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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think there is not a chance the average family only spends £67.30 a week on housing, is "only" £55,795 in debt and...

59 replies

Roseflower · 01/12/2011 00:38

this debt includes mortages. Yet the average house price is apparenty £241,279 so it makes little sense.

And £67.30 a week ? Really? People actually can cover there entire rent/mortage, council tax on so on on this amount?

The statics are from this article here www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15197860

AIBU to think these figures simply dont work?

Either that or we have gone seriously wrong somewhere and I wish our figures were so low...

OP posts:
MrsTwinks · 01/12/2011 00:44

I'm in council housing and my rent is £72 ish so urm... Wtf!

Realistically it just proves why averages as such are useless tools in some regards. That will include people with no mortgages, in which case it's a reasonable amount.

lisaro · 01/12/2011 00:46

A lot of families are older and bought their houses when they were much cheaper. For instance, my mortgage is now just over 100 pounds (sign doesn't work) a month, a decent house, even after divorce, because we first got on the property ladder over 20 years ago. We actually lived abroad, and rented it, but it only left us in the same position as people who bought and lived in at the same time. And depending where you are can make a massive difference.

joanofarchitrave · 01/12/2011 00:47

Well, as it says halfway down, half the population doesn't have any debt at all.

But the weekly spending figures do look a bit odd - what's included in the 'housing' further up the list? is that rent?

keepingupwiththejoneses · 01/12/2011 00:47

I find it quite interesting that if you look on the spending chart it lists mortgage payments under 'other' not housing. Those figures dont add up at all, either they are wrong or people have lied about their spending habits!

Original poster
Roseflower · 01/12/2011 00:48

I thought we were quite lucky with low mortgage repayments ... but we are still paying out way more than £67!

OP posts:
ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 01/12/2011 00:55

I'm 30 and my mortgage is £150 a month, and that's with overpaying it. Bought the house when I was 18 with dp who's a few years older.

That's for a small, 3 bed semi in an ok area. No garden tho.

My sis bought hers at the same time as me, 30k for a 4 bedroom victorian terrace in a very good area. It was very run down tho but not horrendously so......the same house is now worth 280k.

At times i've resented the responsibility of home ownership, but thank god we did it !

SenseofEntitlement · 01/12/2011 01:12

We pay £595 pcm rent for a four bed house, a house in the street that is pretty much the same just went for £96,000.

I wish I owned a house - in fact, two bed houses round here of a just about liveable condition start at £50,000, and so that is pretty much exactly the amount I daydream about somehow acquiring (lottery even though I don't play? book deal? back of sofa?) I don't even know what that would cost in mortgage a month, but I bet we would be better off, or at the very least more secure.

littleducks · 01/12/2011 01:19

I think averages can get skewed by the extremes at either side and end up being pretty meaningless, we want to move to a 3 bed house with a small garden....that would cost us at least £300/week rent around here.

VirgoGrr · 01/12/2011 01:20

Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Sorry, I have to laugh, or I'd cry. I'm not going to go into the exact amount we're paying in rent (Greater London) AND mortgage (midlands) for the HTCBS (house that cannot be sold) but its a fuck of a lot more than £60 odd quid a week.

What is the point of those statistics? Lies, damn lies & etc....

Original poster
Roseflower · 01/12/2011 01:31

The thing is even if you were mortage free or had a very low repayment, council tax normally costs a fair whack... unless ours is just very high (about £180 pcm I think...)?

OP posts:
SenseofEntitlement · 01/12/2011 01:38

I'm not sure if council tax counts as housing though - to me it is nearer to utility bills.

Original poster
Roseflower · 01/12/2011 01:39

Me too but in the table it says

"Other expenditure (inc mortgage payments, council tax)
£67.30"

Which is what shocked me that this low figure included mortage and CT! It seems very unrealistic

OP posts:
dancingmustard · 01/12/2011 01:41

Housing, fuel, power = £60.40

I want to live where they are living.

We are in rented accommodation and it's 85 quid a week before fuel or power :)

tigerlillyd02 · 01/12/2011 01:43

I live in 'cheaper' accommodation and my rent is more than that a week!

Original poster
Roseflower · 01/12/2011 01:46

I beginning to think I am NBU and the Office for National Statistics Family Spending Survey 2011 (source of article) is just a load of old pants!

OP posts:
SenseofEntitlement · 01/12/2011 01:57

"Under the comprehensive definition of housing expenditure, UK households spent on average £134.70 a week on housing in 2010" from the report. Where did the £67.30 figure come from?

But then I don't think I fully understand the significance of the different figures. I THINK that the £67 is the average mortgage payment only, which tbh isn't that strange, as out of home owners quite a few must own outright or have very small mortgages.

SenseofEntitlement · 01/12/2011 01:59

Although apparently the average weekly rent round here is £15.80, which seems very wrong. Will look properly in the morning.

lesley33 · 01/12/2011 06:22

Averages like this don't present a realistic picture. Where I live a tenth of the population are students and so don't usually pay council tax. Although most rents are still a bit higher than this figure.

I think the debt figure is accurate though as lots of the population, including me, don't have debt or have very little. I hate all this stuff on the tv about how we all took out lots of debt during the boom and so are all partially to blame for the current situation - lots of people didn't and are like us and still save before buying things.

callmemrs · 01/12/2011 06:37

Hahahahahaha

EdithWeston · 01/12/2011 07:00

Presumably both housing benefit and council tax benefit have an important impact on these figures?

Those whose rent and CT is paid from tax revenue, and is therefore effectively nil to the individual, will very quickly reduce the average.

lesley33 · 01/12/2011 07:23

Good point Edith!
With the debt, lots of older people will have paid off their mortgage and many more rent, so I can imagine the debt figure is accurate.

lesley33 · 01/12/2011 07:27

Just to say we spend less than £67 a week on housing including CT. We have paid off our mortgage. Our council tax is about £1350 a year. So we spend about £26 a week on housing. And for older and especially retired home owners this will be a fairly normal situation.

It is only those renting or paying mortgages that have high housing costs. If you buy at 30 for example, by 55 your housing costs will also be very low - assuming average mortgage term.

dawntigga · 01/12/2011 07:30

I'd say that's close to us, we live FAR below our means and had 1 house mortgage free when sold so this house does not have a large mortgage.

ItHelpsThatMrTiggaIsSlightlyAnalAboutSpendingMoneyTiggaxx

Whatmeworry · 01/12/2011 07:43

I think to get those figures they dividevtotal spend by total numbers of households, so it's pretty useless if huge numbers of households aren't impacted ( ie if half of all households dont pay mortgage/rent, then it's more like £135 per week) in any one number

WillieWaggledagger · 01/12/2011 07:47

the mean is not terribly useful in this situation. mode or median would be useful to know