Do you want house price to rise or fall?

GreatApe

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Repeat it as much as you like.

In 2014 (I'm sure newer stats are available), the average savings per household across all households in the UK was £10,400.

In 2017, another study showed that savings were falling, and one in four families in the UK had an average of just £95 in savings.

Interestingly, the "highest income" households savings jumped from an average of £50k, to £65k in a single year, while the lowest earning families dropped from £136 to £95 in the same year.

The £10,400 average obviously includes the super wealthy, so once they are removed from the figures, things look pretty stark for the majority of households in the UK.

Average debt per household though, outweighs savings, at £17,600 per household. Personal debt, which is more relevant as we can strip out mortgages was £2,770 per household.

I don't know why you are fixated on this assumption that the majority have capital lying around. Facts very clearly show this is not the case. If you won't accept outright facts from the ONS, then this is a lost cause.

You are so deep in the confirmation bias pit you dont even realize it
CAPITAL not bank account savings

Capital is property shares land pensions other buildings businesses gold art cars everything

If you look at all the capital in the UK minus the debts it comes to in excess of 10 trillion.
Fine lets say the bottom 25% have little and always will have little that leaves about 21 million households holding over £10 trillion. I make that close to £500,000 per household

And this capital is spread far and wide just look at the estates people leave on death. It isnt pennies it is £100 billion a year just from dead people. How many homes can £100 billion a year from dead people buy? Inheritances/gifts before death are also on the scale of £100 billion a year. The two combined make £200 billion annually. How many homes can £200 billion annually buy? Does this money/income/wealth not exist is it just my imagination? If it does exist then why would anyone think some of it wont flow into the housing market? It clearly does as evidence by almost everyone I know putting some/most of their inherited wealth into property

I mean you and your cheerleaders group think is so ridiculous it is laughable.
We spend close to £60 billion a year just on new cars in this country.
The UK is a very very rich country.
Housing is affordably and in most regions it is too cheap.

I know you hate all this, but seriously how many more years can you be wrong before you give up the confirmation bias?

GreatApe

chucknorris wrote: »

Just curious, about how they defined 'savings'? Did they mean anything put aside, but not necessarily immediately and easily available, or did they mean absolutely anything put aside? By this I mean investments that are not easily accessible without consequences. For example, I could access quite a bit immediately from my equities. But it would mean either having to pay 20% capital gains tax (over the CGT allowance, which I tend to use up anyway) or even worse losing either the ISA or SIPP tax free wrapper.

The housing market is influenced by capital of all forms

Someone who creates a company from nothing and sells it to google for £200 million his money doesn't count because you know.... house pirce crash

Someone who inherits £1 million from their dead mother, that money does not count because you know...house price crash

Someone who wins the lotto, that money does not count barbecue you know...house price crash

Someone who buys shares in a company for £50k and the price goes up 10x that £500k of capital does not count because you know...house price crash

Someone who trades in their £30k pension for a lump sum of £900k that does not count because you know...house price crash


The ignorance of the hpc cheerleaders to move on from just looking at income is ridiculous.
In developed rich nations earned income is not the only form of income and capital.
The UK has in excess of £10 trillion in wealth, that wealth flows from asset class to asset class to consumption etc. Just gifts and inheritances are worth around £200 billion annually a lot of that (I would hazard a guess as over half) flows into property.

Also about 30% of GDP in the UK is from non wages. Rents/dividends/company-profits etc. That is about £600 billion annually in income that is supposedly invisible to the hpc cheerleaders. Are those people hermits that spend nothing or do they spend this £600 billion and some of it on better/bigger/more homes for themselves and their kids / families /friends

Back over to you graham tell me how everyone is poor and only getting by.

GreatApe

chucknorris wrote: »

I definitely think that it is much harder for FTBers to buy now, and I do have a lot of sympathy for them, especially the ones that get on with it, and struggle through and do it. Not so much for the ones that constantly moan and whinge about how earlier generations had it so much easier (it isn't a constructive thing to do).

This is wrong, if you look at FTB numbers it is quite healthy. Almost 1/3rd of all property sales go to FTBs. People might think well 33% going to FTBs is a low figure but it is actually very high because about 1/3rd go to second time buyers and 1/3rd to BTL/Cash/Other.

Also 2017 the number of private rentals fell for the first time in a long time (since the 2004 migration boom). That means ownership increased both in nominal and percentage of the housing stock terms.

So it is hard to make a sound argument that FTBs are having it tough or its nearly impossible.
300,000+ FTBs (most will be couples so closer to 600,000) would prove hpc cheerleaders wrong.

And also as we all here know the UK is a huge spectrum from regions where property is below build cost to z1 London where homes change hands for tens of millions

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

But that doesn't alter the fact that ithe ncrease in prices have priced more people out than any time in recent past.

Price is not a primary measure, ownership levels are a much better metric

Lets look at 1995-2005 a time when house prices were booming. What happened to ownership? It also went up and up. If you look at the surface level you would conclude in 2005 that prices are much higher so its so much harder to buy but the reality was ownership was higher.

You can say the same for almost any period since records began. House prices generally went up but so did ownership. Higher prices did not mean people could not afford to buy

It only changed around 2004/5 when ownership began to decline and private rentals boomed. The reason was mass migration of recent migrants. But that too has mostly worked itself out of the system. 2017 private rental stock shrunk and ownership increased and this is likely to continue for at least the next few years.

Ownership of non recent migrants is still close to record highs
Again showing that affordability has not been impacted all that much

Yes on a 1 variable analysis of just income vs price things look less affordable
But on a multi variable analysis things clearly are not less affordable by the fact that ownership levels for uk born at near record highs (despite a heavy recession and over regulation of the mortgage market)

ukcarper

GreatApe wrote: »

Price is not a primary measure, ownership levels are a much better metric

Lets look at 1995-2005 a time when house prices were booming. What happened to ownership? It also went up and up. If you look at the surface level you would conclude in 2005 that prices are much higher so its so much harder to buy but the reality was ownership was higher.

You can say the same for almost any period since records began. House prices generally went up but so did ownership. Higher prices did not mean people could not afford to buy

It only changed around 2004/5 when ownership began to decline and private rentals boomed. The reason was mass migration of recent migrants. But that too has mostly worked itself out of the system. 2017 private rental stock shrunk and ownership increased and this is likely to continue for at least the next few years.

Ownership of non recent migrants is still close to record highs
Again showing that affordability has not been impacted all that much

Yes on a 1 variable analysis of just income vs price things look less affordable
But on a multi variable analysis things clearly are not less affordable by the fact that ownership levels for uk born at near record highs (despite a heavy recession and over regulation of the mortgage market)

As I said you do not appear to leave in real world I've noticed this with you before you can't seem to distinguish between your selective reading and interpretation of statistic and what is actually happing in the real world.

GreatApe

Also there are some first time owners outside of the FTB figures because some people inherit or are gifted property directly they dont go through mortgages or even the traditional land registry process.

As I keep saying if property is so unaffordable how have uk born Brits maintained near peak levels of ownership despite a heavy recession and over regulation of the mortgage market.

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

As I said you do not appear to leave in real world I've noticed this with you before you can't seem to distinguish between your selective reading and interpretation of statistic and what is actually happing in the real world.

That is amusing. What statistics do you think I am reading selectively?

Also my reading of the statistics and data says nothing particularly wild or unbelievable. More or less everything I've said can be boiled down to 'things look normal and sustainable'. That is as non controversial as a reading of statistics as you can get it is basically saying the market is more or less right

The other side try to make the argument of 'things look abnormal and are not sustainable' and reality has/is proving them wrong.

ukcarper

GreatApe wrote: »

Also there are some first time owners outside of the FTB figures because some people inherit or are gifted property directly they dont go through mortgages or even the traditional land registry process.

As I keep saying if property is so unaffordable how have uk born Brits maintained near peak levels of ownership despite a heavy recession and over regulation of the mortgage market.

Do you really not now anybody in a reasonably paid job that cannot afford to buy is it really so rosy where you are they everybody earns enough to get a mortgage and inherents the deposit and any shortfall they can't get on a mortgage.

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

Do you really not now anybody in a reasonably paid job that cannot afford to buy is it really so rosy where you are they everybody earns enough to get a mortgage and inherents the deposit and any shortfall they can't get on a mortgage.

No of course not, I have never said or suggested that everyone can buy.

This is simply impossible by the fact that about 17% of the housing stock is social so they are not for sale. That caps the max at 83% and we also need a min of about 10%-15% private rental to allow for that transitional tenure to house students/young-people/people-who-own&rent-elsewhere/etc so there is a hard cap towards the 68-73% ownership level

So ~30% cant own they have to live in social or private rentals and this is irrespective of what prices are.

Actually that is wrong because most private renters do go on to ownership
So speaking more accurately the housing stock cant really surpass 73% ownership at any one given time but the population can get to ~83% ownership at some point in their lives.

Those figures are quite good but if you want to improve upon them you have to sell the social stock down. If the social stock was sold down to 10% of the stock then ownership levels would be higher.

Personally I'd gift all social homes to the sitting tenants for free and just put a charge on it for 100% of value payable on death or when they move property. Overnight you would take ownership from around 65% towards 83% but that is another discussion for another time and place

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

Do you really not now anybody in a reasonably paid job that cannot afford to buy is it really so rosy where you are they everybody earns enough to get a mortgage and inherents the deposit and any shortfall they can't get on a mortgage.

One of the mistakes you and most others make is not to see and understand private rental for what it is which is a transitional tenure.

Do I not know anyone who works yet cant buy a house. Sure I was one of them I rented for 9 years of my adult life but like most private renters I managed to purchase later on.

What this means is even if the housing stock is say 65% owned 17% social 18% private rental the truth is for the public something closer to 80% will own at some time in their life 17% will be in social and maybe something closer to 3% will be in long term rentals (and even most of those are people renting for free off relatives)