Can Millenials Buy A House?

ukcarper

Malthusian wrote: »

It's not zero cost.

Many householders are skilled professionals (which is what enabled them to afford the house) so the time cost of their labour will be in the £15-20 an hour region at the absolute minimum.

If I spend two hours a month gardening I've already paid more in service charges than the £50 a month Strebor mentions, after you add how much I'm paying for buildings insurance. That's just for the garden.

True, gardening is something of a leisure activity for me, but would I get down on my knees and pull at weeds if I could pay £50 a month for someone else to do it with the same standard of care that I take, and all the other maintenance on the house, and with the cost of buildings insurance included? Would I !!!!. This is the price I pay for having a house with my own garden instead of a flat, and I pay it gladly.

The idea that the service charge that flat owners chip into is a cost that householders don't have is absurd.

There are no communal areas that need carpets and painting in houses and you can't be sure that areas will be maintained to a standard you are happy with. Saying that £50 a month is a reasonable charge especially if it has a built in amount for large repairs although that is not always the case and there are many cases of leaseholders being asked for large amounts.

Zero_Sum

Malthusian wrote: »

It's not zero cost.

Many householders are skilled professionals (which is what enabled them to afford the house) so the time cost of their labour will be in the £15-20 an hour region at the absolute minimum.

If I spend two hours a month gardening I've already paid more in service charges than the £50 a month Strebor mentions, after you add how much I'm paying for buildings insurance. That's just for the garden.

True, gardening is something of a leisure activity for me, but would I get down on my knees and pull at weeds if I could pay £50 a month for someone else to do it with the same standard of care that I take, and all the other maintenance on the house, and with the cost of buildings insurance included? Would I !!!!. This is the price I pay for having a house with my own garden instead of a flat, and I pay it gladly.

The idea that the service charge that flat owners chip into is a cost that householders don't have is absurd.

Where do you draw the line? Charge yourself for doing general housework?
Gardening is just an extension of housework, the communal area within a block of flats doesnt exist in a house. So yes its an additional cost & what makes it worse is you have little control over it. I can shop around to get cheapest buildings insurance. Flats you're told what to pay by the freeholder, and im willing to bet they'll be profitting from it.

Sapphire

Zero_Sum wrote: »

Where do you draw the line? Charge yourself for doing general housework?
Gardening is just an extension of housework, the communal area within a block of flats doesnt exist in a house. So yes its an additional cost & what makes it worse is you have little control over it. I can shop around to get cheapest buildings insurance. Flats you're told what to pay by the freeholder, and im willing to bet they'll be profitting from it.

You are talking about new-build flats, aren't you? Three lots of my family live in quite roomy Victorian maisonettes with long leases (bigger than many small houses, or even quite large houses in one case). All have slightly different arrangements, but none pays any maintenance costs or service charges. In one case the downstairs and upstairs maisonette each pays for any work on its part of the building, and insures its own property. In another any maintenance-related costs are shared between the two maisonettes in the building. Each maisonette has a garden (or even two gardens), which is looked after by the respective leaseholder. These arrangements have worked well for many years.

I'd say it's best not to buy a new-build if you can avoid it, particularly as they tend to be more expensive and often smaller than period properties. Personally, I don't like the style of new-builds, but that is a matter of taste; there has been a lot of hard selling and advertising of new-builds (everything is a 'luxury apartment', in even the grottiest-looking area and position), which appears to have had an effect on prospective purchasers.

AdrianC

Sapphire wrote: »

I'd say it's best not to buy a new-build if you can avoid it, particularly as they tend to be more expensive and often smaller than period properties. Personally, I don't like the style of new-builds, but that is a matter of taste; there has been a lot of hard selling and advertising of new-builds (everything is a 'luxury apartment', in even the grottiest-looking area and position), which appears to have had an effect on prospective purchasers.

Unfortunately, HTB makes people think new builds are "all they can afford", when the reality is that it's simply an extra layer of debt they're getting into.

Zero_Sum

Sapphire wrote: »

You are talking about new-build flats, aren't you? Three lots of my family live in quite roomy Victorian maisonettes with long leases (bigger than many small houses, or even quite large houses in one case). All have slightly different arrangements, but none pays any maintenance costs or service charges. In one case the downstairs and upstairs maisonette each pays for any work on its part of the building, and insures its own property. In another any maintenance-related costs are shared between the two maisonettes in the building. Each maisonette has a garden (or even two gardens), which is looked after by the respective leaseholder. These arrangements have worked well for many years.

I'd say it's best not to buy a new-build if you can avoid it, particularly as they tend to be more expensive and often smaller than period properties. Personally, I don't like the style of new-builds, but that is a matter of taste; there has been a lot of hard selling and advertising of new-builds (everything is a 'luxury apartment', in even the grottiest-looking area and position), which appears to have had an effect on prospective purchasers.

But you're talking about maisonettes which dont have an internal communal area, not a block of flats which does.. Doesnt have to be a new build as ones built in the 60's & 70's still have them or end up with a massive bill out of the blue as the freeholder has decided work needs doing.

Graham_Devon

Malthusian wrote: »

It's not zero cost.

Many householders are skilled professionals (which is what enabled them to afford the house) so the time cost of their labour will be in the £15-20 an hour region at the absolute minimum.

Good grief.

Are you actually serious?

What next? Sleeping 8 hours a night costs you £120? Better pay someone a lower rate to sleep for you....

Sir_Robin

I'd rather mow the lawn and do a bit of housework then another hour of work But I'm a lazy millenial albeit with my own house.

I think what us millenials don't understand is the previous generations glorification of work, the stigmatisation of anyone that doesn't work every hour of the day, the way you conflate your job with sense of identity and possessions with self worth.

Maybe there's some weird manifestation of sunk cost fallacy going on where people have sunk so much of their life into 9-5 drudgery they won't consider and feel threatened by people proposing things like UBI.

It's this odd behaviour ultimately that has inflated prices and forced people to work more hours than we need to. Even hunter gatherers had more leisure time than us.

ConMan

It can't be that hard. You can save £5k per year with an ISA inc Govt bonus. If you're buying as a couple and save for 5 years, that's a 50k deposit. Of course it depends on where you live, but you have no right to live in a certain place. If you can't afford a property in a location, move to somewhere that you can, or keep saving until you can.

westernpromise

ukcarper wrote: »

There are no communal areas that need carpets and painting in houses and you can't be sure that areas will be maintained to a standard you are happy with. Saying that £50 a month is a reasonable charge especially if it has a built in amount for large repairs although that is not always the case and there are many cases of leaseholders being asked for large amounts.

Most houses have a hallway and stairs. These would be maintained by the owner.

Split the house into flats and it still has a hallway and stairs. These are now common parts and are maintained by the owner. The owner then distributes the cost among the lessees.

westernpromise

Sapphire wrote: »

everything is a 'luxury apartment', in even the grottiest-looking area and position

I noticed that too, and it's been a thing for 30-odd years at least. No property is ever marketed as anything other than "luxury". Equally none is ever marketed as "bog standard". I can't imagine why this is.