You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
There are places that meet that criteria - lots of County Durham villages have houses that took months to rent as few people want to live in a poor village without amenities.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
Good questions.
A couple earning £26k per annum each, with a £26k deposit, can get a £250k property.
But as I've said, its not easy to get a £25k deposit together, especially if you're paying exorbitant rents and high taxes.
Of course if construction goes up then not only do property values come down in real terms (which is why we need inflation too) but rents would come down in real terms too.
Planning consent should be made much easier to get so that there is competition instead of an oligopoly in construction. In many countries around the globe houses are built down to the individual house level instead of in massive developments, as the individual house can easily get consent. So if you get consent easily, all you need to get is contractors to do the building etc.
If you make consent hard to get, only developments become worthwhile, which hands the power to development companies who can develop at their own pace without contractors competing with them.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
The farm or business can borrow the 10% and still be viable as interest rates are so low.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
No, its doing that because there's no free market.
Where are the small developers building individual properties on-demand like in Tokyo?
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
It would make it impossible to pass the business on to ones children
It'd move British farming inevitably toward the USA megafarm model. The character of the countryside would change. OTOH I think farmers do incredibly well under the current system when a developer takes a fancy to their land... One move that could be brought in is to exempt the inheritor with the previous (current) tax breaks at the cost of essentially creating a supertax that goes to the treasury upon sale of land to developers for chimney pots.
No idea if these figures are correct but e.g. unimproved farmland value = 100k - land value with pp to developer = £1m. Farmer sells, receives £200k, £800k to treasury in return for forgoing IHT on the value of assets. The numbers could be jigged around to make it work.
Another hangover from the botched devolution settlement:
Hello and welcome back to the biennial brow-furrowing over interaction between Scotland's fiscal framework and (reserved) National Insurance Contributions, and the resulting impact on marginal tax rates. A frequent headache for both Scottish & UK govts when grasping fiscal levers
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
The average property in Tokyo costs $16,322 per square meter to buy, still pretty expensive and Tokyo has far more skyscrapers and highrise buildings than London and certainly no parks on the scale of Hyde Park for example so less greenspace than London too. https://moneyinc.com/the-20-most-expensive-cities-to-buy-a-home-in-the-world/
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
Define "London". So many people have to live on the periphery to do jobs in the centre as there's literally no other option even renting.
With so many people renting in London its either that (a) people would rather pay crazy rents to property developers than rent or (b) they can't afford to buy.
As you said, you have to have two people earning £25k to be able to afford a £250k flat. If they can find such a flat. And a joint mortgage. And the deposit.
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
As even with a deposit the average Londoner would only have £405,000 to spend, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy the average property price paid for by first time buyers.
Otherwise please find me several million properties in London to buy below £405,000 and thus affordable to all potential first time buyers in London who now rent?
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
The farm or business can borrow the 10% and still be viable as interest rates are so low.
Ah yes sorry my replies were handling IHT at current rates. If IHT was only 10% it could absolubtely be levied on farms.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
Why the hell do you think that a First Time Buyer buys an average property? Y Are you too thick to understand that most people pay for a less than average one?
Who do you think is paying for the less than average ones, if FTBs are going for average ones?
Can you answer that point please instead of harping on about averages that are absolutely meaningless to the individual?
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
And. Equally. The vast majority of people in London earn below an average London income. The mean/median differential is probably as skewed as the house price one. Possibly more so. The problem with London is the inability of folk to live with their parents for several years, as they aren't from there. That is how you save a deposit.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
It would make it impossible to pass the business on to ones children
It'd move British farming inevitably toward the USA megafarm model. The character of the countryside would change. OTOH I think farmers do incredibly well under the current system when a developer takes a fancy to their land... One move that could be brought in is to exempt the inheritor with the previous (current) tax breaks at the cost of essentially creating a supertax that goes to the treasury upon sale of land to developers for chimney pots.
No idea if these figures are correct but e.g. unimproved farmland value = 100k - land value with pp to developer = £1m. Farmer sells, receives £200k, £800k to treasury in return for forgoing IHT on the value of assets. The numbers could be jigged around to make it work.
That's just going to further discourage people from freeing up land for development which is the root cause of our biggest issues in society.
If we simply had a free market where people could decide whether they wanted their own land to be farmland or developed then it'd be easier for farmers to sell on - but competition would mean the land value would collapse anyway.
Which eliminates the unearned windfall and makes new properties affordable.
Jake's been listening to me, he's a wise fellow, I mean he follows me on Twitter for starters.
In a sign that the tax rise could split Johnson’s electoral coalition, Jake Berry, a former minister who leads the Northern Research Group and is the MP for Rossendale & Darwen, said that the move would disproportionately benefit older voters in affluent southern seats.
“It doesn’t really seem to me reasonable that people who are going to work in my own constituency in east Lancashire, probably on lower wages than many other areas of the country, will pay tax to support people to keep hold of their houses in other parts of the country where house prices may be much higher,” he said.
Berry, 42, formerly a close ally of Johnson and a key backer of his leadership ambitions, told Today on BBC Radio 4 that because national insurance was not paid by retired people, a rise would pose questions of intergenerational fairness.
He said: “It doesn’t seem fair to me — particularly following this pandemic where so many people have taken great sacrifices to keep people safe, it’s particularly hit the youngest, particularly hit those in work — that we then ask those in work to pay for people to have protection in care.”
Berry called for income tax to be increased instead, saying: “When I was sat round that cabinet table and Sajid Javid was the chancellor of the exchequer writing the Conservative Party manifesto, he was a great believer in not racking up the jobs tax and I just wonder why he’s had a sort of Damascene conversion when becoming the health secretary to seeing the jobs tax as the way forward.”
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
Define "London". So many people have to live on the periphery to do jobs in the centre as there's literally no other option even renting.
With so many people renting in London its either that (a) people would rather pay crazy rents to property developers than rent or (b) they can't afford to buy.
As you said, you have to have two people earning £25k to be able to afford a £250k flat. If they can find such a flat. And a joint mortgage. And the deposit.
As I've said, I believe the deposit is the biggest stumbling block.
If you're living paycheck to paycheck then you're not saving tens of thousands of pounds on a deposit.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
It would make it impossible to pass the business on to ones children
It'd move British farming inevitably toward the USA megafarm model. The character of the countryside would change. OTOH I think farmers do incredibly well under the current system when a developer takes a fancy to their land... One move that could be brought in is to exempt the inheritor with the previous (current) tax breaks at the cost of essentially creating a supertax that goes to the treasury upon sale of land to developers for chimney pots.
No idea if these figures are correct but e.g. unimproved farmland value = 100k - land value with pp to developer = £1m. Farmer sells, receives £200k, £800k to treasury in return for forgoing IHT on the value of assets. The numbers could be jigged around to make it work.
That's just going to further discourage people from freeing up land for development which is the root cause of our biggest issues in society.
If we simply had a free market where people could decide whether they wanted their own land to be farmland or developed then it'd be easier for farmers to sell on - but competition would mean the land value would collapse anyway.
Which eliminates the unearned windfall and makes new properties affordable.
Chesham and Amersham has put paid to that heady idea for the forseeable future !
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
And. Equally. The vast majority of people in London earn below an average London income. The mean/median differential is probably as skewed as the house price one. Possibly more so.
That's a very fair point.
Though I think its not unusual for median incomes to be quoted, whereas I've never seen median house prices quoted.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem is land value - and the problem with land value is planning permission.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
When I read NIMBY I think POE for politics of envy.
Why not get a job? It's what I did to get a house. I am now frittering away my retirement on PB at, as it happens, Inverness airport. What are you doing?
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
Why the hell do you think that a First Time Buyer buys an average property? Y Are you too thick to understand that most people pay for a less than average one?
Who do you think is paying for the less than average ones, if FTBs are going for average ones?
Can you answer that point please instead of harping on about averages that are absolutely meaningless to the individual?
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
And. Equally. The vast majority of people in London earn below an average London income. The mean/median differential is probably as skewed as the house price one. Possibly more so. The problem with London is the inability of folk to live with their parents for several years, as they aren't from there. That is how you save a deposit.
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
Define "London". So many people have to live on the periphery to do jobs in the centre as there's literally no other option even renting.
With so many people renting in London its either that (a) people would rather pay crazy rents to property developers than rent or (b) they can't afford to buy.
As you said, you have to have two people earning £25k to be able to afford a £250k flat. If they can find such a flat. And a joint mortgage. And the deposit.
Realistically if you want to live further in than zone 4 you either need a massive deposit or to be earning over £100K a year
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
When I read NIMBY I think POE for politics of envy.
Why not get a job? It's what I did to get a house. I am now frittering away my retirement on PB at, as it happens, Inverness airport. What are you doing?
When I see someone defending NIMBYs I always wait for the point when they reveal themselves as part of the problem.
Well done for doing so immediately - but can you tell me how do you handle an increasing population without building houses?
I don't think the NI proposal will see the light of day.
PB is not representative of anything. But it's the first time ever I've seen right, centre, left and all shades between united in thinking that an NI increase is a Bad Idea. There may be little agreement between us on what the alternative should be, but the PB tribe seems pretty united in rejecting an NI increase.
The government should listen to us.
Its often said that politicians read PB.
I'll be glad if they do, or I'll be getting my pitchfork out. 🔱
Any politician reading BTL on any political blog is getting a lot of pain for not much reward.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
Isn't the problem mostly localized to London and the South-East? That implies it's more about how much land you're allowed to build on and how many stories you're allowed to build than anything about construction standards. (Although obviously if there are building requirements that are adding costs for no good purpose then that should be fixed.)
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
No it is not. You might be right but you haven't shown it. Can you not do even the simplest of maths. The average 1st time buyer home cost more than most of the 1st time buyer homes. Do you understand that and why? It is an arithmetic average of an uneven sample.
Please find me then several million homes affordable to those who rent in London and who want to buy their first home, based on 4.5 times the average London wage and a 10% deposit as you are so confident they exist?
You don't read the posts do you? My second sentence said you might be right. Go on read it again. I have no idea who is right between you and Philip, BUT the assumption you made from the stats you produced as usual is utter crap. You must be the worst at maths on this site because you never get the mistakes you make and you make them over and over again.
Meanwhile. Housing up north anecdote. On the train last night to Carlisle. 2 lads mid twenties, vaguely knew each other from school sat behind me. A bit pissed so garrulous. One drives a van, the other factory work. One has bought a house. Gone up from £180 k to £200k in 12 months. Other has saved a deposit, and is buying, by not paying any rent or keep for 6 years. Both talking about looking to buy a second home to BTL. One enthusiastic to do so, the other "too much hassle." Talked exclusively about the subject for 20 minutes. Neither seemed to regard housing as anything other than an easy way to make money. Both remarked it was the way to "not to work as hard." With a second property, the keen one's ambition was to quit and become a postman. Not sure housing will be solved any time soon.
Yes, the notion of residential property as a route to riches rather than places to live is imo a bug not a feature of how we roll here.
On which thought, I wonder how Germany handles social care? There are often lessons there for Blighty.
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
By the same token, quoting the mean salary is also "wrong" - the two should more-or-less cancel out though.
Anyway:
Median house price in London is about £500k. Median salary in London is about £40k pa. So, a couple, both on median salaries can get a mortgage up £400k, although whether they can afford the repayments is another question entirely. So, they still need another £100k deposit on top. Even if they put £10k a year from their combined net salary of around £60k, it'd still take them 10 years to save. By which time of course, prices have gone up another x% in excess of wage inflation.
@HYUFD you forcefully point out that Boris won't allow an Indy referendum because it was a promise. How does that differ from a promise not to increase NI?
As Covid necessitated extra funds for the NHS, it did not necessitate indyref2, in fact the reverse
Ah ok. So when you say never what you really mean is that if Boris can find a good reason to break that promise it is ok then.
That is not a position I disagree with, but it is not what you have been saying.
So if something happens that changes Boris's mind (as with the NI increase) then we may have an Indy ref. That is not what you have been saying is it?
He won't, he had made clear he will not allow an indyref2 while he is PM as he knows if he lost it he would have to resign and become the 21st century Lord North.
A 1% NI rise for the NHS with negligible electoral risk is entirely different
You are missing the point. You say never, but also agree if circumstances change for something else he will. They are contradictory positions. So try this:
SNP get 80% vote share, Indy polls show 80%. UK Govt ignores, and people take to the streets, people die in riots, car and buildings burn down, bombs go off, army sent in. Sounds familiar. The difference being in NI the nationalist were in a minority, if they are in a big majority that defence is no longer there.
I appreciate this is hypothetical and unlikely, but you can't say at the same time 'Never' and then allow a reason for a change because 'Unforeseen Circumstances'.
Legally there would be nothing to stop the UK government refusing an indyref2 even then.
However anyway that is entirely hyopthetical, most Scottish polls have No still narrowly ahead and most Scots not wanting indyref2 for 5 years at least
Please answer the question I asked, not one I didn't. Remember the pandemic was hypothetical before it happened, so answer the hypothetical question. Do you agree that there is no such thing as 'never' here. Very unlikely yes, but never?
For clarification I don't have strong views on this, but you are arguing the exact opposite on these issues.
Yes, never.
If necessary this government would follow the Madrid route with the Catalan nationalists if they held a wildcat referendum, there will never be an indyref2 allowed while the Tories remain in government before a generation has elapsed since 2014
OK I can't argue with that; question answered.
I can't believe you are saying that though. I personally don't have a strong view one way or the other re Independence sitting here in Surrey. But I can't believe that if a situation arises like I described you would still feel the same. Does that mean you don't feel we should have given independence to our empire, that Belarus is ok, North Korea also, etc, etc and if a vast majority want independence they shouldn't have it. That doesn't exit currently, but you are saying if it does the answer is still no. Long live the Warsaw pact.
Churchill did not want to give India independence no, it was Attlee and Labour who gave India independence.
Morally that may have been right but it cost us our superpower status no doubt which is why Churchill when he was Tory PM pre 1945 opposed it and opposed it as Leader of the Opposition
How about North Korea, Belarus, the ex-Communist block? You agree the people of those countries shouldn't be allowed or have been allowed a say?
They were not allowed a say in the USSR and Eastern Europe until Gorbachev and Putin wants most of the old USSR back in Russia's orbit.
Your point is? You think it is ok for people not to have the vote?
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
By the same token, quoting the mean salary is also "wrong" - the two should more-or-less cancel out though.
Anyway:
Median house price in London is about £500k. Median salary in London is about £40k pa. So, a couple, both on median salaries can get a mortgage up £400k, although whether they can afford the repayments is another question entirely. So, they still need another £100k deposit on top. Even if they put £10k a year from their combined net salary of around £60k, it'd still take them 10 years to save. By which time of course, prices have gone up another x% in excess of wage inflation.
They don't cancel each other out, because people climb up the property ladder.
A couple on a median income who has repaid fifteen years of their mortgage on their existing property and is now looking to move may be able afford much higher than the median average house price.
A couple on a median income who has scrimped and saved to get a deposit and is looking to buy for the first time will not.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
Tube coverage for 4G/5G by the end of 2024, finally
I'm informed that the cost is going to be massive and the networks aren't very interested in paying for it.
It seems like a terrible investment.
I don't use my mobile while driving on the motorway for obvious reasons, I don't see why people need to if they're in the Tube. Just get from A to B and move on.
If England wind up 30 short in the test due to bad light, will something actually be done about the ludicrous two headed problem of appallingly slow over rates and 11 am starts in September ?
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
No it is not. You might be right but you haven't shown it. Can you not do even the simplest of maths. The average 1st time buyer home cost more than most of the 1st time buyer homes. Do you understand that and why? It is an arithmetic average of an uneven sample.
Please find me then several million homes affordable to those who rent in London and who want to buy their first home, based on 4.5 times the average London wage and a 10% deposit as you are so confident they exist?
You don't read the posts do you? My second sentence said you might be right. Go on read it again. I have no idea who is right between you and Philip, BUT the assumption you made from the stats you produced as usual is utter crap. You must be the worst at maths on this site because you never get the mistakes you make and you make them over and over again.
Oh go on then do your usual extremely tedious 'I am so brilliant at Maths unlike you act' to distract from the fact you still have not been able to provide any evidence that most Londoners who rent could afford to buy in the city if they want to as I have. The simple fact is there are not enough homes to buy in London affordable to the average Londoner on the average wage, even if they got a mortgage and saved a deposit, as Endillion has also correctly shown
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem is land value - and the problem with land value is planning permission.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
I don't think it is just land value: although land value is a major part of it.
Also, I don't think alterations to the planning process that would house prices significantly would actually lead to a liveable environment, for either the homeowners or others in the area. Many modern developments are bad enough with that as it is.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
When I read NIMBY I think POE for politics of envy.
Why not get a job? It's what I did to get a house. I am now frittering away my retirement on PB at, as it happens, Inverness airport. What are you doing?
When I see someone defending NIMBYs I always wait for the point when they reveal themselves as part of the problem.
Well done for doing so immediately - but can you tell me how do you handle an increasing population without building houses?
See my Titanic post about half an hour ago? I wholeheartedly agree that England needs more housing in the sense that the Titanic needed more lifeboats. This necessitates the destruction of what remains of the English countryside, which I find regrettable. That regret makes me a NIMBY in the eyes of Phil the Lib. What do you think?
Meanwhile. Housing up north anecdote. On the train last night to Carlisle. 2 lads mid twenties, vaguely knew each other from school sat behind me. A bit pissed so garrulous. One drives a van, the other factory work. One has bought a house. Gone up from £180 k to £200k in 12 months. Other has saved a deposit, and is buying, by not paying any rent or keep for 6 years. Both talking about looking to buy a second home to BTL. One enthusiastic to do so, the other "too much hassle." Talked exclusively about the subject for 20 minutes. Neither seemed to regard housing as anything other than an easy way to make money. Both remarked it was the way to "not to work as hard." With a second property, the keen one's ambition was to quit and become a postman. Not sure housing will be solved any time soon.
Yes, the notion of residential property as a route to riches rather than places to live is imo a bug not a feature of how we roll here.
On which thought, I wonder how Germany handles social care? There are often lessons there for Blighty.
The thing that really struck home was not that it was a route to riches. Rather that it was a route to not work hard. Or even work at all. An easy life. It is an attitude I am increasingly picking up on amongst the generation below me. Much, much easier and less risky than going to uni or training to earn high wages. Becoming a landlord is the dream "job" of choice for many. And the purpose of their work. Disastrous for the wealth of the polity if it takes hold.
What's the staff needed for 20 dementia patients ?
& How much does that cost, compared to what people are charged ?
My understanding is that 20 dementia patients will require ~30 staff on average.
What is the ratio of patients to workers at any one time?
At any one time it varies, my understanding is that there can be typically no more than 5 dementia residents per carer. But the home will have supplementary staff other than just carers.
However of course residents are there 24 hours a day, seven days per week but workers work in shift patterns and are entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year too. So you need multiple shifts to have 24/7/365 coverage which is why the number of people working in care exceeds the number of residents as far as I understand.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem is land value - and the problem with land value is planning permission.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
I don't think it is just land value: although land value is a major part of it.
Also, I don't think alterations to the planning process that would house prices significantly would actually lead to a liveable environment, for either the homeowners or others in the area. Many modern developments are bad enough with that as it is.
Land value is a major, major point. The cost of a house in London is completely disconnected from the cost of building a house. The right to build a property on a piece of land is where the money is.
Consider my personal example below. In Marden, Kent
- Agricultural land - £6,500 an acre - Local House prices - a nice 3/4 bed is £500k+ You could trivially fit a couple of them on an acre.....
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
Buying a house should be affordable from wages, not inheritance.
If we didn't have such high tax rates, it could be.
Not in London and the South East it wouldn't be.
In London the average house price is now over £600,000 and in the South East over £400,000 even the full time average London wage before tax is only £41,000. Combined for a couple that makes £82,000 and 4.5 times that is only £369,000.
You do realise don't you that the majority of homes are sold for less than the average house price? 🤦♂️
Even if you use median averages half of homes are sold for less than that, but for mean averages then multimillion pound homes drag the average up by more than dilapidated homes drop it by.
London's not cheap but its possible to buy a home for less than £369k even there. I've just put in Rightmove a search for London, 3 beds, with a filter for excluding shared ownership and it literally found hundreds of properties at the price you said.
Saving for the deposit can be the hardest part of getting a loan and if taxes weren't so high so people had more disposable income they'd be able to save up more via work and not rely upon an inheritance.
EDIT: Change it to 2 beds and there's thousands of homes available to get on the ladder at that price.
Not in London and the South East. You managed to find one borough of London, one ie Barking and Dagenham on the outer reaches of London and one of the poorest and most deprived in the country with an average house price of less than £369,000 and given there are 8 million people in London most of them on an average London wage are not going to all be able to buy the few 2 to 3 beds in London you found for less than the average price are they!!
So as I said the average earner in London and the South East cannot buy a property without an inheritance or gift in most parts of London and the South East even if taxes were 0
No I found one borough of London (and stopped looking at that point) where the average was below your quoted figure.
But the majority of homes sold are below average and almost all First Time Buyers will go for a below average home not an above average one.
Besides try looking on Rightmove. There's literally thousands of homes available for 2 beds and hundreds for 3 beds at that price.
As for your claim that millions can't buy the homes listed now, well of course not but why should they? Many of those millions either will currently already own one or don't want to own one. The ones listed on Rightmove are only those available today and will only ever be a small proportion of houses - in twelve months time there will be different homes available as these will be gone but others will be listed. That's the way the property market works.
According to Rightmove across London as a whole however the average London flat sold for on average £543,812. Terraced properties in London sold for an average price of £735,704, while semi-detached properties fetched £713,886 in the capital.
The majority of property sales are BELOW AVERAGE not average.
Are you seriously incapable of understanding what the words below average mean? It applies to the majority of sales.
So even when I produce the average price first time buyers have to pay to buy in London ie below the overall average let alone the average price it is STILL above the price those on an average wage in London could afford to pay for a property ie £369,000 only.
So my point buying property in London is unaffordable in most areas for most Londoners on an average wage stands absolutely.
No your point does not stand since averages are meaningless. Literally thousands of homes are available below that price.
PS your maths were wrong anyway since the £369k is for the mortgage element of the property and excludes the deposit. If someone has saved a 10% deposit then that puts the property value affordable at over £400k.
No averages are not meaningless, an average buyer will be seeking to buy an average property, a first time buyer will be seeking to buy the same type of property as an average first time buyer.
The fact you can find a handful of exceptions below that price in the worst parts of outer London does not change that, there are simply not enough of those to provide homes to own for all the first time buyers in London even if they were all prepared to move there.
You live in the North where property is far cheaper to buy even relative to income, you do not have a clue how hard it is to buy property in London for the average Londoner on the average London wage.
Even a 10% deposit at £369k added to the mortgage would still be only £405,900, still well below the £489,000 needed to buy even a first time buyer London home on average
Well obviously it depends upon what type of average you are using, conceivably and likely there are more houses under the average price than above (you can do averages can't you?) so the majority will be buying houses below the average price.
Even on the average London price paid by first time buyers (the lowest you can go) average prices are still beyond the range of those on the average London wage as I showed
Most homes are sold for below average but you still think average is the lowest you can go?
How thick are you? Do you think that zero homes are sold above average? Since when was average the lowest you can go?
First time buyer homes are sold for below average yes and as I have shown you even the average home bought by first time buyers in London is still priced at a value those on an average London wage cannot afford.
You can rant and be as rude as you like but clearly you do not understand that in London most Londoners on an average wage cannot afford to buy.
It doesn't matter what the average is, since the majority of sales are below average. It matters what is available. Repeatedly saying "average", "average", "average" is irrelevant when literally over half of all sales are for below average.
I've show you literally thousands of homes available well below the average.
Most can't afford to buy due to ruinous rent and taxes, meaning they can't get a deposit together without help. If taxes were lower, it'd be possible to save more and get a deposit together.
There are 8 million people in London, about 4 million of whom + now rent.
For goodness sake you have not found 4 million homes available for them to affordable buy have you? You have found a handful of cheaper properties in the worst areas of London!!
That's absolutely irrelevant, there aren't 4 million people looking to buy right now.
Those who are able to get a deposit together and get a mortgage are able to find a property. The issue is that today most people can't get a deposit together without help - but that's not a fact of life that has to be true.
There are over 4 million people in London who rent now and would ideally like to buy. Even if not all of them are imminent first time buyers there are also far more first time buyers in London than the handful of properties in the worst parts of London you found that could be affordable to them even with a deposit
No there aren't. There isn't a town or city anywhere in the world where the properties currently available on the market would match the quantity of renters.
That's not how the market works.
The simple fact is, even in London, if you can get a deposit and you can get a mortgage then you can get a property. And many people do that every year. But its nigh-on impossible as it stands to accrue a deposit using your own savings as costs and taxes are so high - and that is what should be getting fixed, not rely upon windfalls from inheritance as the solution for a very few people.
A few do, the majority don't and cannot on an average London income even with a deposit. Hence London has the highest percentage of renters in the UK
What evidence do you have that people can't afford a property on an average London income even with a deposit? As opposed to being unable to afford to save the deposit.
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
By the same token, quoting the mean salary is also "wrong" - the two should more-or-less cancel out though.
Anyway:
Median house price in London is about £500k. Median salary in London is about £40k pa. So, a couple, both on median salaries can get a mortgage up £400k, although whether they can afford the repayments is another question entirely. So, they still need another £100k deposit on top. Even if they put £10k a year from their combined net salary of around £60k, it'd still take them 10 years to save. By which time of course, prices have gone up another x% in excess of wage inflation.
They don't cancel each other out, because people climb up the property ladder.
A couple on a median income who has repaid fifteen years of their mortgage on their existing property and is now looking to move may be able afford much higher than the median average house price.
A couple on a median income who has scrimped and saved to get a deposit and is looking to buy for the first time will not.
They also climb up the career ladder.
Your analysis would be correct if our housing market was functional. The problem is (and you seem to be pointing this out in many of your other posts, so I'm confused why you haven't joined the dots?) that the market isn't functional, and there are millions of families trapped renting long after the point where they would ideally have bought.
Couples on starter incomes can't afford starter houses. Couples on median incomes can't afford median houses, and can't use starter houses because they aren't big enough. So how are they supposed to get onto the ladder?
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
Which options do you like?
There is only 1 solution - build homes...
NIMBY may well be an overused term, but if you've spent just five minutes involved in the planning system and the excuses people will use to try to prevent anything, literally anything, from getting built, it's impossible to not know that NIMBYs do exist and they are powerful.
Tube coverage for 4G/5G by the end of 2024, finally
You are such a pleb.
Last few times I’ve been in London and used Uber Luxury.
Really nice cars from LWB Merc series 6 to a Rolls Royce, all the vehicles had their own Wi-fi for us to use.
Can confirm that. Driving in luxury with TSE back from swish restaurant in the City to St Pancras for (even) more bubbly. It's what penurious pensioners do. I'm with Boris.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem is land value - and the problem with land value is planning permission.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
I don't think it is just land value: although land value is a major part of it.
Also, I don't think alterations to the planning process that would house prices significantly would actually lead to a liveable environment, for either the homeowners or others in the area. Many modern developments are bad enough with that as it is.
Land value is a major, major point. The cost of a house in London is completely disconnected from the cost of building a house. The right to build a property on a piece of land is where the money is.
Consider my personal example below. In Marden, Kent
- Agricultural land - £6,500 an acre - Local House prices - a nice 3/4 bed is £500k+ You could trivially fit a couple of them on an acre.....
You're missing a point: agricultural land considered suitable for development is certainly not £6,500 per acre.
Tube coverage for 4G/5G by the end of 2024, finally
I'm informed that the cost is going to be massive and the networks aren't very interested in paying for it.
It seems like a terrible investment.
I don't use my mobile while driving on the motorway for obvious reasons, I don't see why people need to if they're in the Tube. Just get from A to B and move on.
Security first of all, it will be used by the emergency services in times of emergency.
Second, basically every other mass transit system in the world has coverage within their tunnels, the Underground is behind and should be on par with those.
The world is moving on, we need to be connected wherever we are and the Tube is one of the few places in London that is a total not spot (albeit on the Underground sections).
Interesting article/study for those who continue to be in denial about how Russian trolls have and continue to pollute our democracy. It seems unlikely that Putin would not continue to sanction this if he didn't believe it works. Note that readers of the Express and Mail (along with Times) seem to be targeted as the most gullible groups.
Hardly. Green on 10% translates to 2 seats at best.
The more relevant point surely is that in the context of a GE circa 60% of that Green vote would be likely to switch to Labour and perhaps 1% to the LDs - enough to take Labour close to 40%.
Tube coverage for 4G/5G by the end of 2024, finally
You are such a pleb.
Last few times I’ve been in London and used Uber Luxury.
Really nice cars from LWB Merc series 6 to a Rolls Royce, all the vehicles had their own Wi-fi for us to use.
Can confirm that. Driving in luxury with TSE back from swish restaurant in the City to St Pancras for (even) more bubbly. It's what penurious pensioners do. I'm with Boris.
Nothing is too good for the working man and their representatives.
Next time I’m determined to get us the Rolls Royce.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
"More and easier construction to lower house prices."
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem is land value - and the problem with land value is planning permission.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
I don't think it is just land value: although land value is a major part of it.
Also, I don't think alterations to the planning process that would house prices significantly would actually lead to a liveable environment, for either the homeowners or others in the area. Many modern developments are bad enough with that as it is.
Land value is a major, major point. The cost of a house in London is completely disconnected from the cost of building a house. The right to build a property on a piece of land is where the money is.
Consider my personal example below. In Marden, Kent
- Agricultural land - £6,500 an acre - Local House prices - a nice 3/4 bed is £500k+ You could trivially fit a couple of them on an acre.....
You're missing a point: agricultural land considered suitable for development is certainly not £6,500 per acre.
Yep agricultural land with any chance in the next 20 years of becoming residential property (i.e. on the edge of a village / town) will be going for many times that already.
Even if it is cheap any sane landowner will add a 25 year uplift requirement on profits from subsequent changes in usage.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
When I read NIMBY I think POE for politics of envy.
Why not get a job? It's what I did to get a house. I am now frittering away my retirement on PB at, as it happens, Inverness airport. What are you doing?
When I see someone defending NIMBYs I always wait for the point when they reveal themselves as part of the problem.
Well done for doing so immediately - but can you tell me how do you handle an increasing population without building houses?
See my Titanic post about half an hour ago? I wholeheartedly agree that England needs more housing in the sense that the Titanic needed more lifeboats. This necessitates the destruction of what remains of the English countryside, which I find regrettable. That regret makes me a NIMBY in the eyes of Phil the Lib. What do you think?
Actually what the Titanic need more than extra lifeboats, was extra trained seamen. They failed to launch all the lifeboats they had, before the ship sank.
A modern re-enactment, using identical davits (attached to a fixed pier) and lifeboats took longer to launch, despite being in broad daylight and with organised volunteers as the passengers.
The bottleneck was having enough trained pairs of hands.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
The farm or business can borrow the 10% and still be viable as interest rates are so low.
Ah yes sorry my replies were handling IHT at current rates. If IHT was only 10% it could absolubtely be levied on farms.
If there us an inheritance tax of 10% on land then maybe the farmer will sell to a builder increasing the supply of land available for housing.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
Which options do you like?
There is only 1 solution - build homes...
NIMBY may well be an overused term, but if you've spent just five minutes involved in the planning system and the excuses people will use to try to prevent anything, literally anything, from getting built, it's impossible to not know that NIMBYs do exist and they are powerful.
My wife is a planner in a National Park - I know all about objections.
Hardly. Green on 10% translates to 2 seats at best.
The more relevant point surely is that in the context of a GE circa 60% of that Green vote would be likely to switch to Labour and perhaps 1% to the LDs - enough to take Labour close to 40%.
Depends who the Labour leader is. Under a Corbynite, they might pick up more than 60%. Under Starmer, significantly less.
Also, the Greens are steadily replacing the LDs as the None Of The Above option in parts of the country, and anyway greater exposure of environmental issues in the media is probably helping them as well. The point being that, the higher the Greens are in the polls, the less valid the old rules of thumb about their supporters switching back to Labour at a GE become.
I note that those left-of-centre commentators who were so critical of Johnson and the London govt and laudatory of the administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff for their respective Covid responses have gone quiet of late.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
Which options do you like?
There is only 1 solution - build homes...
NIMBY may well be an overused term, but if you've spent just five minutes involved in the planning system and the excuses people will use to try to prevent anything, literally anything, from getting built, it's impossible to not know that NIMBYs do exist and they are powerful.
And, unfortunately, the will of the people in every neighbourhood is to not build more homes near them. Maybe one for their child, but definitely no more than that.
Like many of the great problems of our time, everyone (deep down) knows what needs to be done. (And without the land rationing premium, there's a lot more financial slack to make the houses nicer or s106 facilities better.) But nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing it.
The solution to funding social care is to cut inheritance tax to 10% but include land and business which are exempt. Trusts currently pay 6% every 10 years without public complaint. Not only will this raise tens of billions of pounds it will be extremely popular with voters as George Osborne discovered in 2007.
It might be fair, it might raise cash but wouldn't it make farming completely uneconomical ?
The farm or business can borrow the 10% and still be viable as interest rates are so low.
Ah yes sorry my replies were handling IHT at current rates. If IHT was only 10% it could absolubtely be levied on farms.
If there us an inheritance tax of 10% on land then maybe the farmer will sell to a builder increasing the supply of land available for housing.
How does that work when the farm is in the middle of nowhere?
1) the uplift from planning permission to build means most farmers will move instantly. 2) most farm aren't in places where building a housing estate makes any sense at all..
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
They're selling for that - to big developers - because there are huge numbers who have no option but to pay rents to a private owner like the big developers.
If that was the root of the problem then what it would imply would be that the big developers were making massive profits, and anyone could also set up as a small developer and also make (marginally less but still) massive profits, by selling to customers for slightly less. You don't need Brent Council to be the new competition, literally any creditworthy business could also show up and do it and also make vast sums of money.
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
Yes - in places where you can build practically at will, the absurdly high housing costs don't occur.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West - Move alot of people around the country - Reduce the population
Which options do you like?
There is only 1 solution - build homes...
NIMBY may well be an overused term, but if you've spent just five minutes involved in the planning system and the excuses people will use to try to prevent anything, literally anything, from getting built, it's impossible to not know that NIMBYs do exist and they are powerful.
My wife is a planner in a National Park - I know all about objections.
In my National Park the planners are net emitters of objections.
Fascinating as the "Small" / "Further Away" Father Ted debate is between the Essicks Massiv and the World Expert, do either of them propose any solution to London/SE property prices once they finish their stats death battle?
It doesn't matter whether the prices are the average or below average or whatever - as the people needing to live in them are paid double digit multiples less than the mortgage (my example was a mortgage 13.8x average salary) they won't be buying them anyway.
All the potential solutions threaten the property prices mainly held by the kind of people who vote Tory and higher up the ladder own the Tories, so the chance of any change is zero.
My three-pronged solution:
Lower taxes so people can save more of their own income to enable them to get more of a deposit/have more disposable income for affordability.
More and easier construction to lower house prices.
Higher inflation to allow house prices to earnings ratios to deflate without people going into negative equity.
I do appreciate you proposing a solution! Question - how does it work? I've just looked at Wembley Park, where they have built a dozen new apartment blocks with thousands of apartments available (for rent). A fucking studio with room to break your cat's neck when swung costs £1,600 a month.
So lets assume that space exists for "more and easier construction" in and around that London. They're about to build at Old Oak Common, so how much do you need to lower taxes on people earning £26k a year for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a reduced cost £250k apartment?
Wages are completely disconnected from property prices and you aren't going to cut taxes or find places to build homes in to close off the gap in the private sector.
The only possible solution is the public sector. If that vast Wembley Park development had been done by Brent council (stop sniggering at the back) and rents were being offered for the cat decapitating studio apartments at affordable prices, then maybe you'd be onto something. That would collapse private sector prices though which is why it won't be done.
If the places you build are selling for that much then the bottleneck is almost definitely finding land you're allowed to build on and how high you're allowed to build on it, so it won't make much difference whether Brent Council builds it or some private developer builds it.
Tokyo has the cheat codes for this, just legalize building things and people will build things.
Yes the Japanese system works.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
The average property in Tokyo costs $16,322 per square meter to buy, still pretty expensive and Tokyo has far more skyscrapers and highrise buildings than London and certainly no parks on the scale of Hyde Park for example so less greenspace than London too. https://moneyinc.com/the-20-most-expensive-cities-to-buy-a-home-in-the-world/
I'm scratching my head at that number but in any case they think it's half the cost they give for London, which is a big deal. Add to that that you can typically build higher on the same piece of land, so the impact on the amount of floor space you get per dollar is pretty drastic.
As far as the parks go it's true that London has some very big ones, but although I'm not advocating selling Hyde Park off to developers I'm not sure it's a great use of the space. Tokyo has a few biggish parks but also loads and loads of little teensy community ones with little playing areas for kids. I haven't lived in London but I think these are friendlier. Then if you want to get away from the bustle you can jump on a train, an hour and a half out of Shinjuku plus a 25 minute walk and there will be more bears around you than people.
You believe the NI insurance increase is right Big G because conveniently you won't have to pay anything. Yet the young will.
You should pay, pay your own way
I have paid my way all my life and will continue to do so
I will pay the care costs of my wife and I if they become necessary, remember that if you have a continual need for nhs care it is free, and only if you go into health care usually because of dementia you risk losing your home
And you boast how you are buying a house in London from an inheritance which does seem odd that you do not want others to have the benefit you are receiving
And by the way I qualified my support if you read my post properly
G, you are too polite , he is a greedy grasping two faced arsehole. Fact you paid in for 50 years has escaped his pea brain and as you say , happy to get free lolly himself, bloody hypocrite. It is great pensioners don't have to be soaked yet another time to suit these whining lazy gits.
Time for the inevitable England collapse, resulting in all out for 200, like an NFT pump and dump.
No collapse but they are falling significantly below the run rate.
Need 3.55 per over if we get 70 overs remaining today but how often do we actually get all over the overs bowled?
In Test cricket its much easier for the bowlers to limit the run rate, so England with 9 wickets remaining really need to be picking up the pace. Don't want that to reach 4+ per over.
Comments
A couple earning £26k per annum each, with a £26k deposit, can get a £250k property.
But as I've said, its not easy to get a £25k deposit together, especially if you're paying exorbitant rents and high taxes.
Of course if construction goes up then not only do property values come down in real terms (which is why we need inflation too) but rents would come down in real terms too.
Planning consent should be made much easier to get so that there is competition instead of an oligopoly in construction. In many countries around the globe houses are built down to the individual house level instead of in massive developments, as the individual house can easily get consent. So if you get consent easily, all you need to get is contractors to do the building etc.
If you make consent hard to get, only developments become worthwhile, which hands the power to development companies who can develop at their own pace without contractors competing with them.
Of course in Japan they build individual homes rather than developments as you can simply get on with building if you have the land.
But that threatens people's unearned wealth by dropping house prices so its politically unpalatable with NIMBYs.
Where are the small developers building individual properties on-demand like in Tokyo?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/01/who-monitoring-new-coronavirus-variant-named-mu
And for the love of everything please do not quote an average price again when most sales are literally below-average since that's how mean averages work.
One move that could be brought in is to exempt the inheritor with the previous (current) tax breaks at the cost of essentially creating a supertax that goes to the treasury upon sale of land to developers for chimney pots.
No idea if these figures are correct but
e.g. unimproved farmland value = 100k - land value with pp to developer = £1m. Farmer sells, receives £200k, £800k to treasury in return for forgoing IHT on the value of assets.
The numbers could be jigged around to make it work.
Hello and welcome back to the biennial brow-furrowing over interaction between Scotland's fiscal framework and (reserved) National Insurance Contributions, and the resulting impact on marginal tax rates. A frequent headache for both Scottish & UK govts when grasping fiscal levers
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1434828212425662465?s=20
I'm not an expert on this market but I suspect it doesn't work like that. More likely it's the same problem that's occurring in every popular city in the world that bans people from building things, and isn't occurring in cities that don't ban people from building things.
https://moneyinc.com/the-20-most-expensive-cities-to-buy-a-home-in-the-world/
Also, is that Claudia Webbe who sings on the 3am video?
With so many people renting in London its either that (a) people would rather pay crazy rents to property developers than rent or (b) they can't afford to buy.
As you said, you have to have two people earning £25k to be able to afford a £250k flat. If they can find such a flat. And a joint mortgage. And the deposit.
Otherwise please find me several million properties in London to buy below £405,000 and thus affordable to all potential first time buyers in London who now rent?
Every so often, this comes up on PB, and we get into the same discussion: is it even possible to build accommodation people want to live in for the price people can afford? For all the talk of £100k houses a few years back, few seem to be being made, even accounting for inflation (and most of those got down to that price by cheating, e.g. by not including land costs).
The problem was, and is, standards. Houses have to be built to certain standards, and these are being added to all the time, e.g. energy efficiency. We want houses to be built to these standards, but few standards actually reduce cost. Despite mechanisation in construction, the cost of producing a house continues to increase.
And IMO those standards a good thing: Grenfell Tower shows what can happen when lip-service is paid to standards and standardisation processes.
An 'easy' way to lower costs I've seen stated is to reduce the S106 obligations. Well, from my experience S106 needs strengthening if we're actually going to make liveable spaces, not just houses. Developers are getting away with too much.
So after all this negativity, what can be done? It'd be a minor change, but our town centres are dying. The government should encourage (i.e. pay) councils to accept this fact and turn more derelict or 'charity' shops into good, liveable accommodation. Make our town centres cheery, lively spaces once more.
The problem with London is the inability of folk to live with their parents for several years, as they aren't from there. That is how you save a deposit.
If we simply had a free market where people could decide whether they wanted their own land to be farmland or developed then it'd be easier for farmers to sell on - but competition would mean the land value would collapse anyway.
Which eliminates the unearned windfall and makes new properties affordable.
In a sign that the tax rise could split Johnson’s electoral coalition, Jake Berry, a former minister who leads the Northern Research Group and is the MP for Rossendale & Darwen, said that the move would disproportionately benefit older voters in affluent southern seats.
“It doesn’t really seem to me reasonable that people who are going to work in my own constituency in east Lancashire, probably on lower wages than many other areas of the country, will pay tax to support people to keep hold of their houses in other parts of the country where house prices may be much higher,” he said.
Berry, 42, formerly a close ally of Johnson and a key backer of his leadership ambitions, told Today on BBC Radio 4 that because national insurance was not paid by retired people, a rise would pose questions of intergenerational fairness.
He said: “It doesn’t seem fair to me — particularly following this pandemic where so many people have taken great sacrifices to keep people safe, it’s particularly hit the youngest, particularly hit those in work — that we then ask those in work to pay for people to have protection in care.”
Berry called for income tax to be increased instead, saying: “When I was sat round that cabinet table and Sajid Javid was the chancellor of the exchequer writing the Conservative Party manifesto, he was a great believer in not racking up the jobs tax and I just wonder why he’s had a sort of Damascene conversion when becoming the health secretary to seeing the jobs tax as the way forward.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-to-defy-rebels-over-tax-rise-for-social-care-rl0vr06mn
If you're living paycheck to paycheck then you're not saving tens of thousands of pounds on a deposit.
But once you have, its a different matter.
Care workers will be among the worst hit by cuts to universal credit next month as the sector reels from staff shortages, research has found.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/universal-credit-cut-adds-to-care-workers-woes-crtwgs5k8
Though I think its not unusual for median incomes to be quoted, whereas I've never seen median house prices quoted.
Why is land worth £100k without PP worth £1m+ with PP?
Why not get a job? It's what I did to get a house. I am now frittering away my retirement on PB at, as it happens, Inverness airport. What are you doing?
Well done for doing so immediately - but can you tell me how do you handle an increasing population without building houses?
& How much does that cost, compared to what people are charged ?
An income tax rise still leaves pensioners paying just 14% of the cost, but is clearly far more equitable across generations.
https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/1434800478840295425?s=20
On which thought, I wonder how Germany handles social care? There are often lessons there for Blighty.
Anyway:
Median house price in London is about £500k.
Median salary in London is about £40k pa.
So, a couple, both on median salaries can get a mortgage up £400k, although whether they can afford the repayments is another question entirely.
So, they still need another £100k deposit on top. Even if they put £10k a year from their combined net salary of around £60k, it'd still take them 10 years to save. By which time of course, prices have gone up another x% in excess of wage inflation.
We have a population growing much faster than the rate of construction of new homes. The idea that it is strange, weird, or even unusual that house prices then escalate ridiculously is itself somewhat funny.
Attempts at price controls have been trialled around the world, many times. They simply create a sub-class of the fortunate and actually make things worse for everyone else.
The high house prices are a symptom of the shortage.
I nearly bought some agricultural land in Marden in Kent a couple of years ago. £6,500 an acre for prime land. 1 hour from Charing Cross station....
The reason? - I was doing sums on how many £500k houses I could cram onto an acre....
The solution to all this is to end the shortage.
- Build a lot of new homes in the South East/West
- Move alot of people around the country
- Reduce the population
Which options do you like?
A couple on a median income who has repaid fifteen years of their mortgage on their existing property and is now looking to move may be able afford much higher than the median average house price.
A couple on a median income who has scrimped and saved to get a deposit and is looking to buy for the first time will not.
I don't use my mobile while driving on the motorway for obvious reasons, I don't see why people need to if they're in the Tube. Just get from A to B and move on.
I would be staggered if the networks don't get on board.
BAI are awarded the project as a 20 year concession.
Last few times I’ve been in London and used Uber Luxury.
Really nice cars from LWB Merc series 6 to a Rolls Royce, all the vehicles had their own Wi-fi for us to use.
Also, I don't think alterations to the planning process that would house prices significantly would actually lead to a liveable environment, for either the homeowners or others in the area. Many modern developments are bad enough with that as it is.
Much, much easier and less risky than going to uni or training to earn high wages.
Becoming a landlord is the dream "job" of choice for many. And the purpose of their work.
Disastrous for the wealth of the polity if it takes hold.
#ManOfThePeople
However of course residents are there 24 hours a day, seven days per week but workers work in shift patterns and are entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year too. So you need multiple shifts to have 24/7/365 coverage which is why the number of people working in care exceeds the number of residents as far as I understand.
Consider my personal example below. In Marden, Kent
- Agricultural land - £6,500 an acre
- Local House prices - a nice 3/4 bed is £500k+ You could trivially fit a couple of them on an acre.....
Your analysis would be correct if our housing market was functional. The problem is (and you seem to be pointing this out in many of your other posts, so I'm confused why you haven't joined the dots?) that the market isn't functional, and there are millions of families trapped renting long after the point where they would ideally have bought.
Couples on starter incomes can't afford starter houses. Couples on median incomes can't afford median houses, and can't use starter houses because they aren't big enough. So how are they supposed to get onto the ladder?
India 4.4
Draw 1.92
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/cricket/market/1.186995118
Second, basically every other mass transit system in the world has coverage within their tunnels, the Underground is behind and should be on par with those.
The world is moving on, we need to be connected wherever we are and the Tube is one of the few places in London that is a total not spot (albeit on the Underground sections).
It's a very good long term investment.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/pro-kremlin-trolls-target-news-website-comments-including-those-in-uk/ar-AAO8SS2?ocid=entnewsntp
Next time I’m determined to get us the Rolls Royce.
Enter the leaky feeder! I am sure the physics boffs here can explain more
Even if it is cheap any sane landowner will add a 25 year uplift requirement on profits from subsequent changes in usage.
A modern re-enactment, using identical davits (attached to a fixed pier) and lifeboats took longer to launch, despite being in broad daylight and with organised volunteers as the passengers.
The bottleneck was having enough trained pairs of hands.
Also, the Greens are steadily replacing the LDs as the None Of The Above option in parts of the country, and anyway greater exposure of environmental issues in the media is probably helping them as well. The point being that, the higher the Greens are in the polls, the less valid the old rules of thumb about their supporters switching back to Labour at a GE become.
I note that those left-of-centre commentators who were so critical of Johnson and the London govt and laudatory of the administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff for their respective Covid responses have gone quiet of late.
https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1434837665975787522?s=20
Like many of the great problems of our time, everyone (deep down) knows what needs to be done. (And without the land rationing premium, there's a lot more financial slack to make the houses nicer or s106 facilities better.) But nobody knows how to get re-elected after doing it.
1) the uplift from planning permission to build means most farmers will move instantly.
2) most farm aren't in places where building a housing estate makes any sense at all..
As far as the parks go it's true that London has some very big ones, but although I'm not advocating selling Hyde Park off to developers I'm not sure it's a great use of the space. Tokyo has a few biggish parks but also loads and loads of little teensy community ones with little playing areas for kids. I haven't lived in London but I think these are friendlier. Then if you want to get away from the bustle you can jump on a train, an hour and a half out of Shinjuku plus a 25 minute walk and there will be more bears around you than people.
It is great pensioners don't have to be soaked yet another time to suit these whining lazy gits.
In Test cricket its much easier for the bowlers to limit the run rate, so England with 9 wickets remaining really need to be picking up the pace. Don't want that to reach 4+ per over.
If @DavidGHFrost front runs this decision by extending unilaterally, it raises v serious question of what HMG's ultimate objective is
Is it compromise or confrontation?
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1434841564291997699?s=20