In 2006 average house prices in the UK rose by 9.3%

[Upwind]

From the BBC (clicky) :

"This represents a ?40 increase per day," said Fionnuala Earley, the Nationwide's group economist.

"The top three performers in the final quarter of the year were Northern Ireland, Scotland and London, but even the relatively weaker regions in the Midlands and North have seen a marked pick-up in house price inflation this quarter," she added.

I am fairly sure that average "house price" includes flats. Means that renting has effectively cost us 40 pounds a day, that is 14,600 pounds over the past year - I seriously think that if we cannot get acceptable rental housing or buy as our family grows we will be best off emigrating.

We're lifelong renters.

No way we could afford to buy the flat we rent, either.

It's worth about £180,000 and you'd laugh your arse off if you saw it.

That's what people keep missing.

All this talk about mortgages, mortgages, mortgages.

No one stops to think that, as the price to buy in general increases, so do rents.

It is?

I'll take your word for it, there's no way we'll ever be able to buy, anyhow so it's a moot point.

that'll be why we had to drop our price by 5% then and why ours is now only worth 6% above whats our neighbours paid 4 years ago.

My brother has been renting, waiting for the property crash. He's been waiting a good few years now. They have rented two lovely houses however over that time. I still don't know why they kind of like not living in their own place when they could however. Getting told off by the landlord for XYZ when you're grown up must be annoying.

I don't mind renting b/c then I don't have to deal w/repairs.

LIZS - maybe your neighbours paid too much? And I don't know your circumstances, but if you are staying in the area surely it is good if prices there have not trebled in the past few years - means you can afford bigger and better than if they had .

That is why I don't understand when people boast about how much more their house is "worth" than when they bought it. Unless they plan on selling it and never buying another surely they are worse off? Means they have to pay more stamp duty if they move and buy again and the new house will also be worth more.

Xenia - as has already been pointed out, these days it costs less to rent the same flat or house than paying the mortgage would.

We would very much prefer to buy - as a grown up it is infuriating being told off by a landlord and having to put up with their shoddy repairs, their ugly and uncomfortable furniture. Worst of all is that we could, at any time, be given our notice to quit which would be horribly disruptive when we have children of school age. Thing is we can't afford to buy any place you could and would want a family.

We can just about manage to rent one - but as the years go by our rent will keep increasing while the price you paid for your house has already been paid if you see what I mean.

Up, I agree. It just meant I had to pay my exhusband masses of money on the divorce. If it hadn't risen in value it would have been a very different situation although I suppose then I might have had to sell the house. It also makes it harder for children to buy in due course too.

I once worked out that what we bought in 1983 on the salaries we were on then in London compared with the salaries for those jobs today was not actually that different but that was because those salaries had kept up with house prices. That is the key issue I suppose - the fact most salaries haven't kept up with house price rises.

Our flat was unfurnished and is assured tenancy.

That's why we took it.

Location as well.

It's a misconception that you don't have to deal with repairs etc. We've been faced recently with 2 electric pull switches breaking, bath leaking and flat roof leaking. dh is diy minded and sorted out the light switches himself, otherwise I've had to deal with getting the letting agency to pull the stop out and get the handyman round, and now I'm dealing with him direct to arrange him coming round and sorting out the roof. It feels really intrusive. And who pays for these repairs? We do, through a raise in rent to defray landlord's expenses!

HATE RENTING, just HATE it. House smells of old people, decor is tired, everything done on the cheap etc. And yet this is all we can afford in the area to rent, let alone buy.

spot on Xenia - and another thing I don't understand, when average incomes go up this is inflation and bad. When house prices go up it is reported as good news even though it increases the cost of living. I keep thinking it should be better if we all earned more and needed to spend less on accommodation

I agree upwind. House prices rises are always seen as a good thing - on Today they greet the news as if it's like promise of a sunny day or an England win (as if). Why? For those on the property ladder it doesn't mean much unless you are selling up and intend to live in a cardboard box. For those with no property it just means the first rung is an unassailable as ever. We own our own house (well the mortgage company does) and we have plenty of equity but until our income magically increases, or some previously unknown rich relative dies, we can't afford to move up - something we really could do with doing.

Not gone up where I live, prices have gone down. Estate agents are still pricing properties at the same level as a year ago, but the actual selling prices are about £5-10k less. Not that I've been checking UpMyStreet or anything like that ...

Still booming in Edinburgh!

Last year prices rose 22%.

I live in Edinburgh as well and it is ridiculously expensive to buy anything. We live in a one bed room flat on the top floor with no lift which I bought when I left uni 8 years ago. I could not afford to buy it now.

I think that part of the problem in Edinburgh is that people "buy to let" as an investment. This pushes up the prices and means that ordinary people cannot afford to either get on the property ladder or (like me) to move up the ladder.

A lot of my friends from university are very well off now and I have been party to converstations about propery prices along the lines of "oh yes we veiwed that house too, went for a reasonable price in the end, £625,000" I have to pull myself together not to fall off my chair as people nod in agreement!

Is madness I tell you.

Prices are still affordable because more and more women with children are working -and the income multiplier is misleading as it implies that people are buying houses with only one salary which is no longer generally so.

We are all working harder for less and less it seems! Emigration sounds like a good answer to me

I live in Ilkley - a small northern town

"-The least affordable town for an FTB in the UK is Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire where the average property price is 16.7 times the average income of a FTB household. Nine towns had a price to income ratio for FTBs above 10 times in 2006. Eight were in the South East, along with Ilkley in West Yorkshire."

GUTTING

Going up before most women with under 5s now work and most people buying have two incomes and also because some parents help their children to buy and for me one main reason as someone who remembers paying 11% interest if interest rates are half those rates then you can borrow double for the same amount as those of us buying when rates were 11% could afford - massive difference.

I was working out the sums when we bought our first little house in outer London. My initial salary was £6,250 and my exhusband's about £7,500 in 1983. Our day nanny was paid £7,500. The house cost about £40k. Those houses in that road now sell for about £230k and the equivalent salary for someone in the job I did is about £31k. So price went up 5.75 times since 1983 and the wages I was earning up 4.96 - not the huge difference you might expect. Even the head of dept teacher salary of ex h of £7.5k now at about £30k presumably is 4 x as much. So I suppose my point is that in some ways house prices and incomes have kept pace and it was a struggle in 1983 and is a struggle now.

sorry for being thick but what a FTB? Duh

I think that the average house price in Edinburgh is over £200,000 which is 10 times my full time salary

Forgot the other interesting comparison on that too - nanny wage differences. Not sure what full time daily nanny gross salary now is in outer London. More than the £7.5k of 1983 - £27k?

What is FTB?

We've just bought a house, as we were promised by our advisor that it would cost the same as renting. Like hell it will.

Over the next 4 years, it's averaging out at over £200 a month over, and will end up at nearly £400 over. Not including mortgage protection.

First Time Buyer