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Debate House Prices
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More average salary stats to argue over.....
Comments
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for self employed people who are directors of their company they pay themselves a salary and a dividend.
the salary is lower as it attracts tax and NI.
the Dividend does not need to pay NI and I believe the tax rate is less than income tax on these dividend payments.
it's quite simple really...:rolleyes:
Not everyone can take advantage of this.0 -
Thrugelmir wrote: »No.
Self employed. No holiday pay, no sickness pay , no work no pay.
For many its a lifestyle choice.
so Lawyer, Accountant, Barrister, are lifestyle choice.
No it means you are either a skilled professional or run a small business.
I know no one who works self employed for the fun of it. It is work so why do it if you don't need to.
A person who works for lifestyle is rarely a success you need drive to succeed when their is no drive there is little quality and service either.
PS how can you state all of the above and then make out it is a lifstyle choice?
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so Lawyer, Accountant, Barrister, are lifestyle choice.
No it means you are either a skilled professional or run a small business.
I know no one who works self employed for the fun of it. It is work so why do it if you don't need to.
A person who works for lifestyle is rarely a success you need drive to succeed when their is no drive there is little quality and service either.
PS how can you state all of the above and then make out it is a lifstyle choice?
Add F1 racing driver to your list....
The professions you describe normally work in partnerships, employing people running offices etc. This is not representative of the majority of self employed people.
My local magazine has around a 100 ads for all types of services from 1 man bands.
Do you live in London by any chance?0 -
Thrugelmir wrote: »Add F1 racing driver to your list....
The professions you describe normally work in partnerships, employing people running offices etc. This is not representative of the majority of self employed people.
My local magazine has around a 100 ads for all types of services from 1 man bands.
Do you live in London by any chance?
Good point all contract workers are self employed and usually get paid more than an equivalent of a full time employee for the same job.:)
No about 150 miles away.
Let me give you an example I used to live in an affluent small town so I could not work out why the average wage for people of that town was only £18K.
It is only recently I clicked that a lot of the people there are business owners or self employed professionals.
Average house price was over £200K so it is fairly obvious that self employed can make a big difference on local average wages.
Sorry the majority of self employed are employers also. The minority of self employed are on man bands (EG contract workers )0 -
no, no, no.
for self employed people who are directors of their company they pay themselves a salary and a dividend.
the salary is lower as it attracts tax and NI.
the Dividend does not need to pay NI and I believe the tax rate is less than income tax on these dividend payments.
it's quite simple really...:rolleyes:
Your teaching granny to suck eggs by the way...0 -
Graham_Devon wrote: »Your teaching granny to suck eggs by the way...
i doubt you're even too skilled at that because you fail to grasp the simplest concepts by mentioning turnover when it had nothing to do with the discussion0 -
Good point all contract workers are self employed and usually get paid more than an equivalent of a full time employee for the same job.
usually correct - but you can still be a contract worker and be PAYE...Sorry the majority of self employed are employers also. The minority of self employed are on man bands (EG contract workers )
or work as a ltd company, sole trader, sole propieter etc etc
if you have work you will earn more being self employed.0 -
The true value is in affordability. Not a mean, or middle value.
Prices today are not affordable in relation to earnings. Now that lending is a lot stricter (and may be for some time), people can't afford the houses they once could during the property bubble.
It's an old fashioned rule of thumb, but 3.5x the median (not the mean, it's not truly representative, as it's skewed by extreme high salaries) salary is a good judgement. Even if it were 30k, it would mean 105k mortgage, which is some way off current prices.
And it should be partially a single salary, as once children come into the equation, you're often surviving on a single salary.
When will people learn, prices need to drop. Cheaper houses are better for us all. It's only the minority that got caught up from 2004/5 onwards that are largely affected.
3.5 times median earnings? Are you having a laugh? So you think ther average UK house price should be about £75k? I'll have 6 of them please.
As to whether cheaper prices are better for all - how long do you think they'll stay cheap for? They were dirt cheap in 1995/6/7 - but that didn't last.0 -
Do we actually accept the self employed generally more than average and that they earn more than their employed counterparts.
Self-employed people I know include a plasterer, a gardener, and a washing machine repair man. They are self-employed for their own reasons.
I believe one went SE because he didn't want to work for "the man", he needed to be his own boss. Another went SE because as it affords him the luxury of working "just enough" for life to be balanced just right, enough money coming in, not working every hour under the sun.
They are not well off.
Not all self employed folks are rock stars and high flying businessmen. They're just normal people doing normal jobs. I expect the split to be weighted heavily towards the "johnny average" side tbh, leaving not too many SE superearners - not enough to make a bit of difference to the median figure discussed.
35k as a hairdresser though, wow... how much does she charge? That's a minimum wage job round here, school leaver does an apprenticeship type thing and just keeps doing it for years. If simply going SE meant double the wage for the same work there'd only be self-employed hairdressers out there surely? I might have to retrain and become a self-employed minted barber, thanks for the tip.0 -
3.5 times median earnings? Are you having a laugh? So you think ther average UK house price should be about £75k? I'll have 6 of them please.
As to whether cheaper prices are better for all - how long do you think they'll stay cheap for? They were dirt cheap in 1995/6/7 - but that didn't last.
Ok, firstly you're comparing median salary, and average house prices. Which is wrong for a start.
Maybe not £75k, but in the region of £85-100k would be about right.
I'm not talking about average house prices, rather the median house price. Something a majority worker can afford, and on a single salary should they decide to have a family with the wife temporarily out of work. A figure not skewed by the £2mil+ houses kicking around parts of the country.
I agree it's difficult to hold prices down. But if we don't then this country becomes an expensive place to live, and we're more exposed to property crashes like we've just seen.
One way to restrict it is to not allow banks to ease their lending criteria. And to stop mortgage fraud, whereby people lie on their applications. Make sure people aren't borrowing stupid amounts of money, and actually save before they buy so that they have some equity to start off with. Maybe make it so that 20% is the minimum first payment required on a house. I'm not saying jump to these rules right away, otherwise things wouldn't get moving for a while, but it's something they need to start applying.
It also means instead of paying £100k for your first house, then upgrading to a £175k house, then a 250k house, you're paying £150k for your first house and £300k for your second and 450k for your third. It's just more money being borrowed, yet we're not earning much more now (compared to house prices) as a relative comparison to 1999.
We're becoming a nation of debt, and expensive living. Other economies will just pass us by. I for one, have considered in the back of my mind, living elsewhere as I'd have a better quality of living."Boonowa tweepi, ha, ha."0
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