For anyone playing boomer bingo in this thread they'd have multiple houses.
It's not a boomer thing, more a financial awareness/intelligence thing.
My best mate from school started work same time as me and on the same money.
He did not save, but chose to move out & rent for 35 years. He could no longer afford the rent a few years back & had to move back in with his mum when he was 55.
I saved as much as I could & bought a house with my girlfriend at age 25. We put down a 30% deposit, all saved ourselves, both still living with parents in council housing.This was unusual, most people spent all their wages & didn't save, as they still do.
We've moved once since then. I paid the mortgage off before I was 40 & retired before I was 50.
For anyone playing boomer bingo in this thread they'd have multiple houses.
It's not a boomer thing, more a financial awareness/intelligence thing.
My best mate from school started work same time as me and on the same money.
He did not save, but chose to move out & rent for 35 years. He could no longer afford the rent a few years back & had to move back in with his mum when he was 55.
I saved as much as I could & bought a house with my girlfriend at age 25. We put down a 30% deposit, all saved ourselves, both still living with parents in council housing.This was unusual, most people spent all their wages & didn't save, as they still do.
We've moved once since then. I paid the mortgage off before I was 40 & retired before I was 50.
Well no it's not only a boomer thing but given the percentage of younger people who own property is pretty small then it mostly is. Comments like "get a second job", "work harder", "save more" are quite frankly insulting and so out of touch with what is happening. What a lot of people won't want to admit is that being privileged enough to be able to buy a house a lot comes down to being fortunate enough. Lives are complex and you have no idea on an individual's circumstances to say such things.
Taking your example, do you really think that the average 25 year old now could put down 30% on a house without any help? Taking it further how many people fully pay off a mortgage before 40? Sounds like you've done well for yourself and that's to be applauded but don't take your own life experiences and think they can apply to everyone especially when so much has changed over the past few decades.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. He put down 20% on his flat last year from HIS savings. He decided to act fast when we thought that mortgage rates were about to start rising. He got in just in time.
ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged. Neither set of parents had a "pot to piss in". We had no car, no washing machine, no telephone. Our holidays were a day at the zoo or a hired caravan in Hastings. I'd never been abroad, we couldn't afford to buy biscuits or fizzy drinks, it was water or cordial. I'd never had a takeaway. I remember wearing shoes that hurt and bent my toes, because they were too small & I didn't want to tell my mum because I knew she couldn't afford to buy a new pair. Obviously no central heating, no heating upstairs, just one gas fire in the living room.
When I started work I paid my mum £100, saved £100 & spent £100 of my £300 pm wage.
Anyway, I think what is clear, whatever side of the fence you are on, is that (successive) governments need to do more to bring more social housing onto the market
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. He put down 20% on his flat last year from HIS savings. He decided to act fast when we thought that mortgage rates were about to start rising. He got in just in time.
ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged. Neither set of parents had a "pot to piss in". We had no car, no washing machine, no telephone. Our holidays were a day at the zoo or a hired caravan in Hastings. I'd never been abroad, we couldn't afford to buy biscuits or fizzy drinks, it was water or cordial. I'd never had a takeaway. I remember wearing shoes that hurt and bent my toes, because they were too small & I didn't want to tell my mum because I knew she couldn't afford to buy a new pair. Obviously no central heating, no heating upstairs, just one gas fire in the living room.
When I started work I paid my mum £100, saved £100 & spent £100 of my £300 pm wage.
Judging by the state of your clothes you're still minus a washing machine
For anyone playing boomer bingo in this thread they'd have multiple houses.
I know what you mean, but I did qualify my comments with the understanding that it is harder now. But I see some youngesters doing nothing to help themselves. Some parents don't help either. A friend's late twenty-something kid was asked to contribute a more realistic amount to the household budget than the £50 a month they were paying out of their £500 a week earnings (the kid is not saving, but drives a posh car, holidays all the time in the Maldives etc). The reaction was "Well I will just move out and live in a bedsit in (insert name of nearby shithole here)." Queue parent folding like a pack of cards...
My late father in-law used to say how he felt sorry for our generation (generation X in my case). They paid £3.50 (exaggerating for effect, but using the expression he did) for their three bedroom detached bungalow in 1965, he had a super non-contributory work pension that allowed him to retire in his fifties with a decent income, and he and ma-in-law both got their old age pensions from the actual date they were told they would get them when they started work, rather than having the goalposts moved every few years.
For anyone playing boomer bingo in this thread they'd have multiple houses.
It's not a boomer thing, more a financial awareness/intelligence thing.
My best mate from school started work same time as me and on the same money.
He did not save, but chose to move out & rent for 35 years. He could no longer afford the rent a few years back & had to move back in with his mum when he was 55.
I saved as much as I could & bought a house with my girlfriend at age 25. We put down a 30% deposit, all saved ourselves, both still living with parents in council housing.This was unusual, most people spent all their wages & didn't save, as they still do.
We've moved once since then. I paid the mortgage off before I was 40 & retired before I was 50.
Well no it's not only a boomer thing but given the percentage of younger people who own property is pretty small then it mostly is. Comments like "get a second job", "work harder", "save more" are quite frankly insulting and so out of touch with what is happening. What a lot of people won't want to admit is that being privileged enough to be able to buy a house a lot comes down to being fortunate enough. Lives are complex and you have no idea on an individual's circumstances to say such things.
Taking your example, do you really think that the average 25 year old now could put down 30% on a house without any help? Taking it further how many people fully pay off a mortgage before 40? Sounds like you've done well for yourself and that's to be applauded but don't take your own life experiences and think they can apply to everyone especially when so much has changed over the past few decades.
Why is suggesting a second job insulting and out of touch? 'When I was young' most of my mates had second jobs, as did my now wife.
Interesting how a couple of those I specifically suggested this to as a way to get away from the greedy landlords have dissappeared.
On the 25 year old, unlikely at that age today, I suspect @covered end like me started work at 16 whereas 99% of people now start at 18 or 21/22 so you'd need to add 9 years to those, but broadly it could be possible yes. Covered end mentioned as a couple so on a £250k property now could 2 people working a job at a bank etc save 75k in 9 years (if living with parents) yes quite easily, it's about £275 a month each.
EDIT, put that amount in a LISA and you'll get 25% added to it, something Coveredend wouldn't have benefitted from.
A bit of help to Landlords and tenants with the changes to EPC requirements. Scapping the requirement to have C or better for new tenancies. Common sense at last.
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That’s not what he is saying. It is more a comment on why are people moving out and renting rather than saving up for a deposit and buying. It was an example of how they started work at 16 and saved for 9 years before moving and how that is still doable.
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That's what coveredend did, that's what many people did, a bit like second jobs, I really don't get why people think you don't have to make sacrifices and put in effort over a period of time.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. He put down 20% on his flat last year from HIS savings. He decided to act fast when we thought that mortgage rates were about to start rising. He got in just in time.
ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged. Neither set of parents had a "pot to piss in". We had no car, no washing machine, no telephone. Our holidays were a day at the zoo or a hired caravan in Hastings. I'd never been abroad, we couldn't afford to buy biscuits or fizzy drinks, it was water or cordial. I'd never had a takeaway. I remember wearing shoes that hurt and bent my toes, because they were too small & I didn't want to tell my mum because I knew she couldn't afford to buy a new pair. Obviously no central heating, no heating upstairs, just one gas fire in the living room.
When I started work I paid my mum £100, saved £100 & spent £100 of my £300 pm wage.
I wasn't inferring you grew up privileged, but the ability to buy a house is undoubtedly a privilege. Yes I'm sure you worked hard but millions of others work hard and have no hope of ever being fortunate enough to buy a house. Maybe they have had things happen in their life which has meant they can't work as much as they wanted. Maybe they work in an industry that refuses to pay them what they are worth. Maybe they need to look after a loved one.
Those people are unfortunate and you clearly have been very fortunate. Both work hard so to just assume by working hard and saving enough will get you a house is not quite clear cut as it seems.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged.
Did you give much help to your son financially?
No.
Allowing him to live with you until he was 28 would be a massive help.
Right to buy introduced by the Tories was a way to move the cost of maintaining council housing from the state onto the actual occupants. At the time, councils were prohibited from spending the proceeds on building replacement stock, hence the depletion in stock levels.
If it were truly that simple and transparently that obvious Blair and Brown would surely have addressed it?
As I say I think it’s more unintended consequences. Rent rises to unaffordable levels are the main issue I think. There needs to be some mechanism to limit rental amounts that landlords can get from councils : government.
I think once the housing stock was sold off there was very little that could be done. House prices are unaffordable for most now, unless their parents have money, or are ready to downsize and give the surplus equity to their kids.
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That's what coveredend did, that's what many people did, a bit like second jobs, I really don't get why people think you don't have to make sacrifices and put in effort over a period of time.
I am guessing from you and Covered Ends posts you would have bought your first houses between 30-40 years ago. At that time houses were, on average 4-6* the average salary. Currently they are more like 9*. I think under almost all sensible comparables house prices today are way too high and completely unattainable for huge swathes of young people, almost irrespective. I am fortunate enough to own my house and have worked very long hours for 20 years (one job but not uncommon for me to work 12+ hours a day). It has helped me get on and live a reasonably comfortable life. I do not want my kids to work in the same way though. There should be more of a balance, the solution to home ownership should not be multiple jobs. What I do agree with however is there should be an element of discipline and saving needed; that is just sensible. House prices are way too high but we do also need landlords for reasons I have explained above. The answer is for the state to have more housing they own (how they ever afford that I simply don't know although there are one or two half decent thoughts from people on here - who would have thought Maggie generating wealth for one generation would have had long term effects eh!); it is also to build more houses generally. That means incentivising builders to build more - not popular because everyone says builders are greedy but the reality is that right now very few developments are viable so there is much less of this happening.
Right to buy introduced by the Tories was a way to move the cost of maintaining council housing from the state onto the actual occupants. At the time, councils were prohibited from spending the proceeds on building replacement stock, hence the depletion in stock levels.
If it were truly that simple and transparently that obvious Blair and Brown would surely have addressed it?
As I say I think it’s more unintended consequences. Rent rises to unaffordable levels are the main issue I think. There needs to be some mechanism to limit rental amounts that landlords can get from councils : government.
I think once the housing stock was sold off there was very little that could be done. House prices are unaffordable for most now, unless their parents have money, or are ready to downsize and give the surplus equity to their kids.
Council property with a reasonable level of rent was in essence replaced with private sector housing and housing benefit. HB is the second biggest expense to the DWP after state pension (now rolled into UC).
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That's what coveredend did, that's what many people did, a bit like second jobs, I really don't get why people think you don't have to make sacrifices and put in effort over a period of time.
No it's great, but even staying at home with parents while earning 35k a year is a luxury that millions don't have.
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That's what coveredend did, that's what many people did, a bit like second jobs, I really don't get why people think you don't have to make sacrifices and put in effort over a period of time.
I am guessing from you and Covered Ends posts you would have bought your first houses between 30-40 years ago. At that time houses were, on average 4-6* the average salary. Currently they are more like 9*. I think under almost all sensible comparables house prices today are way too high and completely unattainable for huge swathes of young people, almost irrespective. I am fortunate enough to own my house and have worked very long hours for 20 years (one job but not uncommon for me to work 12+ hours a day). It has helped me get on and live a reasonably comfortable life. I do not want my kids to work in the same way though. There should be more of a balance, the solution to home ownership should not be multiple jobs. What I do agree with however is there should be an element of discipline and saving needed; that is just sensible. House prices are way too high but we do also need landlords for reasons I have explained above. The answer is for the state to have more housing they own (how they ever afford that I simply don't know although there are one or two half decent thoughts from people on here - who would have thought Maggie generating wealth for one generation would have had long term effects eh!); it is also to build more houses generally. That means incentivising builders to build more - not popular because everyone says builders are greedy but the reality is that right now very few developments are viable so there is much less of this happening.
Correct, for me it was in 1993/94 so yes 30 years ago.
I'm not suggesting it's easy, I'm not suggesting with prices it's not more difficult now. There's a lot of variables, i.e. back in 93 mortgage interest rates were around 10/11%, so whilst house price was relatively cheaper as you indicate on multipliers the monthly expenditure on a mortgage would at that point have been similar due to interest rates, two years ago when rates were very low it'd likely have been relatively cheaper.
I really don't get why second jobs is seen as such a bad thing, once upon a time it was the norm, even my father in law (now 76) worked in a factory Monday - Friday, did the pools in the week door to door, also sold vacuum cleaners! and did chauffeuring (weddings) on a Saturday.
If you have a relatively decent job, are fortunate to be able to live with parents, there really is no reason in that instance to not be able to save a deposit, especially if you use things like a LISA where you get a 25% bonus on up to £4k a year savings. A couple saving £4k a year each, £5k with bonus in 3 years has £30k+.
So now the solution to housing is you and your partner get a job at a bank and both live at home for another decade... brilliant.
That's what coveredend did, that's what many people did, a bit like second jobs, I really don't get why people think you don't have to make sacrifices and put in effort over a period of time.
No it's great, but even staying at home with parents while earning 35k a year is a luxury that millions don't have.
Totally agree, home ownership isn't within everyones reach, and never has been.
But I can show you many people at my work who earn considerably more than £35k, live with their parents (or could) yet are somehow unable to save. For those it's 100% the choices they make, the cars they buy, the holidays they go on, the £10 lunches every day, the costa coffee 3x a day or their desire to pay £1400 a month for a room in Notting Hill etc etc. On the flip side there are people at my work, same salary levels who due to their choices have their own house by their mid to late 20's. One of the lads, 27 has just bought a £400k flat in Chislehurst.
1995. Average London salary: 20k Average house price: 80k. Ratio to annual earnings: 4x
2023. Average London salary: 37k Average house price: 537k Ratio to annual earnings: 14x
Mortgage Repayment as % of Salary (For average London house, on average London salary)
1995: 29% of salary
2023: 79%* of salary
*The av. London house is no longer affordable to the average Londoner.
(All above calculations factor in the higher interest rates of the nineties, historic tax rates, MIRAS, etc).
-
But this is without even factoring the impacts on cost of living since the 90's.
London salaries have risen by 85% since 1995. But rent is up 200%+, transportation is up 140%, groceries up 100%+, utilities up 200%, entertainment up 200%. It goes on.
Everything is eating away at the money that was previously left over that used to go towards saving for a deposit.
If it was hard for you back at the bottom of the market, and you had to scrimp and save, it's now more than 10x harder, and all for a less desirable property than you got. If you find yourself wondering why there is less desire among young people to sacrifice, this is why.
My son worked hard & saved & bought a flat last year. He put down 20% on his flat last year from HIS savings. He decided to act fast when we thought that mortgage rates were about to start rising. He got in just in time.
ALL of his school friends have done the same. It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged. Neither set of parents had a "pot to piss in". We had no car, no washing machine, no telephone. Our holidays were a day at the zoo or a hired caravan in Hastings. I'd never been abroad, we couldn't afford to buy biscuits or fizzy drinks, it was water or cordial. I'd never had a takeaway. I remember wearing shoes that hurt and bent my toes, because they were too small & I didn't want to tell my mum because I knew she couldn't afford to buy a new pair. Obviously no central heating, no heating upstairs, just one gas fire in the living room.
1995. Average London salary: 20k Average house price: 80k. Ratio to annual earnings: 4x
2023. Average London salary: 37k Average house price: 537k Ratio to annual earnings: 14x
Mortgage Repayment as % of Salary (For average London house, on average London salary)
1995: 29% of salary
2023: 79%* of salary
*The av. London house is no longer affordable to the average Londoner.
(All above calculations factor in the higher interest rates of the nineties, historic tax rates, MIRAS, etc).
-
But this is without even factoring the impacts on cost of living since the 90's.
London salaries have risen by 85% since 1995. But rent is up 200%+, transportation is up 140%, groceries up 100%+, utilities up 200%, entertainment up 200%. It goes on.
Everything is eating away at the money that was previously left over that used to go towards saving for a deposit.
If it was hard for you back at the bottom of the market, and you had to scrimp and save, it's now more than 10x harder, and all for a less desirable property than you got. If you find yourself wondering why there is less desire among young people to sacrifice, this is why.
Whilst as lot of that is true I'd question the 1995 and only 29% of salary. On a gross basis (on £20k) that would be £480 a month/£5760 a year, I'd make it more like £700/£8400 or 40-45%, net I'm not sure but tax at that salary level was higher back then.
Where I would agree, London is a harder place to buy than maybe it once was, but then again certainly the generation before me, i.e. my parents, couldn't afford London so their first houses were out in places like Rainham or Gillingham.
I did manage to buy in London, all be it Grove Park so one of the cheaper areas. EDIT, should probably add the only reason I could do that was I on purpose and purely from a housing/mortgage perspective changed jobs to a building society to get a 5% mortgage, salary in 1993 was £12,500.
I see little point in delving too deep into this as there is a such a generational difference between experience, market comparables, mindset and spend / lifestyle patterns.
Housing was more attainable in previous eras but individuals in general were more disciplined in their approach to achieving it. This was before the spend easiness of online shopping, tap & pay and the mindset of happily debt building on credit card on non-essentials. You went out for evening with £30 and you had to ensure your evening stayed within that blah blah.
Certainly non of our money when saving for a place was spent on gyms, nail parlours, tanning shops, tattoos, online betting, streaming, expensive bars and eating out / Deliveroo 4 times a week. Car purchases were happily modest yet I rarely see an U25 not in an Audi, Merc or BMW these days. If that’s how people want to spend their disposable, then fair enough that’s their choice. I probably wish my mindset was more frivolous in terms of spending than it still remains but I think once you have that mindset, it’s hard to change.
Who knows what is right or wrong. Not saying I am. I feel very fortunate I first got on the housing ladder early when I was 22 and I fear the situation is only going to get worse for the next generations coming through and I really don’t know what the answer is. I find elements I agree with on both sides of the argument; it needs to be more achievable but there also could / should be an element of discipline & sacrifice attached to it. That may mean starting somewhere smaller, less desirable or further out. Never got my head around why someone wants to pay £2300 a month in Elephant & Castle when you can get comparable in say for Sidcup for £1500 a month. Allocate an extra £100 to your travel and you’ve an extra £700 a month to either save up or spend on a sleeve tattoo.
There's clearly a number on here who are anti Landlord, by some bizarre twist some of those use the services of a Landlord. Go figure.
You mean to tell me some people on this thread aren't a home owner and ARENT homeless?! WHAT A SCOOP!
I'd suggest if you believe Landlords are greedy good for nothings you stop making use of the service they provide you. Go and buy your own place, take all the risk yourself and stop putting the responsibility at someone else's door and then moan about them.
There's clearly a number on here who are anti Landlord, by some bizarre twist some of those use the services of a Landlord. Go figure.
You mean to tell me some people on this thread aren't a home owner and ARENT homeless?! WHAT A SCOOP!
I'd suggest if you believe Landlords are greedy good for nothings you stop making use of the service they provide you. Go and buy your own place, take all the risk yourself and stop putting the responsibility at someone else's door and then moan about them.
The landlords buying up all the properties to rent is precisely why people can't just 'go out and buy your own place'. What an idiotic statement.
In case you hadn't noticed many are selling up, plenty of buying opportunities right now. There's less than 5 million private rentals in the UK and shrinking fast, hence why rents are in part increasing, supply and demand.
If people are so anti Landlords then don't use them, it's quite simple.
Seriously. What's the matter with some people? I'm 49 with no pension. So if I decided in the next couple of years to buy a 2nd property as a pension, some would be happy to see it go tits up for me.
I personally don't see a problem with buying a second property outright and then letting it out at a fair price.
I do have an issue with taking out a mortgage and expecting tenants to pay for it.
So all rental properties need to be mortgage free - that's going to work, NOT! Who decides a fair price? They tried something in Scotland that just made it worse for tenants. A fair price is market price.
You do realise a lot of businesses you buy from take out loans and by doing business with them you are paying off their mortgage loan
Right, I agree. But don’t become dewy eyed when the market turns on landlords who’ve overleveraged themselves and expect tenants to pick up the tab. Having your cake and eating it comes to mind - something for nothing.
Who is going 'dewy-eyed' about anything?. If you mean by 'overleveraged themselves' is this exactly the same as many owner/occupiers due to amongst other things, the worldwide economy? Don't be surprised when rents go up - and tenants have no choice about it and some of the reasons rents have gone up because the government has passed more costs on to the landlords.
And then the landlord passes it on to the tenant? What kind hearted people they are. If you can't afford to own a property and rent it out, sell it. It's quite simple - it's the market.
Many more would have to sell up than currently are, which would be even worse for tenants - I'm not surprised you aren't able to purchase your own place if you don't understand the fundamentals even if you must have predicted the end in the recent low interest period that so many others didn't! I know lots of people in their 20s buying a property
I don't know why you simply don't understand the rules of supply and demand apply to both tenants and landlords. If scores of landlords sell their properties then supply outreaches demand, prices go down, tenants who want to buy that otherwise couldn't afford to buy can now afford to buy - the whole social contract begins to work again. There is obviously the problem of foreign "investors" and domestic investo- i mean landlords then hoovering up the cheaper properties - but that's where maybe a fat stamp duty on a second property could be useful to then make it unprofitable for greedy landlords and investors. This extra stamp duty could then be funelled into building social housing. I know people who've purchased their own property, but they're either doing extremely well in life or have moved to areas that bring their commute up over an hour or more. As many have said on this thread, the current system is unsustainable and delaying the inevitable (prices dropping) is just roping more and more people of my age into the hellscape of negative equity in the future.
I'm getting a vibe that kentaddick is a tenant, who doesn't earn enough money to buy his own property.
lots of people are in that position - that is not humorous - it's just unfortunately true.
The thing that sticks in my craw a little as someone in that position - I can just about afford to pay the monthly mortgage for the place I live in, as a renter - and in fact that is what I am doing - but apparently i'm not trusted enough to get a mortgage - but I can pay someone elses off and nobody sees the issue.
It's a bit sick tbh - the system seems kinda set up against me.
edit for clarity - 9 years of renting thus far. Never missed a single rent payment. seen my rent rise by 25 -50 quid a month each year in that time, (until recently) for a one bed flat. After the latest rise i requested to hand in my notice and planned to go back to parents - my (decent) landlord called me (first time in nine years i've even had to speak to the guy) and asked me what he needed to do to keep me in the place.
Yeah it was clearly meant as some kind of dig, but the majority of people of my generation (>50%) are now renters, it just comes across as hopelessly out of touch.
One of the craziest threads i've seen. Rents are high because are willing to pay them, people can't get on the ladder because they spend too much time on Charlton Life, buying property is like investing in crypto. WTF? Bet there's other gems that i've missed.
It's a bit weird, I'm still yet to be told why some one would become a landlord other than accumulating wealth off the back of some one else (their tenant).
I simply don't understand how you cannot understand the situation and think that landlords selling up means rents will go down. It's what is happening now and rents are definitely not coming down. If there weren't landlords, there wouldn't be properties to rent. Most business 'accumulate wealth off the back of some one else'!
The idea is not to have rents go down, but prices of properties to go down. Heaven forbid it'll be more affordable to buy your own property than live in some one else's. If there were no longer any private landlords, then i guess the state would have to look at providing social housing, again - heaven forbid..!
Most businesses don't trade on a fundamental human need that then soaks up >50% of their customers wages. Although thinking about it in these terms sums up the attitude of landlords, it's just a business to suck up some wealth.
This is the point most people are missing. You're not trading crypto.
I've spent the last day or so being told that being a landlord has nothing to do with greed and sponging wealth off people, and now i'm told it is and it's fine because "it's a business".
Because you think it is greed but it isn't. No one is 'sponging'. You are entitled to your opinion but it doesn't make you correct. Am off to do some more work now
I'm going to ask this for what feels like the tenth time, how is it not greed? How is it not sponging when you're contributing nothing to the productivity of the country? and, something i've definitely asked before - Why do people become landlords in the first place?
Do you hold supermarkets in the same contempt?
It's pretty clear when you buy food you're paying people for their productivity. You pay the supermarket for your food and they pay their suppliers, farmers etc. There's a much wider economy around it which helps grease the wheels of the country's economy. What productivity is a landlord contributing?
The landlord is proving access to a home which you can't or don't wish to buy for the long term.
It is a reasonable that the landlord provides that 'service' and makes a profit as he carries all the risk - mortgage costs, no tenants , bad tenants, maintenance etc.
All we are really discussing is the market rate of rents which has grown hugely & to a level that (at least in London) isn't sustainable for many.
We either rely on market dynamics of supply & demand to push rents back down or some better legislation designed that makes the cost 'fairer'. Its not wrong to be a landlord per se.
I'm not saying it is, but lets be realistic, is it morally right to have an investment that is fundamental to people's living whilst that is completely out the reach of their tenants?
Change tenants for customers and the same point applies to a supermarket, they’re profiting from the ultimate fundamental things in life.
They could service all their suppliers at cost, if it wasn’t for pure greed, apparently.
I don't get the analogy. There are landlords who own a property outright so only have to pay utility bills and upkeep, whereas farmers work on the farm and have to keep buying things like livestock to keep the farms running. Furthermore people aren't paying half of their wages or more at the supermarket each week.
Because both are making a profit from providing an essential service, so surely both must be greedy? Why is ok for a supermarket to make a profit, but a landlord not?
Profit margins at a supermarket are around 1-3%. If landlords were only making that the situation would be far different.
We make about 3.5%. Can I come back in now?
That's better than we do!
“If you don’t like landlords become homeless”. Another to paste into the book of “completely unhinged stuff I’ve read on charlton life”
Except I didn't say that did I, again you like to make up stuff. I simply said if you don't like them, think they are the devil reincarnated don't use them. Take responsibility yourself, take the risks yourself, do whatever you need to do to get away from these pesky landlords. Or are you actually quite happy to pass on the risk to someone else?
I'm sure if you put your mind to it you can save a deposit and buy a property yourself,
So if I don't use landlords and can't afford to buy, what do I do? The only option is to become homeless.
I don't know your personal circumstances, but generally where there's a will there's a way.
What can you cut back on expenditure wise? Can you for now rent somewhere cheaper? Take a second job, change job, move to a different part of the country where the income multiplier is not like London/South east.
There will be lots of options if you really want to be a home owner and get away from greedy landlords.
Ok, I'll will myself shelter without becoming homeless or renting or home owning, why haven't we all thought of that?!
Sometimes I think there are people on here who live on a completely different planet.
So what about a second job etc? Work in a bar 4/5 nights a week and that alone within 2 years will give you the deposit on a property.
It may surprise you (like it does my kids) that all of us were young once and struggled from time to time to one degree or another, I really enjoyed my time living in a bedsit in Bethnal Green (when BG was a sh1te hole) eating hula hoop sandwiches but that's what saved me from being homeless. I made a lot of sacrifices to get out of there, sometimes you have just got to suck it up and do what you need to do.
If anyone is struggling you have two options, cut expenditure or increase income, the easiest way to increase income is a second job, something many of us have done in the past to keep the wolf from the door.
To say just get a second job and work 15 hours a day for 2 years in order to purchase some property is just so laughable. I really doubt when you were living in a bedsit in BG you were paying over 50% of your wages on rent
Why is a second job so laughable? As well as they day/office job I worked 5 or 6 nights a week in a bar, overtime at work on a Saturday morning and weddings on a Saturday afternoon/evening. So about 90-100 hours a week in total.
My rent was about 25% of my main job, that's because I choose a bedsit in the cheapest and worst area I could find. Had I rented a flat near my office job (sidcup) it would have been about 40%. I was on just under £400 a month.
This is the shit attitude (IMHO) ingrained into people. If you want to do that fair play to you but instead of that being the only option why can t we have shitloads more affordable rents? Better social housing, rent caps etc etc. This brain washing where its always the people with nothings fault.
Its ALL and mean ALL that horrible witches fault.
Imagine that some people don't want to be upwardly mobile, would be quite happy with a fair wage for a fair days work and a fair rent amount and live a great life. But oh no we have to be Gordon Gekko. My god i hate capitalism and moreover Tories.
if i hear "hard working families" one more time - sound bit bullshit.
Wow, first time I've ever heard anyone say working a second job to better yourself is a sh1t attitude...........
I agree with you on more social housing, not quite sure in the current climate rent caps is workable though.
I wasn’t saying it’s shit to do 2 jobs and work your arse off. I was saying it ain’t compulsory and it’s the sort of thing that’s becoming more and more lauded. Let’s ogle Philip Green and Jeff Bezos as heroes while we have to work 90 hours a week for years to get a few shiny things.
probably saying it badly.
I’d love the world to just calm down and stop consuming shit and thinking we all have to be rich and on the property ladder etc. it’s a fucking con to keep us in our place started by that horrible dead bitch.The chances of getting anywhere are the worst they’ve been for 50 years, inequality is rife and these pigs in charge play on how thick everyone is. A good example is this Roland Rat midget fucking the green agenda for years just to have an opposite view to that wanker Khan as that’s all they’ve got and they know it. And people will fall for it.
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My best mate from school started work same time as me and on the same money.
He did not save, but chose to move out & rent for 35 years. He could no longer afford the rent a few years back & had to move back in with his mum when he was 55.
I saved as much as I could & bought a house with my girlfriend at age 25. We put down a 30% deposit, all saved ourselves, both still living with parents in council housing.This was unusual, most people spent all their wages & didn't save, as they still do.
We've moved once since then.
I paid the mortgage off before I was 40 & retired before I was 50.
Taking your example, do you really think that the average 25 year old now could put down 30% on a house without any help? Taking it further how many people fully pay off a mortgage before 40? Sounds like you've done well for yourself and that's to be applauded but don't take your own life experiences and think they can apply to everyone especially when so much has changed over the past few decades.
He put down 20% on his flat last year from HIS savings.
He decided to act fast when we thought that mortgage rates were about to start rising.
He got in just in time.
ALL of his school friends have done the same.
It's about attitude in the main & being financially astute.
I had no privilege and nor did my girlfriend, unless you class living in council houses with our parents as privileged.
Neither set of parents had a "pot to piss in".
We had no car, no washing machine, no telephone. Our holidays were a day at the zoo or a hired caravan in Hastings. I'd never been abroad, we couldn't afford to buy biscuits or fizzy drinks, it was water or cordial. I'd never had a takeaway.
I remember wearing shoes that hurt and bent my toes, because they were too small & I didn't want to tell my mum because I knew she couldn't afford to buy a new pair.
Obviously no central heating, no heating upstairs, just one gas fire in the living room.
When I started work I paid my mum £100, saved £100 & spent £100 of my £300 pm wage.
shocking figures for rest of country
My late father in-law used to say how he felt sorry for our generation (generation X in my case). They paid £3.50 (exaggerating for effect, but using the expression he did) for their three bedroom detached bungalow in 1965, he had a super non-contributory work pension that allowed him to retire in his fifties with a decent income, and he and ma-in-law both got their old age pensions from the actual date they were told they would get them when they started work, rather than having the goalposts moved every few years.
Interesting how a couple of those I specifically suggested this to as a way to get away from the greedy landlords have dissappeared.
On the 25 year old, unlikely at that age today, I suspect @covered end like me started work at 16 whereas 99% of people now start at 18 or 21/22 so you'd need to add 9 years to those, but broadly it could be possible yes. Covered end mentioned as a couple so on a £250k property now could 2 people working a job at a bank etc save 75k in 9 years (if living with parents) yes quite easily, it's about £275 a month each.
EDIT, put that amount in a LISA and you'll get 25% added to it, something Coveredend wouldn't have benefitted from.
Those people are unfortunate and you clearly have been very fortunate. Both work hard so to just assume by working hard and saving enough will get you a house is not quite clear cut as it seems.
House prices are unaffordable for most now, unless their parents have money, or are ready to downsize and give the surplus equity to their kids.
I am guessing from you and Covered Ends posts you would have bought your first houses between 30-40 years ago. At that time houses were, on average 4-6* the average salary. Currently they are more like 9*.
I think under almost all sensible comparables house prices today are way too high and completely unattainable for huge swathes of young people, almost irrespective.
I am fortunate enough to own my house and have worked very long hours for 20 years (one job but not uncommon for me to work 12+ hours a day). It has helped me get on and live a reasonably comfortable life. I do not want my kids to work in the same way though. There should be more of a balance, the solution to home ownership should not be multiple jobs. What I do agree with however is there should be an element of discipline and saving needed; that is just sensible.
House prices are way too high but we do also need landlords for reasons I have explained above.
The answer is for the state to have more housing they own (how they ever afford that I simply don't know although there are one or two half decent thoughts from people on here - who would have thought Maggie generating wealth for one generation would have had long term effects eh!); it is also to build more houses generally. That means incentivising builders to build more - not popular because everyone says builders are greedy but the reality is that right now very few developments are viable so there is much less of this happening.
I'm not suggesting it's easy, I'm not suggesting with prices it's not more difficult now. There's a lot of variables, i.e. back in 93 mortgage interest rates were around 10/11%, so whilst house price was relatively cheaper as you indicate on multipliers the monthly expenditure on a mortgage would at that point have been similar due to interest rates, two years ago when rates were very low it'd likely have been relatively cheaper.
I really don't get why second jobs is seen as such a bad thing, once upon a time it was the norm, even my father in law (now 76) worked in a factory Monday - Friday, did the pools in the week door to door, also sold vacuum cleaners! and did chauffeuring (weddings) on a Saturday.
If you have a relatively decent job, are fortunate to be able to live with parents, there really is no reason in that instance to not be able to save a deposit, especially if you use things like a LISA where you get a 25% bonus on up to £4k a year savings. A couple saving £4k a year each, £5k with bonus in 3 years has £30k+.
Totally agree, home ownership isn't within everyones reach, and never has been.
But I can show you many people at my work who earn considerably more than £35k, live with their parents (or could) yet are somehow unable to save. For those it's 100% the choices they make, the cars they buy, the holidays they go on, the £10 lunches every day, the costa coffee 3x a day or their desire to pay £1400 a month for a room in Notting Hill etc etc. On the flip side there are people at my work, same salary levels who due to their choices have their own house by their mid to late 20's. One of the lads, 27 has just bought a £400k flat in Chislehurst.
Average London salary: 20k
Average house price: 80k.
Ratio to annual earnings: 4x
2023.
Average London salary: 37k
Average house price: 537k
Ratio to annual earnings: 14x
Mortgage Repayment as % of Salary
(For average London house, on average London salary)
1995: 29% of salary
2023: 79%* of salary
*The av. London house is no longer affordable to the average Londoner.
(All above calculations factor in the higher interest rates of the nineties, historic tax rates, MIRAS, etc).
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But this is without even factoring the impacts on cost of living since the 90's.
London salaries have risen by 85% since 1995. But rent is up 200%+, transportation is up 140%, groceries up 100%+, utilities up 200%, entertainment up 200%. It goes on.
Everything is eating away at the money that was previously left over that used to go towards saving for a deposit.
If it was hard for you back at the bottom of the market, and you had to scrimp and save, it's now more than 10x harder, and all for a less desirable property than you got. If you find yourself wondering why there is less desire among young people to sacrifice, this is why.
Where I would agree, London is a harder place to buy than maybe it once was, but then again certainly the generation before me, i.e. my parents, couldn't afford London so their first houses were out in places like Rainham or Gillingham.
I did manage to buy in London, all be it Grove Park so one of the cheaper areas. EDIT, should probably add the only reason I could do that was I on purpose and purely from a housing/mortgage perspective changed jobs to a building society to get a 5% mortgage, salary in 1993 was £12,500.
probably saying it badly.