To hope there is a house price crash this year

[blondieblonde]

I really hope there is, so we can buy somewhere. What are the chances?

But prices are only out if control in some parts of the country.

Hahahahahahaahaha!!!!

www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/14/mp-landlords-number-risen-quarter-last-parliament-housing-bill

Also, as a teacher myself, the idea of lowering the required qualification level horrifies me.
Though I do note that many of the teachers who stick it long term are like myself, married to someone earning far more.

Babysham yes - but maybe not surprising from a prime minister who, in an interview with the Times, confessed to not knowing how many houses he owns.

Hatfield is still expensive though, as is Hemel and Watford. In the case of teachers 35k pa is more than say a TA on 15k or a carer on 12k pa. But let's face it, those jobs are on very small hourly (even zero) contracts and will require a commute or you to maintain your own transport. Which then lends itself to people only being able to afford to work locally and if they've moved out of the desirable area due to being priced out, what's the point of working there and incurring costs if you can work local. The reality of the situation is lower paid work often equals lower hour shifts.

It's not so much Mr x who works in finance can afford a house in st Albans and Ms t a special school teacher can't so has a commute in from Bedford (we'll say that because it's on the same train line) Mrs t earns 45k. What can she afford in Bedford with her £ commute on top? Is there any point her getting a job in st As when a job in Bedford pays more. Then apply that to more and more people, who fills those positions?

Those positions tend to be filled by people whose combined income with their spouse allows them to work there. And there are a great many of them. When DH first took his current job in the City we were recommended StA by his boss as she lived there. Her DH was a physio and I'm a teacher so on similar salaries but combined household income high enough to live there. It's the sort of place where you find a lot of City workers and surprisingly, quite a few are married to public sector workers. I taught there for 2 terms. All 3 TAs had professional qualifications, one was a teacher. Again, it's the sort of place where where TAs tend to be well educated women who don't need to work. And as I can't see city salaries dropping any time soon, I can't see that situation changing.

I'm not being funny lentilstew but are you suggesting everything will be okay because the wives of st Albans will do the the lower paid jobs for pleasure?

I do have my own theory to this. I think st Albans, harpenden etc has historically been commuter belt land and that mentality has been passed down and 'we' buy staff in. What I don't think people have realised is how expensive it is becoming even up to an hour away (in all directions) to live, so who will work in the shops, cleaning, caring, nursing and then of course it leads to the scenario of, is this what people wanted? But then how do you progress as a youngster in the city, flat in st a and then progress to the nice family home?

I personally think it's becoming impossible and I don't know if that's what people want it not but it doesn't sit very easy with me (for all sorts of reasons)

I'm not being argumentative with you btw, I like having discussions with people

There is a lot of that, yes. But I agree that such a set up isn't sustainable in the long run as young couples to be able to buy in such an area now, need 2 good salaries. I did read somewhere thatStA had the largest number of residents earning over 100k of anywhere in the country. And that was about 8yrs ago.
I'm not disputing that in the SE house prices have reached a ridiculous level where most people cannot afford them. But I do think the market dictates prices and obviously houses are selling at those prices otherwise sellers could not command them. I also think there's too many people who are unwilling to move away from London and the SE when they could just as easily do their job in a much cheaper part of the country. They act as though Harpenden is literally the end of the line before they'd start having nosebleeds and being shot at. And I say that as a southerner myself.

Yes the market dictates the price. I met a wonderful great grandmother at my daughter's flat before Christmas who had brought in a parcel for her and does errands for everyone even though over 80. She must have lived in her own council flat there all her life which similar flat my daughter/and husband bought for £750k. I was certainly struck by the changes. Her children are out in herts by the way and grand children and great grandchildren so that mirrors the moves mentioned on the thread. Just as our old nanny from 30 years ago white working class moved out from Wembley to Luton or MK with the usual "white flight" we have around here - it is not just flight from high prices. It is no different from the past if you look at all the different types of immigrants who moved in waves nito the East End of London - the pattern of the Jew there, then moving further and further out until Barnet, Stanmore etc. I suppose we will always have people moving into different areas based on costs.

There will not be a shortgage of workers in London at the lower paid end however as we have very very high immigration, lots of illegal immigrants and people for whom the UK minimum wage is a king's ransom who are happy to live 4 to a bed room in a house packed to the gills.

But as I said earlier, Deo, it not true that all the brains are based in London/SE. Nor is it true that all the best schools are. As I posted above, local to me in Cheshire are schools, both state and independent that fit in the top 10 nationally.

The market dictates prices, but the market isn't exactly a free one, help to buy, right to buy etc have allowed the market to rise when it wouldn't have done without this intervention. However this is a small part of the factors driving demand, the main one of which is that there are not enough houses/flats in London and the South East for people who want to buy, there are a vast numbers of people in their 20s and 30s with a deposit and fairly high incomes who cannot get on, and the minute a flat comes up the bidding forces the prices up. Foriegn buyers are buying properties these people couldn't afford anyway, or couldn't afford the mortgage and the service charge.

Too much demand too little supply and a pool of entrants waiting for even a minor % change in price, thats what keeps prices high.

Yes, Cheshire was mentioned on radio 4 as an anomaly in terms of schools doing better. The research said it used to be the case that if you stripped out family income you would get similar results in North and South for public exams. Now that's changed and that's fascinating because the obvious answer is where there is money parents have time to read to their children, invest in them etc but that doesn't seem to be only explanation now although I accept schools like Manchester Grammar in the private system have always been and probably always will be good.

So what is it about those little clever private school pupils in Leeds that means there are not enough of them than are able to match many of the London private schools? Do the pupils in the South work harder? is it just critical mass (the few private schools going into the state system as free schools are not in the SE and it was due lack of parents locally who could afford to pay fees so falling numbers).

Manchester Grammar gets good results but not as good as Altrincham Boys Grammar (state school). Nor quite as good as the equivalent girls independents schools, either Withington Girls or Manchester High, especially Withington whose results are up there with NLCS. Despite the excellent state schools we also have about 12% using the independent decor compared to 7% nationally.
I'm not sure it's an anomaly as such as that suggests it doesn't fit with the pattern but it certainly does fit with the pattern of good schools in both sectors going hand in hand with affluence.

We have friends who live just outside Bracknell in Berkshire. They ended up paying for school because virtually all the schools in their authority were poorly performing. So on the flip side, there are pockets like that across the SE.

Independent sector

I don't understand why people find the suggestion of moving away from where they were brought up, so odd. None of the friends I had in school still live in the same city, none of my work colleagues were born in the town they now live in. DH and I moved 200 miles for work just a few years ago. Didn't think twice about it.

I disagree with you... I was born in Battersea but raised just outside London in the southeast and all my friends and family are local... Everyone I know lives and works locally or in London and to move away would mean an entirely new life for us and our children.

I moved hundreds of miles for work but it is a cultural thing. When my father was very ill at home in the NE looked after some lovely ladies - about 10 of them day and night in shifts they could not understand how we the three cruel children didn't live 2 minutes from our father. They did not know how delighted our parents were that we left for university (my siblings to Oxbridge even) and that our family culture was you move for work, you love your parents but you don't have to live close by them. I am sure they thought we were wicked not to live near by.It was class or family issue. The idea my father might love it that we branched out and did well not close to him was alien to them.

But MaryPoppins, if you'd moved when young before children then you make new friends in whatever part of the country you settle in.

I will most definitely be encouraging my children to go to university in a city far from home. Then to move to where the best job is for them. After university I applied for jobs across the country and would have gone wherever the best job was. It never occurred to me to move back close to my parents after graduating. I don't understand the idea of always living with the same 5mile radius of where you grew up.

I watched Kirsty and Phil the other night and was at a woman who was willing to pay well over £400k for a tiny flat, which was basically the upstairs of a converted semi detached house, in a crowded looking street in a grotty looking area of London (7 sisters i think it was called). It didnt even have a separate kitchen/living area. For that sort of money I'd want, at the ver least, a detached house with a garden and somewhere to park my car

No wonder that so many people in my firm have done their training contracts in London and then relocated somewhere more affordable.

tangentalert

It didnt even have a separate kitchen/living area

So common these days, putting the kitchen in the living room is such a con!

mama - I live in London and was at that flat in Stoke Newington! Looking on RightMove there are cheaper flats to be had around there, but finding them involves looking at flats in adjacent postcodes, things that need doing up etc.