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It will probably be cheaper to "acquire the rights to" land in Zimbabwe, if you can get on with the landlord.
Because people
A) keep on having babies - leading to a rising population. and a need for more housing.
have children and then the parents don't live togeather (or are unable to form meaningul relationships) - leading to a rise in single adult house holds
C) no longer live togeather in multi generational house holds
D) some sectors of the indigenous popultion of the UK would rather live off benefits than do meanial jobs - which means we need to import new people to do these for us - who also need housing.
E) Lots of housign which was built in the post war period was sub standard (which in many ways was only right as they needed to solve a much bigger housing crisis then than we do now) and thus needs replacing.
Nah thanks, Cape Town is the only place I'd consider settling in.
Too many people are aiming too high, looking for new builds and luxury apartments when there's a plethora of affordable housing out there. When I was looking at houses I found a bigger one, around the corner and further away from a train line for £2000 less and promptly bought it. People need to be less picky, and a bit more patient.
plethora of affordable housing?? you obviously don't live in the south mate....BTL'ers aren't to blame so much as the planning restrictions which forces up the price of the areas that can be built on, coupled with the loose credit made available by the banks to people who can't repay their loans.....they are just taking advantage of the situation the government has manufactured, fact is a large proportion of the economy (or should i say debt) and consumer spending in the UK revolves around real estate, and when house prices stop rising and start falling you will see the mother of all recessions, which is why the government/BOE can't afford to raise IRs meaningfully right now to control inflation, so they fiddle the CPI instead.
it will end badly one way or another, just look at the US where the subprime market is dragging them into recession, or in Ireland where inflation is above 5% and climbing.....who wants affordable housing in a 3rd world country? happy days ahead.
85K wouldn't buy you a pot to piss into in London. Seriously a one bedroom studio would set you back at least 150k. There might be cheap affordable housing in parts of the country however in the large cities its in short supply.
:thumb:
You don't live in London do you?
People move where the jobs are - London and the south east. Prices go up in response to demand. Housing is a basic human need.
Hurray for capitalism!
</sarcasm>
You'd think if interest rates keep rising BTLers will struggle to raise rents enough to meet their repayments - and will be forced to sell, surplus of supply follows and prices fall... But I guess in London at least demand for housing is so intense it would take something pretty huge to reduce the demand.
Part of the problem is the dominance of London. Whilst more and more people go to London the population in northern cities like Manchester and Liverpool has been falling.
And by affordable I only mean that two people could buy them, as a single person you have no chance of getting a property unless you earn loads.
Yes and rent is also much more affordable. Go figure.
Where is rent much more affordable? Paris? Frankfurt? Brussels? Stockholm? Munich? Zurich? I think rents are pretty high in most comparable wealthy European cities. My brother lives in Paris - I can tell you that rents there aren't 'much more affordable.' And I know from German friends that Frankfurt isn't cheap either..
You're right to some extent, I'm sure that generally people in France, Germany or wherever do spend a lower proportion of their wage on rent but 'abroad' is not as cheap as people often seem to think.
And there is the fact that it's generally a lot easier to find work in London than it is in France or Germany. Take home pay is probably slightly higher too. To put it another way, when people vote with their feet London seems pretty popular - if considering everything, rent was so unaffordable in Britain I don't think so many people from elsewhere in the EU would be choosing to come to London.
(yet again demonstrating the moronic ineptitude/ willingness to deliberately mislead people of journalists, but that is another issue)
It compares the average salary with the average house price which is totally misleading. Most people will buy as a couple or a group of some kind, and if you are buying on your own then you wouldn't be buying the 'average' house anyway.
So the headline that public sector workers in 7/10 towns can't afford to buy housing is utterly misleading and wrong.
The standard of journalism in this country is a toal disgrace.......
Perhaps the 7/10 figure might be slightly overstated. But the general point of the article is the same. A huge proportion of public sector workers cant afford to live in large cities (London & SE) You could be a family with 2 children. Finding a 3 bedroom house on a nurse/teacher/fireman's wage in London is a difficult task.
As has been mentioned, more houses need to be built.....
Nurses, firewo/men, police and so on, they're not on wages as low as people who work in factories. And tbh, why are they anymore worthy of a house than people in other professions?
At the same time, maybe more people would apply for these jobs if there were an incentive.
I would say they are more worthy than factory workers because, a factory can relocate anywhere in the UK it wishes. This could be to move where labor is cheaper or houses are in greater supply. However a central London police station has to stay within central London, it can't move to take advantage of cheaper costs of living.
Therefore we need policemen/women to work at this central London location. Unfortunately the cost of living within a sensible working distance from central London is very high and out the reach of most public sector salaries.
Police/Fire/Nurses are all essential to a safe big city like London.
:thumb:
I would politely suggest that nurses are more important than Carphone Warehouse salesmen.
But there is an opportunity to move a call center out of London, somewhere the houses are cheaper and employees can afford to live. You cant move a police station from Charing Cross to Hull (for example) to take advantage of lower house prices. The Charing Cross police station has to stay in Charing Cross to be effective.
It would be nice to make London affordable for everyone, but lets face it that isn't going to happen. The best thing we can do is build more houses in London and the SE in order to reduce the upward pressure on house prices.
But at the moment its police/nurses/fireman who are under the greatest pressure trying to live in or near London or a modest salary. Its these key workers we should help first, because we cant make London affordable for everyone. Thats just life unfortunately.
I'd argue there are as many available jobs in the Midlands/North as there are in the South, and a lot more affordable housing. And no, I don't live in London thank fuck.
What's your point?
Because there are more jobs in the SE. Duh.