An entire generation locked out of property ownership

ukcarper

If council houses were so easy to get in the 60s and 70s why did I spend my childhood in a cold and draughty 2 bed house with no hot water, no bathroom and a outside toilet, waiting for my sister to be old enough for my parents to get enough points for one.

ash28

PasturesNew wrote: »

But in a later post you said it cost you £18k. £18k with two people saving. The bottom of the market where I grew up was never that low, never.... and there was just me.

£18k, seriously .... it wasn't that hard for a couple to buy a house at that price. They simply had to decide they wanted one and work out where to get the deposit from.

£18k for a couple would be similar price-wise to a single having to find £9k. In 1981 I was earning £6,000 and the bottom of the market where I lived (and a 20 mile radius) was about £24k. Mortgages were 3x salary for a single person then.

Mortgages for a couple were only 3.5x1 or 3x1 + 1, there was very little difference between what a couple could get and a single person could get - rightly or wrongly banks and building societies didn't think 2 salaries would be for ever and that at some point the female salary would disappear for a number of years.

We bought for £23.5k in 1982 using one salary of £8k - we had 3 young children (under 3) - it wasn't long before I had a part time job in a pub in the evenings.

geneer

dianadors wrote: »

Just before we bought our house, they did ration mortgages. A colleague and her boyfriend had put their name down for a mortgage, and a council house at the same time when they got engaged and were going to go with whichever came up first. Building society's had a set amount of cash that they could lend out each month so you had to get in a queue. I keep trying to tell you all, this aint owt new and if you really want to own a home its not impossible. Saving was always hard - I thinks its harder today because of all the "stuff" there is to tempt you to spend, and for years we have had a spending culture, whereas back then saving was all the rage. My then boyfriend and I saved 22% for our deposit - 11% each. It meant lots of staying in, living with parents till we got married, no foreign holidays until much later - but we did manage to buy our first place at 23 years old.

So it looks like the new new paradigm (as opposed to the shortlived new paragigm) isn't all that different to the old paradigm.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

geneer wrote: »

So it looks like the new new paradigm (as opposed to the shortlived new paragigm) isn't all that different to the old paradigm.

Yeah, that old paradigm worked pretty well for the 50% of people who could buy the houses. Like Rachman.

Not so much for the other 50% though....:)

geneer

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Yeah, that old paradigm worked pretty well for the 50% of people who could buy the houses. Like Rachman.

Not so much for the other 50% though....:)

A 50% reduction in competition you say.
Sounds good to me.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

geneer wrote: »

A 50% reduction in competition you say.
Sounds good to me.

Yes geneer, we've already established in numerous threads that you want fewer people to be able to buy houses.

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Yes geneer, we've already established in numerous threads that you want fewer people to be able to buy houses.

That's what you want too. You actively celebrate it. So in that case, can you too kiss and make up?

PasturesNew

Somewhere I wouldn't buy, but am very intrigued by, has reappeared on RM today... it started at £125k and is now £90k. Nice, tidy little "bolthole", or "ideal 2nd home/holiday let" as they used to say ... when there was a market for it. Now it's an oddity, a small, bizarre place with fab views ... and getting cheaper by the month.

mutter

dianadors wrote: »

Ive worked in Crowborough - it was lovely.. I live near Mexborough, its not as nice as Crowborough. However the North/South divide does have (a very few) advantages and property prices are one. My best friend bought her first house in Surrey for £80,000 at the same time as I bought mine for £18,000. Very similar houses. If she sold hers in Surrey and bought in South Yorkshire, she could afford a small mansion now!!! We don't have many jobs up here, but if you are lucky to have one, housing is affordable, Come up north, we'd love to have you.

I actually live a couple of miles south of Crowborough
I don't think I've ever been to Mexborough, but I was born in Fulford, just outside York, and still have friends and family in the area, and around Doncaster/Pontefract.
However, my Dad was never really happy 'Oop North' and was keen to return to his native Sussex, where he bought a nice 3 bed semi for the princely sum of £4,250 in 1968.


My ex and I managed to scrape up enough to buy a 2 bed terrace in 1985, but lost our business and our home in the recession of the early 90s (remember 15% interest rates?).

I've thought about the possibility of moving elsewhere in order to buy a house, maybe back to Yorkshire, or to Scotland, where I also have family, but it'd be a big wrench to be so far from my kids.

It's hard to see how my kids will ever manage to own their own home. My daughter has a job she enjoys, but earns less than £20,000 and her share of the rent on the flat she shares with 2 friends is £400 per month, plus bills, and it costs her £80 a month to travel 8 miles to and from work each day.
The three of them are trying hard to save because they'd like to try and buy somewhere together, but I can see all sorts of pitfalls in a 3-way purchase, so I'm not sure it'll ever happen.

I know you have your problems up there with unemployment, but us soft southerners have our issues too!

mutter

PasturesNew wrote: »

First one's a shabby little terrace; your area looks like a bigger/posher one

So, running that postcode through RM I've got you something £55k cheaper http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32757719.html or this lovely specimen at "just" £170k http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-18085632.html

But yeah ... £40k for a house! My studio with a bed on a shelf on a council estate miles out of town was valued at £50k in 1990!

£210k for a 2-bed terrace where I grew up http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-32791373.html

Your first example is a reirement property.
That's why it's cheap.

I'm not quite sure what you're implying ....................

:rotfl: