First Time Buyers - Enough is Enough!

dougk_2

meanmachine wrote:

Oh I see - start low and work your way up. Aah got it. Doh, it's so simple!

34 year old FTB on average wage of 25K starts low, buying a below average property @ 100K. It's a sh*thole, but never mind.

Five years later, 39 year old FTB is still on average wage. This is now £28K. After all, they bought a property at an age where they couldn't really climb any higher up the pay scale.


Now what's your advice?

Firstly there is a thing called a career ladder as well as a house ladder.

I expect my salary to go up 50% every 5 years or so as I move up this career ladder. So in 5 years that FTB could (and should) be earning circa £40k.

OK I accept not everybody has a career ladder to go up - but thats just it everyone is different. The only thing that limits a person is themselves.

dougk_2

Oh and on the issue of averages... I remember from school days that there are two calculations.....
Average and mean.

Few low price houses and many high price houses effect the average.... surley we should be talking Mean prices here?

There are thousands of houses below the average price. And there are thousands above the average price. Yes FTB's do have to start t the bottom - has this not always been the case? (with a few exceptions for those that have money to start with).

meanmachine_2

If someone on average wages isn't able to buy an average property, the whole ladder falls apart. Simple as that.

According to you, someone on average wages should buy a below average property.

Someone on above average wages should buy an average property.

Who buys the above average properties?

Oh, and what do those on below average buy? Supermarket trolleys?

The whole market is so distorted, it's a complete joke.

And everyone now on the average £25K should be earning £40K in five years' time. Uh-huh. Yep, that would send inflation through the roof. Good one.

By the way, STILL no one has dealt with the issue that a 34 y/o's potential to increase their wages is markedly lower than a 25 y/o FTB (the average age back in the 80s).

JanCee

meanmachine wrote:

According to you, someone on average wages should buy a below average property.

Someone on above average wages should buy an average property.

Who buys the above average properties?

Oh, and what do those on below average buy? Supermarket trolleys?
).

Surely the people who can afford the above average properties are those people on their 2nd, 3rd or 4th move, with equity from their existing property?

Has there ever been a time in this country when people on low income could afford property? My own parents became FTBers in their 50s. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing - its just the way it was.

Woby_Tide

Article from one of the Sundays last weekend, admittedly the person in question had vested interest but for once admitting prices weren't going to go up, that said they didn't say they would go down either. Interesting bit is how he reckons it will change attitudes to a more continental style. That would be very interesting to see if it did happen, if house prices were to crash as some people are wishing on here, won't we just have exactly the same situation where suddenly everyone will leap on the bandwagon, prices shoot up again, and this topic will be starting all over again with FTB's saying they can't get on the ladder and nelly, meanmachine and slater13 saying how the market won't crash? Or will we change as this bloke thinks to being less influenced to see property as an investment, more as a home and little else?




HOUSING market predictions have so far assumed we are heading for either boom or bust, with not much in between. So it was a refreshing change to dine last week with Robert Sharpe, the lively chief executive of Portman building society.

Over Dover sole at Locanda Locatelli, he expounded his theory that we are heading for several years of flat prices, give or take the odd regional variation. That sounds fairly boring for a nation brought up to treat housebuying as large-scale bingo, but the implications are far-reaching.

The first effect, Sharpe expects, will be a heavy fall in house sales because a key motive for selling — making a juicy paper profit — will have vanished. We will tend to move for non-financial reasons, like they do abroad. And the proportion of first-time buyers will fall to a quarter or even a fifth of total buyers. A few years ago they accounted for nearly half the deals. It will take a while for first-timers’ incomes to get them on the bottom rung of the ladder.

This, remember, against a background of shrinking consumer spending and borrowing, possible post-election tax rises, low wage inflation and a feelgood factor melting faster than an ice cube in a furnace.

You will be mortified to learn that this will spell gloom and doom for estate agents, and will probably accelerate the decline of building societies from their present 63 to three dozen or so. Most of us can live with that, but a becalmed housing market could wreak cultural changes in our attitudes to money that will cast a shadow for years. For a start, it may wreck many people’s vague plan to pay for their pension by moving to a smaller home.

dougk_2

FTB's may be older now - there are many reasons for this.

Go back say 20 years.... far fewer young people (under 30) had cars. Nobody had mobiles, many didn't even have phone lines, didn't have cable TV etc etc. therefore they could save more.

Far fewer people when to college and university. Therfore you work this out and the "average" person started work 3 to 5 years earlier , again meaning they were earning.

University students got grants not loans hence they did not have debts (able to save when they left uni rather than pay back the debts).

People were more commited to relationships at younger ages. Many people lived at home longer before moving into rented accomodation.

These are some of the other reasons why FTB's are now older than in the bast 10 years or so. Its not a straight forward house price issue.

When I ask my parents about themsleves and their friends most of them lived at home till there late 20's earlier 30's and moved out because they got marrried.

Perhaps the last 10-15 years have been the blip in the age of FTB's and now we are passing back to the norm...ever though of that?

The majority of Low earners have never owned properties , so why should it be that way now. If you don't earn above the average wage surely that is the persons goal above owning a home. Earn then buy.

dougk_2

meanmachine wrote:

And everyone now on the average £25K should be earning £40K in five years' time. Uh-huh. Yep, that would send inflation through the roof. Good one.
QUOTE]

Its got nothing to do with inflation - its a career path...

Those at the top retire or move on, those at the bottom move up and they are replaced by younger/new people. That's what a career ladder is.

Woby_Tide

dougk wrote:

Perhaps the last 10-15 years have been the blip in the age of FTB's and now we are passing back to the norm...ever though of that?

i had started thinking something similar last week but never got round to posting, someone else has said similar I think aswell in a nother post. I'm not even sure that there will be an answer but are there any historical figures about ownership etc. It's all from (flaky) memory but i'm sure my grandparents on one side never owned their own property and that of thier children a couple still don't (now in their 60's/70's) so is it literally these last few years that have enabled FTB's to get on the ladder easier than in the past i.e. wages were at a reasonable level to house prices and changing attitudes. I know some stats have been mentioned on here but does anyone know of any site that details percentages of income earners and ownership over quite a long period i.e. could 'average' wage earners buy property relatively easy in the 60's, or say back in the 30's?

T4i

Put my name down to shout and scream about buying a house for the 1st time.

I'm a FSB who is currently stuck renting. I pay £270/month to rent a mouldy/damp house. Rent prices for our area are usualy £400-500 for a 2-3 bedroom. We have a two yr old daughter and another on its way in August. We live ontop of each other, we have suitcases full of clothes on the landing because of the lack of room.

I dont work in Mcd's but I'm not a manager of Tesco either, I'd say i'm on a average 9-5 wage and I can get a mortgage for 30-40k. This wouldnt even buy me a back-to-back house located in an area where I'm likely to get stabbed and robbed on a daily basis because I'm white.

.......and if that wasnt enough us young people have;

a) Much higher insurance
b) Age discrimination at work
c) Lower wages by far!

I've worked at this company since leaving 6th form 8yrs ago. I came to the company as a laboratory technician and I'm still a laboratory technician. Even though others above me have come and gone, my company thinks its there choice who gets a job/role without advertising it. While I've been here i've seen 2 staff from the canteen come in with NO knowlage of the job and go straight to senoir positions. Another time was when we needed another technician and the only person suitable for the job was a 45yr old......guess what.....he got made into a senior too......why? Because of his skills? Because of his knowlage of what we make? NO! The three people who were made into seniors are the oldest members of the team. Fancy that huh!!!

The position of supervisor was also given to a less experienced member of staff, he came 2yrs after me and got the job of supervisor purely because of the fact his father-in-law was a technician ready for retirement. We are not stupid, obviuosly a package was put together to make the position of supervisor available because of the money they were saving with the retirement.

When my wage goes up by 3-4% a year it doesnt even cover the cost of the rise in petrol nevermind anything else. Any how the hell am I supposed to better myself (job wise) when certain things get done behind closed doors........I'm sure i'm not alone here........

Anyhow I'd like to shame this Company *Marshalls PLC*

A big thanks to Marshalls PLC for wasting 8yrs of my life, for not supporting me when I was getting physically bullied by my supervisor when I first started here. Its been a long hard struggle to get from technician to technician in 8yrs.

I ring our human resources dep. and they say....... .......news to us.......yeh it would be wouldnt it if it was illegal.

Apart from selling drugs or robbing a bank how the hell do people like me get there OWN house? :mad:

dougk_2

I have worked for a company that worked in the same way - the answer is leave and change to another company who works differently.

You should feel no loyalty to a company have given you nothing back for the work you have put in.

If the conditions of the house and the area are bad the job is no good then in your position I would relocate.