House price madness

[Jadedbuthappy82]

Sorry to rant, but how on earth have house prices been allowed to rise so ridiculously. The going rate here for a basic three bed semi is £300k... The same houses would have sold ten years ago for less than half of that 😩

It's not the same everywhere, though.

3 bed terrace

3 bed end terrace

Town house

And if you want to get on the ladder how about

A 1 bed flat

Or maybe a 2 bed?

...all near me.

What's completely mad is how much prices can differ around the country.

(Not that I can afford to buy anywhere anyway!)

Well I think it will change soon, unlikely to have 6% interest rates & high house prices unless wages take off.

That's true.... It's so depressing isn't it. Just beyond shocking. Not enough affordable homes I agree... I pay 959 to rent a little cold damp box of a house atm which is pretty grotty inside and a kitchen the size of a cupboard. I have two children both with Sen and sensory issues so they only really settle in their own rooms. So for ease and their comfort I sleep in the lounge. It just got me thinking lately as it got colder (single glazing, no fireplace etc) that growing up I never imagined to struggle like this (private school ed, two degrees, good salary) and dream about one day having my own bed/bedroom. Sometimes all I can do is laugh or I think I'd cry. Glad it's not just me. I'm grateful for the reassurance of that at least.

Only answer - genuinely - is people having less kids. No one wants to talk about population control, but we need to. You see a new thread about people complaining (legitimately) about a lack of social housing, then talking about whether or not to have a 3rd kid.

There's a disconnect in thinking.

I’d take that, a bed semi in my area is about £650k!!

We have a Victoria terraced 2 bed and it was valued at OIEO £500k, so it’s all relative.

Don’t disagree with you though, it’s absolute madness. We want to buy a bigger house near a reasonably good school and need to find another £200k. It’s impossible

Very few people seem to understand that ever increasing prices make it harder to move up the ladder

But who do you think has "allowed" it? How would you stop it? Whose job is it to do that? It's market forces. Obviously there are people in your area who can afford to pay that for that sort of house, or they wouldn't be selling for that much.

I completely agree it's awful that the average house is now something like 7x the average wage when it used to be 3x, but the solution isn't to try to cap what people can sell their homes for - the only solution is to build a lot more housing stock so that supply increases to match demand.

My one bed flat in zone 2 in a (fairly rough) part of London was £80k in 2000 - now going for about £350-360k. It’s insane and there’s no way on Earth I’d be able to afford anything now

There's a disconnect in thinking.

You can say that again! 😆

You are aware the U.K. has an ageing population with years of falling birth rates. Why do you think we have job shortages & the gov desperate to bring in immigrants?

No one wants to talk about population control, but we need to

We have more over 65s than under 15s & whilst it's great life expectancy has increased healthy life expectancy hasn't so the NHS & social care are going to need £££££ in coming years. How do you suggest we go about population control?

But who do you think has "allowed" it? How would you stop it? Whose job is it to do that? It's market forces. Obviously there are people in your area who can afford to pay that for that sort of house, or they wouldn't be selling for that much.

It's to do with the fact we never recovered from 08 & have been low growth since then hence emergency low rates for years to attempt to stimulate growth.

It does seem expensive but that
house is a five minute walk from Tonbridge station, has 2 Ofsted 'Good' primary schools within half a mile, so it's In prime area.

Look at what 900k gets you in a grim part of East London

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127639475#/?channel=RES_BUY

I found these two charts that are quite interesting.

The Schroders graph shows how expensive houses were in the 19th Century compared to income - I had no idea but I guess that is why there was very little home ownership back then. The all time low seems to have been around WWI with quite a few ups and downs since. I would like to see a more up-to-date version of this but couldn't find one.

The Nationwide graph only shows a couple of decades, but it does show why so many people ended up having to sell up in the late 1980s. I hope we are not heading that way again.

I’m in Devon and 3 beds are £270K. Not a fancy pretty part either.

Quite simply the demand for housing has outstripped the supply of new housing being built since the 1980s.

This is due to this gut planning laws and also pressure from voters that own houses. If you own a house then it is in your self interest that few new houses are built as it will increase the price of your house. This is a bit of a false argument because it increases the price of all houses so if you ever need to move house then the house you want to buy has gone up in price too.

The UK now has a housing shortage of some 5 million of demand over supply so the answer is to simply build a shit load of housing. But no government will do this as they would never get elected on this policy.

You can't ignore the impact of interest rates

Only answer - genuinely - is people having less kids

People are doing this - fertility rate for replacement level needs to be 2.1 and we've been below this since 1973.

It was 1.65 in UK in 2009 - where I am it's 1.49.

However households have gone up as more people live along or in smaller family groups.

Apparently in next 10 + years of so a huge cohort of the population will start dying off in larger numbers - as people in them hit early late 70s/early 80s - some experts think this may impact prices but many aren't sure.

Same around my area, can see sold prices on rightmove that people brought 3 Bed semis for £200k just under 2 years ago and they're now on for £330k+,thats a 50% increase in 2 years, its unsustainable, but people are still buying them, no doubt the ones that have overleveraged themselves on a mortgage and will soon be complaining that they can't afford said mortgage because rates have gone up by 1% and we're all suppose to feel sorry for them maxing out on debt

A 1930s 3 bed semi where I live is about £450k. You can get one in a newer less nice area for about £320k.

I've moved 2 hours outside London. Cheap up here (4 bed house for cost of our 1 bed flat) and I've only needed to go into the office 2x a week post covid. Prices in London are bonkers but its the same here in the nice cities. We had to move to a dump!

That's obviously not true since we have an aging population, and decline is predicted to begin in the next couple of years.
Under occupation is a bigger issue

Even in the last 5 years its gone up a lot. Our 3 bed went up 60k in that time (got it valued to remortgage). We really wanted to upgrade to a 4 bed but I think they've gone up even more sadly and becuase we used help to buy to get our house so our equity gains pretty much helped us repay that but not enough extra to get a 4 bed

3 bed semis are about £260k here, SW market town. We bought our 3 bed plus study townhouse 9 years ago for £170k and it's worth £280k now.

There is definitely going to have to be some adjustment of expectations towards 2 bed houses and flats. I work with a 23 year old who is a FTB and he seems perplexed that he can't afford a 3 bed for him and his girlfriend. I was a 23 year old FTB in 2008 and we bought a teeny tiny 2 bed house with no gas at a 7% mortgage rate.

Bushwoood isn't grim . You have great transportation, have lovely woodland/green space on your door step and great schools (primary at least).

We wanted to live in Wanstead but the stamp duty holiday last year sent prices spiralling. We have a £150-200k household but couldn't afford the size of semi we wanted so bought something that we could extend without sacrificing the garden footprint