UK Government to corrupt housing market

[Vlad_Dracul]

The government made a recent annonuncement that it intends to make even more funds and land available to support its "affordable homes" initiative.

Quoting from the website of two jags Prescott www.odpm.gov.uk
(a) In the last 20 years, there has been a severe decline in the number of affordable homes which have been built. House prices are rising faster than incomes, and homes for sale are beyond the reach of people on low and middle incomes in many parts of London and the South East and in other hotspots in the Midlands and the North (paragraph 19).

Fact is that the reason why there are no longer many affordable homes is that people in the lower income scales have been excluded from the market by rising house prices.

Rising house prices have been fuelled by the whole housing industry. There is a huge sector of uk business which has an interest in driving the housing market onwards and upwards.

Builders, developers, estate agents,solicitors, financial institutions and the UK Government all have an interest in driving house prices up simply becuase they are all making money out of it.

As well as that, any government knows that a good way of subjugating and controlling your people is to saddle them with a nice big slice of debt. That way they will take a job at almost any cost and won't complain, be more compliant. Its a form of control.

Of course some people want to have it both ways. Now if we are told that the way to success and happiness is to work hard, get yourself on the first rungs of the property ladder and own your own home,be self reliant then that is fine as long as those rules apply to all.

Does it seem fair then that those who work hard and do without to give their families a good home should have to stand back and see other people being allowed to buy "affordable homes" which they themselves were excluded from buying?.

We already have the rather dodgy concept of "key workers" whereby if you are in a "key" profession,you can buy a home at a financially advantagous price. There are NO key workers. We are all in the same pot and should be treated equally. Key workers tend to be those who work for the state eg nurses/teachers. Dont make them a special housing case-pay them the correct wage so that they can afford housing. If then they cant afford it then they will have to do without.

If a huge chunk of the uk population can no longer afford housing then the government should not stick its nose in and splurge UK taxpayer cash to further fuel the market. Fact is-if most people can't afford it then it it TOO EXPENSIVE and the only answer then is for the market to re-align itself i.e a price crash. It has to happen,it will happen. Government interference will only stave off the inevitable for a short time.

Another thing, part of the ODPM master plan is to fund housing associations to build affordable homes for rent. I live in Manchester and i have the evidence of my own eyes. True i must generalise but i see situations whereby a housing association have built a development of nice little semis or town houses,far better spec'd and equipped than the one I am paying a mortgage for and working for, and some dolehopping chav and her brats are given the house free of charge AND their rent is paid by the state (i.e you and me). Does that sound equitable?.

No ,we either live in a meritocracy or we dont. The rules are simple and any departure from them is dangerous.

The rules which apply here are;

a) work hard-reap rewards of your labour. Dont work,dont strive-too bad

b) If the majority can't afford it,its too expensive.

Black and white you see. When things are black and white,everyone knows their place and where they are. Once we have shades of grey and special cases/special arrangements we are in big trouble.

[Gareth]

I think you summed it all up with this...

Originally Posted by dooper786

"Does it seem fair then that those who work hard and do without to give their families a good home should have to stand back and see other people being allowed to buy "affordable homes" which they themselves were excluded from buying?"

When I wanted to buy a house, my family and I had to make certain sacrifices... we didn't go out as much as people who rented and whinged about not being able to get on the property ladder, we didn't go on foreign holidays, we didn't have a car, we didn't buy new clothes as often as others, etc... basically we watched our expenditure as closely as possible.

I've said this before, but the trouble is that too many people nowadays want the best of both worlds... they want to own their own property without having had to save for it, and without giving up all the stuff they do or buy at the moment. It really gets on my tıts. Our parents, grand parents, great grand parents, etc... all had to save before being able to buy a house, why should it be different just because today's generation is of the "I want everything and I want it now" mentality?

I'm also a firm believer in that people have to make choices about what they want based on what they have and what they can afford. I would like to live in a huge mansion in Chelsea, but the reality is that I can't afford it. However, I don't begrudge those who can afford to live there, whinging that it's not fair and that I should have the same opportunities as well. Nope, I work hard, I spend my money wisely and I bought the best house in the best area that I can afford.

Gah, rant over. Anyone who disagrees... bring it on

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Gareth

When I wanted to buy a house, my family and I had to make certain sacrifices... we didn't go out as much as people who rented and whinged about not being able to get on the property ladder, we didn't go on foreign holidays, we didn't have a car, we didn't buy new clothes as often as others, etc... basically we watched our expenditure as closely as possible.

It's not as simple as that. A friend of mine was in a job where her salary was £30,000 . To get even a small house in Lewisham (which is *not* a nice area), she would have had to apply for a mortgage that was 6 times her annual salary. Yes, I know she could have looked further afield, but she can't drive, and for various reasons, a bicycle is out of the question, so needed a house relatively near her job.

Put simply, housing is *far* too expensive in a lot of the country (the South East in particular), but no government wants to force the prices down, as it would lose too many voters too much money.

Thinking about it, how would any of you react if you had bought a house for £280,00 0 (as a lot of properties down here cost), then, thanks to some form of government action, it was suddenly worth £100,00 0?

---------- Post added at 12:04 ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 ----------

TBH, I have never understood the obssession in this country with owning your own house. It seems an awful lot of hassle, and expense just to own something, unless you can afford to buy it without a mortgage.

You may argue that if you rent, you are paying out money to a landlord each month, and he may raise that rent. This is true. However, if you buy a house with a mortgage, you are *still* paying money, just to a bank, and they can still raise prices. You also have the disadvantage of extra costs, as you have to pay for ALL maintenance to the house, where as a landlord is required to provide at least basic maintenance.

Admittedly, if you own the house or flat, then you are free to do pretty much what you want to it (paint in what colour you want, knock walls through, build extenshions etc), and landlords often have quite strict regulations on what you can do to their properties.

Yes, you do own the house when you have finished paying off the Mortgage, and this is one advantage over renting. However, with prices increasing, people are having to take out longer and longer term mortgages, so could end up paying the bank well into their retirement.

You also have the freedom with renting that if you decide (or need) to move, you only have to give a month's notice.

[iSteve]

Originally Posted by dooper786

The government made a recent annonuncement that it intends to make even more funds and land available to support its "affordable homes" initiative.

[..]

If a huge chunk of the uk population can no longer afford housing then the government should not stick its nose in and splurge UK taxpayer cash to further fuel the market. Fact is-if most people can't afford it then it it TOO EXPENSIVE

The fact is also that, from a left-wing perspective at least, it is the role of Government to help create and mould a freer, fairer society, and to confront and fix society's problems, which are NOT solved through the free market system alone.

The previous generation were lucky. You could get a council house without any hassle. Then you were allowed to buy it, at BELOW MARKET RATES. Therefore, the government helped the previous generation to get their first step on the housing ladder. This was a form of subsidy, as I will now explain:

Now, the 'fairest' thing would have been for the government to then buy more council houses to replace those which had been sold, to keep up with future demand and convey the same benefits to future generations.

This would, of course, mean the government would have been 'subsidising' some of the cost of the house when they sold it for cheap to the tenant, paid for by the taxpayer when the government then bought a replacement new house at full price for the next generation.

This didn't happen. They were allowed to be sold and no new ones were purchased.

My generation, by contrast, has no council houses available to get started in, because many were sold to the previous generation and demand outweighs availability. We get our start in bl**dy expensive private flats, being charged extortionate market rates of rent, which consume a massive chunk of our disposable income.

I have been married for four years. We are still no closer to having enough disposable income to save for a deposit. So we have had to move in with my parents, we are going to have to both work full time for at least a year, to save for a deposit. This is only possible due to the fact we're not being asked to pay any bills, and wouldn't be possible otherwise.

And this story - married couples having to live with their parents - is happening across the country.

We are 27 - by the time we get around to buying our first home we will be 29, 30. By the time we can afford a house big enough for kids we'll be 38, 39.

Whether people want to admit it or not, this isn't just 'our' probem - this is society's problem. It is a flaw in our society. If the current generation stop having kids, this country will become extinct.

Government policy, whether to act or not, affects how the young get their start in life, whether they can afford a good education, whether they're saddling by debt, and whether or not we have money for a pension (considering the state pension will probably be dead by the time we retire, and yet house prices are so dear we're pumping all our money into a deposit leaving nothing for our retirement).

Government does have a role to play here fixing this mess and it would be irresponsible IMO to suggest otherwise.

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It's not as simple as that. A friend of mine was in a job where her salary was £30,000 . To get even a small house in Lewisham (which is *not* a nice area), she would have had to apply for a mortgage that was 6 times her annual salary. Yes, I know she could have looked further afield, but she can't drive, and for various reasons, a bicycle is out of the question, so needed a house relatively near her job.

Put simply, housing is *far* too expensive in a lot of the country (the South East in particular), but no government wants to force the prices down, as it would lose too many voters too much money.

Thinking about it, how would any of you react if you had bought a house for £280,00 0 (as a lot of properties down here cost), then, thanks to some form of government action, it was suddenly worth £100,00 0?

---------- Post added at 12:04 ---------- Previous post was at 11:54 ----------

TBH, I have never understood the obssession in this country with owning your own house. It seems an awful lot of hassle, and expense just to own something, unless you can afford to buy it without a mortgage.

You may argue that if you rent, you are paying out money to a landlord each month, and he may raise that rent. This is true. However, if you buy a house with a mortgage, you are *still* paying money, just to a bank, and they can still raise prices. You also have the disadvantage of extra costs, as you have to pay for ALL maintenance to the house, where as a landlord is required to provide at least basic maintenance.

Admittedly, if you own the house or flat, then you are free to do pretty much what you want to it (paint in what colour you want, knock walls through, build extenshions etc), and landlords often have quite strict regulations on what you can do to their properties.

Yes, you do own the house when you have finished paying off the Mortgage, and this is one advantage over renting. However, with prices increasing, people are having to take out longer and longer term mortgages, so could end up paying the bank well into their retirement.

You also have the freedom with renting that if you decide (or need) to move, you only have to give a month's notice.

The main reason I want to get on the ladder is that I know I won't be able to afford to pay rent when I retire.

Also (may it's a girl thing, but) I do not want to put effort into making the house I live into a home, if at the end of the day it doesn't belong to me.

Another thing, is children. I want to be able to leave them something.

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It's not as simple as that. A friend of mine was in a job where her salary was £30,000 . To get even a small house in Lewisham (which is *not* a nice area), she would have had to apply for a mortgage that was 6 times her annual salary. Yes, I know she could have looked further afield, but she can't drive, and for various reasons, a bicycle is out of the question, so needed a house relatively near her job.

Put simply, housing is *far* too expensive in a lot of the country (the South East in particular), but no government wants to force the prices down, as it would lose too many voters too much money.

Thinking about it, how would any of you react if you had bought a house for £280,00 0 (as a lot of properties down here cost), then, thanks to some form of government action, it was suddenly worth £100,00 0?

Having been 'steamed' at a bus stop in Lewisham I can vouch for your assessment of the area.

House prices are scary, we bought our first house in London over 20
years ago, just a small terrace in a place called Brockley (which is near Lewisham). It cost just over £40,000 . We sold it 2 years later for over £70,000 , I dread to think what it would go for now - we could only just afford it at 40 grand..

One reason prices went up so fast then, was the removal of separate tax relief for multiple mortgage holders - one thing that would help, today, if it was re-introduced.

However, interest rates were also sky high, then, and it wasn't long after the 'boom' that prices dropped dramatically, plunging many into negative equity - that isn't so likely to happen, now, as interest rates have been low & stable for quite a while.

I'm thinking about the idea of prices being cut, across the board, and while I don't think I'd be happy for my present house to be massively devalued, it is all relative & if the price of a house I wanted to buy was similarly reduced, then it wouldn't be such a problem....

[Gareth]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It's not as simple as that. A friend of mine was in a job where her salary was £30,000 . To get even a small house in Lewisham (which is *not* a nice area), she would have had to apply for a mortgage that was 6 times her annual salary. Yes, I know she could have looked further afield, but she can't drive, and for various reasons, a bicycle is out of the question, so needed a house relatively near her job.

Well then she should either learn to drive, or consider whether she can afford to live in that area. If the answer is that she couldn't afford that area, then get another job elsewhere.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by orangebird

The main reason I want to get on the ladder is that I know I won't be able to afford to pay rent when I retire.

Also (may it's a girl thing, but) I do not want to put effort into making the house I live into a home, if at the end of the day it doesn't belong to me.

Another thing, is children. I want to be able to leave them something.

Fair enough. Actually, I own my own house too. However, the way prices are going in some parts of the country, you may just end up leaving them a Mortgage..

[Gareth]

, but I have to ask... what is being 'steamed'?

Originally Posted by homealone

Having been 'steamed' at a bus stop in Lewisham...

[BBKing]

When things are black and white,everyone knows their place and where they are.

Except that things never are black and white, and if you think so you're not living in the real world.

Oh, and Two Jags isn't in that job any more, it's scary gay-hating 'equality' minister Ruth Kelly. Ugh.

Speaking as a first time buyer, I look at people who were in a position to buy ten or twenty years ago complaining about the price of builders or interest rates or being revolted by the whole concept of social housing and think 'you selfish sods don't realise you're born'. I couldn't buy in 1996, I was still at University. While I was working enough to get a deposit and a decent job the first rung was receding upwards at a rate of knots.

Now I can buy, just, and the prices where I live mean I'll be forking out a grand and a half monthly in mortgage payments for a 95% mortgage for 30 years for somewhere that needs a lot of work doing on it to make it habitable, which is what makes it just about affordable. We're not on low or middle incomes by any stretch, either, nor are we brat-saddled chavs, benefit scroungers or asylum seekers or dark people with beards or whatever the tabloids are hating this week (unmarried parents? OK, I'll own up to that one. And I clothe my son at Matalan rather than Baby Gap, but that's cos I'm SAVING TO BUY A BLOODY HOUSE).

Now if we are told that the way to success and happiness is to work hard, get yourself on the first rungs of the property ladder

Except that for many people you can work f***ing hard and have no way of reaching the first rung of the property ladder without help. It's not rocket science : if average wages are kept to or below inflation while house prices shoot up at 15% a year. We keep to our side of the bargain, pay taxes, keep out of trouble but the law of the bleedin market means I'm having serious problems getting into property ownership and told that I'm a whinger for pointing it out. Thanks a flaming bunch for the solidarity and display of human warmth, fellas

Take stamp duty (which 50% of first time buyers now have to pay) - we're having to borrow it (the cost of a couple of bathrooms) from my partner's uncle. We're lucky he's got that amount of money spare, not everyone is that lucky.

My dad (who's had the luck of the Irish with every house he's bought, being of just the right post-war generation to ride every boom) is chipping in with lawyers fees and a bit for the deposit, which we're about £3000 short of even after pulling out all our savings including my son's inheritance from his great-grandmother.

I'm £1100 quid down already on surveys and mortgage arrangement fees and there's no guarantee we'll even get the place yet, since under the British system it's ok for everyone to crap on the buyer from a great height if they feel like it. If this one falls through I really don't know what we'll do - it's effectively the last chance we have of getting somewhere reasonable, given that the market's suddenly started moving again.

Now, if someone as fortunate and well-situated as me is having a great deal of difficulty finding anywhere affordable, put yourself in the shoes of Joe Average on ~24k a year if he's lucky, when the first step on the ladder is £200,00 0 or upwards.

There are NO key workers

Yes there are. They're the ones who've had their wages deliberately kept down because they have a 'vocation', be it teaching, nursing or whatever, or the ones whose job is everywhere but can't afford to live everywhere. Try getting your bins emptied or your children taught when these key workers you fondly ignore can't afford to live in certain areas.

When it comes to housing, it isn't a meritocracy. Your chances depend on when you were born, where you live and whether you've managed to find stable employment. The first you can't control, the second is hard to change without expense and the third is increasingly difficult now employers are empowered to treat us like dirt. If your attitude is 'I'm alright Jack' you don't deserve to live in human society.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Well then she should either learn to drive, or consider whether she can afford to live in that area. If the answer is that she couldn't afford that area, then get another job elsewhere.

All well and good if you can get another job elsewhere.

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 ----------

Originally Posted by Gareth

, but I have to ask... what is being 'steamed'?

I think it's where a gang of kids run past or through something (usually train carriages) nicking as many wallets and purses as they can.

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Well then she should either learn to drive, or consider whether she can afford to live in that area. If the answer is that she couldn't afford that area, then get another job elsewhere.

If she goes to work futther outside london with the same kind of job, you can guarantee she'll have to take a wage cut. Abut you can also guarantee house prices won't be much cheaper. Wherever you live, todays average salaries compared to todays average house price just doesn't add up. My household income is in excess of £50k, and we both drive a long way to work to get a decnt salary - do you think we can afford to buy a house where we live? Oh no.

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

Being steamed is when a group of thugs (usually dilinquent youths) rush you all at once, beating you up and mugging you in the process....

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by orangebird

If she goes to work futther outside london with the same kind of job, you can guarantee she'll have to take a wage cut. Abut you can also guarantee house prices won't be much cheaper. Wherever you live, todays average salaries compared to todays average house price just doesn't add up. My household income is in excess of £50k, and we both drive a long way to work to get a decnt salary - do you think we can afford to buy a house where we live? Oh no.

And yet on over £50k between you, you *should* be able to afford a very nice house.. OK, not a five bedroom detached, but maybe a three bedroom semi somewhere.

---------- Post added at 12:30 ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 ----------

Originally Posted by Saaf_laandon_mo

Being steamed is when a group of thugs (usually dilinquent youths) rush you all at once, beating you up and mugging you in the process....

Oh well, looks like I was getting mixed up with something else..

Originally Posted by Gareth

, but I have to ask... what is being 'steamed'?

gangs who 'steam in' & quickly grab anything they can get their hands on & run off - in my case Mrs Gaz's handbag.