' 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?

My mum has said this to me in the past: "when we bought our first house your dad and I were earning about £6000." But their first house cost £16,000, not even double their combined salary. They did have very difficult times with the Poll Tax mess and interest rate rises but also, they aknowledge, had a secure home.

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)

I think this is a problem in the north east, people holding onto houses and renting them out because they won’t make their mortgage back if they sell. This leads to people being landlords who are not doing for either the love or the money and quite frankly are not suitable to be landlords at all (not saying this is you sea )

I know some new developers are part exchanging houses now for this reason but you get a a really shitty deal.

I think lifestyle expectations differ greatly now from when our parents were young, making it very hard to save now. My DM was telling me that when she got married in the 70's you were really lucky to have a bed, a 3 piece suite and a cooker when you got married (these were usually wedding presents) Everything else had to be bought when you could afford it. Very, very few people live like that now, it is very acceptable to have thousands on credit cards.

I live in a seaside tourist resort up north. I live in a tiny 3bed mid terraced new build (social). Married over 10 years with 3 children. I work pt and husband ft. Our combined wages are £20k anually. The house we rent is minuscule, stairs in the living room. No hall way. To buy the same house over the road the asking price was £210k.
Meanwhile husbands parents live in a huge detached house not far that they bought 20 years ago for £60k on 2 well paid full time wages and free childcare. I have to pay for childcare. They always ask why we don't move to somewhere more suitable. People just do not understand the difference in house/wages from 20/30 years ago to now.

"I think lifestyle expectations differ greatly now from when our parents were young, making it very hard to save now. "

I think the difference is that you could put up with a bit of hardship in the short term, a year, maybe two, especially when quite young.

Its a big difference to expect people to do it for 4,5,6,years or more.

House prices are ridiculously high.
Some young people seem to want a ridiculously high standard of lifestyle without any financial hardship.

I think both of these are true, but the latter does not cancel out the former statement.

"Some young people seem to want a ridiculously high standard of lifestyle without any financial hardship."

I think this is only true in very small numbers, so it doesn't explain why its harder to get on the ladder. Its back to avacados and I phones. Of course though it does link with the self attribution fallacy, the older generation want to put their success in property down to their own endevours, rather than being at the right place at the right time.

The reason why its harder is because prices are far higher and the criteria for getting a mortgage is tougher.

I have two 2 adult dc living at home in loft extension we had purpose built for them as we could not see them affording a mortgage as one not well paid and other ok pay but not in relationship, even if we gave them a decent deposit.

The only thing I can think of is if they moved up North where house prices are much cheaper and then one could afford to buy. He could probably get job as lolly driver and they in short supply. He is not keen to move.

My dh says we made him too comfortable in his own space so now no motivation to move/buy.

There should be a scheme where government lend a deposit for house but money gets taken out wages like tax each month. Because in many instances rent price is more than mortgage would be.

I read a report recently that said that millenials were just as conservative with their money than than previous generations and in some ways more so.

I’ll see if I can find it.

I also like to note that whilst the older generation like to point out mobile phones etc, they fail to acknowledge that they all had record players and oodles of records, smoked more, drank more etc etc.

I really don't think it is right to say people cannot own more than one house. If they are renting the second or subsequent houses out they are providing a much needed service. If all private LL sold houses tomorrow it would not mean that suddenly renters could afford their deposit. Instead it would mean many more homeless people as social housing and councils just do not have enough housing stock.

It's really hard to draw comparisons. When my DM was a new mum with a baby my DDad was able to pay the mortgage and bills on a 2 bed terrace while not being in a much better paid job than I was. However she rarely bought herself clothes when we were children and had to save up to buy us toys for Christmas.

In their early 20s they drank loads and went to loads of concerts because it was a lot cheaper.

Different things get more or less expensive over time.

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

We chose to buy because, in the area of the NE we live, it's cheaper by about £200 a month for our mortgage than it would be to rent the exact same house next door.

Yeah we pay £150 less on our mortage a month than we did renting a one bed flat on the same street.

Yep, also cheaper for us to buy than rent. Mortgage is £1300 a month, rent for the same size flat in the same area was £1950!!!

Ok completely understand that, but then is it a false economy?

My kitchen and bathroom will be replaced when they are deemed old (20 years I think). Boilers are replaced regularly. If something major goes wrong, it's not on me to sort out. I don't have to pay building insurance or worry about being able to pay for unexpected house repairs.

I'm not concluding that I am better off as obviously you can make money on a house and upscale your standard of living. I'm just trying to work out if it's worth it in my situation.

I would most likely have a mortage of around £100 - £150 less than I pay in rent but it scares me to think of how my SIL boiler broke on the weekend before Christmas and had to be replaced which she has had to do through a new boiler finance scheme with her supplier!

Sorry to hijack the thread, seemed to make more sense to post here than start a new thread.

For us, we bought at age 24. We lived with in laws to save the deposit, now have a child and would never raise a deposit now to buy but at least have equity in the house as a kind of savings if ever needed.
My first ever rental from moving out of my parents had leaks, dodgy wiring, mice and a non contactable landlord (who wanted his rent in cash posted through his letterbox every month) I vowed to never have that occur again. People sell houses and cause tenants to have to leave their homes.

The security of ownership is something I needed to have, personally.

and a new boiler would be 2-3 thousand. The lesser amount paid in rent earning yourself money as interest in savings to be used towards such a thing to me is no false economy.

however - we were private renters, not eligible for HA or council

Well it depends. We've got more money to sort out anything that breaks because we didn't go for a stupidly high mortgage relative to our income, we went for one that leaves us plenty of money.

When I was renting it was a PITA to get anything fixed quickly. I prefer having control over what gets done when.

I don't own but want to, one day, because our boiler broke shortly before Christmas and we are still waiting for lettings agents to stop mucking about and get it fixed. It would be cheaper to pay a mortgage Vs rent and I'd have security in my home that even if the boiler does break, no one's going to evict us, we will have something at the end of it (mortgage is paying towards something, rent is so temporary) and we can sort out things like repairs, horrible old carpets etc according to our own wants & how much we can afford.

I'd rather be sitting in a cold house that I own, than a cold house someone else owns that I pay money to stay in!

I am now 52, hubby and I bought our first house together way back in 1986. It was a 2 up 2 down in north-west town. A popular area to buy for most of my friends. Our first house cost £16k. Our combined incomes at the time were around £18 k. 100% mortgage, no deposit needed. Both working full time. Low-level jobs.

Comparable to now. A similar house in that area is selling for £185k on average. Average wages for what we were doing then would be combined at around £30k. Similar jobs would be on zero contracts so unable to get a mortgage anyway.

That is what the problem is. Those first-time buyer houses have been bought up by private landlords propping up pensions. No job security, no 100% mortgages. No houses to buy. No new stock coming on to market as landlords not selling them as regularly as first-time buyers used to. :-(

Exactly DuchessChesh

There is a lot of competition, my DSis was outbid buy BTL landlords something like 10 times before they managed to buy a starter house

NameChangeNine

You do realise that the kitchens/boiler replacements are not free. They will be paid for out of your rent.

At some point your rent will go up to pay for these things the landlord doesn’t do these things for free