The dysfunctional UK housing market.

ManAtHome

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

South east england 8 million population
http://www.neuralmap.com/archives/population-density-england/

Your link notes another 7.5 million in London...

shortchanged_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Jeez monkeyboy, are you for real??? :eek:

Only 15% of the UK's population live in the South East.

85% live elsewhere, which is why the averages quoted to you earlier from multiple sources of around £600 to £700 for all houses (and less for flats) are correct.

Yes check your figures Hamish. I think you'll find those figures don't include London so that would be 8 million plus around 7.5 million for Greater London which equates to around 15.5 million people in the London and South East area, which is actually closer to 23% of the UK population total.

I suppose this total goes to show why the South East and London is so powerful in skewing the national house price statistics.

robmatic

macaque wrote: »

For a young person with an average income, rent amounts to over 70% of his take home salary. For a person in a 3 bed house, rent amounts to over 86% of take home salary. This is before other basic housing costs such as council tax, gas, electricity and water and does not include moving costs.

What contribution do BTL's make for taking 70%+ of an average person's take home pay? Very little in fact. They don't build the houses and the properties are purchased with borrowed money. They spend the minimum on maintenance and many of them discharge their management responsibilities to Letting agents. The idea that someone making circuit boards for aircraft should hand over 70% of his/her income to someone who sits around watching daytime TV does not make sense.

How do different groups react to what amounts to this massive and unproductive cost burden?

Dysfunctional argument more like. For a start, those allegedly average figures are dubious at best (I won't even bother discussing them). And even then, why is your average young person renting a 2 bedroom flat or a 3 bedroom house by themself? If they have a partner, there will be double the income so even with your inflated rental figure that becomes only 35% of household income. If not, why are they renting additional bedrooms?