Trite Observations About the Housing Market

[mjmooney]

There you go. 

[chrisp65]

If the poor could just be housed in flats (shit ones, not good ones) fitted with castors (shit ones, not good ones) then we could simply push them away if ever an area became nice or touristy.

Eventually, all poor people would live in low lying areas (the shit ones like Boston, not the good ones like Bath) as flats can't easily be pushed up hill (certainly not by the undeserving poor anyway, as generally they lack access to yummy mummy 4 x 4's). Then all the good views could be reserved for investment portfolio property banks and weekend retreats.

We would need to ensure a rail link (a shit one, not a good one), or zip wire (shit not good) so nice people can get gig economy serfs when they need dirty jobs done.

There would need to be a strict limit on the poor entering the city as they tend to get overly emotional and uppity at the drop of a hat (I say hat, obviously I mean dead neighbour).  

 

 

Oh also, Cornwall is nice. 

 

Top tip: for cultural integration, it's jam first cream on top in Cornwall.

 

 

 

 

[Ingram85]

Why are you talking about strawberry jam? Stay on topic! 

[mjmooney]

Also, it was insufficiently trite. 

[OutByEaster?]

http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/from-brexit-to-donald-trump-welcome-to-the-age-of-hypernormalisation-in-london-a3367326.html

“If you’re in London, what you see around you is all these new buildings being built and they all look exactly alike. But what you also know about these buildings is that none of us are ever going to be able to afford to live in them. After the financial crash of 2008 there was a wave of money coming into the city that couldn’t go into the stock market, so it went into property instead. These blocks you’re actually looking at are not buildings, they’re blocks of money.”

Adam Curtis.

This I think is the issue - we're living in a world where we're building property in order that money has somewhere to live, not in order that people do.

There are companies that own thousands of properties in London and don't really care if they're occupied or not - they make money standing empty. They're numbers on a stockmarket board owned by companies which are themselves owned largely by other companies who buy shares to make profit and don't care what the shares are in, they just need something to buy that will make number a turn into bigger number b within a financial year - and then they need somewhere for that profit to live, so they need things to buy. Money working for money in a pointless, useless, harmful, tightening loop.

 

 

 

[Genie]

Lots of affordable housing schemes and shared ownership options my way, still need a deposit but certainly not tens of thousands.

[Xela]

Here is an observation (maybe trite)

Some first time buyers need to be more pragmatic when it comes to looking at what type of property to buy and in what area

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Xela
added 'some'

[Seat68]

Boston is shit. Bath is nice. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

Lots of affordable housing schemes and shared ownership options my way, still need a deposit but certainly not tens of thousands.

Ever tried selling a shared ownership when you decide/need  to move?

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Xela said:

Here is an observation (maybe trite)

First time buyers need to be more pragmatic when it comes to looking at what type of property to buy.

 

Yes they should look much further away from where they work 

[Xela]

10 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes they should look much further away from where they work 

No, not much further but there are cheaper and more expensive areas in every town and city almost side by side. 

Like Sutton Coldfield, where I live. Reasonably expensive to buy. Mile or so down the road is Erdington, where I grew up. It's not a bad area, nice in some places and if you work in Birmingham, or even Sutton, it doesn't make much difference in journey time. The difference in property prices between the two can be quite big. I'm sure the same is true of where you live? 

Most people who are homeowners have started on the bottom rung and worked themselves up over the years into bigger properties and possibly nicer areas. It's very hard to jump on the ladder 3 or 4 rungs up. 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Xela

[Xela]

^^^ It's not going to be applicable to everyone's personal situation, but certainly some. 

[TrentVilla]

17 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes they should look much further away from where they work 

Why not, I had to when I bought my first place.

[Dodgyknees]

5 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

Why not, I had to when I bought my first place.

Not always possible. For example where I live. 

 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

Why not, I had to when I bought my first place.

Because it's bad for the planet for starters

Huge commutes also lead to a poorer quality of life, less free-time. 

If people didn't have to travel as far to work, they'd be happier, they'd be more productive. It's a win for everyone, except estate agents

The housing market in this country is absolutely broken. It needs fixing

And just because you had to do something when you were starting out doesn't actually make it the right thing for a society to be pushing its less well off people towards

The I had to do it argument is one I used to hear about National Service a lot, didn't wash in that argument, doesn't wash in this one. My grandad left school at 11, he had to do it, why shouldn't I?

[chrisp65]

I know that I'm blessed living where I live. We've been down the beach today, listening to music.

It's where I grew up, this beach was the place I had as a playground. But it's a town that has had its problems and its issues. There are a few sink estates not three or four miles from this beach where there are kids growing up that have never been to the beach (I know this for fact).

But what is happening here is a microcosm of what's happening elsewhere. Within easy commuting distance, just 11 miles away, the Welsh government have set up shop. The BBC are building their new headquarters, the AA, Admiral Insurance, and a dozen other big companies are setting up (along with the likes of Aston Martin). The result is house price pressure. Local kids are beginning to find it hard to buy a house in this town. I certainly couldn't afford to buy the house I now live in. In fact, on the old fashioned 3+1 salary formula, we could no longer afford the first house we ever bought. At the time, it was literally the cheapest house in town. Now, it's going for more than three plus one of our salary and we are earning respectable money.

So how does the kid working in Greggs get somewhere to live? Not even 'buy a house', it's not anyone's 'right' to buy a house, but rent is often more than mortgage so where is this heading?

Where it's heading is people from this town, by the coast, are being forced to move from here to deprived areas. All those town with no purpose 40 miles up the valleys where the coal and the steel ran out. What jobs are up there? Almost none. So then they have to commute back down the A470 just to work in Greggs for £7.70 and to be told on Friday if they are needed for the Saturday shift.

There have been two substantial housing schemes built in town in the last few years. The majority of houses in both schemes were bought up by people doing their clever little buy to let scheme. So the house builder needs a profit, then the landlord expects a return. All this with interest rates at record lows is still driving the broken market further and further in to the dirt. When the rates begin to rise, then shit gets serious for all of us.

Let councils build. Charge massive premiums on second homes. Set a time limit on how long a property can go unoccupied. Tighten up on Landlords. Actually have a plan and release the money to implement it.

We shouldn't accept water being a commodity that has a profit return for privateers. We also shouldn't accept having somewhere safe to live is simply down to market forces.

Safe shelter is as close to a right as I can imagine.

 

[snowychap]

Make capital gains tax 100% minus inflation on any residential property other than a primary residence.

Edited June 17, 2017 by snowychap

[Genie]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Ever tried selling a shared ownership when you decide/need  to move?

Yes, I had one and sold it for asking price the day it went on the market (such is the demand for cheap housing). 

[magnkarl]

I think this is a very hot topic that will show huge breaks between generations. I started off with a minging flat in Erdington when I got out of uni in the late 70's, it cost me literally all my money a month to keep up with the interest alone, but after a hell of a lot of graft and work I managed to pay off enough and work hard at renovating so that I could sell that flat and move to a nicer semi in Tadley in Hampshire. I got a job in Twickenham and sat on the train for what felt like an eternity for my commute. After about 5 years of doing what I did with my original flat I flipped again and moved to a little village just outside Winchester. All in all it took me over 20 years to get to a decent place - and I had so many sleepless nights about how to manage to get there.

I get that it is a lot harder for young people to get on the ladder these days, but I really don't see the same sort of spirit to move anywhere, and I mean anywhere, to get a job and a place to live these days as back then. From my year 10-11 in a small school outside Dudley only 1 of my friends have stayed in the area. The rest have scattered throughout the UK and the world. That is what we had to do to get on the ladder. When I look at my kids' friends and their kids again I see very little urgency in getting on the ladder unless it's by skipping those horrible 10 years that I had to go through. The thing is that a ladder doesn't start half way up. That might sound harsh but it is reality - the best advice I ever gave my daughter was to move to Reading to find a job and stop looking in Winchester. She's now got a great job and have been given the opportunity to work in Southampton - none of which would happen if she insisted on working 5 minutes from our door.

[Ingram85]

6 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

I think this is a very hot topic that will show huge breaks between generations. I started off with a minging flat in Erdington when I got out of uni in the late 70's, it cost me literally all my money a month to keep up with the interest alone, but after a hell of a lot of graft and work I managed to pay off enough and work hard at renovating so that I could sell that flat and move to a nicer semi in Tadley in Hampshire. I got a job in Twickenham and sat on the train for what felt like an eternity for my commute. After about 5 years of doing what I did with my original flat I flipped again and moved to a little village just outside Winchester. All in all it took me over 20 years to get to a decent place - and I had so many sleepless nights about how to manage to get there.

I get that it is a lot harder for young people to get on the ladder these days, but I really don't see the same sort of spirit to move anywhere, and I mean anywhere, to get a job and a place to live these days as back then. From my year 10-11 in a small school outside Dudley only 1 of my friends have stayed in the area. The rest have scattered throughout the UK and the world. That is what we had to do to get on the ladder. When I look at my kids' friends and their kids again I see very little urgency in getting on the ladder unless it's by skipping those horrible 10 years that I had to go through. The thing is that a ladder doesn't start half way up. That might sound harsh but it is reality - the best advice I ever gave my daughter was to move to Reading to find a job and stop looking in Winchester. She's now got a great job and have been given the opportunity to work in Southampton - none of which would happen if she insisted on working 5 minutes from our door.

You are looking at it all wrong. Why should you have to strive, bleed, sacrifice and go without from month to month, essentially just existing just to get an average run down 3 bed semi or one bed flat in a shit area when the people who live in the affluent areas who have fiddled the system like their relatives before them to get rich to buy up all the property that us normal folk should otherwise be able to afford. When working class people can't simply afford to get a two bedroomed decent property in a normal area and resort to crap condition shoe boxes while the corrupt wealthy take the piss with their second or third properties, THAT is when the system is ****.

We all have to work hard, sacrifice and go without to try and get on the ladder, we all bloody do that not just you but the argument is that it shouldn't be this **** hard!

Edited June 17, 2017 by Ingram85