Musings of an elder board member

Pobby

Wow, it`s true what they say, time does fly and it seems only a short while ago that in the mid 70`s we bought our first place. I had 2 jobs, both of which I loved. The second one was playing in a band at the weekends. Lol. bow tie and all but that was the deposit. 10 grand for a 3 bedder semi in the south east. No money to furnish and a black and white tv from redeeming Green Shield stamps.

Mattress on the floor and a bit of second hand furniture. Funnily enough it was no big deal. No body had a great deal then but nobody gave a care. Looked good on the outside, nice new Volvo parked on the hard standing provided by a decent boss, the likes not seen today who would reward his fortune makers.

Wow the hoops we had to jump through to get that mortgage. £60 a month was the repayment. Then again we thought nothing about it. Nor did our friends who little by little bought a home. Provided you wern`t totally dysfunctional and you had a half decent job, buying a place was so affordable. My, even single friends, and dare I say even the fairer single sex folk could buy and still go out of an evening and enjoy a drink with mates.

I live in a slightly less wealthier place now, but even so, you would need £50k a year income on old multiples to buy a similar property. That property in the south east would set you back maybe a bit over £60k per annum income.

Something has gone horribly wrong. I take a wholly cynical attitude when I read some of the posts here celebrating and indeed promoting prices that are so out of kilter regarding property. Starter homes with 25% equity owner ship!

Let`s go back to the days when labour came to power, you remember. Mr. Brown and his not letting property prices get out of control. That first place in the south east would have been may worth £50k. So double income would have made it very affordable.

Certainly makes me think. From 50k to the best part of 200k in just over a decade. Does that make sense to you?

nearlynew

Pobby wrote: »

Wow, it`s true what they say, time does fly and it seems only a short while ago that in the mid 70`s we bought our first place. I had 2 jobs, both of which I loved. The second one was playing in a band at the weekends. Lol. bow tie and all but that was the deposit. 10 grand for a 3 bedder semi in the south east. No money to furnish and a black and white tv from redeeming Green Shield stamps.

Mattress on the floor and a bit of second hand furniture. Funnily enough it was no big deal. No body had a great deal then but nobody gave a care. Looked good on the outside, nice new Volvo parked on the hard standing provided by a decent boss, the likes not seen today who would reward his fortune makers.

Wow the hoops we had to jump through to get that mortgage. £60 a month was the repayment. Then again we thought nothing about it. Nor did our friends who little by little bought a home. Provided you wern`t totally dysfunctional and you had a half decent job, buying a place was so affordable. My, even single friends, and dare I say even the fairer single sex folk could buy and still go out of an evening and enjoy a drink with mates.

I live in a slightly less wealthier place now, but even so, you would need £50k a year income on old multiples to buy a similar property. That property in the south east would set you back maybe a bit over £60k per annum income.

Something has gone horribly wrong. I take a wholly cynical attitude when I read some of the posts here celebrating and indeed promoting prices that are so out of kilter regarding property. Starter homes with 25% equity owner ship!

Let`s go back to the days when labour came to power, you remember. Mr. Brown and his not letting property prices get out of control. That first place in the south east would have been may worth £50k. So double income would have made it very affordable.

Certainly makes me think. From 50k to the best part of 200k in just over a decade. Does that make sense to you?

Or, in other words......................




Inflation is theft.

Shakethedisease

Mattress on the floor and a bit of second hand furniture. Funnily enough it was no big deal. No body had a great deal then but nobody gave a care.

Strangely enough that's how I started out married life in a council house in 1992 lol ! Honeymoon was, err interesting... ( we spent it there ).. no car, bare floorboards and a tv that had 10 books piled on top of it so we could get a vague signal.. no cash and working in a dead end minimum wage factory.. but happy as larry.. till the divorce 2 years later anyway !

It's taken me till 38 to buy a house. I have no idea, and don't even want to imagine how long, if at all, it's going to take my kids to get somewhere to call their own if things stay as they are. My 21 year old is now jobless and with little hope of anything on the horizon...he's a decent lad too and desperate for work.. Husband has also been laid off after never being out of a job since he left school and 12 years of service in the RAF before contracting for a bit. Thank god we got the house before then. Our only avenue if we hadn't would've been b+b living ( I have 5 kids ! ).. as our previous landlord doesn't do dhss, most don't around here and the council would only have offered us a hostel until a house 'came up' ( waves hand vaguely in the distant future ).

So, no, 50k to 200k makes no sense to me, people celebrating high and nigh on impossible house prices makes no sense to me, nor does the ever decreasing stock of social housing either.

We're ok for now as I have an income. But god help those that don't have something like that to fall back on if interest rates go up, the repo 'amnesty' disappears or unemployment gets any worse.

It's time to view houses as homes again, not profit making vehicles. This weather at the moment is enough just to thank god I have a roof over my head for me and my family. !!!!!! the house prices !!

Even the innkeeper let Mary and Joesph have the stable for a bit when they were in trouble and no cash to spare. They even had guests round ( wise men and shepherds ) AND they had pets in what with the donkeys and lambs around. Just hope none of them were smoking that's all.. think of the redecoration fees !!!

Enough of my musings now too. Merry Xmas to everyone.

SingleSue

In our first flat in 1988, we started off with an old sofa from a friend which he brought round on the top of his mini (should have seen it, the sofa was huge, the mini tiny), a bed donated by one of the grandparents (which we had until the early 2000's), a tiny portable television, wardrobes from the same grandparent as the bed (and still in use now) and not much else.

We loved it though and before long we got a display cabinet from MFI...which amazingly, 21 years later, is still standing and doing it's job as is the mirror which was in the oops basket which we noticed and bought after we had paid for the cabinet!

Pobby

Thanks for that post Shakethedisease, I thought it an excellent snap shot of what life might be like for many . Quite chilling to think of where we are in all this. How we have arrived at a point that had the correct steps been taken some of this mess could have been averted.

I don`t like the Tories but at least they are pretty open about what they do. Labour has attacked the average guy with taxes coming from all quarters, yet in part to HPI, has created even further division in society.

Strange how council estates are seen as dumping grounds for an under class. I married a lass from a council estate. In those days it never crossed any ones mind that in some way they were housing for the dysfunctional, far from it. A girl friends father was an army major also in LHA.

My wife went to a good grammer school and we funded between us further education a bit latter on allowing her to get a first rate job.

The Thatcher years were tough for many. Prior to that the 3 day week that cities took years to recover from.

Recently I e mailed my MP. Awaiting a reply. I simply asked a few questions, the end to boom and bust, the u turn on controlling the property market. I wonder what the reply will be?

Rob_Marx

prices will come down, make no mistake of that. brown and a section of the homeowning population are away with the fairies thinking free money for all will continue but reality will set in soon

Pobby

Well I am pretty scared tbh about the future Rob. Mr. Brown is like a magician to me. Conjuring up goodies to keep away the worse effects of the last decade.

treliac

Pobby wrote: »

Strange how council estates are seen as dumping grounds for an under class. I married a lass from a council estate. In those days it never crossed any ones mind that in some way they were housing for the dysfunctional, far from it. A girl friends father was an army major also in LHA.

That probably says much more about the growth in dysfunction in our society than anything else.

carolt

SingleSue wrote: »

In our first flat in 1988, we started off with an old sofa from a friend which he brought round on the top of his mini (should have seen it, the sofa was huge, the mini tiny), a bed donated by one of the grandparents (which we had until the early 2000's), a tiny portable television, wardrobes from the same grandparent as the bed (and still in use now) and not much else.

We loved it though and before long we got a display cabinet from MFI...which amazingly, 21 years later, is still standing and doing it's job as is the mirror which was in the oops basket which we noticed and bought after we had paid for the cabinet!

All our furniture came from my in-laws - my parents-in-law emigrated to Spain the year we got married and donated everything - bed, sofas, wardrobes, booksleves, kitchen stuff - the lot. Along with our wedding presents, we've not really needed to buy anything since.

A decade later, our kids have finally worn out the sofas to unacceptable levels (even under throws, etc...) so our big present to ourselves this year is new sofas.

We were discussing this morning how we'd much rather have no sofas, and a place of our own - but it doesn't work that way.

Given a place of our own is some way off, we shall get rid of the highly unfunctional sofas, and at least we can enjoy our rented space.

I think people who have the idea that young people now spend all their cash on new furniture, new cars, new gadgets, don't really understand that no amount of sacrifice of these small things can make up the difference between now and house prices in the past.

Believe me, if I could swap new sofas for a house, I would...

chucky

the future is yours Pobby the past was yours but its gone now, too many things change and each generation has different priorities.

we all have to learn from it and be positive and make the most of future changes in society and opportunities. being negative is not good for any one.

ukcarper

My first house was 5.3 x average wage same house is now 7.2x average wage so not quite as bad as some people make out. In fact I bought it in April 1972 and if I had waited until December it would have been 6.6x. So when you buy in the cycle makes a big difference.