The property market looks like its going to collapse and that's a good thing

[Ellreejeee]

Surely this madness is going to end soon and it will benefit the country?

Shed for sale in Somerset in someone back garden for 150k. Look at the pictures www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37137567.html

London is insane, most overvalued many are saying www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34676643

The average london house has earnt 2 pounds an hour for the last decade. And that's tax free if its your own home!

Thanks Settling. I'm looking at Epping though because I love the access to open space. 50 minutes on the Central Line to Liverpool Street. I don't think that's bad for a city the size of London. Are there any cities in the world that have well paid jobs, a very short commute and affordable housing? If so, which ones are they? Theres plenty of cities in Britain which don't have very good public transport at all, the tube might be a nightmare at times but at least it exists and you don't have to sit on a bus for 2 hours.

True, in Epping I'll probably have to go for a modern terraced house, not a period semi detached, but we all have to compromise. I don't need 4 bedrooms, but seriously:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55623269.html

Bloody hell scremers snap that up, looks ace.

Also the means that those who whine about unaffordable with a decent commute are not looking hard enough or not willing to compromise.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in Scotland over the next few years as the current Scottish Govt are pursuing a major house building initiative. The ones near me are mainly 3 bed houses for approx £180-200k (just outside Edinburgh, commute of 30 mins by train/45 by bus). I wonder whether house prices nationally will drop here as a result, or just stagnate a bit?

Be that as it may, the PP who said that the answer is wage increases was spot on. Win win situation. People who already own don't lose out; people who are trying to buy stand a better chance of saving a deposit/getting a mortgage; and the increased spending power boosts the economy. If the national minimum wage is to jump to a so-called living wage, great! Let's have a bit of that at all levels.

Scremers it's got a great back garden and nice room sizes. It seems to be in Harlow, not Epping though, and you would have to drive to the station and then pay for parking. Certainly not deal breakers, but it will add to your 50 minute commute and monthly budget.

I think building extra housing won't make that much of a difference. There is so much more demand for it than they could supply quickly.

Settling Scremers it's got a great back garden and nice room sizes. It seems to be in Harlow, not Epping though, and you would have to drive to the station and then pay for parking. Certainly not deal breakers, but it will add to your 50 minute commute and monthly budget.

Its amazing, isn't it? tbh I wasn't expecting to get Epping anyway, which is more expensive. I'm sure I can get to the station from 3 miles away on foot or bike and get some exercise at the same time.

Didn't the same thing happen in Ireland (re new house building) and lead to a property crash there, with loads of empty new builds half completed, lying empty? Didn't the Irish government just prior to that insist that all the new housing was necessary and no-one ever expect it to happen.

Maybe it won't be London that any property crash happens in.

I agree it's a lot of house and land for the money. It looks like you could build a whole other house in the back garden! Not so far fetched, when you look around my neighbourhood, especially given the corner plot.

You might be able to bike...I think walking might be unrealistic for a daily commute though.

I thought that new housing ended up being empty, or unfinished because of the banking crisis.

Basically banks stopped lending as freely, people stopped getting mortgages, builders got lines of credit cancelled and weren't able to finish building.

We rent a two bed flat in a place talked about here as cheap for commuting to London. We just couldn't ever afford to buy anything near here. We'd need 100k deposit at least to get us a one bed flat, we have children. We'd do the one bed flat if we could-have friends who've made that work-kids share the bedroom, adults have a pull out bed in the living room.
We're very lucky to have a landlord who is charging way less (£100s less a month) than the market rent, or we couldn't afford to rent here either. As it is the rent swallows a massive percentage of out wages.
We both work in jobs which are very tied to London, but just can't stay here, but there aren't jobs for us anywhere else (we've been looking for 5 years)
It's depressing tbh.

I do wonder about the next generation though.

Well dd and ds have been working and saving for a very long time. They have been working since they were a few months old.(dd did her first job at 3 months old and ds was 15 months old when he did his first job). Dd 15 has 3 regular jobs and other jobs that come up from time to time.

Even now dd has people, some adults as well as clasmates, tell her that what she earns for the amount of hours she does is not worth it. But over the course of a year it keeps adding up and she keeps putting it in her savings book.

Parents tell their children that once they have their degree that is the prize. Everything else will follow. Parents I think are failing to make it clear that yes you will probably get things eventually but not immediately. Like a job where you have to start at the bottom and work up. You will not automatically have the funds for a 2 bedder in a good part of zone 2 but if you work hard and save you might be able to afford a 1 bedder in Zone 5. But after a few years of being careful and several moves you will be in position to afford what was wanted when you first started out.

What you don't seem to see nowadays is professionally qualified people doing second jobs. Dh has a professional qualification and worked hugely long hours and like his colleagues who were also starting out dh had a second and sometimes a 3rd job.
Now if you suggest a second job to anyone with a qualification you are met with the look of horror.

We both had second jobs until childcare became an issue. We're not lazy entitled types, we'd just like to be able afford to rent somewhere commutable, or have the security of buying. It's scary renting with kids when you know you couldn't afford to rent anywhere else nearby if the landlord decides to sell up or something.

Silly. Why don't you move to some where cheaper. £100000 equates to about£660000. (HSBC do mortgages where you only need to put down 15%). FWIW I actually don't think Kennington id that cheap.

We don't earn enough to get a mortgage of more than about 150k. We'd need the big deposit to get anything, not to be a 15% deposit.
We've looked at moving much much further out (we're zone 6 now) but the transport becomes so expensive the numbers don't add up.
We need to change our careers really, but I have no idea how we'd do that, we're both a long way down the career path.
The kids make it all harder too, it's not so easy to move around with schools etc to worry about.

And right now we have a decent flat for an affordable amount in a place where we've developed a support network, kids are settled in school etc. it's hard.
I know if we took a risk and kept somewhere it might pay off, but it's a big risk with a family.
I just want to do the job I spent four years training for, and live a normal life. We don't even drink, or eat out or anything.

Lept not kept.

silly. . At a brief calculation that means that combined you and your dh earn less than 40k per year.

You're right. That's not enough to buy a flat in most areas of London, but it is low enough for.applying for council housin or housing association placea which would give you more security. Have you tried?

They have been working since they were a few months old.

?

I looked into council housing and HA years ago when we were earning much less, and there's no hope. There just isn't anything. If you're homeless with kids in tow you might get a b&b.

Our parents both own big family houses in the SE though, so unless it's all used up in care fees we'll inherit hopefully enough to buy a retirement flat. There won't be much for our children to inherit though.

Family houses that were bought on the strength of one teacher's salary btw. Something that would be impossible now.

sillyoldfool I'm sure you've worked through all options many times, but am I right in what you are saying: you can get a mortgage of £150,000? Which means a 15% deposit is £22,500. You basically need about £30,000 then to cover fees, etc.. But yes, in any big city you are going to have transport costs if you move out, and longer commute, its not just London. I lived in Edinburgh once, and it had no public transport except buses. It was a nightmare. It would take you literally an hour to travel about 8 miles, with a long walk on either end. With miserable weather too!

Wouldn't you buy something like this, and use the lounge as another bedroom? South London:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-37130010.html

Or go out to Harlow, as I'm planning to do:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55462451.html?premiumA=true

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-49016093.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55596566.html?premiumA=true

And I sympathise with the teacher's salary buying a big house comments. Former MIL was a teacher and her DH an IT guy, but managed to buy a 5 bedroom detached period house in the suburbs. Neither had degrees! Both took early retirement too!

I did actually have two professional jobs at one point but I still used to get insidious little comments from them about not working hard enough to buy a house that didn't need work done, a second hand car that kept breaking down, etc., which is one of the reasons they, along with their son, are exs...another story, sorry!

In theory. But saving 20k for a deposit is out of reach. We just about get by, really can't save that much. I've managed £1000 in a year. And no help available from parents unfortunately.
Hopefully in ten years we'll have 30k more coming in, childcare costs will be lower, we'll have some savings... By then we'll be our 40s though.

We just missed the boat regarding mortgages. In hindsight we should have got one when they were giving big multiples with v low deposits, but we'd only just graduated then, when we came to be ready to settle down a bit mortgages were much harder to get. hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I wish we were five years older....