good news for homeowners as house prices increase again

[nettlewine]

So the nationwide are reporting that house prices are up this month.

Seriously this isn't good news, even if you own a home as any step up becomes more expensive and even if you don't and have kids its no life to still be living stuck at home in your 20s and 30s!

The vast majority of homeowners in this country couldn't afford their home if they had to buy it now. The system is broken and its wreaking the whole country and the economy. London isn't a place for londners as they can't afford it and all new builds are sold off plan on Malaysia! Arrg every time I hear the thread title quoted I want to scream.

If only house prices were sensible and people could invest in something useful like producing stuff. I can't see this country as a good place for my children to grow up in.

Totally agree - but sadly far too many exploit their tenants. Private renters are disproportionately fuel poor, and part of that is that the houses are in dreadful condition.

An EPC of E isn't particularly warm. I'd like to see the bar set much higher - the Lib Dems have a long-term goal of C in their manifesto, which I'd support.

It isn't particularly good nettle thats the top end of the market for a two up two down terrace, starter home.
Obviously, buying it at the lowest prices of 15 - 20K can give you £60k minus expenses, which if its structurally safe won't be too much.
I'm told new bathrooms and kitchens aren't expensive.
If you only need to buy materials and the min of outside contractors you can make a huge profit.

Jassy

Mine is a C and I know where you are coming from.
More needs to be done to make LL legally liable for the upkeep and maintenance of their property.
I wouldn't dream of letting a problem continue because the house is our investment, putting it right today is cheaper than letting it get worse and costing a lot more.
They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
If my tenant mentions a problem, I call the lads, they arrange a good time for her and its sorted.
The most recent was water running down the wall, it was a quick up the ladder to fix the guttering or leaving it until the walls were soaked through and the house damp.

Well I might pay a visit to this 'old ham', I've been to ham near Richmond and its lovley.

Lol at kitchens being cheap, I got a mid range one that cost a similar amount to the cheap houses

a decent sized b and q kitchen must still cost a few grand though ?

Well hopefully that will kill of scum landlords renting out sheds and caravans

nettle

Bathroom and kitchen furniture don't cost much, its the added price of fitters or specifics.
End of clearance at trade prices and ebay are good. Its amazing how many brand new sealed units you can find. How many places just want rid for new stock.
We have always found the most expensive thing are tiles.
Bog standard, excuse the pun make it look like a public lavvy. Colours and patterns are expensive and date really quickly, even neutral ones.

I think I need to be more savvy! I've got bog standard white tube type tiles, they do look like an underground loo

More than potato prints none of those are complete houses- the cheapest one involves taking one someone else's mortgage by the look of it-

Purchase Option
Approx Outstanding £ 92,000
Current Rental Income: £ 520 per month
Interest payment: £ 205 per month
Cash Flow: £ 315 per month
Gross Yield: 25.52 %

Mortgage Period Remaining approximately 15 years

The 2 houses are shared ownership and price quoted is for 25% share

My grandmother's house in the NE costs £65k today. Yes that is quite a lot but still it's affordable to many. A whole 3 bed terraced near us in outer London costs about £375k and flats are less but yes it is expensive but nothing like as expensive as if you live further into London (which we could never afford to do even 30 years ago and that remains the case for many people and always has).

All this talk of kitchens!!! I have never in my entire life had a "new kitchen". Even now I have the kitchen and bathroom put into this house when it was built. I think that kitchen point illustrates the difference between the jam today and want it all now/entitled lots. You put your ever last penny into buying the dump and you camp out on the floor until you can afford a bed kind of thing rather than I must have a totally done up perfect home now whilst stamping feet suggesting it's a human right to have it. They can cry and stamp their feet until kingdom come but it doesn't get them the results they want - i.e. get started on property owning usually like most of us starting with a dump. I was reading my 1984 diary. I was pregnant. We were sleeping on a mattress on the floor. That was fine. We had no washing machine for the first 6 months of the baby so went to the launderette. All baby clothes bought second hand etc etc etc. Back at wokr when baby 2 weeks old full time. Life is hard at times but you just have to get on with it.

(And no I don't expect anyone ever to feel sorry for me as I'm never ill and just about always happy for a start and secondly for 20 years I've managed to work for myself and not starved and done okay).

It worries me as we bought a 2 bedroom flat 4 years ago and we can't really afford to buy a 3 bedroom house in the same area. We would like an extra bedroom as we have two dc now (DS & DD).

Lotus its just me talking about a new kitchen and as I've said I own my house outright, people that can't afford to buy are hardly spunking their money on a kitchen. Who is this entitled lot you imagine? But then again you and your daughter have the monopoly on working hard. I like to work smart, hence why both me and dh stopped full time work once we reached 30.

Launderette s are a waste of money and far more expensive than picking up a machine.

You go on your jam today, we are off to do nice things and not grind ourselves to the bone. Smart not hard.

I hvae never said I have a monopoly on working hard nor even that it is easy in any sense to buy a house nor ever has been. It's always been very hard and in cycles and recessions or booms it gets even harder. Many more houses are caught by stamp duty than ever and the revenue from stamp duty has surged for ten years.

Yes, I agree on launderettes but I think first of all we were in an employer provided flat in that year (84) and then when we were able to buy somewhere we couldn't afford a plumber to put an old machine we had in and we found someone to do it cheaply or free but it took him 6 months to find time to do it! Most people could not afford to buy in 84. I remember the midwife coming to the house in 84 after baby 1 came and she actually asked if I owned the house (not that it was any of her business).

We all choose our balance in life - each to their own. I don't feel very grinded today sitting peacefully at home sending out bills whilst the teenagers sleep. Mind you I can hear the washing machine has finished so feel very lucky to own one rather than being down in our local river rinsing out the clothes....

But you try to give the message that you can just work hard and get what you want. It isn't that easy and buying a house has got significantly more difficult. It was easy in comparison for the boomers. Try buying a bog standard house on one low blue wage these day.

Try buying a bog standard house on one low blue wage these day

This. Or try buying anything as a single person. And don't suggest we all move to the NW and become property developers. There are reasons why people don't want to live in depressed towns with little work, cheap houses and no prospects.

There's a town near me with relatively cheap houses. Why are they cheap? Because it's a deprived shithole with rough areas, empty houses, no prospects, no decent amenities and high unemployment.

Whereas my city is affluent, low unemployment, plenty of amenities....but it's impossible for a single person to buy anything without a lot of support from somewhere.

In my day 30 years ago we needed two professional wages to buy a small semi in outer London. 2 weeks maternity leave, worked full time. I don't think it was a golden age during which those on low incomes could buy properties.
Anyway we are where we are now and just have to do our best for it. So obviously one route is ensure your daughters work hard at school and pick high paid work as clearly that is going to make a massive differences to their lives.

I agree that low house priced areas are not where jobs are - that is just supply and demand. When I started work the partners (i.e. richer people ) where I worked commuted to London from Kent, Brighton etc. Only a few could afford to live even in places in London - Hampstead etc were too expensive for most. So I don't think there was an easy older age where London prices were dirt cheap. People used to walk for two hours before the tube came out where I live to get to work in London (a very long time ago). It's always been very difficult. We started married life in an employer provided school flat (boarding school London area) for the first few months and then took the massive risk of buying even though we could have been seduced by the pull of employer provided accommodation. It paid off but not everyone in that situation took that risk.

Aberdeen until the recent oil crash has higher house prices than much of rural Scotland because of the work there. it is one reason live in servants were given accommodation (my grandmother was one) because they could not afford to rent where their employers worked.

We could start by moving those who choose not to work (not most unemployed but a core lot of them) to places where house prices are dirt cheap. That would mean some extra houses are available for those prepared to work very hard in cities.

We could move out of all social housing and council housing any family group with a total wage of £40k+

We could allow citizens to apply to buy any empty government sites in cities to build a home on.

We could soften the 2014 mortgage criteria and allow more 95% home loans.
We could allow people to borrow until they are 70.

Howcanitbe, totally agree with your comments on BTL. They are at a huge competitive advantage to owner occupiers when it comes to buying, which drives up prices, and also drives up rents. I struggle to see the social good in such an uneven playing field.

The one that particularly gets me is some BTL landlords wanting their cake and eating it - wanting/needing an immediate profit and guaranteed rate of return at the same time as expecting their asset to appreciate at a fairly regular rate.

Get point on btl, it is being encouraged and helps widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

Lotus just accept it was much easier. My grandmother lived in a house in brixton, single parent and managed to survive by having lodgers. These houses now sell for over a million. She was a nurse.

Great you want to get people in debt for longer. Fuck that why not go Japanese and get intergenerational mortgages where the debt lasts over 100 years and is inherited.

People should have better lives these days, not just be debt slaves for stupid house prices.

Where would you move these people to Lotus? Purpose built rural camps where they could work for their keep? Or special communal houses on the edge of town where they could ask the beadle "please sir can I have some more" if they'd had a particularly gruelling day picking oakum?

Except of course it was much, much easier when you look at the huge shift in affordability (prices, repayments, and deposits relative to income) shared upthread.

I'm still not sure how possible it would be when deposits in paticular, as well as other income multiples needed, have jumped so much.

Zones 3 and 4 (or 5 and 6!) don't tend to come cheap - particularly not if you're needing a 2 or 3 bed place. That's why so many couples start out in 1 bed flats - and so many get stuck when/after they want kids.

As 30 years ago they move out, though don't they? We couldn't afford to buy in central London so lived in zone 5 where I still live.

I am not saying it's easy nor that it ever was. Certainly in my parents' day most people couldn't afford to buy in the NE where they are from even on blue collar wages. Also women could not buy at all simply because they were women. At least that has gone now.

People club together - you often see 3 brothers say or two sisters buying a small flat in outer London. A young client I spoke to this week had bought with his brother. We certainly could not afford to buy 30 years ago on one wage - we both had to work full time and even then nurses etc could not buy in zone 5 just professional salaries and higher and we had the joys of 12% repayment mortgages.

My relatives moved to the NE because of mining jobs. People have always had to move where the work is.

My advice to everyone's children is get really good exam works and work hard, pick high paid careers (been same advice for 100 years really in the UK), buy as early as you can even if it's a dross awful place in an area you hate and keep working very hard and getting promotions which has always been the key to moving to a bigger house in due course.

We certainly could not afford to buy 30 years ago on one wage - we both had to work full time and even then nurses etc could not buy in zone 5 just professional salaries and higher and we had the joys of 12% repayment mortgages.

As I mentioned upthread, where you needed two incomes previously, you'd need 3.5-4 now. I also gave context around the interest rate issues by looking at mortgage repayments relative to salaries 30 years ago and now - driven by interest rates in the 3 blip years of the late &0s, with repayments far lower on either side, while repayments now are driven by base prices (less chance of relief, big issues if interest rates rise). But the change in deposits feels like a huge shift and a barrier to buying for the first time, at a level that didn't exist in the past.

Separately, you know that everyone's kids can't get great exam results, right? Or is your argument that home ownership should be the bastion of the academically gifted only?