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Hypothetical question about housing

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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'd be well and truly fucked by this awful town. I'm already being screwed by it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You're right, work hard and get... nowhere quickly IME. Life's a bitch.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    But at least if you work hard you can have a martyr like victim mentality. It passes the time. I'm just grouchy right now. Had a bad day at work and am in a "why do I bother, life isn't fair, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" mood. It will pass.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    JanePerson wrote: »
    I'd be well and truly fucked by this awful town. I'm already being screwed by it.

    So get of the rut and move to the nearest big town. flatshare, bedsits, cheap rent...you just need to get a plan and act on it. Don't go with the flow, flow with the go.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    She's not actually going anywhere you know, it's all hypothetical.

    And, why shouldn't we question how much more difficult it is to be independent with housing prices the way they are currently and relative to wages? I find it horrendous, this generation (ok, I'm an oldie) has a harder time getting a house than the last, whether it's a private or state home, it's still harder. Where is the affordable housing? Why should people have to move into big cities just to get a room the size of a wardrobe for a disgusting proportion of their income?

    Why would seemingly intelligent and hard working people imagine (I emphasise the imagine) they would be getting further in life if they had a baby and tried for a council house? Yes, there's something wrong with the perception here, but there's also something skewif about the reality too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Don't believe everything you read in the tabloids. It really isn't as simple as that and single mothers don't get all the freebie that the media would have you think that they do.

    Exactly.

    Go to any CAB in the country and see the queues of vulnerable single parents, usually women, desperately seeking advice as they scrabble to fight over a few crumbs.

    They might have nice things but they can't afford them. You see the flashy plasma telly but you don't see that they got it from Bright House at 50% interest. You see the Sky dish but you don't see that they're in arrears in their rent and gas and water to try and pay for it, because it's the only treat the kids get.

    I wouldn't want to live on benefits, even with the alleged "freebies".

    However I do agree completely that young people get screwed over in this country in terms of accommodation and employment. Young single people don't get much housing benefit and they don't get working tax credits, yet they're the people most likely to be stuck in minimum wage jobs. The people who need the financial help the most get it the least, and then the Government have the cheek to gnash their teeth about the "Bank of Mum and Dad". The simple fact is that, for a lot of people, either they get help from their parents (who often can barely afford to help) or they get no help at all.

    Having kids accesses you more benefits, to try and protect the kids, but it shuts a lot of employment doors too. Just you try and get a job if you're a single mother with two kids under ten, employers won't touch you with a bargepole because they know you'll be off if your kids are ill. So you end up worse off, stuck in the worst jobs with the worst pay and no chance of things ever changing.

    This country pays its cleaners and its bus drivers minimum wage, demanding that they work "harder" to cover lost "benefits" and then it pays some American cunt a £7,000,000 bonus just because he diddled the country out of billions of pounds in tax revenue. And, what's worse, is the bus drivers and the supermarket checkout staff and the toilet cleaners are pilloried for being lazy and selfish and the American cunt is lauded as some sort of fucking hero.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    This country pays its cleaners and its bus drivers minimum wage, demanding that they work "harder" to cover lost "benefits" and then it pays some American cunt a £7,000,000 bonus just because he diddled the country out of billions of pounds in tax revenue. And, what's worse, is the bus drivers and the supermarket checkout staff and the toilet cleaners are pilloried for being lazy and selfish and the American cunt is lauded as some sort of fucking hero.

    In others words, try to help the country and get sod all. Fuck up the country and get rewarded for it. Talk about fucked up.

    It shouldn't cost that much to move out. It did cost me whatever the cost of a train ticket was about 18 months ago.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    In others words, try to help the country and get sod all. Fuck up the country and get rewarded for it. Talk about fucked up.

    It shouldn't cost that much to move out. It did cost me whatever the cost of a train ticket was about 18 months ago.
    It shouldn't, but it does.

    One-bed flats in Braintree (which is on a branch line and so NOT one of the more expensive commuter towns in Essex) start at £450pcm exclusive of bills and council tax. I'm on £15k and I can't afford that without having no money left at the end of the month.

    Flat shares/house shares are around £400pcm inclusive, but that's not ideal and for a lot of people removes the independence of it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The private rental laws in this country are screwed up anyway, with six-month tenancies the standard and few tenant rights. The landlord can boot you out at the end of the six months without any legal problem at all. It isn't ideal if you're a single person or a young couple, but can you imagine trying to raise a family whilst having to move at a landlord's whim every six months.

    And that doesn't even cover the cost of starting a tenancy. You have a month's rent in advance, then a month's rent as a deposit, and then the letting agents around here charge an administraion fee of 50% of one month's rent plus VAT. Try and get a tenancy here and you're going to have to find the thick end of a grand before you can move in, and Newcastle isn't that expensive to rent due to a surplus of "executive luxury apartments". And how many people have a grand just sitting about?

    The reason why people don't rent in the UK and prefer to buy is because successive Governments have turned the rental market into an investment opportunity, with the thievery and chicanery that that entails. Tenants have no rights and get fleeced at every opportunity, so are determined to stop being tenants as soon as possible. Germans, on the other hand, are happy to rent because landlords can't evict them if they behave and pay the rent, and the rent can only be increased according to statutory guidelines.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Is one of the problems not that people are now looking to live independantly though?

    Look back a generation and people were buying/renting houses with partners so had two incomes to do it on.

    Look back another generation and people were living with their partners, generally with one at home and one working.

    (And if you want a contributing factor to rising house prices, the move from one income in a household to two should be considered)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The rise in single person households has had an effect on property inflation, definitely, especially in places with higher demand. Firstly there are more people wanting flats separately and, secondly, property development has moved away from family homes towards "luxury executive apartments", because of the higher profit margins on the flats. That means that people who want to rent a family home pay more because there are fewer of them, and people who want to rent a flat pay more because there's more competition.

    However most of the inflation has come about through good old-fashioned greed. The rise of buy-to-let investment has happened at the same time as tenant rights have been eroded, making the rental market more about being a profit-driven investment vehicle rather than about providing capacity. The BTL market increased property prices as people sought to make a quick buck and rental prices were driven up as landlords took on bigger mortgages and had to cover their costs somehow.

    I have no problems with landlords running businesses and being able to make a profit, but I do have serious problems with the complete absence of legal protection for assured shorthold tenants. And I have serious problems with the thievery of letting agents who charge prospective tenants massive admin fees as well as charging the landlords massive admin fees.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And I have serious problems with the thievery of letting agents who charge prospective tenants massive admin fees as well as charging the landlords massive admin fees.

    :yes: Mrs. Piccolo has just been told that she can renew her lease as long as she pays the agents £125 to issue a 'new' contract (a copy of the old one with a different date on it).

    On top of the fact that they haven't fixed the damp they were due to fix when she moved in twelve months ago. But she can't afford anywhere else so will have to pay it.

    All she can do is ask for proof that it's a standard charge, which buys a little time to work some overtime and get the money together.

    :mad:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sorry for the rant. I'd had a really crap day at work being verbally abused on multiple ocasions by several different members of the public. It really made me think why do I work hard and put up with this rubbish if I am still expected to live like a teenager, dependent on my parents.

    Scary Monster, obviously if I had a boyfriend with a similar income we could manage the rent on a 1 bed flat between us. However I don't have a boyfriend and the young men in the area tend to be a bit workshy so if anything a boyfriend would just be a hinderance to me financially. I'd be paying for him to eat and use electricity in addition to my own living costs.

    I live in a comutter town where 1-bed flats start at about £600pcm not including any bills. After paying my rent I'd have a grand total of £90 per week to live on. There isn't really a flatshare market like there was where I went to uni. Also 2-bed flats start at about £1000 pcm so even if I found a flatmate £500 pcm is still too much.

    I'd would be perfectly happy to flat share in a cheap grotty house like I did as a student but the only rental properties available to me are the "luxury excecutive apartments" which I cant afford.
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