Is it really that hard?

dktreesea

Rather than buy a completely awful 1 bedder at a ridiculous price, why not just buy a quarter share of a property and get a housing association to buy the other three quarters? That works well up in Edinburgh, where private rent is really high. For example, this was available eariler this year. £37,500 for a quarter share of a two bedroom flat in quite a nice part of Edinburgh:

http://mov8realestate.com/properties/flat-12-13-birchwood-view-clermiston-edinburgh-eh12-8qb

The rent for the remaining three quarters, even considering the mortgage, would work out at around half of what it would cost to rent privately.

chewmylegoff

ukcarper wrote: »

One thing for sure a degree is not worth as much as it once was. Also I'm not sure how good the new apprenticeships are compared to the old ones.

Personally I think if you get a first or 2.1 from Oxbridge or Red Brick then it is still worth as much as it always has in that not having such a qualification makes it much more difficult to access certain professions.

I am not sure that it was ever much use to have a rubbish degree from a poorly rated university - what has really changed is not the value of such a qualification but the number of people who have one.

pjread

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Personally I think if you get a first or 2.1 from Oxbridge or Red Brick then it is still worth as much as it always has in that not having such a qualification makes it much more difficult to access certain professions.

I am not sure that it was ever much use to have a rubbish degree from a poorly rated university - what has really changed is not the value of such a qualification but the number of people who have one.

Bit of a tangent, but I think that problem stems from the ridiculous politically motivated "we want 50% going to higher education" from New Labour. It probably read well to many, but everything else aside if 50% go then what exactly is it meant to be higher than? And who's paying for it - would student finance be where it is now if we'd never gone down that road?

I've no idea if this is anywhere near reality but I suspect uni admissions now are similar numbers (if not higher) than 6th form admissions back in the day - anyone know if that data's available, just to satisfy my own curiosity really?

vivatifosi

pjread wrote: »

Bit of a tangent, but I think that problem stems from the ridiculous politically motivated "we want 50% going to higher education" from New Labour. It probably read well to many, but everything else aside if 50% go then what exactly is it meant to be higher than? And who's paying for it - would student finance be where it is now if we'd never gone down that road?

I've no idea if this is anywhere near reality but I suspect uni admissions now are similar numbers (if not higher) than 6th form admissions back in the day - anyone know if that data's available, just to satisfy my own curiosity really?

Stats for now:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18868753

Stats for past: Approx 30% were still at school aged 17 in 1983. The big upward trend started in the 1970s and continued until recent years where it levelled off. This is from the document Education, Historical Statistics, published by Parliament. It's a PDF and sorry, this silly device just opens rather than showing a link, so can't point directly to that.

ukcarper

I left school at 16 in the 60s, it was a normal secondary school the type of school the majority of people went to. The majority of pupils left a 15 without taking any O-Levels of the fairly large minority that stayed at school to 16 and took O-Levels none went on to further full time education. So something needed to be done to give people a better chance of further education.

The lack of qualifications was tempered by the availability of good jobs with good training and career development opportunities many of which would require a degree now.

ShAnE

I'll admit i'm one of those Generation 'want it now' folks who is wasting £5.99 a month on netflix so I guess I am destined to serve the debt of a land baron for all eternity.

I became quite jaded by the whole thing when despite saving £300-£500 towards a deposit each month I was watching house prices rise more quickly than my savings could achieve the required deposit.

Cornucopia

What deposit/property/area are you aiming for?

ShAnE

I was aiming for 10%-15% but unfortunately I live and work in the South East of England and admittedly am against the idea of living in a 1 bedroom flat in the worst part of town.

Don't get me wrong when I moan as I know in 30-40 years time people in their twenties will be grumbling about having to pay £1m for a studio flat in Woking when their grand parents only paid £300k for their 2 bedroom house.

I know it's only going to get harder and harder as the population increases and lives for longer, but that doesn't mean I'm not disheartened by the idea.

[Deleted User]

It's all a bit of a pyramid scheme, isn't it?

ukcarper

ShAnE wrote: »

I was aiming for 10%-15% but unfortunately I live and work in the South East of England and admittedly am against the idea of living in a 1 bedroom flat in the worst part of town.

Don't get me wrong when I moan as I know in 30-40 years time people in their twenties will be grumbling about having to pay £1m for a studio flat in Woking when their grand parents only paid £300k for their 2 bedroom house.

I know it's only going to get harder and harder as the population increases and lives for longer, but that doesn't mean I'm not disheartened by the idea.

It's happened before I had the same problem in the 70s. I started looking locally and it took me a couple of months to realise I would have to move out if I wanted to buy. By the time I took the plunge prices on the estate that I bought on had increased by 50% and I realised if I did not buy then I would not be able to buy and true enough by the begging of the following year prices had increased another 50%, I might have beed able to save the extra deposit but I would not have been able to get extra on motgage.