to feel seething resentment towards those who profited from the house price bubble and hot anger at the Governments who allowed it to happen?

[TartyMcFarty]

You'll have to forgive my naivety here - I'm ranting about something I don't really understand.

DH and I are stuck. In 2006 we bought a (modest) property on a 100% mortgage. Foolish in hindsight, I know, but based on the advice of our IFA, the unshakeable faith of our families and society that property ownership was the way to go, and the increasing pressure at the time to get on the ladder or miss out, that was the decision we made. We then found that the lender, bastard bastard Northern Rock were unwilling to remortgage based on our lack of equity, despite us having overpaid by several thousand pounds. We couldn't shift the place, and with the agreement of a different IFA, remortgaged against the equity in my DM's property (love her!). It gets more complicated than that, but that's all that's needed here. Now we still can't sell it , our tax credits have suddenly disappeared, my pension contribution has increased (DH doesn't even have a pension) and the tracker rate is slowly increasing. We're on interest only, and as I'm part time since the having DD, with another DC on the way, there's not much of a cushion.

What's really angered me over the last couple of days is the dawning realisation of how people just a few years older than us have profited from the massive increase in property 'values'. I'm still in touch with our ex-neighbour. She bought seven years earlier than us, sold at £120k profit after 10 years (this is not London!), her partner was in a similar situation so they have ended up comfortably in a property of twice the size, renovated to a really lovely standard. Obviously my resentment isn't directed at them personally - they're good people, have profited from a stupid market and good luck to them - but it's just an illustration.

How can we possibly hope to survive in a property market that boomed by more than 3.5x in this instance alone? We can't even afford to maintain our own home to a good standard. Pay isn't moving at all, and we're currently looking at less than .75 of a pension between us. I can't even bear to think about how we'll support our DCs through HE, and the risk to my DM's home if interest rates shoot up.

I just need a rant. Those of us stupid enough to be sucked in at high LTV rates towards the peak of the market are fucked all ways, whereas people just 5 years older than us are untouchable. I know I've only given one example for which I know the exact figures, but there are others I can think of in the same lucky situation. There just doesn't seem to be any point in trying when you compare our situation with those who profited so enormously in the 00s.

wow whoknewthat.I agree. Timing is the trouble with a lot of things. And also, there is now so much government interference in market forces, more than there used to be. The Government can "change the rules of the game" for want of a better expression, seemingly at will.

Unfortunately the recent crop of landlords which appeared since Brown ravaged pensions - basically focussed on first time buyer properties and are now renting out those same houses to the young folk they priced out. Our landlord years ago, used to tell me how our annual rent was less than he had paid to buy the house. I could have happily done a Jordache and buried him under the patio instead I just reported him to the taxman when I left. I did that with all of my landlords. Profit by farming the young if you will, but you will pay your taxes.

Blame the banks.

They pushed up the amount that could be lent as mortage and favoured BTL. This pushed up house prices again and again. Chuck in the decimation of social housing and you've got a dynamite situation.

The bank gets the profits from all of this interest we're paying.

There is a reason why the church once regarded ursury as a sin. I'm not a Christian and it still makes me laugh.

The rich have continuously got richer and richer over the past thirty years and the rest of us are paying us. If you want to know who's to blame - follow the money.

Socialism is regarded as a bit of a joke these days, god knows why.

Hear hear thisisnotmylife although I do also blame those who took out the loans without doing their homework. As other posters have said no one put a gun to their heads. Though living in rented is soul destroying after a while so I can understand why some folks might take desperate measures - the endless magnolia, the same cheap dark blue uncomfortable Ikea sofa, the shitty bed with bad back inducing mattress, the fact that everything selected for the house was selected on the basis of cost and 'it's only for a tenant anyway', the insecurity of tenure, not really being able to invest in your surroundings (i.e. garden) without feeling it's such a waste of money. Many landlords are horrendous when it comes to allowing their tenants do normal things like, you know, have pets, or even children (stipulating no kids and no pets is actually illegal and would count in the courts as an unfair contract term btw). My sister found whenever they went to view a rented house when she was pregnant it was available when they spoke on the phone but as soon as she turned up with a bump - the property had suddenly gone. Once could be coincidence but five times?

As for the bankers, yes the boom has suited their needs perfectly. For every £100k you borrow - you repay £192k - but yet we numpties focus on the monthly payment rather than how we are being shafted by usurers. Apparently there is a legal reason why when you sign a mortgage it says 'I have read and accept' not 'I have read and understand' - tricksy bastards!

And then the state bailed them out and now we pay with cuts.

MarthasHarbour, this might be a different thread, but when someone begins an AIBU with a controversial point of view, and modifies their own stance according to the response they receive, should that not be recognised in subsequent responses?

Read the thread!

ok sorry - i am in a bit of a grump this morning, have already hidden one thread as i got out of my depth!

i agree that the OP got sucked into the hype like thousands of others, and i do feel for her, but i still think it is a shame that she is resentful of those who were luckier than her and were in a position to buy 'at the right time'. that could have been her.

anyway, back to the healthy debate

tarty i have apologised! (in fact i crossed posts with you just there)

i have read the thread, honestly, i even referred back to my mum's friend who made a killing then got a council flat.

look could you not sell up, rent somewhere lovely for a few years and pay back your losses (starting with your mum). property ownership is not the be all and end all

Thanks, I posted it in the mother of all grumps and now wish I'd just STFU, although it has been an education. I'm all for selling up. Convincing the others involved is tricky (inc. my DM and her DP, whose faith in property is largely unshaken!)

It's keeping me awake at night. Gah!

keep at it, i honestly think that is your best option, you may not remember but i posted this way back up thread:

I bought a flat in 1994 for £28k. Sold it in 2001 for £18k. A massive loss of £10k, a third of its value. I borrowed this £10k from kind family and paid it back over a couple of years. If i had sold it in 2002 i would have got £35k approx. However it was the best decision i ever made, i dont regret that £10k because i was miserable in that flat. My DM understands this and agrees with me.

Thanks to selling i had the freedom to rent for a year and then moved down to London to start again, rented for a few years, met DH moved up to the North West and we bought a house jointly in 2006. We are now lucky enough to just about break even but tbh we would sell and rent again if we needed to.

You could sell up, rent a lovely home, pay back your DM and anything owed to the bank and start again. My friend has 3 DCs and is living in a much nicer area because she rents (in an area where i would love to live but cant afford to buy)

To those who were wondering where i had gone.

Im still lurking and seeing that yellow wellies is doing a good job on educating people on the housing market and economy.

I myself chose not to buy a home as it was pretty obvious that the market had been manipulated many years ago.

Couple of tin foil hat topics for you to mull over.

Spain has just passed a new law to enable them to monitor all forms of communications so they can locate protestors when the eurozone collapses. (The UK is in the process of trying to do this, they already do it but now want to make it official)

USA have installed new border patrol checkpoint booths, somewhat similar to the ones that already existed but these new models are now bulletproof. Once the reset occurs people will not be allowed to move to other states.

Whoever took the time to watch the iraq war veterans youtube video, i thank you.

ah red

your apocalyptic tale didnt say what happened to the hundreds of houses now owned by banks that were standing empty?

I am not sure why banks would bother to repossess houses at a fraction of the debt owed rather than allowing home owners to do a greece and pay back at a lower rate (that might still represent equity larger than the house was actually worth....

i think this thread has gone somewhat more bonkers than conkers.

fascinating doesn't cover it...

And our tenant is awesome, every 12 months he stays with us, the 12th month we give him back, 500 pounds is well worth loyalty and it makes us feel like we are not exploiting him

They will be bought by cash buyers if there are any, or they will bulldoze them.

There are thousands of houses in ireland that are brand new and have never been lived in, ireland is full of ghost estates.

Councils have knocked down thousands of perfectly good homes over the last few years with the promise of building new ones, they didnt build any new ones and they wont be building any new ones.

Its not about money, money is just a piece of paper that bears a promise, once that promise is broken (not long to go now) it will become worthless.

The money is just a means to an end, the money was used to create a debt that can never be repaid.

Its about land, assets, power and control.

Are you for or against a one world government ?

Edless yes there have been some interesting diversions from 9/11 to the illuminati (thanks Redshield), but onto the main topic - do you really feel that the economy is going to pick up and house prices surge again? If so on what basis? I'm really struggling to think of what will lead us out of recession other than getting ourselves debt free and starting again without the millstone around our collective necks. The less we spend on housing = the more money available for the productive economy.

No worries yellow wellies.

Im only talking about what gordon brown was talking about in his new world order speech.

If nobody wants to look into what i am saying then thats fine.

Some people want a massive house price crash whereas i would prefer the corruption to be stopped in EVERY aspect of our lives.

house prices are rising in my area already.

too much demand and a tightly restricted supply.

nationwide - 200k new households every year, only 100k new dwellings. simple market force says house prices, despite the occasional wibble, are going to rise in the long term.

as for the economy - it's been crap for about 5 years, slow recovery with setbacks seems to be the future too.

realistically the massive house/ road/infrastructure building project that i would want the government to launch right now is not going to happen.

I think it will take a long time and there needs to be some rebalancing. At the moment there are a lot of older 'empty nesters' sitting in massive detached houses with huge gardens whilst families are squeezing into smaller new builds.

We looked at lots of these before we bought but they were ALL over priced as couple needed the equity to supplement lifestyle. They were almost all withdrawn from the market without being sold.

But at some point some of them will have to sell and then prices will start to fall.

Also student debt and youth unemployment is meaning many 20 something's are still living at home, hence all those rental flats lying empty. Sooner or later developers will cut their losses and sell.

House prices have been sustained due to the dramatic contraction in NUMBER of houses for sale. Lots of people extending or hoping to ride it out. But lots of people can't wait forever.

I think once interest rates rise there will be a massive rush. Hence they have been do low for so long.

The figures for new houses built are very misleading as they don't take into account conversions of existing properties (eg a big Victorian house into 3 flats) or indeed extensions. (Eg our house has gone from a 2 bedder to a 4 bedder which won't have appeared in any statistics.)

A growing population doesn't have to mean more houses are occupied. Depressingly, if people can't pay for a house per family, they simply have to cram into the houses that they can afford. Thus more families are living in starter homes, multi-generational living is on the increase again, young professionals are buying houses with friends instead of a house each. Oh, and all those inhabited sheds appearing in people's gardens (there was a really shocking aerial photo of some London streets where nearly every garden had one).
The country gets poorer, the gap increases between rich and poor, living conditions we thought we'd left behind come back. It's all a bit sickening.

Tunip

That is how it started in china.

China is now at the stage where they have people paying rent on a cage and signing contracts to say they promise to not commit suicide whilst working for (a certain company). Netting has recently been erected to stop the employees throwing themselves off the roof.

And yet still britain will not build any new council houses even though we are at the stage where people are living in sheds.

I wonder why.

Hmmm Edless I think there is a difference between demand and desire. I would love a yacht, but I can't afford one - therefore I am not technically affecting the demand / supply balance of the yacht market. I am not real proceedable demand. There might be lots of folks wanting to buy a home but there seem to be many less who can actually financially proceed with a purchase. Largely because house prices are entirely out of whack with wages.

Or are you suggesting that we need to keep coming up with crazier credit products to fuel the housing market in a globalised world of falling wages? I mean we already have folks relying on Mum and Dad to get them on the market, maybe the Grandparents should get involved too? shakes head Hmmm that worked incredibly well for Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley didn't it? Do you really see nothing wrong with that picture? I love your vagueness as to what will restart the economy. I'll take that to mean you haven't a scooby as to what the answer is but you'd rather like it if the housing market picked up again soon? Wishful thinking much?

What happens where demand outstrips supply but without the financial means to proceed with a purchase is that people get more creative with their living arrangements - we're already seeing adults sharing houses into their forties, I'm now seeing friends sharing rooms! We're also seeing lots of intergenerational living and boomerang kids. All of these folks want a house (and by your argument are on the demand side of the equation) but to me if they don't have the funds they represent desire NOT demand so will have feck all impact on house prices.

Edless does your simple market forces include the demographic changes that will occur as the large baby boom generation dies off / goes into old folks homes? How do you imagine that raising house prices exactly?

@EdlessAllenPoe - as YellowWellies, the supply and demand argument for rising prices (in terms of numbers of houses built) has long since been debunked, or so I thought.

The much more important supply and demand argument is the one regarding credit, of which there has been a massive oversupply over the last decade (125% mortgages etc.).

There could be all the demand in the world for houses but no one will be able to buy one if a) banks won't lend to them or b) their wages get stretched past the point of no return by the inflating costs of food/fuel etc.

Oversupply of credit has been the overriding factor in the 2000 - 2007 house price bubble (not that I discount under-building completely).

From sky news.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has for the first time accepted the prospect of the euro breaking up.

In its flagship economic survey of the world economy, the IMF acknowledged that there were fundamental "flaws" in the design of the single currency and said that one prospective "tail risk" is a "disorderly default and exit by a euro area member".

It is the first time the IMF has openly contemplated such an outcome..................................

They can only hide what is really going on for so long.