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

tooney83

The only way to own a house or whatever you want is to work hard for it. big mortgage is our decision and when we take them out we should know all the risk. Nothing comes free and working to earn is not slavery

WHA

Rather than subsiding housing costs for so called "key workers", surely the answer is to localised pay bargaining for public sector workers, so those in the expensive areas can be paid more, and those in the cheaper areas paid less, therefore, same overall cost to the taxpayer. After all in the private sector wages are higher in the cities and lower in the deprived areas - why not the public sector? Time to take a stand against the unions insistence on national pay bargaining. In our deprived area, it is the "key workers" in the local hospital and university that are the priviledged higher paid, who live in the better areas! Those working in the private sector are generally stuck with the very poor run-down areas. Average pay in our area is well below national average pay and average local public sector pay is far higher than average local private sector pay. The idea of "poor" nurses, teachers, etc in our area is unimaginable and houses are certainly affordable on the sort of salaries banded about in these threads.

Also, talking about the need to build more houses - why? Again, in our area, there are loads of properties lying empty and loads of properties that are under-occupied - i.e. former guest houses now just occupied by a small family. With a bit of planning and encouragement, there must be thousands of properties that could be better utilised so removing the need to forever build more. Why not give better and more accesible grants and tax-breaks for those bringing empty residential property back into use, and to encourage people to downsize into smaller properties, thus vacating the larger ones for bigger families or to turn into flats. A bit of lateral thinking is needed - not just constantly building more and letting existing property stock decay even more.

peter999

deary65 wrote: »

Massive mortgages are turning a generation of parents

Are you joking, people can't afford to have children anymore !!

It is having massive social effects on structure of society.

peter999

peter999

Generali wrote: »

In my bit of West Kent there's masses of farmland that could be built on.

So why aren't they building ??

It's time mass building of housing started bypassing ridiculous NIMBY planning regulations.

peter999

thesaint

mikael wrote: »

<snip>

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.

I do hope you will rent until it's worth buying, the point I am trying to make is that there will be a significant number of people who will wait 'One more month' to see what happens and miss the boat.

Isn't it strange how everyone complaining about house prices have only just graduated from university and so weren't able to buy when houses were more affordable? My son's mother didn't buy in 2001 because her Aunt who works in a bank told her that prices were going to fall in 2002. She could easily affforded to at the price, but was waiting to save another £1000 or so.

My best moneysaving tip is:

BUY NOW, PRICES CAN ONLY RISE :money:

Generali

peter999 wrote: »

So why aren't they building ??

It's time mass building of housing started bypassing ridiculous NIMBY planning regulations.

peter999

Definitely. It's far better to build on a bit of farmland than to wreck our towns by buildnig on every school playing field and open space.

Dave117

I am a newbie to this site as I am about to enter the housing market, but my "opinion" is this:

Pension crisis a few years ago put so many people off the idea of saving into a pension fund and obtaining other reserves for later life that they decided to look into other areas... and this was Housing!

Sure right to buy caused some of the problems, however, many people from their 20s to their 50s started buying properties like it was going out of fashion. I have one friend at age 25 who owns 6 properties at buy-to-let and lives with his girlfriends parents. Each of these houses is getting a tidy return on Investment. Another friend aged 50 has roughly the same and hopes to retire with a massive sell up of her properties.

People are investing into this idea and unless the government starts to increase taxes then it will cause some serious problems.

Don't get me wrong but i hate the tax system in this country and I am not suggesting that they tax someone with 2 houses, as many people have 2 properties, but there are some people out there that are buying up hundreds of properties and making a portfolio at others expense. Just plain greedy!!!

I hate to say it but the only thing that will help this problem it to stem the flow of people entering into buy-to-let mountain!

I love the free market but this country risks making a massive mistake if this is ignored!!

I don't want property prices to crash, but I would like to think that when my kids (when I have them) decide to buy a house in 20 years time they can actually afford to buy something more than a small shed in a high crime area:mad: !

thesaint

Dave117,If the problem is pensions as you say, why not sort that out?

lynzpower

peter999 wrote: »

So why aren't they building ??

It's time mass building of housing started bypassing ridiculous NIMBY planning regulations.

peter999

I expect the reason is that we simply cannot afford to continue importing food over the long term. There will ocme a point where British farming at long last will have its renaissance. Food prices are currently rising, there is increased demand from the consumer for "locally produced" and reduced food miles.

In time i expect that those salad leaves and mange tout you eat from guatemala/ brazil/ kenya et al will be very much a luxury item and either out of consumer demand to appear "green n ethical" or the lack of ability to export/transfer goods across continent, will mean British seasonal farming will be a neccessity.

My dad works in produce import and has started to see this happening already. it will of course take some time ( and a hell of a lot of EU jiggery-pokery and of course a change of government! ) to get the UK to get anywhere near as self sufficient as in the war years, but I believe strongly it will happen in my lifetime.

PosterBoy77

thesaint wrote: »

I do hope you will rent until it's worth buying, the point I am trying to make is that there will be a significant number of people who will wait 'One more month' to see what happens and miss the boat.

Isn't it strange how everyone complaining about house prices have only just graduated from university and so weren't able to buy when houses were more affordable? My son's mother didn't buy in 2001 because her Aunt who works in a bank told her that prices were going to fall in 2002. She could easily affforded to at the price, but was waiting to save another £1000 or so.

My best moneysaving tip is:

BUY NOW, PRICES CAN ONLY RISE :money:

Too be honest I don't care if I don't buy at all. Whilst rents are as cheap as they are now compared to interest payments on mortgages I have better things to spend money on than boosting the profits of a bank and subsequently spending a good chunk of my life working to pay for the money that will be handed over to a house seller.

As years go on there will be fewer and fewer people who could ever have afforded to buy a house. You obviously cannot see how someday the increases will stop, especially as they are around the rest of the world. Do you seriously think that the economy of our little island can carry on supporting the lunacy?