Why are people having a go at folk wanting to sell and buy

poppysarah

pinkshoes wrote: »

Arrrggghhh. This is the viewpoint that annoys me the most.

Over-inflated compared to what?!
. Whatever happened to saving up for things in life?

Overinflated as are rents.
The millions of people on social housing waiting lists are not there because they're all homesless but because they want decent affordable housing.

All Housing costs are way too high. With such crazy rent levels the whole economy suffers.
House price increases has led to rent increases,

And there is nothing wrong with saving for things. I think it's vital that this happens to avoid further silly credit problems that have happened because of the way personal banking has allowed insane people to take on insane amounts of debt.

They should rename credit cards as debt cards and tighten up personal finance opportunities so people can't get into silly debt again.

Building houses and the rental of houses is not a solic base for an economy.

pinkshoes

poppysarah wrote: »

Overinflated as are rents.
The millions of people on social housing waiting lists are not there because they're all homesless but because they want decent affordable housing.

Again, it depends where you live... Living in a "great" location is a luxury, and comes at a price. Why is Oxford city centre so expensive to rent/buy? Because SO many people (students, workers, locals) WANT to live in the city centre. There's plenty of affordable places to live on the outskirts... But they don't WANT to live there, so it pushes prices up. Overinflated? Perhaps, but it certainly doesn't put people off.

Go over to say Lincolnshire, and £150k will get you a 3 or 4 bedroom house in a nice market town, or rent it for about £500/month. If you're on a low wage, why live in a stupidly expensive part of the country, when you can get the same low wage elsewhere and make your money go further?

macaque wrote: »

House prices are 'over inflated' if workers in similar economies to ours can rent or buy similar accomodation for half the price (as it the case). 'Over inflated' house prices cost Uk jobs.

So go move to these other economies and find a job! Other countries might be cheaper, but here's some minimum wage comparisons:

UK - €1249
Slovakia - €267
Poland - €329


We're certainly not the "most expensive" country to live in. In Slovakia, their petrol is the same price as ours!!

People are too quick to whinge, and in reality it could be a LOT worse.

LittleMissAspie

longforthesun wrote: »

but as someone said we think nothing of purchasing a car that depreciates in value the minute you drive out the car showroom.

I do. But then I'm better with money than most people are.

LittleMissAspie

pinkshoes wrote: »

Go over to say Lincolnshire, and £150k will get you a 3 or 4 bedroom house in a nice market town, or rent it for about £500/month.

That's a perfect example of an overpriced house - rent cheaper than interest-only mortgage.

macaque_2

pinkshoes wrote: »

Again, it depends where you live... Living in a "great" location is a luxury, and comes at a price. Why is Oxford city centre so expensive to rent/buy? Because SO many people (students, workers, locals) WANT to live in the city centre. There's plenty of affordable places to live on the outskirts... But they don't WANT to live there, so it pushes prices up. Overinflated? Perhaps, but it certainly doesn't put people off.

Go over to say Lincolnshire, and £150k will get you a 3 or 4 bedroom house in a nice market town, or rent it for about £500/month. If you're on a low wage, why live in a stupidly expensive part of the country, when you can get the same low wage elsewhere and make your money go further?

So go move to these other economies and find a job! Other countries might be cheaper, but here's some minimum wage comparisons:

UK - €1249
Slovakia - €267
Poland - €329

We're certainly not the "most expensive" country to live in. In Slovakia, their petrol is the same price as ours!!

People are too quick to whinge, and in reality it could be a LOT worse.

You are not very good at this debating game. Does it not occur to you that quoting minimum salaries of emerging economies somewhat defeats your own position. It illustrates what we are up against in a world of global competition? The UK has lost over million manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years. These have been replaced with government funded jobs, government projects and the proceeds of MEWing. We are living far beyond our means. We cannot survive with the majority of the population collecting rent, flipping houses or working for the government whilst a rump of people work like slaves trying to compete with the rest of the world.

carolt

pinkshoes wrote: »

Again, it depends where you live... Living in a "great" location is a luxury, and comes at a price. Why is Oxford city centre so expensive to rent/buy? Because SO many people (students, workers, locals) WANT to live in the city centre. There's plenty of affordable places to live on the outskirts... But they don't WANT to live there, so it pushes prices up. Overinflated? Perhaps, but it certainly doesn't put people off.

Go over to say Lincolnshire, and £150k will get you a 3 or 4 bedroom house in a nice market town, or rent it for about £500/month. If you're on a low wage, why live in a stupidly expensive part of the country, when you can get the same low wage elsewhere and make your money go further?

Sorry - but to me, your example makes nonsense of your argument.

I was a student at Oxford in the early 90's, when the house I rented, in Jericho in the city centre was selling for 67K. The same or equivalent house has gone up by at least 400% since then.

Are you arguing that Oxford has become vastly more desirable over the last 10 years? Hardly - student numbers may have increased slightly, but then colleges have continued building further accommodation. Are you arguing that this has just been in line with actual salary increases? Hardly! :rotfl:Academics would be astonished to hear their salaries had gone up by those kind of figures!

Whilst prices then had probably overshot from the last crash, there is no way that current prices in central Oxford accurately reflect local circumstances. Unlike Cambridge, which has since developed local high-tech industry, Oxford outside of the university itself has nothing particularly to support those sort of house prices beyond any other small provincial town.

penguine

pinkshoes wrote: »

Whatever happened to saving up for things in life?

Saving up for things is a great idea. If the kind of HPI we've seen over the past decade continued indefinitely, however, saving for a home would be pointless. House prices in my area have almost tripled over the past decade. There's no way I could get that kind of return on my savings. That's why many people have mortgaged themselves to the hilt to get onto the property ladder -- because owning a home of their own seemed to be getting ever more rapidly out of their reach, and they could see no alternative.

Chris2685

Gotta say, trying to explain to normal people (people who don't read about the economy or read boards like these) why we decided not to buy and are renting instead is like banging my head against a wall...

Now I know how a few of you must have felt endless trying to explain to me why it isn't a good idea to buy!

One of my colleagues sons has recently bought a shared ownership flat on a 100% mortgage. The 2 bed flat was bought for £215k. Even when I was going through my naive stage, I could not have justified £215k for a 2 bedroom flat in Slough!

But apparently it is ok because he has payment protection insurance if anything goes wrong... :rolleyes:

penguine

Chris2685 wrote: »

Gotta say, trying to explain to normal people (people who don't read about the economy or read boards like these) why we decided not to buy and are renting instead is like banging my head against a wall...

I know what you mean. We almost bought the end of June -- pulled out just before exchange. Our survey raised lots of issues that were going to be pricier than we thought to fix -- which made us look around and notice that the market was falling. Even now, when you'd think people would have noticed there's a HPC on, it's hard to explain this to those who ask why we aren't looking to buy anymore. A lot of people out there are still in the denial stage.

Chris2685

Yep, it seems that maybe 4 in 5 people that I speak to will say 'rent is dead money' or 'you will never lose out buying a house, at least you will be paying off the mortgage' or 'house prices will be back up again eventually so you might as well buy now'.

Even if I (and most other people who think there are a lot more drops to come) get it wrong, we're not going to much out by renting really. The first year or two of the mortgage you barely pay off any of the capital anyway!