In 70% of England you can buy the average terrace on minimium wage

michaels

Hmm - we are in danger of having a definition of 'affordable' where a house costs less than the build cost - if you are hoping for houses to reach that level of affordable, dream on. This is the whole reason for having HB/LA housing in the first place, some people are not productive enough to earn enough to pay for their own housing (at market rates).

westernpromise

lisyloo wrote: »

Is 4 wage earners realistic?
I live in central London and I can't think of any colleagues or neighbours who have 4 wage earners per household and that includes colleagues that rent out a room.
We would not want to share in late 40s and married.

It's a plausible occupation density for a rented London property. But for owner-occupied no, these tend to be under-inhabited in comparison.

cells

michaels wrote: »

Hmm - we are in danger of having a definition of 'affordable' where a house costs less than the build cost - if you are hoping for houses to reach that level of affordable, dream on. This is the whole reason for having HB/LA housing in the first place, some people are not productive enough to earn enough to pay for their own housing (at market rates).

from this info a lot of properties in England are priced near or below the build cost which values the land at or below £0

For example Manchester £64k Co.Durham £50k Liverpool £66k Bradford £68k Wigan £60k etc are all priced at or below what it would reasonably cost to build a new terrace.

And those are not small towns and not the only ones.

Of course someone could argue that had we easy planning and a higher build rate and lower regulations/taxes the volume builders could output a terrace home for £50k or less and maybe that is possible but it definitely is not true in the current system especially for smaller scale builds

Towser

from this info a lot of properties in England are priced near or below the build cost which values the land at or below £0

Exactly which is why I would have to question your historic figures.

Towser

on the non exhaustive list above stoke-on-trent is the cheapest relative to full time wages where to buy a terrace costs just 1.78 x local full time income

of course that does not mean its the best place to settle, that would probably be kensington & chelsea the most expensive area of the country

Stoke on trent seems a relatively least deprived area too. I like your thinking.

kensington & chelsea

No. Just because it is expensive does not make it desirable. It would have to be least deprived as well which it is not. For example it may have less living space although expensive than Stoke on Trent.

cells

Towser wrote: »

Exactly which is why I would have to question your historic figures.

Once again they are not historic figures (Oct 2015) and why should a terrace home not be below build cost?

In a good healthy market the older smaller stock should be below cost just like second hand cars or cloths are below build/manufacture cost.

onlyroz

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Well, it's only about 40 miles between York and Bridlington so it's perfectly commutable for someone who works in York but can't afford to buy there.

That's 40 miles on single carriageway roads stuck behind a tractor for most of the way.

kinger101

onlyroz wrote: »

That's 40 miles on single carriageway roads stuck behind a tractor for most of the way.

Not always. Sometimes you're lucky and it's a caravan instead.

chucknorris

cells wrote: »

In a city growing faster than its housing and transport infrastructure there is no choice but to live more dense and for more working people to live closer to jobs. This is what has happened since 2000

Either the population needs to stop growing so fast or home building in inner London really needs to boom or transport needs to become cheaper&quicker or the social stock needs to be sold/rented in a way that the then x-social homes have more workers in them. The alternative is more of the same higher rents and higher prices relative to incomes especially for inner London.

I think its going to be more of the same I dont think we are going to see enough building or enough social sales to offset what will be a continuing boom in Londons population due to migration foreign and domestic

Sharing professional have been my main tenants for almost 25 years, since May 1991. I have started to notice that tenants are beginning to be much more willing to sacrifice the lounge for an additional bedroom. Although I don't promote this myself, I can see it becoming more common.

Generali

I wrote a long and reasoned post which disappeared into the ether. The TLDR version is:

- You're all missing the substitution effect: just because I work in London doesn't mean I have to live in London.
- In the NZIRP/nil inflation era, you can hold any asset at nil value. That's why gold is still waaaaay above it's post gold standard price and why it will fall as interest rates rise.
- Watch what happens to the market as the Chinese get serious about FX controls. I have no idea what the impact will be but it's certainly having an impact in Sydney.