Earning the National Living Wage? Then you can’t afford a starter home in 98% of LAs

cepheus

As Cat Smith MP (outnumbered 4 to 1 on BBC Question Time by right wing ideologues) said last night:

If you’re earning the "National Living Wage" you can’t afford a starter home in 98% of local authorities in this country

With this absurd situation, surely wages must rise or house prices must drop. Which is it to be?

Generali

As only a bit more than 10% of employees make the minimum wage I don't think this is a major problem. Minimum wage earners get skills and go on to better paid work.

Thrugelmir

cepheus wrote: »

With this absurd situation, surely wages must rise or house prices must drop. Which is it to be?

Why is absurd. When did it become a right for property to be affordable to all to purchase?

HappyMJ

cepheus wrote: »

As Cat Smith MP (outnumbered 4 to 1 on BBC Question Time by right wing ideologues) said last night:



With this absurd situation, surely wages must rise or house prices must drop. Which is it to be?

That's awful.

A breadwinner can't earn a decent living wage and support a family and a couple of kids "AND" buy a house to live in.

How about the breadwinner get more education, training, experience and earn more money. How about the breadwinner's partner male or female get out of the house and earn a living wage as well...and become a two income family.

I would have thought it impossible to buy an average 3 bed semi on minimum wage anywhere in the country. You want a bigger house and you want to own it...you do something about it.

Very small 1 bed flats ARE affordable to single people earning a full time minimum wage in many areas of the UK...but it's not economically worthwhile buying a small 1 bed flat. It's generally cheaper to rent.

Makes sense to me.

cells

Sadly MPs much like the general public simply don't have to hand the information they need or worse they look at meaningless data sets and draw meaningless conclusions

About half the UK is very affordable with the local house price 2 to 4 times the local full time name wage.

Some places like stoke on Trent are cheaper in real terms now than they were 25 years ago.

kinger101

I think cepheus has something of a point about the panel.

1 junior Labour MP (low ranking shadow minister)
1 junior Conservative MP (low ranking minister)
2 panelists from Newscorp papers
1 UKIP MEP

The audience also seemed to be >50% junior doctors.

But it's come to something when you have someone from UKIP and Kelvin McKenzie in the room, and they're not the ones who look batsΗit crazy.

kinger101

cells wrote: »

Sadly MPs much like the general public simply don't have to hand the information they need or worse they look at meaningless data sets and draw meaningless conclusions

About half the UK is very affordable with the local house price 2 to 4 times the local full time name wage.

Some places like stoke on Trent are cheaper in real terms now than they were 25 years ago.

I think this has been explained to you before. Banks don't really lend on income multiples. Certainly not at the lower end anyway. And there is the slight matter of a deposit which isn't going to happen if you live hand-to-mouth.

Mistermeaner

It's an amazing country we live that someone on minimum wage can buy in 2% of la' s

Add to that the incredible amount of social and free housing available, some of it in the most expensive real estate in the world.

We also give free money to people, especially those with kids, to help them pay rent.

cells

kinger101 wrote: »

I think this has been explained to you before. Banks don't really lend on income multiples. Certainly not at the lower end anyway. And there is the slight matter of a deposit which isn't going to happen if you live hand-to-mouth.

if you earn so little that you live hand to mouth clearly you can not afford to buy a house, at todays price or at 50% off.

what is important is if houses are affordable. And half the country is ~4x or less single male full time wage which means for that half of the country the average male buying a house with just 10% down will spend less than 20% of their take home pay on mortgage interest payments which is affordable. Some places like stoke-on-trent the average male will spend less than 10% of take on pay on servicing the average terrace house. How can 10% to 20% of take home pay for a house by unaffordable?

and this does not even take into account that most FTBs are couples where both work

cells

Mistermeaner wrote: »

It's an amazing country we live that someone on minimum wage can buy in 2% of la' s

Add to that the incredible amount of social and free housing available, some of it in the most expensive real estate in the world.

We also give free money to people, especially those with kids, to help them pay rent.

a couple on min wage with 10% deposit can buy the average terrace in about half the country.

Generali

cells wrote: »

a couple on min wage with 10% deposit can buy the average terrace in about half the country.

But they can't buy a five bed house in Mayfair. Where's your compassion dammit?