How much more would you pay....

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

purch wrote: »

Actually it would be interesting to compare what the cost of these upgrades would have been 50 years ago, against the cost today, and what proportion of the average property price it equates to.

It is an interesting concept....

I rather suspect using todays money will err on the side of the bears, but for ease of debate I'm happy to do so.

First generation central heating/double glazing would be state of the art for the time, and probably far more expensive in real terms than todays equivalent.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

So lets say, for the sake of argument, that the following would be about right for a house.

Indoor toilet and plumbing to install -- £5000

Central Heating system and all associated works -- £10,000

Hot water supply and plumbing throughout house -- £5000

Now add in double glazing (£12K) fitted kitchen and bathroom (£10K).

Somewhere around £42,000 worth of improvements and upgrades (not basic repairs) to houses in the last few decades.

Hardly unreasonable to expect those costs to be passed onto the value of houses.

The average house value today would be approximately 25% less if the house was still the same standard as it was in the 1950's for example.

And yet house prices today are 4.5 times average male (mean) earnings, versus 4.0 times average male (mean) earnings in the early 1950's.

LOL. Nice attempt Hamish, but unfortunately you are still not smoking that cigar.

You are using stuff which used to be a luxury, with the same things which are viewed as standard now.

Technology moves on, it becomes standardised. It doesn't mean that you can therefore somehow say house prices are now more expensive because they now, usually, have these things as standard.

Afterall, outside loo's were also standard once too. Before that, communal facilities were most probably standard.

If you are really going to use these thoughts as a basis of some sort of justification of prices now vs a few decades ago, then you are missing a trick....downstairs loos and en suites.

You must have really thought about this one, to come up with it. Which is rather endearing. However, it's slightly loopy.

Stuff you may pay extra now for, and may add value to the house is full insulation, energy efficiency, solar power etc.

If you REALLY want to argue all of the above, then fine, let's go....

I'll start with a 15% fall in value due to the lack of an extra room(s). Basements.

puddy

when they were first introduced, people didnt want indoor toilets because they thought they were unhygenic

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

You are using stuff which used to be a luxury, with the same things which are viewed as standard now.

Standard, yes.... But it's not free Graham. The toilet fairy doesn't come around and deposit a free indoor loo in every house.

Technology moves on, it becomes standardised. It doesn't mean that you can therefore somehow say house prices are now more expensive because they now, usually, have these things as standard.

Unless you can show me that

a) standard means totally free, and...

b) provide a reason why the cost of improvements should not add to the value of a house

then I'm afraid your argument is nonsense.

Afterall, outside loo's were also standard once too. Before that, communal facilities were most probably standard.

And again, it will still cost more to plumb a toilet within a house than to build a bench over a pit outside.

If you are really going to use these thoughts as a basis of some sort of justification of prices now vs a few decades ago, then you are missing a trick....downstairs loos and en suites.

Works for me. The more the merrier.

Stuff you may pay extra now for, and may add value to the house is full insulation, energy efficiency, solar power etc.

Sure thing.... Good point.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

then I'm afraid your argument is nonsense.

I can't prove anything, and haven't asked you for the same, as you too, wouldn't be able to prove anything, it's mere guess work, and I'd guess this thread is trying to raise a eyebrow

May I say though, that I am rather amused that you are now going to such lengths to try to justify the cost of houses. You obviously felt the need to think all this up, then write it all down as some kind of justification for the current pricing.

And believe me....this is some lengths!!

I really can't see a surveyor going round to survey an 80's build and saying "cripes...indoor toilet, bloody lucky people, that'll add 10%".

jamesd

Graham_Devon wrote: »

You are using stuff which used to be a luxury, with the same things which are viewed as standard now. ... Technology moves on, it becomes standardised. It doesn't mean that you can therefore somehow say house prices are now more expensive because they now, usually, have these things as standard. ... Stuff you may pay extra now for, and may add value to the house is full insulation, energy efficiency, solar power etc.Basements.

So, I recently purchased a flat with no central heating, no double glazing, marginal kitchen and bathroom and will be spending about 15% of the purchase price to upgrade those things. This place was converted in 1986 and still won't meet current fire protection standards after the work I'm doing, raising that to modern standards would have been too costly.

Someone has to pay for the cost of the items that are now standard. That's the people who buy the places, either if they are already present or if they have to be added. the price I paid for the property reflected what it didn't already have and what I'd have to do to upgrade it.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I really can't see a surveyor going round to survey an 80's build and saying "cripes...indoor toilet, bloody lucky people, that'll add 10%".

What the buyer says is "no indoor toilet, it'll cost x to add that and make the property habitable, that'll cut £10k off the price I'm willing to pay compared to similar properties with one, after I've checked that it's possible to install one in this property". At least, that's what the buyers who don't walk away at the first sight of it will do. Many would walk away.

toby3000

If we're going down this route of argument, then surely it should only apply to houses built pre-WWI and even then not all of the remaining ones. Internal plumbing caught on pretty quickly amoung the middle classes AFAIK, so newly built houses for many middle class people included a bathroom/indoor toilet by the late 19th century. I'll hazard a guess that most of the houses in 1960 that didn't have bathrooms/hot water were demolished rather than upgraded, since they would be designated slums.

If we're going to pretend that the value of a house is directly related to it's facilities, then surely the now 100 year old roofing and plaster in many 19th century houses is de-valuing them? If new double glazing hadn't been installed, then the windows would be virtually finished by now anyway.

Graham_Devon

jamesd wrote: »

So, I recently purchased a flat with no central heating, no double glazing, marginal kitchen and bathroom and will be spending about 15% of the purchase price to upgrade those things. This place was converted in 1986 and still won't meet current fire protection standards after the work I'm doing, raising that to modern standards would have been too costly.

Someone has to pay for the cost of the items that are now standard. That's the people who buy the places, either if they are already present or if they have to be added. the price I paid for the property reflected what it didn't already have and what I'd have to do to upgrade it.

Yes, of course.

You paid less for the house, due to it needing renovation.

Doesn't mean houses per se are worth more on average because of an indoor loo. Just means properties like you bought are worth less than average as they are now not up to scratch with living standards.

I really don't see the point in the discussion, as the more I think about it, the more I realise that these sort of things have a 10-15 year life span anyway. So would need to be upgraded, or refitted at some point. It's not as if one owner in 1970 fitted the central heating, bathroom and put an inbuilt oven in, and since then nothing has had to have been done. It will have needed replacing since then....would be a shytehole if not, and certainly some boilers from around that era would be condemned at survey point.

PasturesNew

In about 1980 I visited a newly married couple, in their rented house, which was about 100 years old. It was literally a 2-up-2-down, with a tiny kitchen sticking out the back. They had a tin bath hanging on the wall of the back room as they didn't have a bathroom at all, the loo was outside. The kitchen was just a big old original Belfast sink and a couple of cupboards.

They were offered it to buy at £8,000, they declined. Now that house would sell for about £250k. That was under 3x what my starting salary was in my first job a year later, which was £3k as PA/Secretary to an MD of a very small company.

I can't remember the number, but it was one of these: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=york+street,+cambridge&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=York+St,+Cambridge+CB1,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.205243,0.141591&spn=0.000656,0.002167&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=52.205143,0.141646&panoid=2NDEnoTsw5DWa-agw7YJrQ&cbp=12,39.7,,0,9.28

Graham_Devon

This is actually quite interesting Hamish, will give you your dues.

I'm going to take another angle on it though, and for this, I'm gonna have to be imaginative.

You are suggesting that indoor bathrooms, fitted kitchens etc have upped the average value of houses in the UK, vs a few decades ago.

So here comes the imaginative bit....let's imagine that the government suddenly finds out that the world will end if we keep flushing our deposits into the sea through the sewerage system, and we all have to start using outside chemical loos due to risk of chemical explosion after a dodgy kebab..

Would house prices fall, say 10-20% on average across the board because we can all no longer use indoor toilets and people have converted to outside chemical loos?

Answers on a postcard....though theres only really one answer...no...because it would be standard.