to think all this nonsense about house prices being too high is just that - Nonsense!

[RazahFluffy]

DH and I have long been in the property game. We actually met whilst working as Estate Agents back in 1999!

I've seen a lot in my time as an agent - 2008/2009 were a bit of a blip, but overall, there's one thing I've always had faith in, and that's bricks and mortar and that prices always go up. They aren't making more land after all 😁

As well as working in property, we've got a few of our own. We started off as accidental landlords after we got together and kept both our homes to rent out when we decided it was time to move in together and find a place of our own. Over time we've added a few more to the portfolio.

We are lovely landlords. We let our tenants have our houses as their homes, and we like to do little things like send them Christmas hampers, and know their birthdays so we can send a card and usually a Pizza Express voucher.

Anyway, there's a lot of rubbish being written recently about interest rates and the economy affecting the market. Nothing could be further from the truth where we are!

It's still buoyant and the buyers registering at the agency are no different to usual - excited to either 'get on the ladder' or move to their next step towards their eventual forever home😊Vendors are still confident. They agree with us that houses are actually a bit too cheap, all things considered because inflation is quite high.

The one thing I'd have to say is if you can't afford a mortgage at the moment - think about your expectations. You might have thought previously that you could afford a 4 bed, but if you can only get a 3 bed for now is that really so bad? First time buyers especially I feel need to be realistic!

Property always goes up and it's no different now. We're really confident and having seen it all in this game, we really think it's time to believe in the market💪

Strangely enough I am more than capable of dividing a figure by 3 myself.
The answer is of course more than double the average income of a full time salary in the UK. Quite how that makes it a bargain I am not sure

It was sarcasm- sorry you misunderstood!

I'm a massive housing bear, I was agreeing with you but posted too early. Read the message after.

To answer your question, your salary would have to be about 87k if you offered the asking price and wanted quite rightly to restrict yourself to a 3x salary multiplier.

You would have to be nuts to pay this though.

That house is massively overpriced given current lending conditions - but if you want my most bearish price, that should be about 130k at best, inflation adjusted based on sales price history and long term earnings growth in a market where lending hadn't been so loose.

But in the real world, at current IR rates, I would say anyone bidding more than 200k is bonkers.

That'd still require a 160k mortgage, with a 40k deposit, so you would need to be earning around 55k. 160k mortgage would be about 1000 p/m. I still think that's too expensive, because you could rent that place for similar.

Nice place though. Just hugely overpriced.

Are you saying the op was sarcasm?

@jgw1

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4605305-to-think-the-amount-available-to-borrow-for-a-home-is-going-to-be-slashed?page=8&reply=120230586

And that thread was me being very, very moderate on my opinions on UK housing..

@onthefencesitter But the point is OP claims she is a good saver and thats why she managed to save so much after deductions but that is not the case is it as she had no outgoings the cost of that fell onto the parent. Had the parent charged rent at an appropriate rate they would indeed be making a profit as a landlord would. However, if they charged what her relative costs would be still she would have not been able to save anywhere near as much. You cant argue that living alone bares the same cost as having a lodger or another person in your home as it does not. If your parents were to charge you rent you would not have been able to save as much so quickly therefore they do contribute as they pay for your living expenses

News for the OP from the Guardian Here
First:
“An era of double-digit price growth was already coming to an end but the mini-budget looks set to accelerate that process,” said Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank. “Sentiment has been damaged as lenders have struggled to fix rates, marking the end of a 13-year period of ultra-low borrowing costs. It’s a fairly safe bet that UK house prices have now peaked.”

And second:
“Near-term expectations point to a further strong growth in rental prices over the coming three months,” said RICS.
Increasing rental rates will help landlords when they come to remortgage their properties, but as many as 30% of those with buy-to-let loans are likely to fail their renewal test, according to a report by credit rating agency Moody’s on Wednesday.
In order to refinance, buy-to-let mortgage holders have to meet affordability criteria, based on a minimum interest coverage ratio (ICR), that soaring interest rates makes more difficult to meet.
“A 4% increase in interest rates by the end of 2023 would push 30% of buy-to-let loans below their minimum ICR requirement,” said Carmen Brunetti Llavona, analyst at Moody’s Investor Services."

It's all very well and good giving people advice when you live in an ivory tower
In your job you only come into contact with people who can afford places so your coming from it at the wrong angle

Yes I agree that this does not make her a good saver; however living with parents is still more attainable for the young FTB than having parents who can give you a deposit. I mean, the vast majority of the UK population is urban so for lots of people, they would live within commuting distance of a city with jobs even if that city is 2 hours away. I knew people in London who saved their deposits by living with parents in Sussex.

@onthefencesitter Im not speaking about London as i said before london is different and help is needed. No one can deny that. Imo thats why CTG and IHT on london properties shouldn't be in place. Imo Londoners and other equivalent areas should have a much much higher minimum wage. Anyway thats another discussion.

Generally in the UK houses are affordable if you work a decent job and if not a house then a flat.

In the 90s people used to get together in their early 20s and live together to start savings then. Now people aren’t in a serious relationship until their 30s. It makes a huge difference to combine salaries. No ones saying its not harder, but it is not impossible like some people carry on (unless in london etc).

Where to start with your nonsense??? "If we all sold up tomorrow, what would people do? There would be an enormous shortage of properties, and homelessness would be rampant."
Those properties would not evaporate. They would be sold and lived in by the buyer, who would thereby get a chance to own their own home, or rented again, and lived in. So it would be just fine.
All 'help to buy' did was raise prices and put money into tory-donating house developers, making it harder for those who couldn't get right to buy, and demographically a lot of the public money put into it went into the pockets of people buying expensive houses who could just have bought a cheaper one. If we were to do it, and I think we ought not to have, there ought to have been a cap on it so it only helped those buying at the bottom of the market AND who could prove that they hadn't the money to get a mortgage without it, and it certainly should not have been available for new houses which are overpriced for their space compared to second-hand houses.

Most people I know live with family or in flatahares so presumably could start saving them before meeting someone in their 30s. I married at 22 and lived together with MIL plus 3 SIL for 3 years to save to buy a flat in London..but I think without me, DH could probably still afford to buy our flat in his early 30s as he would just stay with MIL for longer.

Well indeed. Except of course that none of us wonders why estate agents are hated because we all hate them. I’m curious when they’ll cease to exist, they don’t add a lot to the process anymore.

He doesn't have a partner - he's a home bird who doesn't really go out much, his friends have all moved away. His friendship groups were decimated when Covid hit and his life was shut down for two years. Still waiting for the OP to conjure up that magic for him!

The best one possible? What are you smoking?
Tell the Church of England, and many others, whose finances were wrecked by property investment.
Property is a risky investment. Always has been. The last major domestic property crash saw prices drop 20% for householders. And commercial property speculation is a whole can of worms, and much riskier. It can have high returns, but it can also have high losses. The twoi usually go together. And now is not a good time to jump in to commercial property speculation.

Other posts by OP suggest she expects the government to prop her up with our money if things get tight for her.
She can go and do one.

Translates to “sure, why not? It means I keep earning”… we see you @RazahFluffy

From OP "The other statements are all true - property does only go up,"

See also:
1990 – 1993
In 1993 the UK saw one of its biggest recessions since World War II. In 1990 the average house price had reached £57,683. By 1993 it was averaging at £51,210 [1]. prices uk 1980 graph (Link)

This figure is not achievable. You’re in property so perhaps you could get your calculator out this time and work out the probability this studio would have 100% occupancy to generate this level of income. I imagine it’s infinitesimally low. Then let’s talk about net profit.

Sorry link here: Link

Landlords are providing a hugely valuable social service. And let's face it, without us there would be massive problems

😂😂😂😂

I just spat out my cornflakes. That's the best joke I've read this morning. Thanks for the laugh op!

Indeed- costs of renting out, servicing gas boiler/fires, electric checks, replacing and repairing items that are the landlord's responsibility, and general maintenance, agents fees if you use one, lawyers' fees for drawing up contracts if you don't. Inspections when lease changes. Plus any aggro re unpaid rents, your tenants annoying the neighbours, your tenant complaining about the neighbours.....and soon you'll have to get it to a level of insulation and electrical safety that a lot of properties won't be able to meet without huge interventions, and may require properties to be empty for months while you rip them apart to get it fitted if it needs dry lining, even if you can find a tradesperson to do it. Good luck with all that.

Anyone that replied seriously after OP talked about printing more money is a rotten egg 😂

And, I can't let it go, pooh bear is of very little brain - not paddington.

I made some money from the UK property market some time ago (as well as more risky gambles like forex). Sure enough, it's fairly simple once you're over the first hump of getting to own a property you don't live in. Making lots of money? Sure.

But isn't it immoral? After all, what it amounts to is living off other people's work without really doing anything yourself. We need builders to build houses, yes; workers to maintain houses; some sensible way of allocating housing ... but landlords? What do they provide while they take rent from those who work?

(OK, some landlords also work. But that's not what I'm saying. The landlord, as a landlord, gives nothing but takes a lot. Parasites, in other words.)

Yes, I know. I'm saying what I did was immoral. I justify it by thinking that I looked after my children (bought houses for them all so they didn't have to worry), and, well, by thinking I might as well take advantage of the system I found myself in. Now I just live quietly on a little nest egg with my partner, retired and volunteering in various ways for the community. I am no longer a landlord.

I benefited from the economic system we share. But wouldn't it be better if we sacked all the landlords and shared housing communally somehow? There are various ways of doing this, not all authoritarian-based ... Sweden has an interesting communal structure for apartments, for instance. And there are others.

In short, though, I suppose I want simply to point out that the OP here is boasting about ... well, about being a bad person, a leech on her fellow citizens. Hmm?

My dad is a commercial landlord (not in the UK). He owns two office buildings as well as commercial space below for a restaurant and also a pub (not the British kind, the karaoke kind). I don't feel what he does is exploitative as he mainly rents offices to small businesses who wouldn't have the means to buy their premises nor would it make sense for them to do so given that many small businesses fail within 10 years. He once rented to a startup that was dependent on government seed funding and then closed a few years later when that funding dried up.

I was appalled when I came to the UK and realized that landlords mainly seemed to rent to people who couldn't afford to buy. in my home country, renters tend to be foreigners or expats; locals tend to live in state subsidized housing or buy privately (home ownership rate is 89% as you can buy the state subsidized housing). I think that is what makes renters vulnerable- if they have limited means and can't afford to get evicted, the landlord has leverage. This arrangement is toxic for the low income or even average people. Someone renting a flat in mayfair for 30k a month on a high income doesn't have that sort of relationship. Firstly there are few people who can afford the rent so the landlord probably would be careful not to upset the current tenant. Secondly he can afford moving costs and would probably say f* you if the landlord tried to increase the rent unreasonably. i mean, for a rich person, renting is a very different arrangement; a lot of celebrities rent for example as they benefit from the flexibility and the maintenance of luxury properties is very expensive (so better for a landlord to do it). I frown upon landlords who rent out mass market non luxury properties as that kind of relationship is clearly exploitative.