Where can you afford to live in the UK?

OffGridLiving

fc123 wrote: »

I am not having a pop Graham (cos you are a dude deep down ) but you live in one of the most expensive areas of the UK...now that could be seen as just good or bad luck (depending on your outlook) but you can't park yourself on here posting doomy threads that you hope will indicate a coming drop in prices....a drop that is enough for you to purchase what you would prefer.

To be informed is A Good Thing but you are just putting things off.......and you do come over as someone who would prefer to own.

Basically you have 2 choices (well 3 if staying in the same situation counts as a choice) of
1; upskill so you can earn more, at an extreme level, take a risk on something self employed..... so you can afford the property that is to the standard you would like or
2; move to a location that gets you more at your current salary level.
Whilst everyone has different tolerances of risk etc, I can say I lived and raised our 1st until he was 3 on one of the roughest estates in the UK. It was character building for sure but grim in the extreme.....being set upon by a pack of dogs whilst waiting outside one day, when he was only a few weeks old, is in my memory....and we had the above choices at the time too (and there wasn't the option to privately rent and get HB help back in the olden days).

Our option 3 was we could have grumbled to the council about terrible state of council housing and so on (and gotten nowhere) and waited..... they did knock it down recently and rehouse everyone....so we would have got moved 24 years later.




...but it's always been like that.
Devon has evolved into a kind of honeypot in the UK as tourism is one of it's main industries now...it's just bad luck really but, unless you are involved in tourism, it does throw up the concept of an 'entitlement' to be able to live in the area you grew up in. Is that truly a right?

I remember up north in the 90's people we knew in our sector who owned enormous piles that cost the same as our tiny house in London.....also staff on very low wages affording cottages that wouldn't be possible down south. We even considered relocating for that reason in about '95 but we didn't want to move away from family....so we made a choice to stay down here.
Thing is, it is a choice, though you may not feel it is....but I really believe it is.

For what it's worth I would live in the most expensive street in Brighton tomorrow if I could...and I really wanted the crash to take those places down into our income bracket.......and they didn't get there but c'est la vie, compromised and chose somewhere else instead.

Good post, shame that your points were sidestepped.

To be honest I'm struggling to know quite what Graham wants. It's not new that houses are more expensive in more desirable areas. It's not new that lower skilled people generally earn less than higher skilled people. It's not new that if you can't afford to buy something, then you can't have it.

I'm honestly flummoxed as to what Graham is going on about?

wotsthat

OffGridLiving wrote: »

To be honest I'm struggling to know quite what Graham wants. It's not new that houses are more expensive in more desirable areas. It's not new that lower skilled people generally earn less than higher skilled people. It's not new that if you can't afford to buy something, then you can't have it.

Some people look back with a sense of nostalgia (almost grief) for a time when it was possible to leave school with no qualifications, walk into a job earning average wages, buy the average house and still have plenty of money left over for foreign holidays and nice cars like everyone used to have then.

These wondrous times never existed and no matter how much their parents explain this, how much data is presented or how many life experiences are shared (from people who were there) they'll never believe it.

chewmylegoff

wotsthat wrote: »

Some people look back with a sense of nostalgia (almost grief) for a time when it was possible to leave school with no qualifications, walk into a job earning average wages, buy the average house and still have plenty of money left over for foreign holidays and nice cars like everyone used to have then.

These wondrous times never existed and no matter how much their parents explain this, how much data is presented or how many life experiences are shared (from people who were there) they'll never believe it.

They did exist, it's just that a foreign holiday was a week camping in a ditch in Normandy and a nice car was an Austin allegro. It's amazing how far you can stretch your budget when you don't have the latest iPhone on contract...

OffGridLiving

chewmylegoff wrote: »

They did exist, it's just that a foreign holiday was a week camping in a ditch in Normandy and a nice car was an Austin allegro. It's amazing how far you can stretch your budget when you don't have the latest iPhone on contract...

Mobile phone contracts & SKY TV subscriptions - the bane of the DFW board.

Perhaps if people want to have the disposable income of the 1950s, they should ditch all the trappings of the 21st century. Without the subscriptions, two cars, multiple computers, multiple TVs, DVDs, PVRs, landline & broadband payments, restaurant visits, takeaway food, unnecessary car journeys, designer clothes, foreign holidays, etc. they might have enough cash to buy a house in a nicer area.

Not many seem willing or able to prioritise their spending, not many seem to understand the difference between 'need' and 'want' and not many want to make sacrifices for the greater good. They just want to moan on internet forums and pray that the economy tanks so they can acquire a better lifestyle than their income provides.

wotsthat

OffGridLiving wrote: »

Mobile phone contracts & SKY TV subscriptions - the bane of the DFW board.

There's one there now - £40 mobile 'phone contract (as much as the household energy bill)

Another - Sky & mobiles - £145 (approaching half the food bill)

Why isn't it obvious to some people?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

wotsthat wrote: »

There's one there now - £40 mobile 'phone contract (as much as the household energy bill)

Another - Sky & mobiles - £145 (approaching half the food bill)

Why isn't it obvious to some people?

Madness.....

vivatifosi

Coincidentally, HUTH included a house in Plymouth today. Cut to the FTBs who won the auction. There were areas that they didn't like, but they couldn't afford the ones that they did. Their solution was to buy a do-upper and turn it into their family home. Not an immediate solution but they got there in the end. It looked lovely when they'd finished too.

Take away point: if you think laterally, sometimes there are other solutions to the problem.

Conrad

Graham_Devon wrote: »

This is the sort of stuff that many can afford in Devon, and it's the sort of stuff that calculator will look at.....




I may be a prude, but I wouldn't want to live there, not just on looks, but the crime figures are appuling, let alone spend my working life paying for it. (they are still around 100k).

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-39108379.html



Then how about a 2 bed like this for £110k


Or this