Well well....there's a shortage of "affordable" housing?

aderbyshirelad

SammyD wrote:

Someone who talks sense! I don't know where the expectation that everyone in their early 20's should be able to afford a house on their own comes from. I am sick to death of hearing first jobbers at work winge that they can't afford anything when I (a) know exactly what they and their boyfriends earn - very similar to your salary - (b) know how often they go out during the week and how much clothes shopping they do (c) know they have their sights set ridiculously high - Islington, Fulham etc.

My husband and I worked hard for our deposit - he did a second job, we moved into a shared house with friends so halved out fixed outgoings, had no holidays or meals out, and no new clothes. Once we had our deposit we worked out where we would like to live, looked at the prices, thought again, and worked out way down the tube line (then off the tube line!) until we found somewhere we could afford.

Two people earning £25k should be able to afford a property in/around London. In my area there are plenty of houses with 2 or 3 bedrooms under £200k. There is nothing wrong with the area - it is safe, has good transport and lots of parks. But it doesn't have an N1 postcode.

Couldn't agree more. Surely you buy what you can afford. If you don't like what you can afford you start saving like mad, get a second job etc.

I know I'll probably get shot down, but surely there are plenty of places FTBs can still afford to buy, the problem is their expectations are way above their earnings/savings or willingness to make sacrifices..??

RHemmings

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

But there are a LOT of people around who aren't couples earning 25k each!

And there are few properties at low prices. If I search on 3 bed properties in London, I find there are 41 properties less than £150,000. About ten of those are shops, part ownership, and the like. Make that 30 properties under £150,000. How many people are there living in London? Millions. How many on low incomes like less than £25,000 combined salary? I'd agree with you, A LOT.

RHemmings

aderbyshirelad wrote:

Couldn't agree more. Surely you buy what you can afford. If you don't like what you can afford you start saving like mad, get a second job etc.

I know I'll probably get shot down, but surely there are plenty of places FTBs can still afford to buy, the problem is their expectations are way above their earnings/savings or willingness to make sacrifices..??

How does making "sacrifices" meant to help people on a combined salary of £25,000 or so afford a house? If such a couple worked in London, and had children, then where would they be able to buy? I find postings such as this one objectionable. It must be people's expectations that are at fault. It couldn't be that house prices have risen way out of proportion to income. Oh no.

aderbyshirelad

RHemmings wrote:

How does making "sacrifices" meant to help people on a combined salary of £25,000 or so afford a house? If such a couple worked in London, and had children, then where would they be able to buy? I find postings such as this one objectionable. It must be people's expectations that are at fault. It couldn't be that house prices have risen way out of proportion to income. Oh no.

RH

I think "objectionable" is a little strong? I truly wasn't meaning to be. But, yes I do believe a lot of people's expectations are at fault. The "I want-it-now" generation is probably a discussion for another time. I know a great many couples who ARE making sacrifices (not going out, not buying the latest playstation game, not buying new clothes, walking to work - in fact leading exemplary MSE lives) to buy the house they want, where they'd like it. They do this in the knowledge that they could go and buy something somewhere else, but they've made a choice to save.

[Deleted User]

Shouldn't a family on 25K get council housing and tax credits? Realistically, they just aren't gonna be able to buy anywhere. Thats nothing to do with the current housing market, they just don't earn enough.

My grandparents didn't make a decent living, they lived in council housing... does this still exist in enough quantity to house the population?

RHemmings

ringo_24601 wrote:

Shouldn't a family on 25K get council housing and tax credits? Realistically, they just aren't gonna be able to buy anywhere. Thats nothing to do with the current housing market, they just don't earn enough.

My grandparents didn't make a decent living, they lived in council housing... does this still exist in enough quantity to house the population?

If houses hadn't gone up by more than inflation since the mid 90s, they'd be able to buy. A family on £25,000 combined salary in 2006 pounds would have been able to buy a property meeting their needs at many times in history. Why not now?

RHemmings

aderbyshirelad wrote:

RH

I think "objectionable" is a little strong? I truly wasn't meaning to be. But, yes I do believe a lot of people's expectations are at fault. The "I want-it-now" generation is probably a discussion for another time. I know a great many couples who ARE making sacrifices (not going out, not buying the latest playstation game, not buying new clothes, walking to work - in fact leading exemplary MSE lives) to buy the house they want, where they'd like it. They do this in the knowledge that they could go and buy something somewhere else, but they've made a choice to save.

I don't mean to call you yourself "objectionable", but I think that many people who talk about "expectations" and the like haven't really considered the problem properly. I see many young people who are working to get ahead in life, who are scrimping, saving, and doing what they can. But house prices are so obscenely out of whack with reality that it's just not enough. Let's take a family who might be able to afford a house costing £100,000. If they scrimped, saved, and did what they could, and increased the amount they could afford to £120,000, then I'd think they'd done a fantastic job. But what does that matter if they can't find a decent house to live in for less than £150,000.

And can these people really just go and buy a house somewhere else? Like the news articles we read about people buying houses overseas and commuting into London? Should people be forced to do this? Why? Previous generations didn't have to.

The people I meet and talk to don't even have the expectation that they'd be able to afford the same houses and property as previous generations. To go and then say that they should drop their expectations even further is not reasonable. In my opinion. The expectations are not the problem, the problem is a government that allows a basic human need to be traded as an investment. Gold being traded as an investment, or fine wine, that I have no trouble with. Because people can easily do without gold or fine wine without significantly impacting their lives. But houses are a different matter.

In the end the property market acting as an investment market, which I believe it does, will solve the problem by correcting when people finally realise it's a bad investment. But how many lives will be blighted before then when naive young people take on crippling mortgages which will not disappear with drops in house prices.

Hereward

RHemmings wrote:

If houses hadn't gone up by more than inflation since the mid 90s, they'd be able to buy. A family on £25,000 combined salary in 2006 pounds would have been able to buy a property meeting their needs at many times in history. Why not now?

The flippant answer is today and not yesterday, so why should the price of something yesterday have any influence on its price today. As any inflation measure only reports on the average change in price some things will always go up, or down, by more that the stated rate.

RHemmings

Hereward wrote:

The flippant answer is today and not yesterday, so why should the price of something yesterday have any influence on its price today. As any inflation measure only reports on the average change in price some things will always go up, or down, by more that the stated rate.

But are you saying that it is a good thing that houses have gone up by so much more than the price of inflation? That houses becoming this much more expensive is the proper thing, and that people's expectations are in the wrong for not changing with house prices? I would say that it's the other way around. I see no reason why people shouldn't expect similar housing to what people could buy even ten years ago.

Hereward

RHemmings wrote:

I don't mean to call you yourself "objectionable", but I think that many people who talk about "expectations" and the like haven't really considered the problem properly. I see many young people who are working to get ahead in life, who are scrimping, saving, and doing what they can. But house prices are so obscenely out of whack with reality that it's just not enough. Let's take a family who might be able to afford a house costing £100,000. If they scrimped, saved, and did what they could, and increased the amount they could afford to £120,000, then I'd think they'd done a fantastic job. But what does that matter if they can't find a decent house to live in for less than £150,000.

That’s one of the problems with their expectations: they want a "decent" house. If they lowered their sights a bit, then they would be able to afford a house. OK, it might not be in a "good" area, but everybody has to start somewhere.

And can these people really just go and buy a house somewhere else? Like the news articles we read about people buying houses overseas and commuting into London? Should people be forced to do this? Why? Previous generations didn't have to.

Exactly, previous generations were willing to put up with cramped conditions/poor housing, just so the could live near to their work. In addition, the modes of transport available in the past were not a s fast, or efficient, as today, so living near your place of work was vital.

The people I meet and talk to don't even have the expectation that they'd be able to afford the same houses and property as previous generations. To go and then say that they should drop their expectations even further is not reasonable. In my opinion. The expectations are not the problem, the problem is a government that allows a basic human need to be traded as an investment. Gold being traded as an investment, or fine wine, that I have no trouble with. Because people can easily do without gold or fine wine without significantly impacting their lives. But houses are a different matter.
In the end the property market acting as an investment market, which I believe it does, will solve the problem by correcting when people finally realise it's a bad investment. But how many lives will be blighted before then when naive young people take on crippling mortgages which will not disappear with drops in house prices.

I have yet to see a law that states that people should be able to own their own home. If people want a property there are plenty of options currently open to them. The government could provide shelter for everyone in big tents: there wouldn’t be much privacy, but then they only need to provide shelter not privacy. Those who want privacy should have to buy their own shelter.