Has Crashy and co finally come to their senses...

Generali

cells wrote: »

A lot of it does go into property.

That's pretty meaningless though. How much is a lot?

1? A million? A billion? A gazillion?

Without some sort of idea of the numbers then it's meaningless, just a guess.

cells

Generali wrote: »

That's pretty meaningless though. How much is a lot?

1? A million? A billion? A gazillion?

Without some sort of idea of the numbers then it's meaningless, just a guess.

well we know its a figure above 0 which is effectively what most people who think about property and affordability take it as when they dont even think about it as a factor

In my experience gifts to kin tend to be money for deposits or to buy outright. I can think of several people I know who have bought this way but I cant think of a single person I know who gave money to their kin to go out and buy a sports car. I would hazard a guess that the majority of gifts end up in the property market but less so for inheritances.

economic

cells wrote: »

well we know its a figure above 0 which is effectively what most people who think about property and affordability take it as when they dont even think about it as a factor

In my experience gifts to kin tend to be money for deposits or to buy outright. I can think of several people I know who have bought this way but I cant think of a single person I know who gave money to their kin to go out and buy a sports car. I would hazard a guess that the majority of gifts end up in the property market but less so for inheritances.

exactly spot on.

my parents gave me £100k (even though i didnt need the help). they have ammassed large amount of savings so thinking of the future in terms of inheritance tax. they have been an average wage earner throughout their lives more or less. so imagine those people with better qualifications and higher paying jobs. they would have a lot to gift to their children. totally agree gifts and inheritances is never talked about but is clearly a significant driver of property prices.

cells

I would also hazard a guess that savings (in all forms) are now a much bigger real sum than a generation 30 years ago as AFAIK savings rate has been positive for all that time and still is positive.

The savings rate varies but it seems to be about 7% over the last decade (just trying to read an average on a google search graph result). Well if household wages are about 70% of the economy and the economy is about 1,700B and about 7% of that is saved you get a figure of about £80 billion. I think that is on top of asset value gains (like shares or property)?

So dispute the gloom and false negatives UK households are saving huge sums each and every year. Their asset values have also done quite well over the last 5 years (stock market and homes).

Forgetting and ignoring all of this and looking at a national 'average' single person wage of £26k (which includes part timers and children) and London homes at £500k sure looks like something is wrong. But considering full time male wages are a good deal higher in London and that couples buy homes and that many people get inherited and gifted wealth and that the stock of wealth is growing by about £80B a year plus investment performance emakes things look a but more sustainable and logical