Am I doomed to live in a cardboard box?!

I've got to the age where I'm starting to thinking about flying the nest, only I look at house prices today and my mind boggles how i'll ever afford a house of my very own without having my children still paying my mortgage when I'm gone! I can't see myself being in a job well paid enough to have a comfortable living, especially since it looks like i'll have to omit university to pay for the house! (the price of educations going up aswell! aren't us young-uns so lucky! '-_-)

I don't want to be doomed to live in one of those awful AWFUL mill conversions, or a 'flat-pack home' as I call them. Oh woe is me!

I agree, it's completely mad at the mo & I really worry about how the next gen(s) will cope.

Don't laugh too hard at the idea of inheritable mortgages tho, they have them in Japan.

You could say every generation worrys about this but it's particularly bad right now I agree.

Personally I think we should stop it, it's just another form of inflation and 'we' supposedly were prepared to move Heaven & Earth to get it out of our economic system not so long ago.

There are, IMO, two ways of doing this.

1) Go back to building much much more decent quality public housing, like we used to under both tory & Labout Govs.

2) Follow the European example and heavily tax the rise in house prices as an unearned capital gain which would lead to much much more modest property price inflation growth.

There are answers to this problem but they require political will and some sort of consensus......once upon a time your family home was your security, now it is claimed to be your enormous wealth and/or your retirement pension.

So, the question is whether people want to give up the monopoly-money illusion of the 'wealth' they imagine their house - or, as the adult children of home-owning parents, the inheritence their family home - may provide them with.

It's all relative anyways, very few of us can ever up-sticks and cash in.......it's not like you can sell-up and go and live in a tent is it?

[edit on 23-5-2007 by sminkeypinkey]

they are relaxing building laws which means developers will have a larger opertunity to build houses then wait months,

and the debt in this country and the rate its going up is increasing the problem aswell, with the high intrest rates and so foirth

Originally posted by bodrul
with the high intrest rates and so foirth

- Bodrul mate I really think you have a funny idea of what "high" interest rates are.

The current levels are still relatively low given the UK's recent history.

Originally posted by sminkeypinkey
- Bodrul mate I really think you have a funny idea of what "high" interest rates are.

The current levels are still relatively low given the UK's recent history.

Agreed my knowledge of the tax and political system aren’t as good as you (even if you didn’t say that) I still find it a tax hike.

And it’s a sharp rise in interest rates from 3.75 in 03 to 5.20 in 03/07
This does have a large effect on the economy and the purchasing power of an individual.


(I may be very wrong and just made my self look like an idiot)


[edit on 25-5-2007 by bodrul]

Originally posted by bodrul
Agreed my knowledge of the tax and political system aren’t as good as you (even if you didn’t say that)

- Flattery will get you nowhere!

But it was flattering, thank you.

I still find it a tax hike.

- I appreciate it might be difficult to see the difference sometimes but interest rates are not tax.

it’s a sharp rise in interest rates from 3.75 in 03 to 5.20 in 03/07

- Well OK, I can appreciate that it looks like a significant rise but that's why I mentioned our recent past.

Considering the typical mortgage is still 25 years (even if 30 years is not as uncommon as it once was) I think it's perfectly fair to look back at the history of UK interest & mortgage rates for that period.

If you do that you'll see that even todays 5.25% is historically very low.

You also need to take account of 'real interest rates' (the interest rate minus inflation).







- As you can see interest rates in the last 20 years have been horrendous compared to now, even with the recent rises.

This does have a large effect on the economy and the purchasing power of an individual.

- No doubt.
But nevertheless the turth is that we are still seeing an exceptionally long period of sustained and strong growth in the UK economy overall.

I agree interest rates are a 'blunt instrument' and can hurt as much as they might help (afterall in the non-overheating regions of the UK why should they suffer just as much as the overheating, mainly SE, areas?
That was what central Gov 'regional funding' was intended to correct for until the economic dogma of the day decided it wasn't going to be continued; it's come back some but nothing like as it once was).

Anyhoo, unfortunately the UK Gov decided post 1979 to put away some of the more accurate or specific tools for tackling some of our problems (in the interest of 'market freedom', so we were told at the time when it happened.....by guess who when they were in Gov ).

We could and did, once upon a time, tackle an over-heating housing market by insisting on things like higher deposits from buyers.
Ditto with personal debt/loans etc.
Similarly the Bank of England once upon a time could restrict the amount of credit in the economy as a whole by insisting that the various banks etc kept a higher ratio of actual cash in relation to the amount of credit/loans that they created
(I take it it's common knowledge that the majority of 'money' in our economy is 'not real' money?).

(I may be very wrong and just made my self look like an idiot)

- Not in the slightest mate, work away.
These are interesting, good and fair points well put.

Don't give up hope, FudgeStix. My children are facing the same situation as you. It's taken my son seven years to save half the price of either a 3 to 4 bedroom home in an outer suburb, or a two bedroom apartment in the city. In order he could save even that much, we heavily subsidise his living.

In seven more years, he may have saved an equal amount, although by then, property prices will be far increased upon those of today.

Nevertheless, if he were to continue saving at his current rate, he'd be close to having full payment on a small city dwelling ... or would be able to buy a decent property in a regional town. Trouble is, there's not much work available in regional towns.

At least though, he'd be mortgage-free as far as his own residence was concerned and would then be able to put money aside for an investment property, which he could then rent out with the eventual profits to be used in his later years.

I don't think our children would be prepared to live as spartanly as their parents did, though, to gain a foothold. In the early years of our marriage, I didn't have a car or telephone, sewed my own and the children's clothes, washed cloth nappies twice daily instead of using disposable --- made-do, in all areas. We rarely if ever 'went out' and when we did, it was simple get-togethers with friends who like us, were saving every penny in order to whittle down the mortgage. We never considered going on holiday and repaired items such as cars and lawn-mowers, rather than disposing of them in favour of new.

Compared to the way my spouse and I lived, our own parents beginnings were twice as spartan again ! Strangely though, our grandparents lived quite well, even by today's standards.

But getting back to your predicament --- it's a long stretch between a cardboard box and a mill-conversion !

Mill-conversion = new plumbing and wiring, running water, electricity, probably central heating, double-glazing, good soundproofing, leak-free roof and ceilings, sealed timber flooring (?), new, modern kitchen and bathrooms-all tiled, multiple loos, good light and lots of windows, etc. etc. Better than living in a grass hut. Better than living in a cute-country-cottage with four foot high doorways, rising damp, cracked chimneys, jammed windows, antique plumbing and wiring, tiny dark rooms, peeling wallpaper, bodies under the floor and a two hour commute each way.

And at least if you did begin with a mill-conversion, you could use it as a stepping stone to something else, later --- without paying, paying and paying in the interim, for renovations and repair.



[edit on 25-5-2007 by Dock6]

We certainly need to increase the amount of affordable homes but is relaxing the planning laws going to increase affordable housing?

I think not as most property developers are in business to make profit for their share holders. If you relax the planning laws, then more houses for those would can afford them will be built.

Social housing has to come from central Government. How many houses are un-occupied today. Maybe, the Government or local authority have the right to take these properties for social or affordable housing.

freedom erp.....good podcast by the way and i do believe that Haziel Bleers is a brown babe...and therefor a favorite for the deputy prime mister job.

anyway social housing did work really well for many years so could be brought back to cater for primary workers as apposed to the disadvantaged...but that isn't "pc" so I'll shut up now.

what about a new city?

Thanks antuk. Working on the next podcast!!!

I think there is still a stigma associated with social housing. We have for the last 25 years been told that owning your own home is a good think and something you should work for.

I am sure there are some great examples of social housing but some have just been built to house people, and I am sure we can all come up with examples of estates that are fair from pleasant places to live.

There needs to be a mixture of social and private housing. We should create laws that enable local authorities to take over vacant property and use as housing stock. How many vacant properties are there in the UK?

Do we need more cities? Who amongst us would not object to a city on green belt land near us?

We need to manage the housing better but giving local people, maybe even down to the parish level the ability to manage their local housing stock.

I'm currently stuck in the same situation as you, FudgeStix. I'm going to be leaving the Army soon. For the last 11 years I've been living in military accomodation. My ex-wife got the house. I've been looking at the housing market in the UK and the cost of buying is astronomical. I refuse to rent, as I see it as pouring money into a bottomless pit with no future gain.

It has gotten to the stage that I have applied to emmigrate to the US, using the qualifications that I gained as a nurse many years ago to get a works visa. The cost of housing is about 1/3 - 1/4 that of the UK, and standard of living is substantially higher.

The UK housing market is a joke.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by PaddyInf]