My Opinion Of Great Britain Today Part 1 Housing

[Cricko]

This has been troubling me for some time so I need to get it off my chest..

To start.

Housing.
After the War people were encouraged to have have larger families and if you were a normal couple,Say a Greengrocer and a Housewife the normal man's wage enabled you to be able to buy a house of your own....In those day's a House was £200 ish ...your salary was maybe a fiver a week..but still a house would cost you no more than a years wages in total. A mass programme of Council house building was encouraged and enabled the poorer off to at least have a home of there own.Today for this generation with average house prices at about 170k, I know of few people even Greengrocers who earn that a year.Even renting has gone out of all proportion..as you would need to be bringing in at least £1500 a month to be able to afford anything with bills etc. The days of renting a place on your own are long gone, the youth of today even working are only able to maybe rent a joint flat with there mates or in a room within a house and have little chance without outside help of ever buying there own place unless they are within a couple situation.. This was what happened in the 60's in the land of City Gents renting rooms, some progress eh. Then there is the social side of course where Girls have babies these days just to leave home and everything is paid for by the state....Example.....I Friend of mine phoned me a few weeks back telling me his daughter was once again pregnant by a different Father from the first child and was looking to move as she only has a two bed flat.. she has never worked a day in her life I hasten to add. He said she needed a bigger place, could I look around for him..The next answer to my question floored me .....How much can she pay I asked ..His reply was, being well the social will cover upto £800 a month.. House prices have gone totally out of proportion as has renting as to what people are able to earn these days as most youngsters are paid minimum wage. The doom and gloom will only continue until there is a mighty restructure of the Governments policy of no longer building affordable housing,but farm it out to joint ventures where they have no real costs involved.

Thoughts..

Part Two Tomorrow....Immigration.

 

[Mr. Benedict]

This has been troubling me for some time so I need to get it off my chest..

To start.

Housing.
After the War people were encouraged to have have larger families and if you were a normal couple,Say a Greengrocer and a Housewife the normal man's wage enabled you to be able to buy a house of your own....In those day's a House was £200 ish ...your salary was maybe a fiver a week..but still a house would cost you no more than a years wages in total. A mass programme of Council house building was encouraged and enabled the poorer off to at least have a home of there own.Today for this generation with average house prices at about 170k, I know of few people even Greengrocers who earn that a year.Even renting has gone out of all proportion..as you would need to be bringing in at least £1500 a month to be able to afford anything with bills etc. The days of renting a place on your own are long gone, the youth of today even working are only able to maybe rent a joint flat with there mates or in a room within a house and have little chance without outside help of ever buying there own place unless they are within a couple situation.. This was what happened in the 60's in the land of City Gents renting rooms, some progress eh. Then there is the social side of course where Girls have babies these days just to leave home and everything is paid for by the state....Example.....I Friend of mine phoned me a few weeks back telling me his daughter was once again pregnant by a different Father from the first child and was looking to move as she only has a two bed flat.. she has never worked a day in her life I hasten to add. He said she needed a bigger place, could I look around for him..The next answer to my question floored me .....How much can she pay I asked ..His reply was, being well the social will cover upto £800 a month.. House prices have gone totally out of proportion as has renting as to what people are able to earn these days as most youngsters are paid minimum wage. The doom and gloom will only continue until there is a mighty restructure of the Governments policy of no longer building affordable housing,but farm it out to joint ventures where they have no real costs involved.

Thoughts..

Part Two Tomorrow....Immigration.

Agreed John, the housing market is completely out of control - as you say I can't even afford to rent a place at the moment, and I'm not exactly poorly paid - I'll have to wait until I can find one of my mates who's also ready to move. Actually buying a house or flat is a pipe dream at the moment.

But let's face it, no-one will ever do anything about it, and while the prices will come down, I can't see them becoming affordable in the medium-term... :p

 

[OldBlueLady]

Would love to reply to this now, but alas have only 20 mins till I have to be in a meeting and I still need to find my paperwork. Hope to come back to this later, unless someone else puts a post which covers all I want to say on the subejct.

 

[Firestorm]

Selling Council houses to win votes depleted the housing stock (together with the ban on using the proceeds to build more).
this in turn meant that the Social had to stump up rent to private landlords who in turn realised they had no alternative and therefore, as long as they did it discretely, could raise their rent to make more money.
People then realised there was money to be made in this, thus the buy to let boom started, driving house prices up, increasing the demand for rental properties, which inturn drove rents up etc etc

 

[steveo]

There are too many people and too few houses. If we want to keep the ratio of developed land and undeveloped land the same, why do we have so many people living here?

At very rough guess, France is at least twice the size of us with a similar population and it just seems so much less crowded. I’m out all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to comment on the immigration thing till the weekend which is a shame.

 

[Gremlin]

At very rough guess, France is at least twice the size of us with a similar population and it just seems so much less crowded.

Weird that isn't it?

 

[steveo]

Weird that isn't it?

amazing really. Hopefully you know what I mean though, the roads are largely deserted theres miles of open space etc etc etc

 

[loz]

There are too many people and too few houses. If we want to keep the ratio of developed land and undeveloped land the same, why do we have so many people living here?

At very rough guess, France is at least twice the size of us with a similar population and it just seems so much less crowded. I’m out all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to comment on the immigration thing till the weekend which is a shame.

you're roughly correct about France IIRC. It's not just a case of a people:houses ratio though (before you blame everything on immigration as per usual! :p ), it's also the changing use of our property stock: the rise in people living alone, vastly increased 2nd home ownership, a lot of housing stock esp. in the North of England which is simply going un-used because it's not a worthwhile investment for speculators, and the winding-down of social housing programmes since the 1980's. These factors have combined to greater reduce either a) supply itself, or b) government/civil society control over supply. The result is a housing market that's dominated by those who are already well established in it, something which is having huge consequences for social mobility.

 

[Napster]

Selling Council houses to win votes depleted the housing stock (together with the ban on using the proceeds to build more).
this in turn meant that the Social had to stump up rent to private landlords who in turn realised they had no alternative and therefore, as long as they did it discretely, could raise their rent to make more money.
People then realised there was money to be made in this, thus the buy to let boom started, driving house prices up, increasing the demand for rental properties, which inturn drove rents up etc etc

You old socialist, you. That was one of Thatcher's best moves, as it helped create some movement in what was then a flat economy.

BTW, property and so on, is all about allocation of scarce resources. Rent prices should be a fair reflection of demand equals supply. The fact it isn't is due to unfair market pressures by direct investment from the government in the form of benefits.

Home is what you make it. I can't get on the property ladder for a few more years but I'm not overly worried. Life's too short.

The economy will bump and grind for a few years and then it will readjust.

 

[steveo]

(before you blame everything on immigration as per usual!

We can do that tomorrow though.

 

[loz]

We can do that tomorrow though.

looking forward to it already!

very good post btw Cricko.

 

[Cricko]

You old socialist, you. That was one of Thatcher's best moves, as it helped create some movement in what was then a flat economy.

BTW, property and so on, is all about allocation of scarce resources. Rent prices should be a fair reflection of demand equals supply. The fact it isn't is due to unfair market pressures by direct investment from the government in the form of benefits.

Home is what you make it. I can't get on the property ladder for a few more years but I'm not overly worried. Life's too short.

The economy will bump and grind for a few years and then it will readjust.

Yes Naps but it created a long term deficit many years later.not many people stayed in those houses but cashed in as soon as possible and sold out to property developers etc....it was a Golden Windfall that should never of been allowed to happen, without rules.There was no restriction that you had to still occupy your house for ten years at least + if you were fortunate to haved lived there for 20 years previous (Pro-Rata) you had huge discounts on the Price.

Property of course is about supply and demand ..the demand is lesser as you see at the moment....I drove down Fairfax Drive today. there are at least 30 houses for sale in that one road....I deal in Property but only because it was a way to make a living....I fail to see with the job you have why You are unable to buy a house, that must be comforting when you deserve to be able to.

 

[Vange Shrimper]

There is no way i'm able to buy a house at the moment. We were talking about maybe doing so in the future, but I can only see myself renting for the forseeable future. From next Saturday, i'll be paying £550 a month for a 2 bed, and that's about the cheapest price for a 2 bed in the Southend area.

When I first moved to Vange about 16 years ago, a 3 bed terraced house was about £50k. Now, next door has sold recently for £151,000.

Personally, I think the prices are disgusting for a house.

 

[Mad Cyril]

There are too many people and too few houses. If we want to keep the ratio of developed land and undeveloped land the same, why do we have so many people living here?

At very rough guess, France is at least twice the size of us with a similar population and it just seems so much less crowded. I’m out all day tomorrow so I won’t be able to comment on the immigration thing till the weekend which is a shame.

Are you saying we should annexe France in order to gain a bit of lebensraum?

 

[McNasty]

You old socialist, you. That was one of Thatcher's best moves, as it helped create some movement in what was then a flat economy.

Whilst sales of the council houses removed the properties from the rental market most council houses had remained under the same family tenancies for many years so in effect those properties purchased were most unlikely to change hands on a regular basis if they had remained rented.

 

[Napster]

I fail to see with the job you have why You are unable to buy a house, that must be comforting when you deserve to be able to.

A whole number of reasons, which I will elaborate at the next SZBC meet- which is when exactly?

 

[dashman]

In response:

I have been looking for a 'decent' job for a few months now, too old (early 40's), over experienced, wrong this & that so it seem's I must retrain to join any fast food chain at the counter. I try to look at the positives but employers dont want to pay moderate/average/good wages (immigration tomorrow!) to start with and I need to feed my kids. Yes, I am fortunate that her indoors works well & often to cover things but the mortgage is crippling too.

Marriage's will decline further, offspring will stay at home longer with parents, debt will increase and it us & the government that push it along. I can see a house having at least three generations living in it soon and if not; well enjoy the crash.

Dash

 

[steveo]

I can see a house having at least three generations living in it soon

Isnt this the sort of thing they do in places like Poland? Seems to work ok and some of the houses are really nice.

Didnt the bloke in Austria try something similar as well?

 

[MrB]

A whole number of reasons, which I will elaborate at the next SZBC meet- which is when exactly?

Something I was going to address with Mr Crickson very shortly.

Oh and your solution is to buy your first house in 1995 when the market was at it's slumpest. Worked for me!

 

[Napster]

Something I was going to address with Mr Crickson very shortly.

Oh and your solution is to buy your first house in 1995 when the market was at it's slumpest. Worked for me!

alas in 95 I was earning approx. £40 a week.