Average house prices nearly 7x average earnings

chucky

shortchanged wrote: »

What does this have to do with my comment?

Exactly. You don't "get it"

The thread is about average salaries and average house prices.

Not a surprise that you don't understand.

purch

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

7x is not unaffordable.

I am lost for words :eek:

shortchanged_2

chucky wrote: »

Exactly. You don't "get it"

The thread is about average salaries and average house prices.

Not a surprise that you don't understand.

Come on numb nuts, you're trying to do exactly what you accuse graham of all the time and muddle an argument.

Your previous statement had no relevance to the point I had made regarding turnbulls comment.

So would you like to try again?

Turnbull2000

purch wrote: »

I am lost for words :eek:

7 x £25k salary = £175,000 property. Take away the deposit, so £160,000 mortgage. At 3.5% and 30 year term, repayments are only £730 per month. Easily affordable with two household incomes.

chucky

purch wrote: »

I am lost for words :eek:

I think he means looking at it differently as in what percentage of income is 7x salary.

[Deleted User]

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

7 x £25k salary = £175,000 property. Take away the deposit, so £160,000 mortgage. At 3.5% and 30 year term, repayments are only £730 per month. Easily affordable with two household incomes.

Lets just hope there's no kids brought into that maths. Those !!!!!!s are expensive

Loughton_Monkey

These debates can get very frustrating!

The "affordability" of houses depends on a whole range of factors:

1. If you are a couple, houses can be more affordable by 100% or more, compared to being single.

2. Regional variation in house prices is enormous. Salaries also depend upon where you live.

3. The amount (or %) of the cost that you have to put down as a deposit.

4. The interest rate on the money borrowed.

5. The type and term of the mortgage.

6. The local area within the Region or town - schools, travel, desirability of neighbourhood.

7. The type of house - flat, old terrace, semi, large or small, good condition or in need of renovation.....

8. Other financial commitments you might have e.g. children, other loans, car ownership.....

There is no single number that can in any way describe this complex mixture. And all components of this mixture change wildly over the years and cycles. History shows that in the order of 60% of the population own their own house, and therefore suggests that roughly 60% of the population growing up can/will afford to become owner occupiers.

Those in the 'bottom' 40% will tend not to be able to buy. That's tough, I agree, but that's life. There are ways of improving income and maybe 'one day'. For the others, I just wish they would stop moaning and just get on with it and buy what they can afford. If I am young and want a car, I can sit down with 'Autocar' and lust over the new Range Rover, but I'll never be able to afford it. That's why I'll see how much I can afford and then buy a 7 year old Polo.

There is another concurrent thread about our proven appalling educational standards here and I must say that all the selective gibberish we get here about being 'priced out of owning a home' [despite HTB] has simply got to be related. Anyone much older and wiser (confirmed by OECD report) worked all this stuff out by themselves, but it seems the younger generation [in educational parlance] 'could do better'.

The irony here, of course, is that for all those thousands of people on the 'borderline' between being able to buy and not, it will be the "intelligent" half who simply get on and buy, and the other less bright half who sit and moan. In turn, this will endow riches upon the wiser, and consign the less wise to a lifetime of renting and relative poverty, despite the fact that they could have bought.

If Darwin were alive today, he would be screaming "I told you so".

Sibley

I don't care if they are 20 times.
I've got a house

silverwhistle

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Those in the 'bottom' 40% will tend not to be able to buy. That's tough, I agree, but that's life.

There used to be better alternatives though, before the sell off of council houses and none of the capital used for building more social housing.

I actually benefited as I bought a roomy ex-council terrace in the early 80s when I was in my late 20s, having been with parents or in digs, and then had to cope with 15% interest rates. Lodgers helped! I've been living away for years but now back in the same house - it has always met my housing needs - and I've never regarded it as an "investment"..

But there's no doubt in my mind that houses are less affordable now. It's never been easy (I didn't run a car, for example, or have a colour TV) but population pressures and movements haven't been matched by house building: whether social or private housing.

Loughton_Monkey

silverwhistle wrote: »

There used to be better alternatives though, before the sell off of council houses and none of the capital used for building more social housing.

This is a very moot point.

What we had, here, was a system in which each house sale consisted of (a) the requirement for the local authority to provide susbsidised housing reduced by 1 house, and (b) 1 extra house in the private sector, now housing a previously subsidised family being maintained at no cost to the taxpayer.

Some would argue that technically speaking, this transaction was 'neutral' in house supply terms. Any requirement (or not) to build more social housing was a totally seperate matter and nothing whatsoever to do with the selling of a council house.

The reason it ended up as a fiasco is quite seperate and logical. It was families 'cashing in'. Children would club together and buy the house for parents. Good for parents (free rent) and Good for children who make a large profit selling the house when parents die. In the absence of the sale, the house would have been available to the council to re-let to another family.