The world has gone mad!

geri1965_2

My house is worth £100,000 more than I paid for it. It's meaningless as I have to live in it.

Vectis

geri1965 wrote: »

My house is worth £100,000 more than I paid for it. It's meaningless as I have to live in it.

That's because you bought it in 1962 :rotfl:

Billie-S

geri1965 wrote: »

My house is worth £100,000 more than I paid for it. It's meaningless as I have to live in it.

Exactly. It's all very well having multiple 1000s or 100s of 1000s 'equity,' but you still have to live somewhere. So unless you are going back to live with your parents, or you are prepared to live in a caravan, then where are you going to live? You will have all this equity, but nowhere to live! The equity is somewhat pointless, because you will have to buy somewhere else to live.

Unless you are lucky enough to have a massive house with £250,000 equity on it, in or around London, and you are prepared to move 100 miles plus up north and live in a cheap flat or terraced house in a northern mining town, (you could buy both outright, and still have £150,000 left!) But then having that much money will stop you getting any tax credits or benefits (this may bother some people.) And it can affect you financially in other ways.

EG; you may have to fork out for your care in old age, and the powers-that-be may question what you did with all the money from the house. (And if you have saved it in a high interest account, then you could find them wanting that.) It could stop your kids getting help at uni, and all sorts of stuff.

Unfortunately, as bad as it sounds, we live in an age where it's not beneficial to have some money in the bank. Not more than £10,000 anyway, because you get penalised for it in so many ways. Of course it would be beneficial to have millions, but a few 100 thousand; it can cause problems. Eg, if you lose your job, you will be expected to live off that money, and won't get benefits, so all that 'equity' you had will be used up anyway.

So having loads of equity in a property seems a bit futile. And like I said, you do have to live somewhere. So IMO, people who have £150,000 - £200,000 equity, are no better off that people who have none, because it's all tied up in the property that they are living in.

Thrugelmir

Billie-S wrote: »

Exactly. It's all very well having multiple 1000s or 100s of 1000s 'equity,' but you still have to live somewhere.

Also with an inflationary monetary policy the value of money (it's buying power) is less. So it's a political illusion. No one is actually better off. In fact people get poorer in total wealth terms relative to the rich.