to reaally not be able to understand why, people say they can't afford to buy or rent a house if they are working?

[iamtrickyjigsaw]

i mean me and dh don't earn much, but we managed it just about.
i just can't understand all these peple on here saying i can't afford rent or a morgage.

If you know you were lucky and understand others how others struggle, why are writing a thread like this?

Squeaky - I dont think you live in my world

'Hard in the era of instant gratification though.'

Oh, not to mention an era of redundancies, with some of the highest rates of unemployment for over a decade, growing inflation and energy prices rises of up to 40% for some customers, teeting just three months away from official announcement of a recession.

Of course, it's much easier to take the non-thinking option and conclude it's all because everyone's out buying iPods and DS Lites for their pet dogs.

You are obviously not from around here iamtricky...The rent on a one bedroom flat is minimum £150 a week. 3 bedroom house-at least a grand a month. And you would be very lucky to find one for that.

well i think most people would say our earnings are poor.

tiggiwinkle what area is that? is moving not an option?

'well i think most people would say our earnings are poor.'

and you've already stated that you were 'lucky' and saved money whilst living with your parents.

others have stated that in many areas the average value/price of a home at all and of private rents far oustrips the average wage.

what part of the equation are you not understanding? that 2+1 doesn't equal 6?

and of course, if a person moves to an area of lower rents, these areas are usually areas where there are little work opportunities or you face a commute, which in turn is not free.

is that basic enough of an explanation?

A very unposh area of London iamtricky.

By iamtrickyjigsaw on Sun 26-Oct-08 14:01:08
tiggiwinkle what area is that? is moving not an option?

PMSL at the idea of uprooting and moving away from everything you know just to buy an over priced pile of bricks.

Deffo a troll.

"Back in the day, if you were saving for a house, that was the only place your non-discretionary income went. "
Back in the day average house prices were not ten times average incomes. Back in the day, prices did not keep going up faster than anyone could hope to save (as they have done for the past number of years).

In truth most people who are working could afford to rent somewhere. But they cannot necessarily afford to rent a place suitable for a family. I know someone earning £13k per annum, who has his daughter every weekend. One bedroom flats start at about £500 per callender month, so that is what he has to pay, and miss out on any other "discretionary" spending. Renting in a HMO or bedsit would mean he would not be able to have his DD to stay. It is a really miserable situation And before anyone makes smart remarks about how he should get a better job or turn back time so he can buy before the boom - not everyone is as fortunate as you and sneering at the unlucky is really not decent.

Anyway, moving to a new area often means moving away from work, family, friends, social support networks, and so on. Not such an easy choice (and not one that necessarily works out well for state agencies, who have to make up for the social capital that people left behind when they moved).

or where you can't go to your job anymore because your commuting costs put you in the red or make it impossible for you to drop off/collect your child from childminder in the designated hours.

yep.

'And before anyone makes smart remarks about how he should get a better job or turn back time so he can buy before the boom - not everyone is as fortunate as you and sneering at the unlucky is really not decent. '

Here, here, Upwind!

Or especially when you bought your ex-council house for cheaper than you can buy most lockups nowadays.

Not meaning you personally, of course, Upwind .

Expat

It really winds me up that, for the past few years years, so many people in real life claim not to be able to understand why my DH and I can't afford to buy. They refuse to comprehend just how insanely high prices are relative to earnings. They insist we could afford an former council flat in a crime-ridden ex-mining town with poor transport links to the city and jobs. They claim this would just be a "starter home" so we should somehow find a way of enduring living in poor conditions with lengthy commutes, and no family time with our baby, so we can get on to the "property ladder". They can't explain how such a thing would actually be in any way helpful, given that rising prices push the rungs of this "ladder" further apart, making it impossible for us to upsize. Falling prices would bring us into negative equity, again, making it impossible for us to upsize.

Ignorant people refuse to engage their brains on this issue and instead parrot the conventional wisdom from back when they first bought. The media encourage this idiocy by insisting on calling rises in the cost of housing "good news" and falls in rents and prices "doom and gloom": arseholes.

oh, yes, the mythical 'ladder', right up there with company loyalty, final salary pension schemes and unicorns.

feckless these homeless people

pmsl @expat company lyalty ...unicorns ...splutter

Yes, it would be easy to motivate ourselves to do like they used to do in the old days and divert all discretionary expenditure towards buying a house, even a "starter home".

However, sacrificing all comforts and luxuries to buy a tiny, badly-built flat with no space for our family to grow and no realistic hope of ever upsizing seems rather pointless. And I don't ever forget that we are extremely lucky to have even that much of a choice. We have luxuries, like our car, that we could do without if we so choose, but in reality there is nothing to be gained from that. We may as well just live in the moment and enjoy as much instant gratification as possible

So you make your choices, upwind, and live by them.

When we were first married we used garden furniture in our living room because we did not consider that we could afford the real thing. That was in the mid-80s - so much for average salaries being able to stretch and stretch.

I don't see many young people nowadays willing to put up with that.

We need the car, an old beater we got for free, for DH to go to work to pay rent.

But it's such a luxury.

You know, really, he should just be rowing across the loch in a leaky boat to get there in a gale.

Putting on the heat from time to time, paying the electric bill and buying food.

Such luxury and instant gratification.

YABU You are lucky enough to be able to afford your house, bills etc. Some people are struggling with money thats all. Sorry if we can't live in your perfect world.
I am 18 and would love to move out but I simply don't earn enough ( and before you ask I'm working full time) So think before you start complaining about the fact that other people have problems.

[rolls eyes]

Nah, don't have any furniture at all in the living room in fact.

It's all the landlords.

I take care of it well, though. I used Lakeland leather cleaner on the couch and only the finest Bissell shampoo on the chairs.