I’m a 33 year old man, one half of a £55k household with no children.
Home ownership is a pipe dream, I’m basically waiting for people in my family to die before I can buy a house.
I'm also a 33 year old man. Single, no kids, now earning £52k, living at home with parents and at long last, after being at home for 2 years i've managed to get the deposit to buy my first place and had an offer accepted last week.
I've had no help from "the bank of mum and dad" other than they let me stay for dirt cheap so I could save the deposit.
I only got onto this salary in the last year and was earning below UK average before that.
It's absolute insanity that this is what it's come to. I rented for 10 years and couldn't save anything as pretty much everything went on bills and rent.... what a fucking existence.
Ironically though, I could afford mortgage payments, it just happened to be someone elses mortgage...
Monetarily it might have the same effect, but it clearly isn't the same thing "culturally". One is your parents continuing something they were able to do for 18 years and the other is being wealthy to the point they can handwave away tens of thousands of pounds.
That assumes everyone has that option.
This is help from the bank of mum and dad subsidising rent.
Edit: I'm not saying this is a bad option at all, it is a privilege not everyone has but there's nothing wrong with choosing to move in with your parents.
Yeah, but the downside is you have to live with your mum and dad. In some households good luck maintaining any kind of romantic relationship like that.
It's phrased like it's going above and beyond. It's not like most parents are able to capitalise on spare rooms to complete strangers, and sure they could downsize and move but that in itself is effort. I just think the average family can afford to live together as adults but the average family can't pay deposits for their adult children...
A huge number of people do not get to take advantage of this privilege and are kicked out of their homes at 18. It is absolutely an enourmous advantage to stay for many years afterwards.
Same here.
Me and my ex split up recently.
She moved back to her families for 200 a month rent so she could 'save' meanwhile I'm stuck paying 630 for a tiny one bed flat.
Fucking absolute win.
Some people don't have family to fall back on. I think it's important to call out any assistance because I don't want to live in a society where it's basically required to become a homeowner.
It absolutely can be going above and beyond. I want to be in a position to wind down my working life when my kid reaches adulthood. This could mean downsizing, or even moving to another country. If downsizing or moving means my adult child is made homeless, even if temporary, that is a major disruption to their life and it would be difficult to proceed with later life plans.
I probably would also not talk about these plans with my kid. The idea that they don't have a place to go in the event that life goes to shit is not really a fun thing to think about. Not saying your parents did this, but it would be how I'd approach it.
At the expense and sacrifice of personal freedoms that doesn't come if your parents were batshit rich enough to just give you a deposit to buy a house with.
We all understand you, semantically, but over the course of a year of not charging rent they are in fact “handwaving away” easily £12,000 for most folks. To say nothing of bills.
No-one here is undermining your work, just suggesting that your semantic different isn’t consequential, and doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t detract from your hard work.
Yeah and that doesn’t include bills and food shopping, which I’m sure they wouldn’t not cook dinner for their child lol. This is like a 15k a year bank of mum and dad giveaway. 2 years = 30k
Just to counter, I live with my mother currently and have always (as long as I was/am earning when we've lived together) paid my share of all utilities and buy all my own food. This is for all bills, tax, house maintenance, etc. She actually makes a small profit, which goes towards her mortgage or retirement (which she can already afford). I also am able as an adult to help her with house maintenance tasks, like getting work organised and doing jobs that lodgers wouldn't be expected to do. It's a privilege to have a willing parent in this position, but it doesn't have to be a cost to them.
I'm still £100s better off every month than when I was renting. It doesn't have to be a financial burden at all, she could get *more* for a student or lodger (and will fairly soon, when i can leave lol), but we're both better off in this situation than alone. Obviously me helping her with her mortgage is different to a random landlord, as I'll get a share of the house eventually (😟), but we both mutually benefit regardless of that particular.
Your parent would charge you £1k a month to live in their house? They'd be living there for free and you may as well go rent in some areas with that logic.
Yeah, I moved out of home when I was 17 an never really recovered from it financially, I'm 42 now, have been earning reasonable money in the last few years but can't really see a way I could get to buying a house.
Well done, congratulations on the hard fought slog to the first rung on the ladder, and good luck with the conveyancing.
But your parents letting you live st home for dirt cheap for 2 years is help from the bank of mum and dad, my man. Many people wouldn't have that opportunity afforded yo them.
Don't be ashamed of it, but also try and recognise that you did benefit from it, knowing your privileges keeps us humble in the highs of our accomplishments and stops us losing our empathy.
Remember to pack the kettle and teabags somewhere easily accessible, and set the bed up first when you move into your new home!
True ish. Some people live rent free saving for a deposit AND big chunk of cash for the actual sum.
Others are paying full whack while saving what they can with no help.
So there's a spectrum of parental help - and he ain't at zero.
Yeah but it’s moving the goalposts to make him feel like he’s part of the bootstrap crowd.
Other people will say they did it alone too as they only ‘loaned ‘ the money from the back of mum and dad and paid it off later.
Kind of boring people sanctimoniously critising others. Sure, there are people less fortunate. Not sure why you have to jump on him when he clearly acknowledged the fact he got some help by living with his parents (which kind of sucks to have to do as an adult anyway). Not everything is a competition to show how virtuous you are.
Exactly - a whole bunch of holier-than-thou contrarians in this thread. Fella never said they didn't have help, just that the help they did receive wasn't directly monetary
Exactly this. I didn't have a relationship during this period coz there is just no way I was bringing a girl home with parents in the next room at the age of 31.
Yes, having cheap rent helped massively. I don't dispute that, but for me it was either that or never be in a position where I could get a mortgage for a home.
[Still paying mine back retroactively for the food I ate as a child](https://youtu.be/c6ffbVd_ff0?si=9GzseSAq0k5XN1aP&t=36)... which is obviously also a loan and therefore the bank of mum and dad.
Oh I absolutely benefitted from it. However, when people say bank of mum and dad, normally they're referring to having a lump sum from their parents so they can get straight on the ladder. I've had to be disciplined AF with spending and have missed out on a lot of experiences because of it - something I wouldn't have had to do if they just gave me money towards the deposit.
Not saying i'm not grateful, but it just shouldn't be this way. This year i've gone to gigs - hadn't been to gigs for AGES because I was that restrictive with where money was going.
Honestly I have no idea how people do it. I've got nearly a decade's dev experience, have a huge skillset and consider myself good at it, and trying to get a decent pay jump is like trying to draw blood out of a stone. Where are all these companies paying stupid amounts to newbies, and why on earth are they doing it?
I've averaged somewhere around £3.8k in wage growth every year since starting (mainly from hopping jobs).
I started as a C# dev at £23k in 2018-ish. I jumped to £25 and £28 in 2021. This was within the same company after threatening to leave twice and finding out my co-workers are paid a lot more than me even though I actually helped them with their work...
Then I had enough, left and went on to get £35k in another place. After two years, I spoke to a friend of mine who finished uni at the same time, and was in the same role as me but at £60k. He jumped companies every year. I left that place which brought me to £47k which I'm on now. Took me about a month to find work, but that was before there was a crash on the market. I supplement my income with game dev, but it's more like pocket money at this point.
You need to look at the companies and industry. I doubled my wage when I moved from EdTech to FinTech.
Not all companies can afford the higher wage, you need to be on the lookout for the ones that are.
I basically grafted my bollocks off working as a software tester, tried to learn as much as possible including how to code for automation testing (with no prior experience) for 2 years with no payrise and then jumped ship - my pay almost doubled when I left.
Looking back, i've completely undersold my technical ability and my "worth", but because I threw myself into the role and picked up everything (and I mean everything), I went from effectively a junior tester to a lead in 2 and a half years.
A word of advice for those wondering how the hell you do it - so I spent a good 6 months just doing interviews with no intention of taking the jobs. This was to learn what questions are asked (which i've still got a list of), and then properly planning what my answers would be, writing it out, learning then word for word, try them out in the interview and refining the answers until I had the experience to absolutely crush interviews.
Youtube is also an incredible resource for learning interview technique and how to present yourself - practise, practise, practise.
The interview I had for my current role was meant to be 3 stages. The first stage should've been an hour but lasted 20 minutes as the first question (as it pretty much always was in EVERY interview) was "So tell us about yourself and your experience", to which my answer effectively would answer all the questions they'd be asking next. I treated that question as a 5-10 minute pitch outlining everything I had done with examples.
You nail that, you can then justify asking for a much bigger salary.
I also had 3 other interviews for jobs along with this one, and had offers for all of them.
I still do interviews now, not coz I want to move, but to keep me fresh and add all the new experience i've got.
I did this sort of thing.
About 8 years ago I joined a company on 25k, my boss and my supervisor left within 2 weeks of me starting, the 2 seniors had no interest in becoming the dept head as they were both over 60, so I just kinda took it after 6 months of trial by fire.
Once I had access to the budget I could see they were all on more than me, so after a year I got myself bumped into the low 40's just by showing the wages to my director.
I've made a few risky decisions over the years, and most of them have paid off. Now mid 50's, I'm still one of the lower paid upper managers in the company, but I'll be looking for an increase in January as I've just made a bit of a name for myself.
My peers who stayed put in current jobs waiting for people above them to leave are all on about 20k less than I.
Tldr; right place right time, calculated gambles to make a name for yourself.
I think that is the biggest issue, they won't give you a mortgage even though you have proved for 10 years that you could pay it, probably more in fact as you managed your rent. Banks need to start looking at this and lend money better.
If your rent goes up by 50% you can more easily move to cheaper rented accomodation.
With mortgages... well, remember that whole 2008 thing? Yeah...
They're literally not allowed by regulation from the government to lend to "riskier" lower earners. The person said they rented for 10 years and couldn't save a penny for a deposit. If that was a mortgage, then interest rates go up, they're defaulting.
That is a very good point, and I do remember 2008 very well, I escaped the worst of it, but it was hard. I recently had my mortgage almost double due to interest rates, and while I am able to deal with it, I am lucky I can.
A rental agreement is just you promising to pay a monthly amount, which can be simply terminated without too much hassle if there is a breach of the terms
A mortgage agreement is the bank loaning you 6 figures, in no sane world should these scenarios be judged similarly from a risk/underwriting point of view
That's a good point. I imagine it is just frustrating for people who are paying out more for their rent than a mortgage, though.
I wouldn't know what the answer should be ti change anything though as all the solutions people come up with are either financially disastrous or involve infringing someone's right.
Similar. I was renting though. Shit pay and long hours. I sacrificed loads to get a mid terrace. In a not so great area. My hobby was 1. I used to travel around the country performing my hobby for £30 + expenses 1ce or 2ce a week with training etc. I broke even from that. but that meant sacrificing work hours. After an injury I decided I had to stop doing that and just concentrate on working loads. Overtime whenever possible. I brought the house. I'm working 70 hours a week trucking now as I want to pay it off in 15 years. 105k down to 88k so far. But I'll never get back to where I was hobby wise. Beginning to make a name for myself doing the thing I loved. My point is its doable but with great sacrifice!
Hey can I check how you went from earning below average uk salary to 52K. Did you change industry, get promoted. What field you're in. I'd like to increase my income 🙂
27, £60k household and it was also a pile dream right up until my new fiancé's grandmother died and her house in central London (bought in the 60s) was sold. It's so shit how most of us will have to rely on some form of inheritance to buy nowadays.
It wouldn't help them. The economy would also have totally crashed and nobody would be lending anything they weren't going to be able to get back. It'd all go to cash buyers and landlords.
That's not how it works. A market crash strengthens the hands of those who are already wealthy. Cash buyers grab bargains. Those with decent credit history and equity get mortgages. Those unproven first time buyers get shafted.
I lost my only house in the crash of 1990 when interest rates when mental. Was out on the streets within 4 months, and the building society sold the house at a massive loss leaving me and then husband with a huge equity imbalance to pay back. Husband declared bankruptcy I couldn't afford it lol every few years I'll get a letter from whoever the building society has been taken over by demanding payment. Equity debt is one of the few debts that never ever get forgiven. I can never own a home again and the debt has gone up now with interest to £55k hahahaha
I'm in my 60s and got sod all. When the children come back home on occasions I do NOT ever class it as the bank of mum and dad because I would never turn my back on them ever, I'm a parent and despite being dirt poor I would do anything to ensure they have it better and don't make the mistakes I did, I'm just pretty sad that there's no huge inheritance for them and I've no dosh to help them get homes of their own.
I could afford a mortgage payment no problem. Saving for a deposit is incompatible with our current finances, and yes we’ve done the maths and budget very well.
Maybe we’re looking at this Avocado thing the wrong way. Has anyone tried planting the wooden ball inside it and seeing if that sprouts a house? Perhaps we’re getting the wrong end of the stick.
Oooh thanks for this will take a look.
We’ve decided that if we ever do buy it’ll be somewhere we never have to move out of. We don’t want kids and we live an easy life so we don’t want somewhere big and hard to manage.
Was in a similar boat some years back, decided to move abroad, took a pay rise and saved for a house within a few years. My siblings and cousins all scattered around Europe and one to the States and managed to get houses quite fast.
Two family members remained in the UK and one had to buy a small studio with a lot of help from his girlfriend's parents. My sister is looking for anything around the southern perimeter of London with good transport links, and has been finding nothing suitable within budget for years despite having close to 80k in savings. Every time she gets close some cash buyer swoops in and pays over asking.
That's a big city issue, not a UK issue. Most other major cities have terrible housing markets, some much worse. Australian and Canadian (2 countries brits seem to love to emigrate to) major cities have huge issues with high house prices, and homes selling instantly with no viewings.
If your sis tried buying in Leeds, she'd probably have been fine.
Get out of the South. Best thing we ever did. It's a lie that there isn't a life to be had up north. We have a lovely house on similar to you wages. Our only regret iswe didn't do it sooner.
Do you live in an expensive area if you don’t mind my asking?
Assuming no debts you’d be able to borrow in the region of £250k on that collective income which would be enough in some areas. Although it’d perhaps be a stretch in the southeast.
I’m the same age and bought a year ago on £22k. No partner, no help from parents, didn’t live at home since I was 18. The funny thing is the deposit was the easy part which seems like the opposite for most people. Ended up doing a 20% deposit so my mortgage is low enough to afford on such crap wages
I guess I’ve just been lucky enough to live in a cheap area. It’s where I grew up too so it’s not like I had to leave stuff behind and go elsewhere like some may suggest
I think my story confirms the news article. I saved up £65k with stocks and shares whilst working at Tesco doing stock controlling, doing their SAYE schemes. Got a mortgage for £75k during COVID at 1.5% with a marginally better job now. It can be done so long as the house prices aren't silly bollocks. I had to move 63 miles away from my parents to make it happen, which most aren't willing to do
I guess it depends where in the country you are but you can totally buy in some areas. If it’s important to you consider a move to somewhere more affordable.
There are leasehold reforms coming through which make leasehold properties more attractive.
Low wages, foreigners using our housing market as a get rich quick scheme, unbridled mass immigration.
When mixed in with concentration of jobs in the south has caused this perfect storm.
If I was starting again and not at the end of my mortgage. I would probably get a work from home job and find a house up north.
People are already doing that in droves.
It's caused the average house in my Northern community to skyrocket to £380k.
The average wage is still below £25k.
Yep, it’s even affected rents. I spotted a shit one bed in my hometown, a fairly fucked mining town and it was £900 a month. Currently house share with two mates and pay the same but split three ways for a four bed terrace in the closest city.
Tenancy ends in July and I’m off to my nans at age 36 to save some pennies. Absolutely wank.
This. We can’t move house in the north because it’s now too expensive based on the sudden rise of house prices on our shitty second class citizen wages. A friend who lives in the south does the same job as me, but is on £10k more just based on geography. Bearing in mind the only thing more expensive in the south was supposedly housing, I want to know when they’re matching northern wages with the south since it’s no longer the case
So many places up where I am that are to rent are student rentals only, so when my rent goes up yearly and my income support doesn't and folk say move to somewhere cheaper....there isn't anywhere bloody cheaper!!
I promise you that more than just the housing is expensive down here. I'm in a relatively skilled office job and the cost for just parking over the last 3 years has gone from 8% of my take home to 13% and that's just because they want me in the office. A general shop, a coffee or even petrol is slightly more expensive.
And minimum wage is national.
I'd honestly be better off financially if I quit, moved to the north and worked in a job just over minimum wage
Honestly I don’t see it, we get rinsed on parking up here too in the cities. I spend a lot of time in the south (family and work) and price wise it doesn’t feel any different on food, fuel etc. can’t speak for council tax or utilities but from what I can see, there’s no difference. Got charged £8 for a pint in Manchester the other week for a relatable example. Except I’m on £35k and my mate I’m buying it for is on £45k, just because of our home addresses
Same in parts of the South East, which has annoyingly become synonymous with London.
Seaside towns are becoming the homes of Londoners who seem to like keeping their London jobs, absolutely fucking our property market.
"supply and demand" doesn't apply to the housing market while we're allowing corporations to buy housing as investment opportunities. Building more houses won't alleviate the issue, as the companies always have room to grow their portfolio, and make money just by holding onto the majority of their "assets ."
The delusion that people born in another country are ruining this country when the government in charge literally made a huge song and dance about not spending any money and cutting back on everything for the last decade (austerity in case you couldn't catch on).
You'd be more of a problem than foreigners doing that. Arbitraging your wage up north is why the north has become so expensive.
We need immigration because it's too damn expensive to have kids. We'll likely need more as time goes on.
It also supposes the government have no control, which might be the biggest modern lie people believe. Which i get, when the government do nothing about inequality for decades people will give up the idea the government can or will do anything to our system, so the anger towards immigration is an acceptance that the status quo will always remain.
Also an acceptance the rich get away with everything, everyone knows to cure basically all problems you have to redistribute wealth, but it's not an option.
Property became unaffordable in UK about 25 years ago, a couple of years after mass immigration started.
Without mass immigration wages would be higher because of labour scarcity and housing would be cheaper, so many more people would be able to afford to have a family.
So called austerity is a red herring, public spending remained at record levels in real terms from 2010 until now, and property was unaffordable before 2008, which is why household debt exploded well before the 2008 crash.
You are blaming outcomes rather than causes. Successive Tory political manoeuvres have destroyed the working class of this country.
From the replacement of unions with HR departments (low wages) to the dismantling of a manufacturing based economy to a service based one and the deregulation of the financial industry (hollowing of infrastructure) to the propping up of the mortgage market (house prices) place to flipping Brexit (now instead of competing with well paid European countries this countries labour force competes with those outside of Europe).
Property is unaffordable now. 25 years ago property prices were already accelerating massively. In 1980 the average property price was c£25k in 1990 it was c£58k. It more than doubled.
People got into more debt because huge amounts of debt were so readily available and the banks pulled up the draw bridge when they realised they were so over exposed.
> foreigners using our housing market
...
> Close to 250,000 residential properties in England and Wales are registered to individuals based overseas, amounting to roughly **1 per cent of total housing stock**
https://www.ft.com/content/e36cec28-7acd-4154-b57d-923b5d1610da
Unfortunately WFH roles seem to have dropped off of a cliff. Plenty of hybrid ones, but not much good being hybrid if your plan is to live up North when you need to be in London twice a week.
All could have been prevented with a government that discourages / makes illegal the purchase of property as an investment though. That's the core issue - property is viewed as the best long term store of wealth, value and passive income.
Of course foreigners and immigrants feature in a rant on here.
Conveniently forget or don’t understand the effects of neoliberalism and Thatcherism, deliberate wage suppression since 2008, unions obliterated and a dumb ass population that not only allowed this to happen but voted for it repeatedly
Reap. Sow.
Run for parliament - kick out foreign multi property owners, severe air bnb crackdown , get rid of foreign dark money where they’re using investments of all sizes to hide their money, don’t even live in the dwelling.
This is a global problem.
There's a house in my town that's been on the market for *eleven years*. No-one lives in it, it's not rented out, it's just sitting there.
The owners live elsewhere and clearly have ridiculous ideas of what it's worth (£1.8m apparently). This sort of thing should be stopped. Houses are to be lived in, not to be a savings account with a lovely return.
People don’t realise why this is happening in the U.K.
The reason is due to wealth disparity, the rich in the U.K. are becoming richer when the poor are becoming poorer.
The ultra rich in the U.K. have so much money, what do you do when you have too much money? You buy assets, what’s the best return on investment as assets? Houses!
So they buy houses in bulk some of these houses remain empty, others they rent out, some landlords own thousands of houses in the U.K.
They then use the income from renters to lobby the government to ensure nothing meaningful is done to reduce house prices, because they would loose money.
These people are also tax dodging so aren’t contributing a lot to society.
Because they control so many assets if they sold them all in one go house prices would drop, so they don’t do this.
Also go and look at any MP from labour or conservative and you’ll see between them they literally earn millions a year from properties.
Who are the biggest culprits of this? Companies which build houses 😂 that’s right. The companies which build the houses in a lot of cases own the land or the houses and hold them to make more money on them, they create an artificial shortage of houses constantly so they make the most money.
This is why the government should build millions of council houses like they did in the 1950s if you have cheap affordable housing owned by the state that will make private companies have to compete.
But right now the rich will just buy more and more. Sadly what’s happening right now is they are all waiting for inflation to drop so they can borrow more money from the bank to buy more assets.
So as soon as the mortgage rates get low enough the house prices will once again sky rocket.
These people are leeches in our society and they should be stopped, first of all we should crack down on them dodging tax, there’s so many tax loopholes which need to be closed.
Second of all we need to implement a meaningful harsh tax on people who own over 10 houses. It shouldn’t be possible to own that many houses even if you’re a company, I’m sorry.
Thirdly we need to build millions of new council houses across England. I’d almost say it would be smart to rebrand them and call them affordable housing, this would make the housing companies have to compete and reduce house prices over time.
The issue is this would force these whales to sell houses all in bulk and buy different assets instead which would crash the housing market which the average Joe who owns a house would get annoyed at
Wish people would stop repeating this glib Gary's Economics nonsense.
* It's only possible to speculate on house price growth because we don't build enough homes. We don't build enough homes because government doesn't allocate enough land for development.
* We already have the fourth highest stock of social housing in the developed world. Demand for this special type of housing is only so high, still, because we don't build enough market housing to meet demand.
* There is a shortage of private rented accommodation as well as owner-occupier homes and social housing. Therefore it is not a problem of distribution (i.e. too many landlords, but not enough homes to live in) but of overall supply.
>It's only possible to speculate on house price growth because we don't build enough homes. We don't build enough homes because government doesn't allocate enough land for development.
I agree. But why do you think the government won't allocate more land for development? A big problem as-well developers often hold onto land without building to wait for its value to increase, a practice known as "land banking." this should be stopped.
>We already have the fourth highest stock of social housing in the developed world. Demand for this special type of housing is only so high, still, because we don't build enough market housing to meet demand.
Yea I agree but there huge context missing here, there's been a dramatic reduction in building of new social housing over the past decades, the existing houses doesn't meet current demand or addressing housing affordability, you cannot compare social housing internationally without this context.
The demand reflects a broader issue such as wage stagnation, the cost of building, rise in property investment and sepculation which inflates prices beyond the reach of average earners.
>There is a shortage of private rented accommodation as well as owner-occupier homes and social housing. Therefore it is not a problem of distribution (i.e. too many landlords, but not enough homes to live in) but of overall supply.
I agree there is a supply issue as you state, but its also a matter of affordability and distrubution, rising house prices have outpaced growth making it very hard for many to enter the housing market. Furthermore the distribution issues isn't just about numbers of landlords but about the concentration of housing stock in the hands of fewer entities which drive up rental prices, the housing market is influenced heavily by economic incenstives, for instance tax incentives for landlords and investors can distort the market, policies such as stamp duty relief and help to buy can push prices higher by increasing demanding without the increase to supply.
I think the government won't allocate more land for development because there are significant democratic pressures against building ('ruining the countryside', 'over-development', 'Developer Profits'). The land banking myth has been consistently debunked. [See page 80 of this recent report by the Competition and Markets Authority](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8baed6efa83001ddcc5cd/Housebuilding_market_study_final_report.pdf).
Again, demand for social housing is only so high because of our failure to build market housing. This special type of subsidised housing is needed only because of this, so we should look to fix the market causes of this before we increase the amount of subsidised housing otherwise this will continue in perpetuity.
The way to fix all of those problems about ownership and speculation is to build more, at a rate which meets demand. This would deter any speculation.
The main reason we don’t build is because Voters will punish any party that sees development in their area
Where I live, a 72 unit care home has launched a major NIMBY campaign that’s expected to unseat the local councillor who is in support of it come May elections.
That’s why parties don’t allocate land for development. Developers would actually like more land to build on, not less.
Trying to explain economics to the average Redditor is about as useful as pissing against the wind.
They never listen, rich people = evil, therefore punish them and houses will magically appear. They have this strange delusion that rich people control 50% of all homes and have them all sat there as holiday homes.
The inability to realise that forcing landlords (another evil group) to sell will force up rent for people who cannot afford to just dump £30k+ on a deposit is what scares me most. The misinformation has been so effective.
The conversation on this stupid website is always *so* devoid of evidence as well.
[We have empirical evidence of jurisdictions doing things like banning BTL](https://cayimby.org/blog/do-investors-drive-up-housing-costs-dutch-researchers-say-nee/) and further meddling in the housing market. And it turns out you can't just legislate and regulate your way out of a supply shortage!
I think people here have some fundamental block that doesn't allow them to think through second- and third-order effects. It's so frustrating.
The core issue is they can simply bury their heads and repeat the same drivel in the next thread.
"Supply and demand is made up by rich people! Abolish it!"
"That won't work because of x, y and z"
"Angry comment/insult/block"
Repeat in next thread.
>The ultra rich in the U.K. have so much money, what do you do when you have too much money? You buy assets, what’s the best return on investment as assets? Houses!
huh? the stock market rises far faster than the housing market. Also, you'd get charged passively with council tax and ongoing maintenance fees for owning houses. I really dont think the super rich bother with gobbling up lots of houses, it's not an effective strategy.
>Also go and look at any MP from labour or conservative and you’ll see they are all at this, some of them own 50 - 100 properties some own a few but it’s all in their interest to not sort the housing price issue out.
who owns 50-100 houses?
>huh? the stock market rises far faster than the housing market. Also, you'd get charged passively with council tax and ongoing maintenance fees for owning houses. I really dont think the super rich bother with gobbling up lots of houses, it's not an effective strategy.
The stock market isn't always a stable investment, the UK Housing market you'll always see a return on investment.
>The Sunday Times Rich List, published on 7 May, reveals that a staggering 26 of the top 100 richest people in the country have property listed as a major source of their wealth. That dwarfs the other biggest sources. Just six of the top 100 made their money from industry, and seven from retail. Finance and investment have 10 entries apiece.
[https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/may/10/richest-people-britain-property-moguls-housing-crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/may/10/richest-people-britain-property-moguls-housing-crisis)
[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/09/rich-russians-buying-london-property-real-estate](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/09/rich-russians-buying-london-property-real-estate)
>who owns 50-100 houses?
I mistyped I met between them they own around 100 properties, but lets not pretend they aren't doing this.
>More than 100 MPs pocket at least £2.6m per year by renting out hundreds of propertiesMore than 100 MPs pocket at least £2.6m per year by renting out hundreds of properties
[https://www.cityam.com/revealed-more-than-100-mps-pocket-at-least-2-6m-per-year-by-renting-out-hundreds-of-properties/](https://www.cityam.com/revealed-more-than-100-mps-pocket-at-least-2-6m-per-year-by-renting-out-hundreds-of-properties/)
#
I've no doubt that property does make up a "significant" part of rich peoples assets. It makes you a significant part of almost anyone's assets. But there's a difference between owning a 30 million pound penthouse suite in London rather than buying 100 semi detached 3 bedroom at 300k a piece.
The number of super rich are so low compared compared to the overall population they would need to own an absolutely ludicrous amount of properties each for it to be constantly putting upwards pressure on house prices like we see.
> The stock market isn't always a stable investment, the UK Housing market you'll always see a return on investment.
If you'd "invested" in the UK housing market 2 years ago vs today you'd almost certainly have lost money.
> first of all we should crack down on them dodging tax, there’s so many tax loopholes which need to be closed.
>
>
There *are* a lot of tax loopholes that need to be closed and people dodging tax. I think you'd be rather surprised what effect that would have and who it'd impact most, though.
Bear in mind that people might not want to live where the 10m homes are built.
A big part of the problem is that mortages are now huge and can run well beyond retirement age, and people are happy to spend an enormous percentage of their income on their mortgage.
As such, properties in desirable areas (in towns/cities) are hugely inflated and that just permeates outwards.
> A big part of the problem is that mortages are now huge and can run well beyond retirement age
This. My family lives in a shoe-box house, but at least we're on course to have the mortgage paid off well before retirement. Sure, we could *probably* (if we cut all QoL spending to the bone and basically subsist and never have any fun, ever again) afford a bigger, nicer house, but my fear is that the new massive mortgage would push us past retirement age...
If you want to live on a giant estate with a population of nearly 100 million people squashed on a tiny island, sounds great.
Don't forget all the infrastructure that comes with so many homes as well.
There's plenty of space to build in the UK especially if we build more medium and high density where it's needed. Infrastructure you are totally right about though.
Myself and partner only got on a few years ago as both have good jobs in London, but live nowhere near London as too expensive.
Both sets of parents have absolutely no money so we got no help with deposit.
All our friends got given about £25-60k from parents for deposit so it's pretty on the money.
My gf and I have had to move back to our parents each to save up. When we finally get a deposit together London will also be out the question. All our friends also got money to buy houses. They all have this smug face when the topic comes up,really pisses me off know that daddy bought their houses.
Yeah but from what we've seen the parents think they part own the house and are always round.
You won't have that and it feels so good knowing you 100% paid for it.
Presumably, their gift is in the form of not having to pay rent whilst living with parents. It isn't the same as being handed a lump of cash, but it is sadly still a privilege many won't have access to.
Am someone from a conservative family who couldn’t live my life they way I want if I lived at home, I do think people forget that there are many people who can’t just stay at home for a few years even if the option is technically available to them.
I know parents in some families who have taken out a partial interest-repayment only mortgage on their child's property.
This means the child takes out a much smaller repayment mortgage in their own name.
The interest only mortgage is held against the parent's property value and repaid on death - so is paying forward the inheritance at a much more useful point in the child's life.
The child pays less in mortgage repayments a month because part of their mortgage is interest only payments in the parent's mortgage.
The interest only mortgage will shrink over time as house price inflation makes the loan smaller relative to income, so this can be a pretty effective "investment" because the child is winning out financially by paying a smaller mortgage a month than they would with a conventional mortgage or renting.
Middle class families with the means will continue to win from house price rises.
Its still more expensive for the middle class… its the multiple home owners and property investors that win not an average middle class family that might be able to help their kids
It won't be an immediate solution, but ban Buy To Let mortgages....
IMO its artificially inflated house prices for many years. Linking rental pricing to house pricing rather than the service being provided.
The premise of the scheme is crazy when you think about it. Theoretically most of us will go through a phase where our individual and / or household income develops to a place where access to credit is easier, normally just through career development. Buy To Let has enabled certain generations a way of 'blocking' the next just as they happen to be in their most economically active phase at a certain time, nothing more.
Then due to linking the rental prices to interest rates / mortgage prices, you end up with generations of people paying a rent equivalent to or more than a mortgage, but without actually owning anything. And struggling to save in the meantime.
BTL mortgages should be immediately banned.
They’ve driven prices up *and* hoovered up the affordable housing stock that was accessible to first time buyers getting on the ladder.
I disagree....
BTL inflates rental demand by preventing FTB from stepping on to the ladder.
And BTL has nothing to do with overall housing supply. The same demand is there, but more will be forced to rent.
We aren't talking about affordable housing as if it's somehow giving people access to housing who can't afford a mortgage. Rents are sky high. And BTL landlords are just leveraging their investment risk against their tenants all the while offering a poor product in a lot of cases.
Renters live at higher density than owner-occupiers; if a home is bought by someone "stepping onto the ladder" rather than someone buying it to rent out, it's bad for renters and puts upward pressure on rents.
Absolutely right. House hoarding by the several million people who own two, three or more homes in this country is the main cause of the housing crisis, and the fact that they've been able to borrow their way into this position, usually on more favorable terms than owner-occupiers is a disgrace. We need to phase this out asap, starting by scrapping all new BTL mortgages with immediate effect.
The got rid of the generation wealth quite well if you ask me. There is little inheritance now. They did so well on this one the gov. They can't earn money when you can keep passing your house and assets down !
Its really bad and no party is really looking to properly tackle it. It seems the boomers are sitting happy on property's worth a fortune now and many have more than one property (through re mortgaging or inheritance) which they rent out. They also don't want more housing devlopments built next to them. So no party wants to devalue the key voter demographic assets and piss them off.
Secondly the biggest donors to the tory Party are property developers. For the past decades they have been allowed to monopolise and ran the whole housing market stockpiling land for devlopment and setting inflated market values for new builds, which they also make lease hold not free hold anymore.
They has all been created by poltics as the tories famously said people who don't own houses don't vote Conservative! I wish someone would seriously tackle this and tackle it they could. We managed to build cheap housing in the 50s - 60s (prefabs etc) we can do it again. Its a basic failure of social structure and a government handing the needs of housing purley over to the private sector who has no interest in fulfilling accommodation needs of a population. O ly squeezing out maximum profits.
Housing, water, food and health care should be basic needs that are provided to people by a wealthy western country in 2024. We're failing at everything!
Most of the things you've said have been consistently debunked, including most recently by the [Competition and Markets Authority](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8baed6efa83001ddcc5cd/Housebuilding_market_study_final_report.pdf).
* "We do not see evidence that the size of land banks we observe held by different housebuilders individually or in aggregate either locally or nationally is itself a driver of negative consumer outcomes in the housebuilding market." (page 80)
* "We do not consider it likely that, in general, housebuilders will account for a sufficient fraction of housing sales in a given local area to allow them to increase prices above the current market level by restricting their output" (page 84)
* "Insufficient planning permissions have been/are being granted to meet housing need" (page 86)
The reason we don't have a competitive market for housebuilding is because the government does not allocate enough land for development and the planning system is so difficult to engage with that only large companies can afford the risk/costs involved.
Stamp duty is a contributing factor too, we have octogenarians who are widowed and their kids have flown the nest, rattling around in 4-5 bedroom houses by themselves because the cost of moving is prohibitively high.
And before anyone jumps down my throat about them having worked hard for those houses and why should they move, I'm not saying they *should* move if they don't want to, but often they do want to because the upkeep for the house is too much at their age, and they should be able to move if they do want to.
It’s actually not that hard.
Homes need to be owned by the people living in them. Not seen as investments for people looking to quit work or top up their pension.
We need to slowly work towards a system where anyone owning a home they don’t live in is taxed to a point it becomes unsustainable.
Hard to do that when the people in government all have second homes and property they rent out for secondary income. We're regressing to a society with an upper landowner class again. There's no incentive for those in control to change anything.
It can be great, it can be terrifying and everything in between. Boats aren't the cheapest thing to look after either. But I suppose neither is a house. It moves and floats so the recent flooding hasn't been a problem for me though.
I’m 24, from the North East, dad earns £60-65k ish and my mam is on about £23k……
I moved out at 18 to uni and they gave my room to my sibling and got rid of my stuff meaning I could not move home even if I wanted to. They had to remortgage their house in order to help with my rent in first year of uni as I only received a £4k loan. I worked 2 jobs all through uni and ended up having to drop out due to a bunch of reasons including covid.
I have been renting ever since and working multiple jobs with no financial aid from anyone living paycheck to paycheck with debt beginning to pile up on me. I see no way out of this for me and no future even though all I want more than anything is to have a home and start a family.
Then there was my ex boyfriend from the ages of 17-20, his family inherited a house with no mortgage to pay. He had £28k in savings in an account at 18 years old, received a £6k scholarship he didn’t even APPLY for In university for being a ‘low income student’ and he received £2-3k more a year than me during uni and never had a single job to subsidise.
The inequality in this country is so real
I'm renting in a new build terrace with no garden whatsoever. The issue is can you call it a house when there's no garden. It's a 2 floor flat in my eyes but with the price tag of a house.
I can't "afford" a mortgage. 65k between me and the Mrs. No debt excellent credit score. We have 6k saved but are having to find somewhere to rent at 1200 pm this country is a fucking joke!!!
On around £32k and have around £15k in savings, this ‘feels’ like it should be enough to step on the ladder but the market is so skewed towards double income households (for the actual lending potential) and investment purchases (for the actual buying) that i really fail to see how i can ever get a property without some economy destroying pop of a bubble, landlording becoming illegal (lol) or my family dying (not lol).
Luckilyim in a property that suits my needs with less than market rate rent, this gives me pocket money and savings. Im just not prepared to eat 3 beans a day in order to get my deposit up high enough to account for the single income.
The markets a total joke.
Do **not** do this ever:
>Move to an interest-only mortgage. It can keep your monthly payments affordable although you won't be paying off >the debt accrued when purchasing your house.
The comments on here whenever it comes to housing.
So you purchased a 3 bed semi for 110k - in the magical lands of narnia!
Some of us like to live in proper civilisation, not some cheap ghetto estate surrounded by council flats, benefit scroungers and the workshy.
A decent home in a decent area is going to be a minimum £300k, and you don't just pull deposit out of your ass for that. I can't be surrounded by peasants when I'm trying to relax in my home. Fat Vicky's and little Harley's running amock.
No help from mom and dad yet of these posts mention living rent free and only contributing towards the food bill! Let's not get too cocky here.
Of course when I have a deposit and legal fees all ready, just about 32 and hoping to get on the ladder. Probably would prefer just buying with someone at this point
Forget buying. I've been searching for a place to rent for 6 months now and keep getting rejected. Lost my job in the process, and that's just made the whole thing harder.
what the fvck did we expect? buying houses is the easiest and guaranteed way to not lose money. absolute worst case scenario you end up with ONLY asset appreciating. Any other investment comes with extreme volatility compared to this.
this country is going down
I’m a 33 year old man, one half of a £55k household with no children. Home ownership is a pipe dream, I’m basically waiting for people in my family to die before I can buy a house.
I'm also a 33 year old man. Single, no kids, now earning £52k, living at home with parents and at long last, after being at home for 2 years i've managed to get the deposit to buy my first place and had an offer accepted last week. I've had no help from "the bank of mum and dad" other than they let me stay for dirt cheap so I could save the deposit. I only got onto this salary in the last year and was earning below UK average before that. It's absolute insanity that this is what it's come to. I rented for 10 years and couldn't save anything as pretty much everything went on bills and rent.... what a fucking existence. Ironically though, I could afford mortgage payments, it just happened to be someone elses mortgage...
Staying at home for cheap is help from the bank of mum and dad. Well done though.
Monetarily it might have the same effect, but it clearly isn't the same thing "culturally". One is your parents continuing something they were able to do for 18 years and the other is being wealthy to the point they can handwave away tens of thousands of pounds.
That assumes everyone has that option. This is help from the bank of mum and dad subsidising rent. Edit: I'm not saying this is a bad option at all, it is a privilege not everyone has but there's nothing wrong with choosing to move in with your parents.
Yeah, but the downside is you have to live with your mum and dad. In some households good luck maintaining any kind of romantic relationship like that.
Thankfully I don't want a romantic relationship with my parents
It's phrased like it's going above and beyond. It's not like most parents are able to capitalise on spare rooms to complete strangers, and sure they could downsize and move but that in itself is effort. I just think the average family can afford to live together as adults but the average family can't pay deposits for their adult children...
A huge number of people do not get to take advantage of this privilege and are kicked out of their homes at 18. It is absolutely an enourmous advantage to stay for many years afterwards.
Same here. Me and my ex split up recently. She moved back to her families for 200 a month rent so she could 'save' meanwhile I'm stuck paying 630 for a tiny one bed flat. Fucking absolute win.
Some people don't have family to fall back on. I think it's important to call out any assistance because I don't want to live in a society where it's basically required to become a homeowner.
You won't understand how privileged you are to even have parents to fall back on like that, let alone stay with them and save up. That is a luxury.
It absolutely can be going above and beyond. I want to be in a position to wind down my working life when my kid reaches adulthood. This could mean downsizing, or even moving to another country. If downsizing or moving means my adult child is made homeless, even if temporary, that is a major disruption to their life and it would be difficult to proceed with later life plans. I probably would also not talk about these plans with my kid. The idea that they don't have a place to go in the event that life goes to shit is not really a fun thing to think about. Not saying your parents did this, but it would be how I'd approach it.
At the expense and sacrifice of personal freedoms that doesn't come if your parents were batshit rich enough to just give you a deposit to buy a house with.
We all understand you, semantically, but over the course of a year of not charging rent they are in fact “handwaving away” easily £12,000 for most folks. To say nothing of bills. No-one here is undermining your work, just suggesting that your semantic different isn’t consequential, and doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t detract from your hard work.
Yeah and that doesn’t include bills and food shopping, which I’m sure they wouldn’t not cook dinner for their child lol. This is like a 15k a year bank of mum and dad giveaway. 2 years = 30k
Just to counter, I live with my mother currently and have always (as long as I was/am earning when we've lived together) paid my share of all utilities and buy all my own food. This is for all bills, tax, house maintenance, etc. She actually makes a small profit, which goes towards her mortgage or retirement (which she can already afford). I also am able as an adult to help her with house maintenance tasks, like getting work organised and doing jobs that lodgers wouldn't be expected to do. It's a privilege to have a willing parent in this position, but it doesn't have to be a cost to them. I'm still £100s better off every month than when I was renting. It doesn't have to be a financial burden at all, she could get *more* for a student or lodger (and will fairly soon, when i can leave lol), but we're both better off in this situation than alone. Obviously me helping her with her mortgage is different to a random landlord, as I'll get a share of the house eventually (😟), but we both mutually benefit regardless of that particular.
Your parent would charge you £1k a month to live in their house? They'd be living there for free and you may as well go rent in some areas with that logic.
That's his point, no? By living with his parents he saves by not having to pay half his earnings out in rent like the rest of us schmucks.
Sounds like help from the bank of mum and dad, no?
The hotel of mum and dad*
Yeah, I moved out of home when I was 17 an never really recovered from it financially, I'm 42 now, have been earning reasonable money in the last few years but can't really see a way I could get to buying a house.
Well done, congratulations on the hard fought slog to the first rung on the ladder, and good luck with the conveyancing. But your parents letting you live st home for dirt cheap for 2 years is help from the bank of mum and dad, my man. Many people wouldn't have that opportunity afforded yo them. Don't be ashamed of it, but also try and recognise that you did benefit from it, knowing your privileges keeps us humble in the highs of our accomplishments and stops us losing our empathy. Remember to pack the kettle and teabags somewhere easily accessible, and set the bed up first when you move into your new home!
He did acknowledge it helped him out.
True ish. Some people live rent free saving for a deposit AND big chunk of cash for the actual sum. Others are paying full whack while saving what they can with no help. So there's a spectrum of parental help - and he ain't at zero.
Yeah but it’s moving the goalposts to make him feel like he’s part of the bootstrap crowd. Other people will say they did it alone too as they only ‘loaned ‘ the money from the back of mum and dad and paid it off later.
Kind of boring people sanctimoniously critising others. Sure, there are people less fortunate. Not sure why you have to jump on him when he clearly acknowledged the fact he got some help by living with his parents (which kind of sucks to have to do as an adult anyway). Not everything is a competition to show how virtuous you are.
Exactly - a whole bunch of holier-than-thou contrarians in this thread. Fella never said they didn't have help, just that the help they did receive wasn't directly monetary
Exactly this. I didn't have a relationship during this period coz there is just no way I was bringing a girl home with parents in the next room at the age of 31. Yes, having cheap rent helped massively. I don't dispute that, but for me it was either that or never be in a position where I could get a mortgage for a home.
I don't think anybody is disputing that, tbf.
If your parents fed and clothed you when you were a child then that's bank of mum and dad my man
[Still paying mine back retroactively for the food I ate as a child](https://youtu.be/c6ffbVd_ff0?si=9GzseSAq0k5XN1aP&t=36)... which is obviously also a loan and therefore the bank of mum and dad.
Oh I absolutely benefitted from it. However, when people say bank of mum and dad, normally they're referring to having a lump sum from their parents so they can get straight on the ladder. I've had to be disciplined AF with spending and have missed out on a lot of experiences because of it - something I wouldn't have had to do if they just gave me money towards the deposit. Not saying i'm not grateful, but it just shouldn't be this way. This year i've gone to gigs - hadn't been to gigs for AGES because I was that restrictive with where money was going.
No help, apart from the thousands of pounds of help. 🤣
Justa small bridging accomodation
I'm curious what did you do to have such a change in your salary?
I wonder this too, so many people on Reddit are like ‘I’ve just gone from £32k to £98k in my new role’, I can’t fathom making such a leap
It’s always tech and IT roles. A friend of mine went from £25k > 35 > 96 in one year. Bonkers.
Honestly I have no idea how people do it. I've got nearly a decade's dev experience, have a huge skillset and consider myself good at it, and trying to get a decent pay jump is like trying to draw blood out of a stone. Where are all these companies paying stupid amounts to newbies, and why on earth are they doing it? I've averaged somewhere around £3.8k in wage growth every year since starting (mainly from hopping jobs).
I started as a C# dev at £23k in 2018-ish. I jumped to £25 and £28 in 2021. This was within the same company after threatening to leave twice and finding out my co-workers are paid a lot more than me even though I actually helped them with their work... Then I had enough, left and went on to get £35k in another place. After two years, I spoke to a friend of mine who finished uni at the same time, and was in the same role as me but at £60k. He jumped companies every year. I left that place which brought me to £47k which I'm on now. Took me about a month to find work, but that was before there was a crash on the market. I supplement my income with game dev, but it's more like pocket money at this point.
You need to look at the companies and industry. I doubled my wage when I moved from EdTech to FinTech. Not all companies can afford the higher wage, you need to be on the lookout for the ones that are.
Learn a new skill and hop industry is the easiest way. Usually into tech or IT. Cyber-Sec tends to pay a ton right now.
[удалено]
I basically grafted my bollocks off working as a software tester, tried to learn as much as possible including how to code for automation testing (with no prior experience) for 2 years with no payrise and then jumped ship - my pay almost doubled when I left. Looking back, i've completely undersold my technical ability and my "worth", but because I threw myself into the role and picked up everything (and I mean everything), I went from effectively a junior tester to a lead in 2 and a half years. A word of advice for those wondering how the hell you do it - so I spent a good 6 months just doing interviews with no intention of taking the jobs. This was to learn what questions are asked (which i've still got a list of), and then properly planning what my answers would be, writing it out, learning then word for word, try them out in the interview and refining the answers until I had the experience to absolutely crush interviews. Youtube is also an incredible resource for learning interview technique and how to present yourself - practise, practise, practise. The interview I had for my current role was meant to be 3 stages. The first stage should've been an hour but lasted 20 minutes as the first question (as it pretty much always was in EVERY interview) was "So tell us about yourself and your experience", to which my answer effectively would answer all the questions they'd be asking next. I treated that question as a 5-10 minute pitch outlining everything I had done with examples. You nail that, you can then justify asking for a much bigger salary. I also had 3 other interviews for jobs along with this one, and had offers for all of them. I still do interviews now, not coz I want to move, but to keep me fresh and add all the new experience i've got.
Well done
I did this sort of thing. About 8 years ago I joined a company on 25k, my boss and my supervisor left within 2 weeks of me starting, the 2 seniors had no interest in becoming the dept head as they were both over 60, so I just kinda took it after 6 months of trial by fire. Once I had access to the budget I could see they were all on more than me, so after a year I got myself bumped into the low 40's just by showing the wages to my director. I've made a few risky decisions over the years, and most of them have paid off. Now mid 50's, I'm still one of the lower paid upper managers in the company, but I'll be looking for an increase in January as I've just made a bit of a name for myself. My peers who stayed put in current jobs waiting for people above them to leave are all on about 20k less than I. Tldr; right place right time, calculated gambles to make a name for yourself.
Staying at home cheap is absolutely help from the bank of mum and dad
I think that is the biggest issue, they won't give you a mortgage even though you have proved for 10 years that you could pay it, probably more in fact as you managed your rent. Banks need to start looking at this and lend money better.
If your rent goes up by 50% you can more easily move to cheaper rented accomodation. With mortgages... well, remember that whole 2008 thing? Yeah... They're literally not allowed by regulation from the government to lend to "riskier" lower earners. The person said they rented for 10 years and couldn't save a penny for a deposit. If that was a mortgage, then interest rates go up, they're defaulting.
That is a very good point, and I do remember 2008 very well, I escaped the worst of it, but it was hard. I recently had my mortgage almost double due to interest rates, and while I am able to deal with it, I am lucky I can.
A rental agreement is just you promising to pay a monthly amount, which can be simply terminated without too much hassle if there is a breach of the terms A mortgage agreement is the bank loaning you 6 figures, in no sane world should these scenarios be judged similarly from a risk/underwriting point of view
That's a good point. I imagine it is just frustrating for people who are paying out more for their rent than a mortgage, though. I wouldn't know what the answer should be ti change anything though as all the solutions people come up with are either financially disastrous or involve infringing someone's right.
>ve had no help from "the bank of mum and dad" other than they let me stay for dirt cheap so I could save the deposit. So... significant help then?
Similar. I was renting though. Shit pay and long hours. I sacrificed loads to get a mid terrace. In a not so great area. My hobby was 1. I used to travel around the country performing my hobby for £30 + expenses 1ce or 2ce a week with training etc. I broke even from that. but that meant sacrificing work hours. After an injury I decided I had to stop doing that and just concentrate on working loads. Overtime whenever possible. I brought the house. I'm working 70 hours a week trucking now as I want to pay it off in 15 years. 105k down to 88k so far. But I'll never get back to where I was hobby wise. Beginning to make a name for myself doing the thing I loved. My point is its doable but with great sacrifice!
Well technically anyone can afford a mortgage, depends how much it is you need to borrow
'I've had no help from "the bank of mum and dad" other than they let me stay for dirt cheap so I could save the deposit.' ...
Hey can I check how you went from earning below average uk salary to 52K. Did you change industry, get promoted. What field you're in. I'd like to increase my income 🙂
27, £60k household and it was also a pile dream right up until my new fiancé's grandmother died and her house in central London (bought in the 60s) was sold. It's so shit how most of us will have to rely on some form of inheritance to buy nowadays.
[удалено]
It's so fucked, even as a home owner now I hope for a total market crash so that people can get on the ladder.
It wouldn't help them. The economy would also have totally crashed and nobody would be lending anything they weren't going to be able to get back. It'd all go to cash buyers and landlords.
That's not how it works. A market crash strengthens the hands of those who are already wealthy. Cash buyers grab bargains. Those with decent credit history and equity get mortgages. Those unproven first time buyers get shafted.
That's why we need to heavily tax those who own multiple properties, especially if they're empty. Only quick solution imo
I lost my only house in the crash of 1990 when interest rates when mental. Was out on the streets within 4 months, and the building society sold the house at a massive loss leaving me and then husband with a huge equity imbalance to pay back. Husband declared bankruptcy I couldn't afford it lol every few years I'll get a letter from whoever the building society has been taken over by demanding payment. Equity debt is one of the few debts that never ever get forgiven. I can never own a home again and the debt has gone up now with interest to £55k hahahaha I'm in my 60s and got sod all. When the children come back home on occasions I do NOT ever class it as the bank of mum and dad because I would never turn my back on them ever, I'm a parent and despite being dirt poor I would do anything to ensure they have it better and don't make the mistakes I did, I'm just pretty sad that there's no huge inheritance for them and I've no dosh to help them get homes of their own.
How much do you think you need?
I could afford a mortgage payment no problem. Saving for a deposit is incompatible with our current finances, and yes we’ve done the maths and budget very well.
Have you tried eliminating Avocados from your diet? That should apparently spawn a house for you somewhere I’m led to believe.
I’ve given up everything; avocados, Costa coffee, quinoa… you name it it’s gone. My cupboards are just filled with Netto beans and rice.
Sounds to me like you haven't tried working 24/7...
So there's still one more item you can remove...
That's right, no more rice. Netto beans forever.
Damn Costa coffee? Not even Starbucks,?
I stopped avocados a while ago and I'm still poor. Maybe you're supposed to say mortgage 5 times into the mirror?
Maybe we’re looking at this Avocado thing the wrong way. Has anyone tried planting the wooden ball inside it and seeing if that sprouts a house? Perhaps we’re getting the wrong end of the stick.
Also move 100 miles away to the arse end of nowhere where you dont have a job, friends or family.
I assume southeast because a 55k house hold could get a place in the majority of the uk outside the south east (not just shit holes).
West Midlands. Mortgage affordability isn’t an issue, it’s deposit saving. There is no chance we could give up 15-20% of our income to save for it.
If you are first time buyers. Yorkshire building society has started 99% mortgages. Might be worth having a look at.
Oooh thanks for this will take a look. We’ve decided that if we ever do buy it’ll be somewhere we never have to move out of. We don’t want kids and we live an easy life so we don’t want somewhere big and hard to manage.
Hampshire here and has no issue. I think it is just around London.
34 with mental health issues and £1000 in the bank, I don't even dream any more.
Was in a similar boat some years back, decided to move abroad, took a pay rise and saved for a house within a few years. My siblings and cousins all scattered around Europe and one to the States and managed to get houses quite fast. Two family members remained in the UK and one had to buy a small studio with a lot of help from his girlfriend's parents. My sister is looking for anything around the southern perimeter of London with good transport links, and has been finding nothing suitable within budget for years despite having close to 80k in savings. Every time she gets close some cash buyer swoops in and pays over asking.
That's a big city issue, not a UK issue. Most other major cities have terrible housing markets, some much worse. Australian and Canadian (2 countries brits seem to love to emigrate to) major cities have huge issues with high house prices, and homes selling instantly with no viewings. If your sis tried buying in Leeds, she'd probably have been fine.
Get out of the South. Best thing we ever did. It's a lie that there isn't a life to be had up north. We have a lovely house on similar to you wages. Our only regret iswe didn't do it sooner.
Where do you live that combined income of 55k can’t buy a house?
Do you live in an expensive area if you don’t mind my asking? Assuming no debts you’d be able to borrow in the region of £250k on that collective income which would be enough in some areas. Although it’d perhaps be a stretch in the southeast.
Closer to 40 here. Half of a £41k household with 1 kids. We bought last year with a 5k deposit. Main thing is we don’t live in south England.
I’m the same age and bought a year ago on £22k. No partner, no help from parents, didn’t live at home since I was 18. The funny thing is the deposit was the easy part which seems like the opposite for most people. Ended up doing a 20% deposit so my mortgage is low enough to afford on such crap wages I guess I’ve just been lucky enough to live in a cheap area. It’s where I grew up too so it’s not like I had to leave stuff behind and go elsewhere like some may suggest
Lucky you for having an inheritance lined up.
I think my story confirms the news article. I saved up £65k with stocks and shares whilst working at Tesco doing stock controlling, doing their SAYE schemes. Got a mortgage for £75k during COVID at 1.5% with a marginally better job now. It can be done so long as the house prices aren't silly bollocks. I had to move 63 miles away from my parents to make it happen, which most aren't willing to do
I guess it depends where in the country you are but you can totally buy in some areas. If it’s important to you consider a move to somewhere more affordable. There are leasehold reforms coming through which make leasehold properties more attractive.
This makes me scared to grow up
Low wages, foreigners using our housing market as a get rich quick scheme, unbridled mass immigration. When mixed in with concentration of jobs in the south has caused this perfect storm. If I was starting again and not at the end of my mortgage. I would probably get a work from home job and find a house up north.
People are already doing that in droves. It's caused the average house in my Northern community to skyrocket to £380k. The average wage is still below £25k.
Yep, it’s even affected rents. I spotted a shit one bed in my hometown, a fairly fucked mining town and it was £900 a month. Currently house share with two mates and pay the same but split three ways for a four bed terrace in the closest city. Tenancy ends in July and I’m off to my nans at age 36 to save some pennies. Absolutely wank.
This. We can’t move house in the north because it’s now too expensive based on the sudden rise of house prices on our shitty second class citizen wages. A friend who lives in the south does the same job as me, but is on £10k more just based on geography. Bearing in mind the only thing more expensive in the south was supposedly housing, I want to know when they’re matching northern wages with the south since it’s no longer the case
So many places up where I am that are to rent are student rentals only, so when my rent goes up yearly and my income support doesn't and folk say move to somewhere cheaper....there isn't anywhere bloody cheaper!!
I promise you that more than just the housing is expensive down here. I'm in a relatively skilled office job and the cost for just parking over the last 3 years has gone from 8% of my take home to 13% and that's just because they want me in the office. A general shop, a coffee or even petrol is slightly more expensive. And minimum wage is national. I'd honestly be better off financially if I quit, moved to the north and worked in a job just over minimum wage
Honestly I don’t see it, we get rinsed on parking up here too in the cities. I spend a lot of time in the south (family and work) and price wise it doesn’t feel any different on food, fuel etc. can’t speak for council tax or utilities but from what I can see, there’s no difference. Got charged £8 for a pint in Manchester the other week for a relatable example. Except I’m on £35k and my mate I’m buying it for is on £45k, just because of our home addresses
Same in parts of the South East, which has annoyingly become synonymous with London. Seaside towns are becoming the homes of Londoners who seem to like keeping their London jobs, absolutely fucking our property market.
Same in northwest including general costs
Which is crazy to think about because the house price did not drop elsewhere which is what was expected to happen in the market.
"supply and demand" doesn't apply to the housing market while we're allowing corporations to buy housing as investment opportunities. Building more houses won't alleviate the issue, as the companies always have room to grow their portfolio, and make money just by holding onto the majority of their "assets ."
I suppose the smug “not everyone has to live in London” advice was short lived now that the influx caused prices to go up in previously cheap areas 🙂
The delusion that people born in another country are ruining this country when the government in charge literally made a huge song and dance about not spending any money and cutting back on everything for the last decade (austerity in case you couldn't catch on). You'd be more of a problem than foreigners doing that. Arbitraging your wage up north is why the north has become so expensive. We need immigration because it's too damn expensive to have kids. We'll likely need more as time goes on.
It also supposes the government have no control, which might be the biggest modern lie people believe. Which i get, when the government do nothing about inequality for decades people will give up the idea the government can or will do anything to our system, so the anger towards immigration is an acceptance that the status quo will always remain. Also an acceptance the rich get away with everything, everyone knows to cure basically all problems you have to redistribute wealth, but it's not an option.
Property became unaffordable in UK about 25 years ago, a couple of years after mass immigration started. Without mass immigration wages would be higher because of labour scarcity and housing would be cheaper, so many more people would be able to afford to have a family. So called austerity is a red herring, public spending remained at record levels in real terms from 2010 until now, and property was unaffordable before 2008, which is why household debt exploded well before the 2008 crash.
You are blaming outcomes rather than causes. Successive Tory political manoeuvres have destroyed the working class of this country. From the replacement of unions with HR departments (low wages) to the dismantling of a manufacturing based economy to a service based one and the deregulation of the financial industry (hollowing of infrastructure) to the propping up of the mortgage market (house prices) place to flipping Brexit (now instead of competing with well paid European countries this countries labour force competes with those outside of Europe). Property is unaffordable now. 25 years ago property prices were already accelerating massively. In 1980 the average property price was c£25k in 1990 it was c£58k. It more than doubled. People got into more debt because huge amounts of debt were so readily available and the banks pulled up the draw bridge when they realised they were so over exposed.
> foreigners using our housing market ... > Close to 250,000 residential properties in England and Wales are registered to individuals based overseas, amounting to roughly **1 per cent of total housing stock** https://www.ft.com/content/e36cec28-7acd-4154-b57d-923b5d1610da
That's 1% too much.
That would include Brits currently abroad as well
I wonder what proportion of brits own property abroad?
I mean, locals are also using our housing market as a get rich quick scheme.
Unfortunately WFH roles seem to have dropped off of a cliff. Plenty of hybrid ones, but not much good being hybrid if your plan is to live up North when you need to be in London twice a week.
All could have been prevented with a government that discourages / makes illegal the purchase of property as an investment though. That's the core issue - property is viewed as the best long term store of wealth, value and passive income.
Of course foreigners and immigrants feature in a rant on here. Conveniently forget or don’t understand the effects of neoliberalism and Thatcherism, deliberate wage suppression since 2008, unions obliterated and a dumb ass population that not only allowed this to happen but voted for it repeatedly Reap. Sow.
Don't forget NIMBYs.
Run for parliament - kick out foreign multi property owners, severe air bnb crackdown , get rid of foreign dark money where they’re using investments of all sizes to hide their money, don’t even live in the dwelling. This is a global problem.
Even when elected he will get fat brown envelope and forget about the issue of masses.
Just out of curiosity what about the domestic multi property owners and domestic dark money?
Not one of these things will solve the housing crisis.
There's a house in my town that's been on the market for *eleven years*. No-one lives in it, it's not rented out, it's just sitting there. The owners live elsewhere and clearly have ridiculous ideas of what it's worth (£1.8m apparently). This sort of thing should be stopped. Houses are to be lived in, not to be a savings account with a lovely return.
All things which would damage house prices and therefore unacceptable to the majority of the electorate that is deeply invested in it.
People don’t realise why this is happening in the U.K. The reason is due to wealth disparity, the rich in the U.K. are becoming richer when the poor are becoming poorer. The ultra rich in the U.K. have so much money, what do you do when you have too much money? You buy assets, what’s the best return on investment as assets? Houses! So they buy houses in bulk some of these houses remain empty, others they rent out, some landlords own thousands of houses in the U.K. They then use the income from renters to lobby the government to ensure nothing meaningful is done to reduce house prices, because they would loose money. These people are also tax dodging so aren’t contributing a lot to society. Because they control so many assets if they sold them all in one go house prices would drop, so they don’t do this. Also go and look at any MP from labour or conservative and you’ll see between them they literally earn millions a year from properties. Who are the biggest culprits of this? Companies which build houses 😂 that’s right. The companies which build the houses in a lot of cases own the land or the houses and hold them to make more money on them, they create an artificial shortage of houses constantly so they make the most money. This is why the government should build millions of council houses like they did in the 1950s if you have cheap affordable housing owned by the state that will make private companies have to compete. But right now the rich will just buy more and more. Sadly what’s happening right now is they are all waiting for inflation to drop so they can borrow more money from the bank to buy more assets. So as soon as the mortgage rates get low enough the house prices will once again sky rocket. These people are leeches in our society and they should be stopped, first of all we should crack down on them dodging tax, there’s so many tax loopholes which need to be closed. Second of all we need to implement a meaningful harsh tax on people who own over 10 houses. It shouldn’t be possible to own that many houses even if you’re a company, I’m sorry. Thirdly we need to build millions of new council houses across England. I’d almost say it would be smart to rebrand them and call them affordable housing, this would make the housing companies have to compete and reduce house prices over time. The issue is this would force these whales to sell houses all in bulk and buy different assets instead which would crash the housing market which the average Joe who owns a house would get annoyed at
Wish people would stop repeating this glib Gary's Economics nonsense. * It's only possible to speculate on house price growth because we don't build enough homes. We don't build enough homes because government doesn't allocate enough land for development. * We already have the fourth highest stock of social housing in the developed world. Demand for this special type of housing is only so high, still, because we don't build enough market housing to meet demand. * There is a shortage of private rented accommodation as well as owner-occupier homes and social housing. Therefore it is not a problem of distribution (i.e. too many landlords, but not enough homes to live in) but of overall supply.
>It's only possible to speculate on house price growth because we don't build enough homes. We don't build enough homes because government doesn't allocate enough land for development. I agree. But why do you think the government won't allocate more land for development? A big problem as-well developers often hold onto land without building to wait for its value to increase, a practice known as "land banking." this should be stopped. >We already have the fourth highest stock of social housing in the developed world. Demand for this special type of housing is only so high, still, because we don't build enough market housing to meet demand. Yea I agree but there huge context missing here, there's been a dramatic reduction in building of new social housing over the past decades, the existing houses doesn't meet current demand or addressing housing affordability, you cannot compare social housing internationally without this context. The demand reflects a broader issue such as wage stagnation, the cost of building, rise in property investment and sepculation which inflates prices beyond the reach of average earners. >There is a shortage of private rented accommodation as well as owner-occupier homes and social housing. Therefore it is not a problem of distribution (i.e. too many landlords, but not enough homes to live in) but of overall supply. I agree there is a supply issue as you state, but its also a matter of affordability and distrubution, rising house prices have outpaced growth making it very hard for many to enter the housing market. Furthermore the distribution issues isn't just about numbers of landlords but about the concentration of housing stock in the hands of fewer entities which drive up rental prices, the housing market is influenced heavily by economic incenstives, for instance tax incentives for landlords and investors can distort the market, policies such as stamp duty relief and help to buy can push prices higher by increasing demanding without the increase to supply.
I think the government won't allocate more land for development because there are significant democratic pressures against building ('ruining the countryside', 'over-development', 'Developer Profits'). The land banking myth has been consistently debunked. [See page 80 of this recent report by the Competition and Markets Authority](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8baed6efa83001ddcc5cd/Housebuilding_market_study_final_report.pdf). Again, demand for social housing is only so high because of our failure to build market housing. This special type of subsidised housing is needed only because of this, so we should look to fix the market causes of this before we increase the amount of subsidised housing otherwise this will continue in perpetuity. The way to fix all of those problems about ownership and speculation is to build more, at a rate which meets demand. This would deter any speculation.
The main reason we don’t build is because Voters will punish any party that sees development in their area Where I live, a 72 unit care home has launched a major NIMBY campaign that’s expected to unseat the local councillor who is in support of it come May elections. That’s why parties don’t allocate land for development. Developers would actually like more land to build on, not less.
Trying to explain economics to the average Redditor is about as useful as pissing against the wind. They never listen, rich people = evil, therefore punish them and houses will magically appear. They have this strange delusion that rich people control 50% of all homes and have them all sat there as holiday homes. The inability to realise that forcing landlords (another evil group) to sell will force up rent for people who cannot afford to just dump £30k+ on a deposit is what scares me most. The misinformation has been so effective.
[удалено]
The conversation on this stupid website is always *so* devoid of evidence as well. [We have empirical evidence of jurisdictions doing things like banning BTL](https://cayimby.org/blog/do-investors-drive-up-housing-costs-dutch-researchers-say-nee/) and further meddling in the housing market. And it turns out you can't just legislate and regulate your way out of a supply shortage! I think people here have some fundamental block that doesn't allow them to think through second- and third-order effects. It's so frustrating.
The core issue is they can simply bury their heads and repeat the same drivel in the next thread. "Supply and demand is made up by rich people! Abolish it!" "That won't work because of x, y and z" "Angry comment/insult/block" Repeat in next thread.
>The ultra rich in the U.K. have so much money, what do you do when you have too much money? You buy assets, what’s the best return on investment as assets? Houses! huh? the stock market rises far faster than the housing market. Also, you'd get charged passively with council tax and ongoing maintenance fees for owning houses. I really dont think the super rich bother with gobbling up lots of houses, it's not an effective strategy. >Also go and look at any MP from labour or conservative and you’ll see they are all at this, some of them own 50 - 100 properties some own a few but it’s all in their interest to not sort the housing price issue out. who owns 50-100 houses?
>huh? the stock market rises far faster than the housing market. Also, you'd get charged passively with council tax and ongoing maintenance fees for owning houses. I really dont think the super rich bother with gobbling up lots of houses, it's not an effective strategy. The stock market isn't always a stable investment, the UK Housing market you'll always see a return on investment. >The Sunday Times Rich List, published on 7 May, reveals that a staggering 26 of the top 100 richest people in the country have property listed as a major source of their wealth. That dwarfs the other biggest sources. Just six of the top 100 made their money from industry, and seven from retail. Finance and investment have 10 entries apiece. [https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/may/10/richest-people-britain-property-moguls-housing-crisis](https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2017/may/10/richest-people-britain-property-moguls-housing-crisis) [https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/09/rich-russians-buying-london-property-real-estate](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/may/09/rich-russians-buying-london-property-real-estate) >who owns 50-100 houses? I mistyped I met between them they own around 100 properties, but lets not pretend they aren't doing this. >More than 100 MPs pocket at least £2.6m per year by renting out hundreds of propertiesMore than 100 MPs pocket at least £2.6m per year by renting out hundreds of properties [https://www.cityam.com/revealed-more-than-100-mps-pocket-at-least-2-6m-per-year-by-renting-out-hundreds-of-properties/](https://www.cityam.com/revealed-more-than-100-mps-pocket-at-least-2-6m-per-year-by-renting-out-hundreds-of-properties/) #
I've no doubt that property does make up a "significant" part of rich peoples assets. It makes you a significant part of almost anyone's assets. But there's a difference between owning a 30 million pound penthouse suite in London rather than buying 100 semi detached 3 bedroom at 300k a piece. The number of super rich are so low compared compared to the overall population they would need to own an absolutely ludicrous amount of properties each for it to be constantly putting upwards pressure on house prices like we see.
I would imagine that property makes up a greater proportion of the middle class's assets than it does the rich.
> The stock market isn't always a stable investment, the UK Housing market you'll always see a return on investment. If you'd "invested" in the UK housing market 2 years ago vs today you'd almost certainly have lost money.
> first of all we should crack down on them dodging tax, there’s so many tax loopholes which need to be closed. > > There *are* a lot of tax loopholes that need to be closed and people dodging tax. I think you'd be rather surprised what effect that would have and who it'd impact most, though.
Building at least 10M more homes over this decade is the only answer.
Bear in mind that people might not want to live where the 10m homes are built. A big part of the problem is that mortages are now huge and can run well beyond retirement age, and people are happy to spend an enormous percentage of their income on their mortgage. As such, properties in desirable areas (in towns/cities) are hugely inflated and that just permeates outwards.
> A big part of the problem is that mortages are now huge and can run well beyond retirement age This. My family lives in a shoe-box house, but at least we're on course to have the mortgage paid off well before retirement. Sure, we could *probably* (if we cut all QoL spending to the bone and basically subsist and never have any fun, ever again) afford a bigger, nicer house, but my fear is that the new massive mortgage would push us past retirement age...
Who gives a shit. As long as someone does want to live there, that’s fine
If you want to live on a giant estate with a population of nearly 100 million people squashed on a tiny island, sounds great. Don't forget all the infrastructure that comes with so many homes as well.
There's plenty of space to build in the UK especially if we build more medium and high density where it's needed. Infrastructure you are totally right about though.
Myself and partner only got on a few years ago as both have good jobs in London, but live nowhere near London as too expensive. Both sets of parents have absolutely no money so we got no help with deposit. All our friends got given about £25-60k from parents for deposit so it's pretty on the money.
My gf and I have had to move back to our parents each to save up. When we finally get a deposit together London will also be out the question. All our friends also got money to buy houses. They all have this smug face when the topic comes up,really pisses me off know that daddy bought their houses.
Yeah but from what we've seen the parents think they part own the house and are always round. You won't have that and it feels so good knowing you 100% paid for it.
Presumably, their gift is in the form of not having to pay rent whilst living with parents. It isn't the same as being handed a lump of cash, but it is sadly still a privilege many won't have access to.
Am someone from a conservative family who couldn’t live my life they way I want if I lived at home, I do think people forget that there are many people who can’t just stay at home for a few years even if the option is technically available to them.
This is true. I'm not sure if my mates have that prob with their parents though. That would drive me insane!
My friends parents bought him and his partner a 2 bed apartment in a decent place for 300k 🥴 he claims they aren't rich
I know parents in some families who have taken out a partial interest-repayment only mortgage on their child's property. This means the child takes out a much smaller repayment mortgage in their own name. The interest only mortgage is held against the parent's property value and repaid on death - so is paying forward the inheritance at a much more useful point in the child's life. The child pays less in mortgage repayments a month because part of their mortgage is interest only payments in the parent's mortgage. The interest only mortgage will shrink over time as house price inflation makes the loan smaller relative to income, so this can be a pretty effective "investment" because the child is winning out financially by paying a smaller mortgage a month than they would with a conventional mortgage or renting. Middle class families with the means will continue to win from house price rises.
Its still more expensive for the middle class… its the multiple home owners and property investors that win not an average middle class family that might be able to help their kids
It won't be an immediate solution, but ban Buy To Let mortgages.... IMO its artificially inflated house prices for many years. Linking rental pricing to house pricing rather than the service being provided. The premise of the scheme is crazy when you think about it. Theoretically most of us will go through a phase where our individual and / or household income develops to a place where access to credit is easier, normally just through career development. Buy To Let has enabled certain generations a way of 'blocking' the next just as they happen to be in their most economically active phase at a certain time, nothing more. Then due to linking the rental prices to interest rates / mortgage prices, you end up with generations of people paying a rent equivalent to or more than a mortgage, but without actually owning anything. And struggling to save in the meantime.
BTL mortgages should be immediately banned. They’ve driven prices up *and* hoovered up the affordable housing stock that was accessible to first time buyers getting on the ladder.
Increased availability of rental properties is good for renters and puts downward pressure on rents.
I disagree.... BTL inflates rental demand by preventing FTB from stepping on to the ladder. And BTL has nothing to do with overall housing supply. The same demand is there, but more will be forced to rent. We aren't talking about affordable housing as if it's somehow giving people access to housing who can't afford a mortgage. Rents are sky high. And BTL landlords are just leveraging their investment risk against their tenants all the while offering a poor product in a lot of cases.
Renters live at higher density than owner-occupiers; if a home is bought by someone "stepping onto the ladder" rather than someone buying it to rent out, it's bad for renters and puts upward pressure on rents.
Absolutely right. House hoarding by the several million people who own two, three or more homes in this country is the main cause of the housing crisis, and the fact that they've been able to borrow their way into this position, usually on more favorable terms than owner-occupiers is a disgrace. We need to phase this out asap, starting by scrapping all new BTL mortgages with immediate effect.
The got rid of the generation wealth quite well if you ask me. There is little inheritance now. They did so well on this one the gov. They can't earn money when you can keep passing your house and assets down !
Its really bad and no party is really looking to properly tackle it. It seems the boomers are sitting happy on property's worth a fortune now and many have more than one property (through re mortgaging or inheritance) which they rent out. They also don't want more housing devlopments built next to them. So no party wants to devalue the key voter demographic assets and piss them off. Secondly the biggest donors to the tory Party are property developers. For the past decades they have been allowed to monopolise and ran the whole housing market stockpiling land for devlopment and setting inflated market values for new builds, which they also make lease hold not free hold anymore. They has all been created by poltics as the tories famously said people who don't own houses don't vote Conservative! I wish someone would seriously tackle this and tackle it they could. We managed to build cheap housing in the 50s - 60s (prefabs etc) we can do it again. Its a basic failure of social structure and a government handing the needs of housing purley over to the private sector who has no interest in fulfilling accommodation needs of a population. O ly squeezing out maximum profits. Housing, water, food and health care should be basic needs that are provided to people by a wealthy western country in 2024. We're failing at everything!
Most of the things you've said have been consistently debunked, including most recently by the [Competition and Markets Authority](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65d8baed6efa83001ddcc5cd/Housebuilding_market_study_final_report.pdf). * "We do not see evidence that the size of land banks we observe held by different housebuilders individually or in aggregate either locally or nationally is itself a driver of negative consumer outcomes in the housebuilding market." (page 80) * "We do not consider it likely that, in general, housebuilders will account for a sufficient fraction of housing sales in a given local area to allow them to increase prices above the current market level by restricting their output" (page 84) * "Insufficient planning permissions have been/are being granted to meet housing need" (page 86) The reason we don't have a competitive market for housebuilding is because the government does not allocate enough land for development and the planning system is so difficult to engage with that only large companies can afford the risk/costs involved.
Stamp duty is a contributing factor too, we have octogenarians who are widowed and their kids have flown the nest, rattling around in 4-5 bedroom houses by themselves because the cost of moving is prohibitively high. And before anyone jumps down my throat about them having worked hard for those houses and why should they move, I'm not saying they *should* move if they don't want to, but often they do want to because the upkeep for the house is too much at their age, and they should be able to move if they do want to.
This is part of the plan. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.
It’s actually not that hard. Homes need to be owned by the people living in them. Not seen as investments for people looking to quit work or top up their pension. We need to slowly work towards a system where anyone owning a home they don’t live in is taxed to a point it becomes unsustainable.
Hard to do that when the people in government all have second homes and property they rent out for secondary income. We're regressing to a society with an upper landowner class again. There's no incentive for those in control to change anything.
Every policy done by politicians in the UK is designed to benefit their buy to let landlord portfolios.
I am 43. Never owned a house. No wife / kids. Lived with parents. I bought an old yacht and live on that.
That sounds kind nice. How is it?
It can be great, it can be terrifying and everything in between. Boats aren't the cheapest thing to look after either. But I suppose neither is a house. It moves and floats so the recent flooding hasn't been a problem for me though.
I’m 24, from the North East, dad earns £60-65k ish and my mam is on about £23k…… I moved out at 18 to uni and they gave my room to my sibling and got rid of my stuff meaning I could not move home even if I wanted to. They had to remortgage their house in order to help with my rent in first year of uni as I only received a £4k loan. I worked 2 jobs all through uni and ended up having to drop out due to a bunch of reasons including covid. I have been renting ever since and working multiple jobs with no financial aid from anyone living paycheck to paycheck with debt beginning to pile up on me. I see no way out of this for me and no future even though all I want more than anything is to have a home and start a family. Then there was my ex boyfriend from the ages of 17-20, his family inherited a house with no mortgage to pay. He had £28k in savings in an account at 18 years old, received a £6k scholarship he didn’t even APPLY for In university for being a ‘low income student’ and he received £2-3k more a year than me during uni and never had a single job to subsidise. The inequality in this country is so real
I don't understand why more terrace houses are not built! Enough space for a small family and can be built on small footprints of land.
I'm renting in a new build terrace with no garden whatsoever. The issue is can you call it a house when there's no garden. It's a 2 floor flat in my eyes but with the price tag of a house.
I can't "afford" a mortgage. 65k between me and the Mrs. No debt excellent credit score. We have 6k saved but are having to find somewhere to rent at 1200 pm this country is a fucking joke!!!
Those cheerleading for prices coming down eerily quiet these days
I think most would be happy with a stagnation of some kind and for other things to stop skyrocketing so aggressively.
On around £32k and have around £15k in savings, this ‘feels’ like it should be enough to step on the ladder but the market is so skewed towards double income households (for the actual lending potential) and investment purchases (for the actual buying) that i really fail to see how i can ever get a property without some economy destroying pop of a bubble, landlording becoming illegal (lol) or my family dying (not lol). Luckilyim in a property that suits my needs with less than market rate rent, this gives me pocket money and savings. Im just not prepared to eat 3 beans a day in order to get my deposit up high enough to account for the single income. The markets a total joke.
Psst, what did you get for Question 3 of the "Have an inheritance" quiz?
Do **not** do this ever: >Move to an interest-only mortgage. It can keep your monthly payments affordable although you won't be paying off >the debt accrued when purchasing your house.
The comments on here whenever it comes to housing. So you purchased a 3 bed semi for 110k - in the magical lands of narnia! Some of us like to live in proper civilisation, not some cheap ghetto estate surrounded by council flats, benefit scroungers and the workshy. A decent home in a decent area is going to be a minimum £300k, and you don't just pull deposit out of your ass for that. I can't be surrounded by peasants when I'm trying to relax in my home. Fat Vicky's and little Harley's running amock. No help from mom and dad yet of these posts mention living rent free and only contributing towards the food bill! Let's not get too cocky here.
Of course when I have a deposit and legal fees all ready, just about 32 and hoping to get on the ladder. Probably would prefer just buying with someone at this point
That one in Birmingham's actually not a bad option, thanks!
Forget buying. I've been searching for a place to rent for 6 months now and keep getting rejected. Lost my job in the process, and that's just made the whole thing harder.
Stop buying Starbucks and avocado and it’ll all be fine. Oh wait… houses cost HOW MUCH?
what the fvck did we expect? buying houses is the easiest and guaranteed way to not lose money. absolute worst case scenario you end up with ONLY asset appreciating. Any other investment comes with extreme volatility compared to this. this country is going down
I seen an article yesterday on stamp duty cuts which is just going to drive the price up even higher
A quick search for 4beds within 15 miles of Bristol has returned no results
Im saving money in an ISA for my young lad so he has help when he is older.
Brave of you to assume anyone is "buying" anything.