bed flat in town – there’s your problem…dicks buying BTL and holiday homes in this area have **** it for locals.

Im 48, live in 1 bedroom council/now housing association bungalow – I’ve never had a job that paid more than minimum wage so I’ve had absolutely no chance of ever buying in this area

I haven’t seen any other viable alternative proposed by anyone else

– limit number of btl, through increase in taxes and the introduction of proper rent standards
– stop propping up the market every time is looking like it will stall.
– remove the private sector from social housing – it’s economic illiteracy.
– stop selling houses to foreign investors
– tax empty properties heavily
– ban second home owners in areas that are pricing locals out
– introduce a universal basic income, so everyone can have some liquidity and actually address generational immobility.

None of these are viable of course because they might lead to less unearned wealth.

work hard and deal with the real world.

This is not how the world works, try working in a Amazon warehouse or delivering IKEA furniture. Are they not working hard? Certainly harder than your average landlord.

The country consistently votes Tory.

Lets just leave that there for a while to sink in.

The “think of the children” lot on here – did you vote Tory too? I’d wager a substantial lot of you did.

Financial crash? Austerity that literally kills? People at food banks? Not enough housing? The rich getting richer at astonishing record rates?

Oh. You voted Tory.

You can whine all you like about “no alternatives” – but it’s rubbish. There *are* alternatives but they all come with a higher tax rate – and when push comes to shove you ditch ypur ideals and desires for a better, fairer society and vote Tory.

I suspect a lot complaining about BTL are only moaning because they can’t afford to do it themselves. They voted Tory because *insert whatever self-justifying argument you didn’t vote for one of the alternatives here*.

Whilst we’re barely a functioning democracy voting is the *only* lever we have to pull – yet the majority of the british public, *inclufing the poor* refuse to vote for the alternatives.

Instead, they vote Tory, and whine.

Id rather hack my own dick off with a bread knife than vote for any tory ****

For the record, I come from humble beginnings, fecked around at school, left with no qualifications and am not particularly clever!

However, I’ve ducked and dived a bit, taken a few risks and own a £1.7m home and house in Majorca. Definitely not a brag, I just want to say that whilst I’ve played the market quite well, you have to push relentlessly to get anywhere. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but there are a lot of people on here that play it ultra safe and wonder why they haven’t got anywhere.

social housing

SOCIAL HOUSING

SOCIAL HOUSING

SOCIAL HOUSING

– limit number of btl, through increase in taxes and the introduction of proper rent standards
– stop propping up the market every time is looking like it will stall.
– remove the private sector from social housing – it’s economic illiteracy.
– stop selling houses to foreign investors
– tax empty properties heavily
– ban second home owners in areas that are pricing locals out
– introduce a universal basic income, so everyone can have some liquidity and actually address generational immobility.

This all sounds great, when is this happening?

Oh, yes… it’s not.
Things are the way they are and you don’t really have a choice but to play the game…and it’s rubbish and I don’t like to say it but it’s true. At the risk of cliche-ing myself to death, we are where we are and you can protest as much as you want to, but this is Conservative Brexity Britain and there is no real choice other than to play on.

you can protest as much as you want

Or leave the UK. Property is cheap in parts of France. I hear it’s also cheap in certain areas of the usa. ….both have their own issues

Hell even brechins cheap if you really are desperate not to be renting off a scumlord BTL owner for 80k you could buy your own BTL empire.

For the record, I come from humble beginnings, fecked around at school, left with no qualifications and am not particularly clever!

However, I’ve ducked and dived a bit, taken a few risks and own a £1.7m home and house in Majorca. Definitely not a brag, I just want to say that whilst I’ve played the market quite well, you have to push relentlessly to get anywhere. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but there are a lot of people on here that play it ultra safe and wonder why they haven’t got anywhere.

Rockape1-62 are currently bankrupt…

I think crikey nails it. The system is broken, but realistically it’s not going to get fixed – to sort the housing market you need to address social housing infrastructure, social care/end of life care, transportation, retirement provision/viable replacement at scale for a failed pensions system, financial incentives to downsize as the kids fly the nest, continuous means testing of social rents and laddering them according to household income (then ringfencing and reinvesting the rental uplifts into more housing), managing/policing social housing to ensure zero tolerance to antisocial/unacceptable behaviour to ensure they stay a safe and desirable place to live (or else people don’t want to live there, undermining the whole thing).

That’s just the things off the top of my head. It’s not as simple as “ban the evil landlords”

Here is one thing you can do:

– give up your BTL

New Labour were the architects of this housing crisis, vote on polices not party lines.

Mass automation is coming, more voters are trapped in untainable living situations – change is coming.

You are way off with your numbers, which is not surprising as you are quite happy to round up 400k to half a million.

I was following your lead of exaggerating for effect. Annoying, isn’t it.

Not that is matters but the house was 265k, average salary (freelance work could not count) + 2 kids means I could only borrow 180k.

How many years ago?

Average salary today is about 25k. Did you get a mortgage for 7+ times your salary or do you think £50k/pa is “average”?

The house had not been touched since the 70s and did not have central heating – a long way off the picture you are painting of a luxery lifestyle I am demanding.

Like I said earlier. You’re living in one of the most expensive parts of the country and complaining that it’s expensive.

Please tell me what question you are asking, because I have no idea.

I’ve asked you (eight times and counting now) what the difference is, and you’ve finally had a fist of answering it.

Here is one thing you can do:

– give up your BTL

Brilliant. Then what?

change is coming.

Aah, I hate to be this guy, it saddens and depresses me but I don’t think it is.

We are too far down the road, the chance for any real change was years ago and we went on by that turn off while fiddling with the radio…

You know how people say that folk get more conservative as they get older? We don’t really, we just get more realistic, more accustomed to the way things are and the way things will be. I’ve got the full lefty CV, from fighting with the Tactical Aid Group and scrapping with skinheads at gigs, protesting this and that, Red Wedge, the Anti Nazi League…

The future is one of more of the same, big business will allow you to live a certain way, your Government will be beholden to that big business, your media will support that big business and dictate what your Government will do.

Meh. Work hard and sort yourself out; there’s not really any alternative.

Right the only option in life it to become a feudal style landowner, because erm… capitalism and it’s the way it is so shut up with your alternatives.

Average salary today is about 25k. Did you get a mortgage for 7+ times your salary or do you think £50k/pa is “average”

If that was the case (it’s not) you are just underlining my point. It **** hard to get a house

It **** hard to get a house

Yes, but it’s hard for everyone, even counting those with parental help and/or other good fortune. I work with lots of people from lots of different countries who chose to come here and they have exactly the same issue but they have no choice but to crack on and do it.

Right but we reached a point where you can’t just crack on.

If that was the case (it’s not) you are just underlining my point. It **** hard to get a house

And you’re avoiding mine. Again.

How could you “only” get a mortgage of 180k on an “average” salary? What’s “not the case” with what I just said?

You’ve (presumably) chosen to have children before buying a house.
You’ve chosen to live somewhere really expensive.
You’ve chosen to spend well over a quarter of a million pounds on a house some undisclosed number of years ago.
You claim to have been on an “average wage” and could “only” get a mortgage of £180k.

I chose not to reproduce. I’ve just inherited a cat.
I’ve just sold my house for 60k.
I’m buying a five-bedroom house for 160k.
I’m not greatly paid but it’s above average. My mortgage is £110k.

My old apprentice at work is currently a first-time buyer (in his 20s).
He has no children. He has a dog.
He’s buying a new build with his girlfriend.
He’s using the “help to buy” scheme I linked to earlier which means his deposit is minimal.
If he’s not on minimum wage he’s not on much more. No idea what his girlfriend does but I don’t expect she’s on a neurosurgeon wage.

Your assertions have no basis in reality outside of your own little bubble and the root cause of your tribulations is not BTL landlords.

But people are just cracking on.
If they weren’t, no one would be buying houses and the price would be coming down.

Houses sell.

If they don’t sell, the price gets dropped, but they do so the price is right.
House next door is up for sale; 6 views on the first day and its £100,000 more… bloody more… than it was bought for 8 years ago.

Play the game or don’t, but the game doesn’t care.

I suppose that in the past social housing was there for the less fortunate but now we have huge swathes of under 40’s (and older) in good jobs who cannot get on the housing market. Especially on their own.

@crikey you are describing the problem, houses are being sold at a fierce rate between an ever dewilnding section of the population who have access to credit lines that younger people do not have.

Your assertions have no basis in reality outside of your own little bubble

Right, nothing to see here everything is fine. I just need to do what you suggest – move, get rid of the kids, work harder, but not too hard as you find my definition of a average salary offensive somehow.

House was bought 4 years ago.

You would have be emotionally impotent or wilfully ignorant not too see the ineqaualities in the housing market.

You would have be emotionally impotent or wilfully ignorant not too see the ineqaualities in the housing market.

Yup, but that’s the way it is.

You don’t even have a choice; deal with it.

Deal with it?

How?

Let’s forget the fact that you’re the hardest working person on the planet who pulled yourself up by your bootstraps and blah, blah, blah…

How do you suggest overcoming the reality of the fact that the average salary is 25 grand, and the average house price is over ten times that? How do you save for a deposit while simultaneously paying astronomical rents to people lucky enough to have capital, inherited or otherwise?

It’d help if you addressed the actual issues of that rather than stressing to us how your anecdotal hard work and genius decision making saw you right in a completely different era…

The simple fact is that our housing market is ****ed because for decades now owning capital has been enormously, almost obscenely rewarded while wages for actual work have stagnated or fallen (which is about to get even worse), creating huge inequality of which the housing market is the most totally ****ed up example

If you’re not even prepared to acknowledge that glaringly obvious fact, or think we should all just accept that ‘that’s the way it is’ then you’re part of the problem.

I suspect that if you were a recent graduate, already saddled with huge debt to pay for your education, you’d probably feel a bit different

If you were a postman in Manchester you might earn 25k and a house might cost 10 times that. If you were a Postman in Orpington that 25k would buy nothing below 300k.

25k is the ‘average’ wage. Do the maths and work out the salary that a minimum wage job gives you.

It’s not 25 grand.

Where are these people supposed to live then? Now that social housing and affordable housing essentially no longer exist

If you didn’t catch it this week on BBC1 then this is well worth watching, to tell us where we are as a society

Manctopia – Billion pound property boom

Of all the housing construction presently going on in Manchester – and there’s a ****ing lot! – 85% of it is sold to foreign investors ‘off plan’ before its even built

Does that sound like a functional property market to provide for the housing needs of the population of Manchester?

Of course it bloody doesn’t! Because that’s never what it was meant to be

To me, it sounds about as far away from that as it’s possible to get

It’s just a massive scheme to make people who are already gifted with plentiful capital even more money.

And if poor people end up on the streets as a result of that…

Whatever….

Who cares?

I know I’ve seen it as our HQ is in Manchester. Talk to the taxi drivers etc and they say their sons and daughters are priced out of their home town.
As I have been in mine.

Right, nothing to see here everything is fine.

Not what I’m suggesting and I’ve said as much several times.

I just need to do what you suggest – move, get rid of the kids, work harder,

Another straw man.

but not too hard as you find my definition of a average salary offensive somehow.

I’ve no idea what “your definition of an average salary” is as you’ve proven elusive in explaining what you mean thus far. The national average salary with or without London weighting is well defined, is that what you’re talking about or have you made up an entirely different definition?

House was bought 4 years ago.

What’s it worth now?

You would have be emotionally impotent or wilfully ignorant not too see the ineqaualities in the housing market.

I’m well aware of the “inequalities in the housing market,” you’re just shouting at clouds rather than engaging in a sensible discussion.

25k is the ‘average’ wage. Do the maths and work out the salary that a minimum wage job gives you.

You don’t need to “do the maths,” the minimum wage salary is about 15k. Again, this is well documented.

Manchester is in the process of being socially cleansed, in the same way large areas of London have been, with the property market being used to hammer that home.

Andy Burnham has been very vocal about this but is powerless to stop it.

It’s worth noting that the Tories are now about to tear up what remaining planning controls local councils do have in a charter to let rip their property developer mates to do what the hell they like

Unbelievable as it may be, our government, when faced with a huge victory housing crisis, fully intend to make things considerably worse.

But their mates will make shed-loads of money, so it’s all good

Manchester is in the process of being socially cleansed

What does that mean and by whom?

Unbelievable as it may be, our government, when faced with a huge victory housing crisis, fully intend to make things considerably worse.

Not Corbyn’s fault then?

I chose not to reproduce. I’ve just inherited a cat.
I’ve just sold my house for 60k.
I’m buying a five-bedroom house for 160k.
I’m not greatly paid but it’s above average. My mortgage is £110k.

My old apprentice at work is currently a first-time buyer (in his 20s).
He has no children. He has a dog.
He’s buying a new build with his girlfriend.
He’s using the “help to buy” scheme I linked to earlier which means his deposit is minimal.
If he’s not on minimum wage he’s not on much more. No idea what his girlfriend does but I don’t expect she’s on a neurosurgeon wage.

Your assertions have no basis in reality outside of your own little bubble and the root cause of your tribulations is not BTL landlords.

Honestly, perhaps this is the issue. For me Cougar, it’s your scenario (houses at £60k, people on minimum wage buying a new build) that don’t have any basis in my reality. Average house price where I live is about £300k.