... to not understand the "Right to Buy" thing???

[MillieV]

OK. Up and down the country, and here on MN, there is talk about councils not having enough council stock, that there should be more, and we all blame it on Margaret Thatcher. But why is it that now, politicians want to follow in Thatcher's footsteps yet again?!?

One article here

Do these properties come with covenants, i.e. they can only be sold on by the original buyer to those who are also in council/social housing, and continue to be at a discount? This would be fair. However, I fear the housing stock may just be sold on at market value 5 years down the line...

*as apartments

If you want "choice", then, I'm sorry... you should pay for that "choice", and not the tax payers.

I do pay for my choice. I live in a house which I have a mortgage on and I dont get any housing benefit, I never have. Nor have I ever lived in social housing. I chose to get a mortgage at the age of 18 so I could avoid living in a council flat. If that makes me spoiled for choice then so be it. I think people who complain about living in rented terraces with yards and want a nice spacious council flat are more spoiled.

Your dad may have paid for repairs but I think you will find that in most european countries, including Germany the expectation is that tenants will carry out repairs themselves.

So I should move out of a home that I have looked after and put money into then chrome.. wow

You were lucky super.

There's absolutely no chance of a 18 year old buying a house nowadays.

Superexcited

You do know that repairs in Germany are cheaper than here, especially since you have a lot of well-trained people through the apprentice scheme...

No I wasn't lucky. I left school at 16 and got a job instead of staying in education. I worked fucking hard and saved every penny I could after paying my mum board and lodgings and taking money for my bus fares to work. I bought a run down property in a not very nice area because that was all I could afford and I spent six months living in it whilst getting it to a reasonable condition (and then lived there for 3 more years before moving on). There was no luck involved, just hard work and determination. Houses in that street can still be bought for £75k -£90k (in decent condition) but a lot of people wouldn't want to buy a house there as they think they deserve better.
I have now been to uni and got a degree and don't regret spending my money on a house at 18 instead of spending it partying like my friends did.

No super you are lucky because you were able to buy at the right time.
My mum was a single parent working in a factory and she was able to get a mortgage and buy a terrace too.

Getting a mortgage is now a lot harder so you were lucky to buy when you brought.

It wasn't luck. You cannot plan luck. I planned what I was going to do. Mortgages are available today to 1st time buyers on modest incomes. At the time I bought it wasn't during the 90's when banks were giving people ridiculous 125% mortgages or five times their income. I bought at a time when the maximum you could borrow was 3x income and you needed a deposit. I got turned down by several mortgage providers due to my age and no previous credit history but I persevered and got a mortgage by paying a specialist broker £300 (which was a hell of a lot of money at the time). Banks were not throwing money at people at that time.
Not everybody lives in the expensive south east and in my region people on modest incomes can afford to buy houses if they are prepared to compromise on area.

That should have said the 00's not the 90's. The early to mid 00's is when banks were lending ridiculous sums of money.

morebeta the point is that they paid more in council tent for 44 years than a 25 year mortgage would have cost.

No I wasn't lucky.

I don't know where you live, but I would love to meet an 18 year old today that could buy a house in an expensive city through sheer hard work.

the point is that they paid more in council tent for 44 years than a 25 year mortgage would have cost.

that's not a perk private tenants get. They can't put rent paid towards purchase price.

Well congrats to you super.
You are still in the minority though.
Even if a 18 year old was on £20,000 they would still find it extremely hard for anyone for them to borrow £80,000 let alone find a home for that price.

Still think you were lucky as you brought at a good time.

Simple I didn't say I lived in and expensive city, I did say that houses in the street where I bought my first house can still be bought for £75k-£90k in decent condition today. In other parts of the city a 2 bed flat can cost £1m. I live in a city which has a wide spread of house prices and some first time buyers dint want to live in the streets where they can buy a terraced home for £75k and instead would say that they cannot afford to buy.
I acknowledge that London and the SE is very different and that it is incredibly difficult to get on the property ladder there even with the often higher wages than what is paid further North.

Honesty though having brought your first house at 18 is a massive achievement so well done.

JackieHarris I don't think that point about your GPs can be correct, or at least I don't know how you can say that with any accuracy.

They would have paid pretty low rent over a 40 year period, council rents are extremely cheap compared to the public sector.

They would have had absolutely no sunk maintenance costs in those 40 years, would not have paid for kitchen/bathroom refits, double glazing, new boilers, loft insulation, etc etc.

They would have been protected from the vagaries of interest rate rises and property price crashes, would have had the absolute right to keep their hime for life and have the rent paid for by HB if they were made redundant or became too ill to work.

It's impossible to know whether the rent they paid was comparable to, or more than what it would have cost to buy the house without knowing the market value of it when they moved in, the interest rates over the 25 year period from that time, and what their rent was. But evern that does not take into account all of the factors and savings I've mentioned above.

Social housing is there for people who cannot or will not, for whatever reason, buy their own homes and that is how it should stay. Why should anyone get the benefit of very low rents, protection from negative equity and high interest rates, with absolutely no overheads or maintenance bills for donkey's years and then be handed the place on a plate, either free of very highly subsidised, just so they can sell it for a tidy profit and use the money to buy somewhere else?

I think it stinks.

sorry

free or very highly subsidised

Thanks amazegumball.
It really didn't feel like luck when I drifted apart from some of my friends as they didn't understand that I was saving hard whilst they wanted me to spend my money joining them on drinking nights out several times every week. I was very determined to move into my own home ASAP because I really couldn't stay at home. I worked a full time office job and an evening job of cleaning in order to save up as quickly as I could because I couldn't stay at home with my parents. I think I dealt with circumstances and made things happen rather than being lucky.

My DSS got a mortgage at the age of 24 a couple of years back earning only £18k. He bought a shiny brand new flat. I'm not sure how he managed to borrow the sum required on his earnings as he was a sole purchaser but it does show that it is still possible for people on modest incomes to buy property in cheaper towns.

My BIL and SIL were offerered a financial incentive to leave a council flat in a London Borough when they asked for something larger to accomodate their growing family. They were given about 17,000 to vacate which they used as a deposit for something on the open market.
A much better idea than right to buy.
Dh and I rented privately for 22 years and saved before we could afford to buy a house, I am very resentful of those who get subsidised housing then are given the right to buy!

I live in my 3rd council property (if you include the homeless hostel as my first) and have the RTB. This is not something I will consider as I dont agree with it. I live in a 3 bed house and I honestly dont trust any government to replace it with another 3 bed in a nice area.

I plan living here for the foresable future. I have considered private rent, but I honestly think that would be silly.

Why does anyone have the right to own their home anyway? Who says that we must all aspire to be on the property ladder? AFAIK the UK is one of the few countries where buying property is seen to be the be all and end all. A lot of other countries renting is the norm, but they have reasonable rates and longer tenancies. If someone could offer me a 5 year tenancy in the private rental I would take it. I cant see why we can't offer that here. Its all geared up to be getting people on the property ladder.

I would like to see the government building more homes to be able to be let out. Not just a handful (at best) for each new housing development, but whole housing developments for lower price rental. Though I really can't see that happening. Certainly not in the next decade or so.

I had to move away from friends and family to live where I do now as there is a very short supply of my home city and if you are in anything less than gold band then you have no chance of a house in York. I dont regret moving out here (90 min drive away), but do miss having family close by and its not been easy not knowing anyone. Though it has been 3 years now so we are becoming settled again.

I haven't got subsidised housing

I do really think tight private rent control may be the real solution to this. Why don't we just do that?

We bought our home through the RTB scheme, made vast improvements to both inside and out but we live in it and plan to do so for the foreseable future and not sell for huge profit!
We bought it with a 19 yr mortgage which will be paid off at our retirement,- if not we would have had to pay rent from our pesnions that we have worked hard to pay into- so this way, we will benefit from our pensions as the house will be paid off!
I realise we have been lucky to be able to do this, however I wasnt so lucky to be in an awful homeless situation after DV - single with 3 small children at the begininng of the journey which how i was offered the council house in the first place, and only through hard work, part time at first , (even though I was worse off and would have had more claiming benefits)full time, then a promotion and then meeting my Dp, was I in position to buy!

Dr - why wouldn't you buy it??
No one is going to thank you if you don't??!

I do really think tight private rent control may be the real solution to this. Why don't we just do that?
You'd have to think very carefully about the consequences. Not all private landlords make a big profit. Buy-to-let mortgages might no longer be economic and that could result in a much reduced number of properties to let.