Britons forced in to 'modern day slavery' by soaring house prices!!

thesaint

Guy_Montag wrote: »

Why would I buy if prices are cropping at 20% a year? After all, for the same money I'll be able to get a 20% bigger house next year

I sense your saracsm, but lots of people will be doing just this if a house price crash comes our way (please anyone have a date for it yet?)

In the meantime the clever ones will buy when the figures make sense and lo and behold prices will be on there way up again.
The 'Wait for the prices to drop' crowd will be listening to everyone saying that the prices will drop, it's a blip.
Five years later, the prices are still soaring and they will be cluttering up sites such as this with their tales of woe.

olly300

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

I don't think (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Consultants would qualify as Key workers because most of them aren't just employed by the NHS and their second jobs probably earn them enough to pay the mortgage on their fully detached gated homes easily.

The consultants I know while they live in bigger homes don't live in:
1. detached or semi-detached houses, they live in terraced houses or flats
2. have partners who are highly educated
3. don't struggle to pay their mortgage because their partner works
4. can't afford to send their children to private school if they have more than one of them
plus their houses/flats are in what you would describe as "working class" areas

This is because they are under 40. The consultants over 40 yes live in nice detached and semi-detached houses and can/could afford to send their children to private schools.

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

Key workers are, to my mind, anyone who works in government employment with restricted pay rises and nationally structured salaries so yes, hospital cleaners would qualify; and if you are paid the same way then yes you do!

Would you say an NHS manager who while they work with clinicians has no clinical experience is a "key worker"? Would you say a nurse or teacher married to someone who earns a lot of money qualifies? As both they fall under the definition.

There are certain developments of flats in London where they have to provide social housing for "key workers" otherwise the councils don't let them build the development. Unfortunately there are no subsidiaries on the mortgages so "key workers" in their definition includes doctors and anyone who works or lives in the area earning under a certain amount who can just afford to buy the social housing. (This has been advertised in the London Metro over about 3 years or so.)

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

It's the higher wage earners who are investing in buy to let property that are putting housing out of the range of the above mentioned people, not to mention 2nd homes in 'holiday' areas.

I agree that councils should be able to penalise people with 2nd homes/holiday homes i.e.making them pay the highest rate council tax for that area.

However the government managed to destroy people's pensions who work in the private sector. (They have been trying to fight with public sector workers over this.) If you were prudent and saved in a final-salary company run pension scheme then sudden found out it wasn't guaranteed but had some spare cash what would you do? If you were prudent and saved in to an Equitable Life Pension scheme because you had no company scheme (yes some companies did not/do not contribute to pensions) , and then suddenly where told actually you are going to get a lot less in your old age, and realised you had some spare cash what would you do?

Nearly all of my previous landlords have been "working class" people who realised that due to being in the building trade or having building skills they could make a living, renting and managing properties themselves. These are the landlords who will still be there unless they decide to retire when the market adjusts itself.

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

If I had my way a house unoccupied for 2/3rd's of the year or more would be compulsory purchased and sold on for local benefit.

Councils are already doing this as now they have the legal power to.

Romani_Ite_Domum

drowningnotwaving wrote: »

I could take this article slightly more seriously if it wasn't published in the Daily Mail, one of the most right wing papers on the market that has spent years supporting the very Thatcherite policies that have turned this society into one of haves and have nots.

It is always wise to take anything written in the Mail not just with a pinch of salt but with a truck load. I'm very surprised to see that the Mail has not blamed the ridiculous price of houses on immigrants/aslyum seekers - everything else is their fault as far as the Mail is concerned.

I am genuinely confused with this. If it was the Thatcherite polices that encouraged an owner occupier population then why was that wrong? Since Nulabour have been in power they have set up the economic conditions and encouraged BTL that has turned this society into one of haves and have nots?
TBH I think they are both as bad as one another but I it appears to me that this government is more capitalist than the other one?

Woby_Tide

Madjock wrote: »

And !!!!!! is wrong with living in a working class area?

Well teaching them is one thing, living amongst the smelly oiks, well that's just not on

keeperbear

deary65 wrote: »

Massive mortgages are turning a generation of parents and first-time buyers into the modern equivalent of slaves, an alarming report has claimed.

What a load of Daily Mail tosh! I had a massive mortgage at an interest rate of 15% in the 1990s. Rather than becoming a "slave" to the system, I tried very hard to overpay my mortgage. Guess what? I am now mortgage free, enjoy substantial spending power and have loads of equity.

Everyone is broke when they first buy a house, but it doesn't make you a slave unless you build up additional debt and cripple yourself making the payments. A FTB must make sacrifices in their lifestyle, but many don't want to.

Ad

keeperbear wrote: »

What a load of Daily Mail tosh! I had a massive mortgage at an interest rate of 15% in the 1990s. Rather than becoming a "slave" to the system, I tried very hard to overpay my mortgage. Guess what? I am now mortgage free, enjoy substantial spending power and have loads of equity.

Everyone is broke when they first buy a house, but it doesn't make you a slave unless you build up additional debt and cripple yourself making the payments. A FTB must make sacrifices in their lifestyle, but many don't want to.

Its the ipod that did it dem first time buyers and their ipods and gadgets... When I were a lad I worked 100 hours a week. I ad to get up every morning at 2.00am and no breakfast or lunch and a lump of coal for me supper if I were lucky. They don't know their born today.

before_hollywood

Madjock wrote: »

noone has a "right" to buy a property, renting isn't "dead" money. When you buy a new pair of shoes, is the £20 you've spent dead money? Would you rather go barefoot than fritter your money away on shoes? Rent is a roof over your head. And !!!!!! is wrong with living in a working class area?

i really don't understand where you came from, heres an example, the other day i went out and spent £18 on a new pair of shoes, i'll use that as a metaphor the same way as you did.
so, i've spent the £18 on the shoes, i now own them cos i had the cash in my pocket to pay for them, alternatively if i didn't have the money i could have borrowed the money from the bank and paid in installments, end of the day i own those shoes.
renting is like going to sports world and picking out the shoes i want (hiking trainers) and then paying them a few quid a month to ''borrow'' the shoes, those shoes are never my shoes, they are sports world's shoes, but what happens if instead of being £18 they are suddenly £200, i can't afford that for shoes and the bank says ''you can't borrow £200 mr before hollywood you can't afford it'' so i have 2 options, struggle to rent some shoes (a house) or borrow my friends old shoes that he only wears for gardening (house share) cos he charges less until sports world bring their prices down.

i hate it when people sit smugly on here and say ''no-one has the right to own a house'', what a load of bull, if you go out to work full time and earn money why shouldn't you own a house after 25 years?

before_hollywood

sal-ad_daze wrote: »

Include subsidised homes for key workers in all areas to enable people who work in vital but low paid jobs the chance to own DECENT homes in DECENT areas.

My daughter has just qualifed as a teacher and starts her first job in September, there is no way on this earth she can afford her first home. She's stuck throwing money away on a rented flat where her home is not her own because she's restircted by the LL rules.

I'll stop there before I get on my soapbox and that's not good on a first post!

is what your saying that because your daughter is a keyworker she should get her house subsidised and all the other first time buyers can rot in hell cos they don't teach???

if thats the case then with all due respect go to pc world and buy yourself a new keyboard cos that ones posting bulls**t

everyone with a full time job is a keyworker, being a teacher doesn't make you into some salt of the earth middle class untouchable you know, ask around on the forum- what do people do? i for example work in customer support for a technology company, if people who do what i do for a living stopped doing our job you would soon notice but i earn a lot less than a teacher (overpaid imo) and guess what i could make just as much use of a house as your daughter, if your daughter struggles how do you think the rest of us are going to do???

if you have a full time job and are a paying tax, you are a keyworker, it isn't any more key if it is for the council or the government :rolleyes:

PosterBoy77

thesaint wrote: »

I sense your saracsm, but lots of people will be doing just this if a house price crash comes our way (please anyone have a date for it yet?)

In the meantime the clever ones will buy when the figures make sense and lo and behold prices will be on there way up again.
The 'Wait for the prices to drop' crowd will be listening to everyone saying that the prices will drop, it's a blip.
Five years later, the prices are still soaring and they will be cluttering up sites such as this with their tales of woe.

Of course it will be like that. In ten years time a 1 bed flat will cost 500k and the average buyer for them will be earning 30k. The interest alone will be more than twice their after-tax pay, but of course price must go on increasing as they have in recent times.

Anyone with a bit of common sense will realise that what has happend in the last ten years will not be able to carry on forever.

All the people who have got a big house now as "their pension" will be starting to downsize to sell to some greater fool. They will probably find that there will not be enough people to buy the overpriced houses.

Something will give sooner or later. I will rent until it is worth buying.

This is a moneysaving site and falling prices for everything is seen as a good thing, except the posibility that someday house prices may also fall - that is bad. Falling prices would in fact be good for everyone except for those who may end up with negative equity and those who expect a free ride into retirement.

Generali

mikael wrote: »

Of course it will be like that. In ten years time a 1 bed flat will cost 500k and the average buyer for them will be earning 30k. The interest alone will be more than twice their after-tax pay, but of course price must go on increasing as they have in recent times.

Anyone with a bit of common sense will realise that what has happend in the last ten years will not be able to carry on forever.

All the people who have got a big house now as "their pension" will be starting to downsize to sell to some greater fool. They will probably find that there will not be enough people to by the overpriced houses.

Something will give sooner or later. I will rent until it is worth buying.

This is a moneysaving site and falling prices for everything is seen as a good thing, except the posibility that someday house prices may also fall - that is bad. Falling prices would in fact be good for everyone except for those who may end up with negative equity and those who expect a free ride into retirement.

A reletively simple compound interest calculation shows you there must be limits to HPI outstripping wages forever.

You give the example of 10 years.

If a person earns £50k pa now and their wages go up by 5% pa, in 10 years time they'll be on £81,445.

If a flat costs £150k today and goes up in price by 10% pa it'll be worth £389,061 in 10 years. After 20 the numbers are £132,664 and £1,009,125...