To be angry that this government has further shafted everyone bar homeowners

[Kitchendisco73]

The eviction ban ends and the prediction is that about a million people who rent will be in trouble and at risk of losing their home.

Alongside that, the government has also shafted anyone who is a first time buyer by creating a fake housing boom using help to buy and the stamp duty holiday as prices have risen so much, those who it was allegedly meant to help are priced out.

In Cornwall, I read there were 10,000 air Bnb properties but 62 for long term rent for local families.

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/01/bank-of-england-monitors-uk-housing-boom-as-it-weighs-inflation-risk-dave-ramsden-covid

It’s entirely possible that there is a big housing crash coming too thanks to inflationary pressures.

Aibu to be angry- it’s just truly appalling and impossible for anyone (millions of people) who can’t get on the property ladder. Surely this madness has to end soon? You can’t just protect homeowners at the expense of everyone else. I am tired of the rampant inequality in this country.

People are just generally greedy
People are self-centred. Everyone is. We look at our own interest before those of complete strangers who might not be more deserving than you are yourself. How do you care about homeless people? They probably think that anyone with a roof over their head is greedy.

@Kitchendisco73

Well the tax payer is currently funding help to buy

You seem to be assuming that there has been a massive take up for help to buy when there simply hasn't been.

It's not all rosy for homeowners either. Some of us are struggling to move up the ladder because of the artificially inflated market.

As for landlords, would you be willing to have someone live rent-free in a house your paying for and not be able to evict them?

it’s not true that if a doctor or a teacher moves to a cheaper area they can buy?

True but not useful. Expensive housing areas are usually areas where the employment is. Can't afford to buy in an area if you don't have a job there.

How much can people borrow these days? If two people on minimum wage have 36k - the cheapest flat in my village is 257k and we are cheaper than the surrounding towns as i live in the cheaper bit of the expensive south east. There are lots of jobs that are minimum wage round here. So if they save the deposit (whilst renting) they need over 6 times their income lent. Maybe that is offered now.

I remember everyone being shocked at loans of 5 times joint income.

It is difficult for landlords too eg some have one property only, had to move into rented because of work and now have a tenant who has loads of money coming in but using covid as an excuse not to pay because they know until now they could not be evicted. The system is also part of the problem as the council will not house families unless they stop paying rent wait some months owing more and more to the landlord, go through full eviction proceedings - by which point including legal fees many landlords who often have mortgages are owed about £12k they will never get back and only then will the council rehouse the family.

All the state interference in this market causes the problems. If the state would just start winding back its interference things would be better for tenants and landlords and residential home owners. However we have a big state high tax high spend Tory party which is why they got elected.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay areas are very rarely unilaterally priced though...

In fact, apart from some rural areas, I cannot think of a single place that has uniformed pricing over any distance.

@osbertthesyrianhamster

There you go! People who cannot afford to buy, anything, didn't prioritise.

Not everyone, there are and always will be people who genuinely can’t afford to buy for various reasons. But there are people who can afford it if they wanted to but prioritise different things. That’s fine, it’s just annoying when they then moan about not being able to buy a property. I’m not talking about buying an avocado here and there, I’m talking about those who go on holidays every year, buy lunch and coffee and work every day, have new cars on finance, have dinner and drinks out, takeaways every week and then complain they can’t afford a house deposit. I’m not talking about everyone!

nobody has a right to live in their local area nor do they have a right to a property they can’t afford.

This is the sad bit though!

I grew up in one of the most deprived parts of the country. The high school is ranked 341 out of 344. I think when I grew up there were years where not a single student left with a single higher. But that is my community, my family, friends, and support system.

Then in comes the regeneration.

Millions spent. They knocked down 90% of it. New homes, new schools, new parks, library/ community centre, shops, town centre redevelopment etc.

And now nobody I grew up with can afford a home here.

You can say nobody has the right to live in their local area but I believe everybody should have the right to not be socially cleansed.

That's exactly what it is! Someone up thread mentioned highland clearances all over again -- absolutely! Now it's a naice area. Great. But there were a whole lot of naice people in that area who did their fucking best, and volunteered years of their time to make it a better place. I know a few in my family, and know more in wider circles. Running youth groups, volunteering at local churches, drug outreach programs, befriending, working with local police etc. Doing what they could to make their community better.

They have all been shafted. The generation who had homes cannot afford to move and the generation who grew up there cannot afford to buy. Why? Because they lived in the deprived area with a terrible school, an address that didn't fit on any CV and less opportunities in life.

And it's not capitalism that has shafted them, it's actually the exact opposite. It's the government meddling, throwing money left right and centre into keeping house prices artificially inflated. It is exactly the opposite of capitalism. The area would not have been regenerated had they not realised they were letting a gold mine of land so close to the city centre go to waste.

What you call 'market forces' I call socialism for the rich and social cleansing.

The housing problem was not caused by the government. It was caused by the banks offering cheap credit via predatory lending and unregulated markets. Has everyone forgotten the sub-prime mortgage crisis? People were allowed to borrow stupid amounts of money, so house prices went up and up.

Twenty years down the line we have a dilemma. Two decades worth of people paying stupid prices for houses, and if house prices fall significantly all of those people will be in negative equity. That is a very bad situation to be in. The housing market grinds to a halt because people don’t want to sell for less, and in many cases they’re trapped in their homes because they owe more than they can get back by selling. If they default on their mortgage the house sale doesn’t clear the debt, so people end up bankrupt and banks make huge losses and potentially collapse. THAT is why the government is supporting the housing market, because collapsing the housing market would collapse the banking system and subsequently the whole economy.

Increasing interest rates doesn’t solve the problem either, because people will do literally anything to avoid losing their homes. They stop spending disposable income in order to meet their monthly mortgage payment, and then the economy suffers due to lack of spending. In order for the economy to function, interest rates need to remain reasonable so that mortgages remain manageable and spending continues.

The fact is, a significant fall in house prices would necessarily be accompanied by a significant economic collapse, and the government can’t let that happen. They have to keep both the housing market and the economy going. If there was a house price crash, I can tell you for sure that FTB wouldn’t be buying cheap houses, because they’d probably have lost their jobs and be unable to afford expensive mortgages.

I agree re. second homes - that needs to be better regulated by the government. But I absolutely support them in propping up the housing market to prevent a corresponding economic crash.

It’s also important to note that historically most people didn’t own, they rented. Owner-occupancy has risen massively since WW2 and we now see it as the norm, but prior to that it was much less common. So perhaps in the long term we will return to a situation where the majority rent and it’s seen as normal.

@PenguinIce

You are totally right op and there should be some law that those in power should not be able to benefit so well from the rules they set.

I actually think as a country we could be at a bit of a tipping point. Where I live the hospitality trade can not get employees as locals have had to move further out. It is not worthwhile doing a long commute for minimum wage. Will second home owners and tourist still want to come once there is no one to provide hospitality and attractions?

If people no can no longer have a decent lifestyle with adequate housing when working full time then where is the incentive to work?

Yes. It’s the same where I live. The local pub could not cope with the volume of bank holiday customers because they were short staffed. And it won’t work for the employers to pay their staff more because the food already costs around £30 per head for a pint and two courses of bog standard pub grub. The customers won’t pay more.

The second problem even if minimum waged staff could afford rents locally is that there are no properties available. I’ve had notes pushed through my door asking if I would be willing to rent out my spare room (I don’t have a spare room to rent out). Housing is broken and it’s impacting negatively in all sorts of ways.

“The housing problem was not caused by the government. It was caused by the banks offering cheap credit via predatory lending and unregulated markets.”

And who sets the laws of the country that control what private businesses do?

I accept there does need to be some holiday homes, and some for people to rent,but nobody needs 7 and 8 houses. There should be a cap on the amount of homes owned by an individual. My family member would have been affected by the eviction ban ending. Fortunately, they are now living with me. They also lost their job due to the Pandemic and are still looking for other employment. There has been an announcement that they are letting more of the Afghanistan interpreters (who translated/worked with British Armed Forces ) settle in this country. I do understand this as many live in danger and they did serve our country. Although it is a relatively small number, my first thought was where are we going to house them all, obviously they will come with their families. The government has many issues that need to be addressed. The ending of the eviction ban could make a million people homeless. There are not enough affordable homes and heaven help us if they decide to increase interest rates. It's all very worrying I agree.

It’s sad that such an easy way to make money is through property and renting it out. Not investing in a business that makes things or in some service industry etc which would be good for society and the economy.

I can understand why if you were in the position to buy another property to rent out or hold as an investment you would given the returns and the lack of risk.

Personally given the societal issues it causes I’d say it’s immoral but I know a decent amount who do it.

The government really should bring in policy to tackle second home ownership. There should be higher taxes on your second. I know people who own second properties and then moan that they have to pay council tax on it when they’re hardly ever there

I did Help to Buy but what they don’t really tell you is after 5 years when you have to pay it back, you pay the percentage of the house’s current worth, so my house went up in value by quite a lot so I had to pay over 10 grand more than I thought I would be paying.

I honestly don't know who can afford the prices though!
It’s not about whether you can afford the house - what matters is that you can afford the mortgage. You get a mortgage based on your salary with no expectation of ever paying it off. Eventually you’ll downsize or die and the house will be sold to pay off the mortgage. You can even get an interest-only mortgage so you basically just pay the interest and never actually pay for the house.

As for who is buying - well I see a lot of young people buying houses with equity that their parents have released from their massively overpriced houses. Others buy at a slightly older age when their parents die and they inherit some money.

@Kitchendisco73 you haven't addressed my points about abandoned homes and people who sell to outsiders? You just restated your ire towards second homers and the government?

If there was a house price crash, I can tell you for sure that FTB wouldn’t be buying cheap houses, because they’d probably have lost their jobs and be unable to afford expensive mortgages.

This isn't true though. I bought as a FTB after the last crash and know a couple of other apprentices I worked with who did the same. I don't think any of us would be on the ladder now if it weren't for that because none of my friends who chose education over work have managed it in the 10 years since.

3 bedroom flat £60,150 (in an admittedly horrendous area on the opposite side of the city from family - but as per my last post I could not afford to buy there!). 10% deposit, from a mix of savings and family maxing out credit cards, which I repaid.

I just checked and the last flat to sell on that street, March 2021, £130,000.

I can't remember exactly but I think my mortgage was something like £350, and the single mum across the landing was paying £900 a month in rent, presumably helped by housing benefit. There were 3 houses of multiple occupancy in a stair of 6 so god knows how much they were paying.

Plenty of people do not lose their jobs during a house price crash / recession. Doctors and nurses, teachers, police officers, engineers, youtubers! pharmacists. People whose jobs depend on a thriving economy, yes. But not everyone.

@Kitchendisco73

ITS NOT MARKET FORCES! Help to buy uses public money to inflate the housing market under the guise of benefitting first time buyers - so much has been written about it.

You are right - it is a Ponzi scheme.

There needs to be more regulation re: second homes and on buying to rent.

Rural/ seaside communities are destroyed by 2nd (and often 3rd and 4th) homeowners who use a property a couple of weeks a year and sometimes don't even rent it out for the rest of the time - so houses are either standing empty, or are filled with people who use them to sleep in, but who contribute nothing to the local community.

They often don't even support local shops, because they bring food etc with them because it's cheaper to use supermarkets than to use local corner shops which can't compete with the big stores' prices).

They don't particularly take care of the area - they don't live there, so so what?, and in the winter the places become ghost towns.

Meanwhile local people are priced out of the market. It's shameful, and it breaks up often close-knit communities and splits families.

the cheapest flat in my village is 257k and we are cheaper than the surrounding towns as i live in the cheaper bit of the expensive south east
Where's that? My daughter lives in the SE, just bought a flat with her boyfriend for just over 100K. Not in the best area, but safe enough. Needs refurbishing and decorating, but they'll do it slowly as they get the money for it. He has just under 1 hour commute but he says it's worth it for having their own place.

@Kitchendisco73 the article clearly states the loan has to be payed back and not only that, the home owner has to pay a percentage of equity back! Which means the government get more money back that they invest in!

So the tax payer may initially fund the 25% loan but money is claimed back with interest and equity.

So I’m not sure why you have a problem with help to buy scheme?

Don't worry - a lot of BTL landlords are selling up so there'll be a glut of properties on the market soon which will drive down prices.

The same Govt you are slagging off has removed most of the incentives to be a landlord and also imposed new higher property standards and mandatory certificates.

There have been plenty of tenants who have taken advantage of the eviction ban to stop paying rent despite remaining on full income - I have no sympathy for them being evicted at all.

Yes not sure where this cheaper part of the south east is where prices are £257k for the cheapest flat. My area is supposedly one of the more expensive areas of the southeast outside of London and I’ve just searched on rightmove, there are over 1000 listings for 1 and 2 bed flats for under 200k within a 10 mile radius of me. Completely affordable for the average couple.

@winched

nobody has a right to live in their local area nor do they have a right to a property they can’t afford.

This is the sad bit though!

I grew up in one of the most deprived parts of the country. The high school is ranked 341 out of 344. I think when I grew up there were years where not a single student left with a single higher. But that is my community, my family, friends, and support system.

Then in comes the regeneration.

Millions spent. They knocked down 90% of it. New homes, new schools, new parks, library/ community centre, shops, town centre redevelopment etc.

And now nobody I grew up with can afford a home here.

You can say nobody has the right to live in their local area but I believe everybody should have the right to not be socially cleansed.

That's exactly what it is! Someone up thread mentioned highland clearances all over again -- absolutely! Now it's a naice area. Great. But there were a whole lot of naice people in that area who did their fucking best, and volunteered years of their time to make it a better place. I know a few in my family, and know more in wider circles. Running youth groups, volunteering at local churches, drug outreach programs, befriending, working with local police etc. Doing what they could to make their community better.

They have all been shafted. The generation who had homes cannot afford to move and the generation who grew up there cannot afford to buy. Why? Because they lived in the deprived area with a terrible school, an address that didn't fit on any CV and less opportunities in life.

And it's not capitalism that has shafted them, it's actually the exact opposite. It's the government meddling, throwing money left right and centre into keeping house prices artificially inflated. It is exactly the opposite of capitalism. The area would not have been regenerated had they not realised they were letting a gold mine of land so close to the city centre go to waste.

What you call 'market forces' I call socialism for the rich and social cleansing.

Excellent post!

And who sets the laws of the country that control what private businesses do?
Yes, the government wanted to increase home ownership so they allowed the banks to lend money to poor people who couldn’t really afford houses. That boosted demand for houses, thus boosting prices, and subsequently caused the sub prime mortgage crisis. If the government had insisted that only the rich could buy houses then this situation would have been avoided.