' A chicken would cost £50'

[stopitandtidyupp]

Leisurely watching ' The big questions'
discussing is London only for the rich?

One woman said if house prices were a chicken then a chicken would now cost £50. Now she meant in London but I wonder about the rest of the country.

I live in the NE and I am struggling to get on the ladder.

I guess my AIBU to be annoyed at house prices and is there an answer?

@evaperonspoodle that really interesting (sincerely, I know posts can read as unintentionally shitty on here) that you would be surprised by someone seeing a flat as a "forever home".

Totally agree and if we weren't breeding chickens in such a horrendous manner they'd be much more expensive. The rhi scandal in Northern Ireland has created cheap chicken which is subsidized by the rate payer.

Sorry wrong thread

Prices in much of the NE haven't recovered from the 2008 crash. We sold our previous house to a young woman on pretty much nmw for about 15% more than we'd paid for it, 14 years previously. We'd spent far more than the difference on maintenance and getting it watertight, over the years.

We bought this house for only 1% more than it had sold for in 2007. Admittedly it was freshly tarted up, back then, but hadn't been maintained and had become quite tatty (and leaked like a sieve) but our vendors made a loss on it. The sort of houses we were looking at, when we bought this one, are up for about 10% less, now.

I know there are pockets up here where prices are still rising, but they're certainly not around Durham.

It can be done. My husband and I bought our house when we were 23. We saved up for years and were both in average jobs - I was a minimum wage (£12k back then) nursery nurse and he was an engineer on about £19k. We managed to get a 18 year mortgage on our house. We sacrificed going on holiday that year, taking our time and money to spend on the house.

And we have another one stating that the economics of y

Yesteryear are exactly the same as today.

Except the figures show that affordability across the country has greatly reduced in many many places.

To whoever asked, personally I think there should be a limit of owning two properties per person. Increasing stock on the market would bring prices down.

I too think it’s strange that someone thinks it’s strange to view a flat as a ‘forever home’. If I do buy, it will be a flat (London) and it’ll be for the purposes of security, not with a view to upgrade in a few years

Before we departed the UK to live elsewhere, we worked our way up the housing ladder in a "desirable" area on the south coast (buying, doing up and selling on four houses over 15 years). The village we lived in is currently undergoing what can only be described as developer predation. Every available piece of green space is being bought up so as many houses as possible can be squeezed in. Now, if they were affordable for local folk people would probably have less of an issue with it. But they aren't. They'll be unaffordable for teachers/nurses/young marrieds/single parents etc. Additionally, there are no new school places available locally (primaries are all full - one is putting a portacabin in its playground to accommodate another intake of 30 - and the local secondary already has nearly double the number of students it was built for), one of the local GP surgeries has already shut down forcing all their patients on to the lists of the other two surgeries which are already over subscribed or making people go further afield to two other surgeries. The local dentists are all full. The road infrastructure is a disaster, in terms of trying to get in and out of the village at rush hours. The irony is that, by building more houses in an area that is designated as "desirable", in the hope that they can charge more for the new builds, the developers are actually making the area less desirable. The number of new houses already built in the village and surrounding area is shocking, and this will only make it worse. This has nothing to do with NIMBYism. As I say, if the houses were "affordable" people would understand the reason for it, but they won't be. (And yes, the local council are about as much use as a chocolate tea pot...)

Do you feel guilty for your role in that TopSop?

@evaperonspoodle that really interesting (sincerely, I know posts can read as unintentionally shitty on here) that you would be surprised by someone seeing a flat as a "forever home"

I've been thinking about this and I think it must be my subconcious association of flats with deprivation and squalor (which in my town they were) There has of late been an increase in 'apartments' being built and whilst i wouldn't think it was ideal as a forever home I don't feel as strongly about it being a forever home, so forget what I said. Of course I understand that in London i would be extremely lucky to be able to buy a flat and it would most definitely be my forever home.

pick

Nor in my area of the north east either.

We bought our house five years ago and for 105k, the woman who sold it to us had bought it in 2006 for 137k it is now according to zoopla worth 132k, it’s the same for every house on my street.

Yes the affordability might be lower than last year but that’s because we are finally having some economic recovery in the region.

It is still perfectly possible for someone on an average wage to tighten their belts for a while and buy a nice house here.
When we saved for a deposit we were living off my husbands wage pretty much and didn’t have to sacrifice too much.

When people are talking about it being really unobtainably difficult they need to say in the south. It’s very irritating for large portions of the uk to be ignored.

Lots of these posters who say ‘I bought at 22 on 17k probably live in Barnsley or somewhere, where they can.

About 1500 new houses are being developed in and around a nearby town, which actually has no need of anything like that number of houses, considering that five miles away, there are another 800 going up.

It's a rural area, without much infrastructure, unemployment is already high and jobs mainly seasonal. No extra health or education facilities are planned, with everything locally at capacity, so who is going to buy or live in them?

No, mirialis. I'm not a developer. We bought our first house after we got married because our landlady refused to allow us to get a kitten when my elderly cat died. We did up the house then sold it and bought one with an extra bedroom for our first baby, after having had one miscarriage while in our first house. We did up the second house and sold it (it became a house of sorrow for us when our dog died there) because the garden was the size of a postage stamp. In house three, with a larger garden, our small son learned to run in straight lines instead of tiny circles. We would happily have stayed there except my in laws became old and infirm, so we bought house 4 because it had space for a granny annexe.

At no point did we buy these houses to flip them. We lived in them, we loved in them.

What's your point, mirialis?

And the 2 bed maisonette is probably our forever home whatever that means. It is quite spacious, in a beautiful location and local to everything we need by bike or car or on foot. Location is everything.

Been married for 25 years and when we started off if you had a modest income you could still afford to buy a modest house and there was pretty much something for everyone.

Youngsters starting off now have it so much tougher and it is not because they waste money on phones and coffees.

First off I do agree that it is harder now to buy than 20, 30 years ago BUT I think the difference is overstated. Affordability isn’t just about house price to wage ratio, it is house price + interest rate to wage ratio. Interest rates are minuscule now compared to the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.

I bought alone in 97 and paid 49k for a 1.5 bed ‘starter’ house. I was earning 13k, put down a 4K deposit from my savings, and was paying about £420 a month in capital/interest payments. So my housing costs were going on for half my monthly income. I think my take home pay was about £900 a month. The house last sold in 2017 for £140k driven in part by gentrification.

My first flat cost 2x my annual salary. I bought as a single person and it was a stretch.
Same job now pays twice as much, flat worth 6x as much, so now same flat would be 6 times annual salary.
Interest rates are lower though.

Have only read a few pages deep of this but commenting to placemark and also say how interesting I’m finding this.

For what its worth, managed to buy in London with the help of parents, so I’m in a fortunate position, but I’m very cross about how mad the housing market has got here. We are right near a Cross Rail station too so house prices are insanity.

Whoops, I should point out that it was only 5 years ago we bought our house. You don’t know my age! Lol.

I have lived in 2 Housing Assosciation houses since I left home pregnant at 18 fifteen years ago. I am now in a position to consider a mortgage, but, is it the be all and end all? I live on a 12 year old private estate where only 12 of the houses are housing association. I can decorate how I want and make bigger changes with permission (which has been reasonable). I will soon be getting my 12 year old boiler replaced at no cost to myself and being a big business, complaints and repairs are responded to swiftly. I have a small garden which backs onto a field, only overlooked by well-kept private properties. 3 bedroom, £500 rent per month, much less risk than private renting.

I sometimes wonder if a mortgage is really the holy grail? If I stay here my children can save their deposits and I may be able to afford to help them. I obviously have no lump sum from a sold house to give them though. An older lady told me all equity in a house is used towards your care home costs?

If I was to buy a house it would be to
A) BUY somewhere nicer
B) create some financial assistance for my children.

P.S. I am aware I am lucky, I also live in NE and aware that of I was born in central London I'd be lucky to have a one bed flat in a high rise.

I bought a 2 bed flat with my sister in January 2008 for 100k in the NE. I’d be lucky if it’s worth £90k now 😫 luckily we rent it out and get enough rent to cover the mortgage. (Not by choice, I’d get rid of it if I could)
DH and I also own our own home. We are both currently early 30’s with two DC. We bought our first home together in 2011(age 23) . I was pregnant with our first DC and we lived with MIL for 6 months while we saved for a deposit. We were on 26k combined a year, both working full time. We bought a 3 bed end terrace ex council house for 70k (repossession so was a little cheaper) and put down a 7k deposit. (Also in the NE) We would have really struggled to save if we hadn’t have lived with MIL as I went back part time after the baby.
We recently sold that house for 100k and have bought a 4 bedroom semi for £170k. I feel for anyone struggling to get on the property ladder and it really does make me feel grateful that we had the opportunity to live with MIL, even though I was against the idea at first.
I know people who live in ex council private rented and pay the same in rent that we do for our new mortgage payment (£650) it’s sickening how expensive renting is no matter where you live.

 Scale of UK's housing crisis revealed in damning report news.sky.com/story/britain-needs-millions-more-new-social-homes-charity-report-says-11601520

NameChange I would stay where you are if I was you, personally although I’m a homeowner I think there’s a lot to be said for renting.

@missyB1

I can see the many benefits of renting but owning always seems yo be the holy grail.

Throwing this out to everyone who previously rented council or HA, why did you decide to buy?

What are the real benefits?