If the housing situation is at crisis where are you going to downsize too to the smaller houses that the next generation could buy? Why not all live in the big house Rooms for everyone Win win
That has to be about the biggest non sequitur to my posts it's possible to imagine! And please correct me if I'm wrong but the last time I visited the subject mopeds were not essential to living a productive life (quite the reverse some would say!)
Did i say you were a socialist ? Actually you are saying exactly that. There is a huge problem with house building in this country, that much we can agree on. It is fixable but only if the will to do so exists.
Me and wife are looking to buy our first house. Found a lovely place put in a bid, outbid, went as high as we felt comfortable with and were outbid again. House was bought by 3 fellas who wanted the place to rent. Their 4th property in the area. Two years later, more saving, lots of hard work, find a lovely house. Bid, outbid, bid, outbid all the way to our maximum. The chap who bought this one has i think 14 properties the agent told me. We will keep working, saving, looking, bidding we might win one eventually. It would be nice to have a piece of legislation that gave preference in a sale to first time buyers over buy to rent landlords when both have met the asking price. Maybe Dave and George could dream up a scheme that guarantees with your mortgage provider the extra bit of money to enable the landlord to be outbid. Second one had a f*&king belter garage too!
yip feel your pain lost out four times all in the same village which meant four surveys also.now holiday homes.(retirement plans) probably not paying council tax due to occupancy levels, although that law might of changed recently. nursery now closed shop gone and school under threat. locals cant afford to buy.
In the Lake District the local government sets aside properties the can only be bought by either locals or someone working in the area. Which is a bugger if you're looking to invest in the holiday rental business.
Why not force everyone in the UK to give everything up and give it to the whole of the EU, just a thought
Obtaining planning approval has become quite difficult. Locals have public consultation meetings, councillors get involved to keep the locals happy. They reject because the village will be ruined, yet at the same time wonder why the place is dying, assuming the younger generation want to live there, which they can't because there is no housing. These people seem to forget if the people before them had the same attitude, they wouldn't have a house. Builders could build them if they got planning.
Echoing evoarrow's point above..........I have planned that I could get 8 new terraced houses in two blocks on the site of my house if it was demolished....... .....but oh no I can't, because it is outside the local village plan......which is crying out for starter homes within the plan.
You might planning they are quaint little thatched cottages and a shop to sell cakes and buns, may be a blacksmiths.
Time for a cull? It would make a cracking reality TV show..... Maybe we're moving more toward a rental dominated market with less home ownership in the future?
My understanding is that our obsession with owning our homes is not reflected by other Euro countries. I think the vast majority rents and would never of buying. Not sure why.
It was a central plank of Thatcherism to increase the proportion of homeowners among voters, on the basis that they would be more likely to vote Tory. As a result we are still stuck with peoples' savings, the roofs over peoples' heads, and rentiers' investments all inextricably muddled together. I think it would be better if the strands were combed out.
The Government could make a start on solving the problem by teaching kids and young people that "you can't have it all" (a)if you want your own house then you have to save up for it,and that means living with your folks for longer/not going out boozing/riding a second-hand Jap bike instead of a Ducati/keeping your dick in your trousers until you can afford to pay for the consequences..in fact,the very things we had to do when we wanted to buy our first place. (b) A good majority of the older generation starting earning,(and saving),at a much earlier age than the current generation.If you want your kids to stay and have a lovely time at University until they are 21,there will be consequences.. (3) The great majority of my oppos,(who wanted to leave home at an early age), lived in old mobile homes and caravans in some dodgy farmers field...cheap,basic living,was a very rough and ready but we had the craic and still had cash to spare.This kind of accommodation has been eradicated by EU legislation and protections for kids as demanded by the same middle class idiots that are bleating their kids can't get on the housing ladder... Just the same old bleating from folk who are convinced that earlier generations had it easier than they or their kids do,and don't want to pay a fair price for what we have grafted for...
You can't get away from the fact that when I bought my first property it cost just over three times my meagre first-job salary. But to buy that same property at the same ratio now someone would have to be earning £120,000 per year. In a first job I submit that's not possible. And who has gained from that ridiculous uplift in prices - for no effort whatsoever? The older generation. You know - the ones who've f******* up the economy, sent young men to war and destroyed the environment. I'm not bleating I've done something about it. Sold my big house, cashed in the equity I was handed by government policy and given my kids the cash for deposits. That's my argument. That unearned money should be distributed among the generation we need to be our doctors, dentists, bin collectors and Ducati mechanics. What the point in old people sitting on huge plies of cash while the economy falters and our best young people emigrate to places where they can afford to buy property - while we import cheap labour from abroad to fill up buy-to-let homes on multiple occupier bases in order to fill the pockets of landlords? I don't recognise the picture you paint of young people. Perhaps where you live but not where I am. And certainly not my children or their peers.
Are you seriously suggesting that people "grafted" for a 400% increase in their property values over 20 years ? Get real!
That's the trouble when something as basic as housing becomes a commodity to be invested in. The government loves it because it takes in more stamp duty and other taxes as prices rise so encourages the whole thing. If a couple of noughts came off house prices people who buy houses to live in would be better off. Our house-price economy is really bad for the country as it makes people less mobile and less able to invest in more socially acceptable ways of making money. After all, why start a business if you can pile up cash in property and let it do all the work fur you.
