How are people affording housing

[MattBerningerstrophywife]

I live in a fairly low cost part of Scotland.
but recently I’ve been seeing rent for 2/3 bed flats between £800 to £1500 per month.

when the average salary is around £30k: how are people affording this?

Another issues is building houses of whatever tenure is the right answer, but housing developers don't want to ease supply too much to meet demand, otherwise they lose profit.

How do we incentives developers to build enough stock so that prices do actually ease? Mandatory building targets are good for councils but does this extend to providers?

Surprised you were bashed for saying housing crisis affects the fertility crisis as that just seems so absolutely correct to me. In my 20s I didn’t know a single person who wasn’t living in a house share or with parents. For couples to afford a place of their own to rent was unheard of,let alone buying.

It happens a lot on here, people somehow think everyone should just be happy house sharing and move up north to start a family

I'm 31 and the friends I know who have bought houses have either lived with parents till the age of 26ish to save or stopped renting and moved back in with parents to save, and even then they've bought houses which have needed loads of work doing. Also parents giving thier children a bit of money towards the deposit and things like that. These are young couples with no children and 2 full time jobs. Basically it seems to me like if you don't have help from your parents you can't do it.

I’m old, bought my first flat in late 1990s for 1/4 of what it’s worth today and have proceeded up the ladder. We now live in a big house we earned ourselves. One of us works in finance, one GP. We have two young children (7,9) even though we are 50 and 52. What’s embarrassing is when we invite their school friends around their parents are much younger than us and so struggle massively more with housing. Our house is embarrassingly big.

House price inflation is diabolical. If people spend all their money on housing they have no money left for paying more tax to fund better social housing.

Renting is insecure and adds unnecessary stress on the tenant - damaging mental health. And obviously temporary housing is even worse!

if people don’t feel their life is secure they won’t have kids - population crisis,

Extra financial pressure = extra stress on people. It’s not good at all.

Government wastes so much money on paying housing benefit to private landlords. In days gone by we had council housing for normal people who wanted to rent. We need to build council housing rapidly. We need to look at immigration and see if it is sustainable. We also need to ban overseas people and companies from buying UK property. Many are content to leave flats employ and take the house price gains.

It feels like we are playing musical chairs with housing. There are not enough houses to go around.

It's appalling imo that these new builds that are left unsold for so long aren't bought by the councils to be used for much needed council housing. And yes they can afford it. They spend billions on temporary accommodation (and local health boards need loads of money to fund the health harms of bad or insecure housing).

It's not only young people. Increasing numbers of older people - in their 40s and older, are private renting.

The problem is cost of living and cost of housing has been based on households with two incomes. So someone living alone is stuffed if they earn under about £60k. It means single people and single parents are at a significant disadvantage.

Yes this is a big problem. And it never used to be a thing. When I was younger and renting it was pretty easy to get a place as a single person. That's no longer the case. Especially because as a pp noted, even if someone can afford it by being frugal or budgeting, many landlords have fairly high minimum income requirements.

I often see threads on MN where a woman is in a terribly unhappy marriage - or even a violent and abusive one, and sometimes posters jump on them for not immediately LTB. But how can they do that? Temporary accommodation including refuges exist, yes, but that's just temporary. And a lot of temporary accommodation is substandard and unsafe (but costing billions).

More people outright own there own homes than rent or have mortgage.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-11922413/More-people-England-homes-outright-mortgage-rent-figures-reveal.html

Figures show that 32.6 per cent of dwellings were owned outright in England in 2021, up from 30.7 per cent in 2011.
Another 28 per cent of properties are owned with a mortgage or loan, down four percentage points on a decade earlier.
And 20 per cent are privately rented, up 3.7 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said.
In addition, 17 per cent are classed as social housing.

17 % + 33% -so just under 50% aren't affected by mortgage increases or private rental increases.

Rest - some will have lower mortgages or be on higher wages - or have some inheritance or being in cheaper area or two wages coming in or living with parents/family.

Everyone else and more likely younger they are - is struggling.

I have wondered for last decade how people managed - large parts of UK we couldn't afford to buy in and last few years rests are just so high.

Plus PP saying it adversely affecting fertility rates - yes absolutely and as housing swallows up more of any income there less to go round rest of economy.

I live in a HA home and although I'd like to move, I'll never give it up as I have a lifetime tenancy.

The developers spent too much on the land when interest rates were lower and don't want to sell the flats at lower prices. If they simply don't sell there's a constant shortage.

Overseas buyers hold uk property - this shouldn't be allowed.

Well, how do you afford it? I’m assuming you live somewhere.

I don't know, is the answer from me.

My DP is on £30k, and half his take home pay goes on rent.
My brother has over half his income go on rent. He is very depressed as he literally pays for bills, basic food and nothing else.
I read on here that landlords charge lots for rent to price out people on benefits, because they are not allowed to turn them down. Well, it is pricing out people who are working too.

I got lucky, I helped a friend buy a flat and so owned a certain percentage of the property, it increased in value and he earned a lot of money so could easily buy me out, that then formed my deposit.

I bought my flat at 30, due to the above I had a very good deposit, the mortgage is around £2,500 a month for a three bed flat. There’s a one bed flat in the same building currently on rightmove for just over £1,000 per week! Another one was recently available for £950 a week. The people in the building who own aren’t the sort of people who could afford that level of rent.

Far far more starter homes that people on thr average income can afford, not big new estates full of four bed houses.

because we bought our house years ago: and houseflation means that we are in a house that we pay about a third as our mortgage than it would cost to rent the same house.

And trust me, I recognise our privilege as I see many of my younger friends and family paying more in rent for a much smaller flat than we pay in mortgage.

we were lucky: born earlier, live in low cost part of country, got help with our deposit from in laws (my family were not as comfortable), been in a stable relationship for a long time and in fairly well paid jobs.

until 2020 our area was affordable for most people: now it’s not. And something needs to be done to make housing affordable again

It’s only become clear to me more recently because I don’t rent. If I rented, I would have noticed it earlier. Friends and family personal relationships recently changed meaning they moved from renting socially to looking at private lets.

We have a mortgage of £1312 a month. We both work two jobs, it used to be that the second job was purely fun money and savings. It’s now required.

They're not. There's people in their forties still living with their parents and I know SO many whole families living in one hotel room together. It's straight up madness. I managed to get out the ratrace with shared ownership but a lot of people think its a scam. (And privately renting paying more per month with the risk of eviction is apparently not a scam???)

This doesn't bode well for labours housing targets
www.independent.co.uk/business/growth-in-uk-construction-sector-slows-amid-housebuilding-decline-b2642357.html

Sounds familiar. Have had to move a few times because of this issue. After a pandemic and now SEN kids, I’ve no friends locally and no real prospect of making friends. I’m a lovely person, fun and well balanced with post grad qualifications and a professional career, and it’s a very fucked up position to be in.

London councils are collectively spending 90 million quid a month right now on keeping people in temporary accommodation.

The housing crisis in London is at the root of why local authorities are in state of semi financial collapse and struggling to fund essential services.

I think some get lucky. I know a couple who are on about 30/32K joint income as the woman only works part time out of choice. They bought a 180K property which is rare in our area but seem to be managing although a lot of people said they wouldn't be able to survive on that salary in the south east....

@MattBerningerstrophywife @Game0fCrones

I'm so sorry, I've reread my post and realised how sarcastic it came across, it was not meant that way!

What I was trying to say, was that regardless of whether or not you've been affected by the interest rate rises, it was all over the news, social media and forums such as mumsnet, of people stating that their mortgage/rent payments have nearly doubled....

Combine that with the rest of the COL crisis, many people, even on or a bit above average salaries, are really really struggling.

Many people are really having to choose which essentials they pay for, or are gaining ridiculous amounts of debt just to have the basics to survive.

I honestly don't mean to be rude or sarcastic, if anyone at this point is surprised by the cost of renting or housing in general, they are in a very privileged position to not realise or wonder how others are coping.

Why can’t people buy a plot of land? Land in the uk is scarce due to the size of the country in relation to the population density. Land needs to be purchased outright. You can’t get a mortgage on a building plot. It much more expensive to self build than to buy a flat in the uk. In some countries people only buy one property and live in it forever whilst in the uk we trade up.