The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
As I pointed out the other night, France (which, of course, has a population approximately the same size as that of the UK) now has five times as many Covid patients in hospital and in intensive care as Britain does - and, in proportionate terms, formerly smug Ireland's new daily caseload was almost as high as France's was yesterday, although I don't know about their other indicators.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
France has had 5 times as many people in hospital with covid as the uk for at least 4 months. Apparently it’s because when they are better they still stay in hospital. Well that’s what posters on hear reckon.
For some reason that reminds me of Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado". It's a story of probably what some of us would like to do, in our mind's eye.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
What a fantastic post! 10/10 for brilliant and coherent posting. A pleasure.
Gosh I have a leftie ex corbyn supporter trying to make it seem like I don't have an opinion worth listening to. I watch amused as he proves why he is a leftie
The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
As I pointed out the other night, France (which, of course, has a population approximately the same size as that of the UK) now has five times as many Covid patients in hospital and in intensive care as Britain does - and, in proportionate terms, formerly smug Ireland's new daily caseload was almost as high as France's was yesterday, although I don't know about their other indicators.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
France has had 5 times as many people in hospital with covid as the uk for at least 4 months. Apparently it’s because when they are better they still stay in hospital. Well that’s what posters on hear reckon.
I floated it as a possibility.
Some systems don't discharge patients until they are no longer excretion virus.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
What a fantastic post! 10/10 for brilliant and coherent posting. A pleasure.
Gosh I have a leftie ex corbyn supporter trying to make it seem like I don't have an opinion worth listening to. I watch amused as he proves why he is a leftie
You have every right to talk, please carry on - and I will keep acknowledging the greatness of your contributions. This is no exception, 10/10!
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
How many houses is dramatic, my estimate would be 500k for 10 to 20 years just to get on par. Has any country ever managed that?
The virus is roaring back into life even in countries which thought they had nailed it, from New Zealand to Germany to Japan.
Ireland has stopped being smug about Britain. They're now worse off than us. America is as screwed as leftwing Mexico or as rightwing Brazil.
Poland, India, Spain, Croatia, South Africa, France, Chile, Malta, Melbourne, it doesn't matter what you do or where you are.
Every single government in the world, in the face of Covid-19, is "wanking into the void". No one knows what to do. No one.
As I pointed out the other night, France (which, of course, has a population approximately the same size as that of the UK) now has five times as many Covid patients in hospital and in intensive care as Britain does - and, in proportionate terms, formerly smug Ireland's new daily caseload was almost as high as France's was yesterday, although I don't know about their other indicators.
So, you're essentially correct. Until we have a better idea of what works and what doesn't in terms of balancing getting society moving with controlling this disease, then we are all still guessing - save for the Kiwis, who are remote enough and have few enough cases to repeat their previous trick and eliminate the illness, and other similar, relatively geographically isolated nations that connect with the rest of the globe only by air and sea.
Fat chance of that in any country like ours which, yes, is an island, but also relies so much on the to-ing and fro-ing of truckers for its trade and supply lines.
France has had 5 times as many people in hospital with covid as the uk for at least 4 months. Apparently it’s because when they are better they still stay in hospital. Well that’s what posters on hear reckon.
I floated it as a possibility.
Some systems don't discharge patients until they are no longer excretion virus.
You may be right, but 5 times the number is still extraordinary
Just on the subject of London housing, I live in North Acton, and there has been some serious building happening in the last year or two, including lots of new high rises. The supply of flats will soon be increasing sharply. Whether that has any impact on affordability remains to be seen.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Virus seems to be one of the main reasons. They had had it bad and the President has been a twat about it in the Trump style.
Thus,
"The last remaining part of the social contract between Belarusians and Lukashenko – limited freedoms in exchange for security – has been irreparably broken."
Also a refusal to implement market reforms. Russian subsidy has been keeping the country doing well for many years but sounds like that has been increasingly up and down.
I wasn't disputing the reasons just why he thought he could browbeat the country it has been a long time since that has worked in small countries
He's been doing it for a quarter of a century and, although he's in some difficulty just now, he has a reasonable chance of getting past this bump in the road.
The fundamental issue for Belarus is that it is so tied to the apron of Mother Russia that anything else is going to involve incredibly painful dislocation. Far worse than Ukraine, a good proportion of which had a reasonably advanced, diverse economy. So much of the Belarussian economy is hopelessly outdated and entirely dependent on the indulgence of Moscow.
So overturning it and weathering the inevitable storm is a course a 20-something Belarussian can contemplate, but it's absolutely terrifying for those in their 40s and 50s plus.
It depends on which horse Putin wants to back. Backing a losing dictator hurts him more than endorsing and anointing an opponent.
May not be an option. The sort of replacement the protesters are after isn't really a slightly nicer version of Lukashenko, with the support of the Kremlin. Putin might judge he's best off trying to help Lukashenko tough it out and, if that fails, piling economic pain on Belarus in the hope they will come back (as Ukraine did in 2010, albeit it didn't last).
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
China and the uighars is different they dont really have any issues if we cut them off, belarus would
Maybe the Uighars actually deserved all this? Otherwise surely all the Muslim countries would be wildly complaining to China, yet they aren't? They get very angry when westerners do a bad cartoon, yet they are silent when China puts 1m Muslims in a concentration camp and sterilises the women.
It mystifies me. I guess therefore, and taking my lead from Riyadh, Tehran and Cairo, that the Uighurs did something wrong, and China is justified.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
How many houses is dramatic, my estimate would be 500k for 10 to 20 years just to get on par. Has any country ever managed that?
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
What a fantastic post! 10/10 for brilliant and coherent posting. A pleasure.
Gosh I have a leftie ex corbyn supporter trying to make it seem like I don't have an opinion worth listening to. I watch amused as he proves why he is a leftie
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
and the main one whinging he cant buy a house wants to massively increase the population by in his words "massively increasing the number of refugees we take" I wonder where those refugees will choose to try and live, prior experience tells us london/
Superb post yet again, your contributions are unrivalled in their intelligence and relevance
Continue to not reply in anyway shape or form with anything intelligent. Sadly for you cant deplatform me here so I get to put my side and you just respond with platitudes. I don't mind in the least as people just assume you have no real reply.
Which did you object to? Me saying you were whinging about prices in London... a look down the thread shows you were doing that.
Me saying you wanted us to massively increase the number of refugees....again your own words show you have said that.
Me saying the majority of refugess would gravitate to london when all evidence suggests it/
But you keep on saying nice post and not dealing with the content. We have already shown tonight you were the aggressor not me so....
What a fantastic post! 10/10 for brilliant and coherent posting. A pleasure.
Gosh I have a leftie ex corbyn supporter trying to make it seem like I don't have an opinion worth listening to. I watch amused as he proves why he is a leftie
Why not ignore the blatant trolling ?
I should do yes and will from now on as else we will bore the rest of you my apologies
This gap - the difference between the current housing stock and the number needed for everyone to have a decent home to live in - is more than one million homes, according to the BBC Housing Briefing.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
This is from a Bank of England staff blog on house prices:
"We find that the rise in real house prices since 2000 can be explained almost entirely by lower interest rates. Increasing scarcity of housing, evidenced by real rental prices and their expected growth, has played a negligible role at the national level."
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
Like I said before, my job is in London - and I'd like to be able to be close by. So if I have to commute in that's likely going to be fine in the future.
If I could work elsewhere I would - but just now I am not going to tempt fate!
'evening all. I'm not sure how to apportion blame between Ofqual and the government. There was bound to be criticism. If the exams had been held then there would have been unfair differential impact of lock down, if teachers' estimates were simply accepted then that would also have been unfair as the statistics do prove some teachers were over "optimistic".
Some of the individual downgrades are clearly indefensible.
I thought about what I would have done and it became blindingly obvious. At an early stage there should have been an open process of consultation on how to proceed and the algorithm and software should have been published and reviewed in advance. Hopefully such an open source approach would have gained agreement in advance from "stakeholders" to defuse the politics and would also have resulted in a better outcome.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
How many houses is dramatic, my estimate would be 500k for 10 to 20 years just to get on par. Has any country ever managed that?
I'd like to see your maths on that.
Current net migration is about 250k add in births in country and call it 400k a year increase. The average household is about 2.5 people which implies 160 k homes. We have been running that deficit since 2002 so homes built to keep pace should be 160k x18 = 2,880,000 homes actually built as in new and just not replacing is about 80k a year which is a total of 1.44 mill so about 1.44 mill in deficit. That means we need to catch up as we are 1.44 mill behind. To cope with 400k increase a year we need to build 160k homes so to catch up in 10 years we need to build an extra 144000 homes....was 500k an exaggeration yes because hadnt done the exact maths and I suspect are rate of increase is more than 400k anyway. It wasnt however an order of magnitude out and I dont think any country has built 300k homes a year on a sustained basis
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
It is indeed a global city for better or worse. Places like Toronto have a 15% Non‑Resident Speculation Tax to address this. We are belatedly improving the situation with additional similar taxes but could have gone further and quicker.
That sounds like one that should be overturned on appeal, to be honest.
Or rather, it sounds like the part of the algorithm that hands out U-grades needs fixing urgently -- or just removing completely since it is obviously unfair and has a disproportionate impact.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
Whitman turned it down because it would effect her long term political career? Hmmm. Colour me sceptical.
Being veep to a guy who is 77? That's not a career move?
If the Democrat base hates her because she’s not black then she’d be vulnerable to a primary challenge in 24
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
How many houses is dramatic, my estimate would be 500k for 10 to 20 years just to get on par. Has any country ever managed that?
I'd like to see your maths on that.
Current net migration is about 250k add in births in country and call it 400k a year increase. The average household is about 2.5 people which implies 160 k homes. We have been running that deficit since 2002 so homes built to keep pace should be 160k x18 = 2,880,000 homes actually built as in new and just not replacing is about 80k a year which is a total of 1.44 mill so about 1.44 mill in deficit. That means we need to catch up as we are 1.44 mill behind. To cope with 400k increase a year we need to build 160k homes so to catch up in 10 years we need to build an extra 144000 homes....was 500k an exaggeration yes because hadnt done the exact maths and I suspect are rate of increase is more than 400k anyway. It wasnt however an order of magnitude out and I dont think any country has built 300k homes a year on a sustained basis
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
If I earn a decent salary and I pay my taxes, to me it seems illogical I have to wait until I'm 39 to buy a house. It seems reasonable in my 20s I should be able to afford one but I cannot, without parental help. That is not in any way a fair or reasonable situation to be in.
My point about 10 years was that the Tories have been in power since 2010 and have not resolved this issue. Saying it's dropped down to 39 isn't at all helpful to people who are in my position and stuck renting (literally throwing money down the drain) and can't afford to buy. That's indefensible.
I was simply explaining why we don't vote Tory. And no amount of condescending, or saying "just wait a bit longer" is going to change that fact. You've had 10 years, you haven't resolved it.
Anyway, I can see as usual this debate is completely circular so I'm going to leave it there.
The real issue is house prices. This was caused by asset price inflation resulting from the decision to print money after the 2008 crash. This was compounded Dee by the decision to restrict mortgage lending to a 5.5x multiple.
The Tory government made some progress in controlling the deficit but until they can sterilise the debt (ie sell the debt on the BoE balance sheet to third party investors and cancel the proceeds) then that’s not going to change.
Hence you need to reduce house prices over time by basically keeping them as flat as possible in nominal terms while wages increase. You can’t just cut prices because that will destroy the banking sector.
Fundamentally it’s a mess. But it’s unreasonable to expect the government to “solve it”. There are no good options and it is going to take time to unwind the fundamental damage down in the 2000s. The West was living beyond our means in a big way and we are still paying the price
House price inflation didn't happen post-2008
House price inflation happened before it. In 1997 the average UK house price was about £50,000 - by 2008 it was over £180,000. That is the problem.
New Labour screwed the young and we're still paying the price. That's what happens when Labour get in office.
The index I’ve just pulled had 1989 = 100.
It was roughly 300 in 2007 and 400 in 2019.
So we are both right 😄
In that case the prices in 2007 were 300% of the rate they were in 1989 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 6.3% per annum which is unsustainable.
Whereas in 2019 the prices were 133% of the rate they were in 2017 . . . that averages out as compound growth of 2.3% per annum.
Yes, but mortgage rates are a quarter of what I was paying 3 decades ago, hence the affordability of mortgages remains good.
Getting mortgage rates back to 5-6% and normal interest rates on savings is the other way of making house prices come down. Indeed probably more effective than building, as there isn't a very good correlation between building rates and prices, as @rcs1000 has pointed out in the past.
In the short term or long term?
In the long term there is a major correlation.
The reason for the poor correlation between building rates and prices, is that it has been many decades since building has even got *close* to the population increase.
Increasing mortgage rates, rent control etc. won't provide more housing - they might reduce the cost (maybe) for those who are lucky enough to get a house.
Well hold on, isn't that showing that there has been a correlation? House building hasn't been sufficient so prices go up, that's hardly rocket science it is basic supply and demand.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
How many houses is dramatic, my estimate would be 500k for 10 to 20 years just to get on par. Has any country ever managed that?
Background: the average household size in the UK is 2.4 people. According to the most recent ONS mid-year population estimates, the population of the UK grew by 361,000 in the year to mid-2019 (and even that is below trend, being the lowest annual increase since the A8 accession states joined the EU in 2004.) So, in order to cope just with that year's growth, we would've needed to create about 150,000 additional homes.
The good news is that, according to DCLG figures reported in the press last November, the country managed to create a net 240,000 new homes in 2018-19. The bad news is, of course, that there's still a vast amount of catching up to do - and that a substantial minority of those new homes were also created by change of use of existing buildings, the regulations for which are so lax that developers can create rabbit hutches far smaller than even the rather permissive standards governing new builds allow.
There's still a very, very long way to go, and vast numbers of nimbies for Government to enrage, before we get close to meeting demand.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
Whitman turned it down because it would effect her long term political career? Hmmm. Colour me sceptical.
Being veep to a guy who is 77? That's not a career move?
If the Democrat base hates her because she’s not black then she’d be vulnerable to a primary challenge in 24
Would the Democrat base really hate her because she wasn't black? I can understand some disappointment among black activists, but that hardly guarantees a credible primary threat in 2024.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
These pictures of Minsk make it look quite agreeable. Certainly better than brutalist Bucharest under Ceaușescu. And the people seem well clothed and well fed. Why are they all so angry?
Maybe because the incumbent President rigged the election, which the opposition won, and then beat-up young people who protested against it and paraded their bruised bodies on national television?
It does make you wonder how he thought that would work, the days when you could use thuggery without being found out on the international stage are long gone
Same with China and the Uighurs too.
Thing is ..our capacity to face it down has been diminished too. If push came to shove I don't think we'd be able of willing to do anything about it (except economic) and they know that too.
Possibly a very aggressive cyber crippling could do some serious damage without mass casualties but and the end of the day winning wars boils down to getting boots on the ground.
Ultimately it's about using force to stop nasty people.
China and the uighars is different they dont really have any issues if we cut them off, belarus would
Maybe the Uighars actually deserved all this? Otherwise surely all the Muslim countries would be wildly complaining to China, yet they aren't? They get very angry when westerners do a bad cartoon, yet they are silent when China puts 1m Muslims in a concentration camp and sterilises the women.
It mystifies me. I guess therefore, and taking my lead from Riyadh, Tehran and Cairo, that the Uighurs did something wrong, and China is justified.
Saudis don’t like Turkic Muslims Tehran doesn’t like Sunnis and Sufis Cairo doesn’t know its arse from its elbow
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
Sorry, I missed it. I was raised in the Home Counties.
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
That only really began under gordon brown who massively deregulated buy to let and also allowed property to be part of pensions
Yes it began under new Labour and has been followed by the Tories who added on the vast QE (Labour would probably have done similar). AIUI QE for the first couple of years after the crash was necessary but should have been tapered off far more quickly. Both parties are to blame on this one, and no party has really demonstrated an understanding of the problems and presented good solutions.
Whether that is from incompetence or fear of upsetting voters I dont know.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
I don't think I am arguing that, I think I am arguing the price is currently too high, where most people can't afford it. To me that's unreasonable.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
Sorry, I missed it. I was raised in the Home Counties.
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
Are you still working in an office, or can you work from home? The last five months has been bliss as far as I'm concerned, but obviously it won't be so much fun if I don't have a job.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
Sorry, I missed it. I was raised in the Home Counties.
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
Are you still working in an office, or can you work from home? The last five months has been bliss as far as I'm concerned, but obviously it won't be so much fun if I don't have a job.
Working from home for the moment, although I think over the longer term I'd like to get back to the office.
I think this is why I will be more likely to buy outside of London (if I can afford it) - but still within a reasonable distance for the aforementioned social side.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
The suggested commuting lifestyle is one that leads to high levels of stress and obesity, not worth it apart from if a necessary evil for a short period imo. This may all change dramatically due to covid, commuting 1-2 days a week would be very different to 4-5 days. Much will depend what happens to office life in the next few years.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
But that somewhere needs to be somewhere you want to go, even just a little bit. The issue is foreign property owners in London driving up prices for luxury flats that invariably sit empty. The huge development near Old Street station was almost exclusively sold to overseas buyers of varying dodginess, none of whom will take up residence or even bother to rent the flats out to anyone other than dodgy ultra short term rental specialists who manage Airbnb properties.
The government is failing to address this serious issue and they've had 10 years. Osborne did ok with some of the enveloped purchase stiff and with the multiple hits on landlords. Rishi has been seriously lacking in that regard, the 500k threshold on stamp duty should not have been made available to anyone buying additional residential property and been reserved for owner occupiers only.
We need to smash foreign owners hard or London will continue to see unaffordable housing for the people work there. As I've said many times, it's absolutely crushing for ordinary people that it takes the combined salaries of a senior investment analyst (me) and a senior corporate intelligence analyst (my wife) to buy a house with a garden where we live.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
so house prices trebled under new labour but you think its the tories problem to resolve?
The issue for London house prices is that -
1) The population of London was (and is) growing rapidly 2) It is deliberate and long term policy, by all parties, to prevent house building on the scale of the population growth of London.
There are 3 answers that I can think of -
1) Stop the population of London growing. 2) Let the village of the green belt expand and merge to form new suburbs. 3) Super fast public transport to very large new satellite towns.
3) is less popular at the moment... 2) Is against the modern Religion Of The Environment* :
*As opposed to actually doing things that preserve the actual... environment. The religious stuff version is on a par with getting your instructions from spontaneous combusting shrubbery.
Your analysis is missing the financial speculation on the housing market encouraged by successive govts, creating a feedback loop where most people in the country believe prices only ever go up. Combined with a shocking understanding of other forms of investment and saving and govt money printing on a scale never seen before, it is not surprising that house prices have become a dangerous bubble.
That only really began under gordon brown who massively deregulated buy to let and also allowed property to be part of pensions
Yes it began under new Labour and has been followed by the Tories who added on the vast QE (Labour would probably have done similar). AIUI QE for the first couple of years after the crash was necessary but should have been tapered off far more quickly. Both parties are to blame on this one, and no party has really demonstrated an understanding of the problems and presented good solutions.
Whether that is from incompetence or fear of upsetting voters I dont know.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
Sorry, I missed it. I was raised in the Home Counties.
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
It is a rule of thumb that wherever you live, commuting to work in London takes 1 to 2 hours, and that is because the further away you live, the faster the trains go. Whether commuting time is wasted is a matter of perception. Buy a kindle; listen to audio books; work on your laptop, tablet or phone -- in other words, make a virtue out of necessity. (Fwiw, I've only ever worked in London but have spent the last decade mainly WFH.)
How can it be justifiable to give a U grade for an exam you didn't take
"Ungraded" seems the most sensible grade to get for an exam you didn`t take!
Given the COVID-19 disruption logically this year should have resulted in the worst grades in a generation and maybe ever, instead the teachers massively overrated the students, and then Ofqual rightly adjusted them back towards something relatively sensible. Despite not having to do any exams people are hopping mad about the qualifcations they are receiving for exams they didn't even sit.
I honestly think the plug should be pulled on the whole process, and everyone should sit an exam when it is possible for them to do so. It's really the only fair and objective way out of this situation.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
I don't think I am arguing that, I think I am arguing the price is currently too high, where most people can't afford it. To me that's unreasonable.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
How will building lots of new houses make it any better for you. By its very nature few of those houses will be able to be built in London itself because it is full. So they will be built in the commuter belt - the very place you are claiming you don't want to live in because it is too far from London.
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
A zones 1-6 travelcard on a season ticket is about £850 not £1,500.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
And I likely will too - but I am saying I don't believe we should need to.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
You didn't answer my question earlier. Are you London born and bred? I still live with my parents in Woking. If I hadn't grown up in the vicinity of London I'd have had nothing to do with the place.
Sorry, I missed it. I was raised in the Home Counties.
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
It is a rule of thumb that wherever you live, commuting to work in London takes 1 to 2 hours, and that is because the further away you live, the faster the trains go. Whether commuting time is wasted is a matter of perception. Buy a kindle; listen to audio books; work on your laptop, tablet or phone -- in other words, make a virtue out of necessity. (Fwiw, I've only ever worked in London but have spent the last decade mainly WFH.)
Am very happy to commute in for a short period of time. But some very good advice generally on making a commute useful.
I have commuted into London before, 1.5 hours there and 1.5 hours back. I can't say I miss it!
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
I don't think I am arguing that, I think I am arguing the price is currently too high, where most people can't afford it. To me that's unreasonable.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
How will building lots of new houses make it any better for you. By its very nature few of those houses will be able to be built in London itself because it is full. So they will be built in the commuter belt - the very place you are claiming you don't want to live in because it is too far from London.
Not necessarily averse to the commuter belt in the future, something I would think about possibly.
The Government needs to take this in hand with a simple 3 point plan.
1. Sack Gavin Williamson 2. Use the sacking as a cover for changing policy and accepting all teacher grade recommendations. Scrap the Ofqual revisions. 3. Have a Williamson go on tour around the country, being placed in stocks in every town and city so the public can get rid of some of their frustration by pelting him with rotten fruit.
I may well in reality have to live in the commuter belt, we will see in a year's time. It's not my preferred choice but I accept the reality with which I am presented
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
I don't think I am arguing that, I think I am arguing the price is currently too high, where most people can't afford it. To me that's unreasonable.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
How will building lots of new houses make it any better for you. By its very nature few of those houses will be able to be built in London itself because it is full. So they will be built in the commuter belt - the very place you are claiming you don't want to live in because it is too far from London.
Once again showing how little you know about the situation in London, there is a huge amount of housing going up, it's just being sold to dodgy foreign "investors" from Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
Why do you think you should be able to afford that? Why are you better than all the other people in the world who are competing for the limited number of residential units?
I'm in a similar position, single, early 30s, renting in London for the past ten years.
I've a decent income (top 10 percentile) and a deposit saved up that would be fine anywhere outside of London.
To be honest, moving to suburbia (having grown up there) and doing an hour-ish commute fills me with dread. But I similarly can't bring myself to drop getting on for half a mil for a shoebox in Zone 3.
I know, worlds smallest violin and all that. I've a new role that affords me a bit of location flexibility, so I'm thinking about Manchester. Parents are down South, but I've family up there. And I hear they love Southerners... what could go wrong...
'evening all. I'm not sure how to apportion blame between Ofqual and the government. There was bound to be criticism. If the exams had been held then there would have been unfair differential impact of lock down, if teachers' estimates were simply accepted then that would also have been unfair as the statistics do prove some teachers were over "optimistic".
Some of the individual downgrades are clearly indefensible.
I thought about what I would have done and it became blindingly obvious. At an early stage there should have been an open process of consultation on how to proceed and the algorithm and software should have been published and reviewed in advance. Hopefully such an open source approach would have gained agreement in advance from "stakeholders" to defuse the politics and would also have resulted in a better outcome.
The senior decision makers have to be sacked.
Whatever the government did they would be attacked by teachers, unions, the opposition and disappointed parents.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
Why do you think you should be able to afford that? Why are you better than all the other people in the world who are competing for the limited number of residential units?
The solution is to build more houses, so houses are more affordable.
My belief is that somebody earning a decent salary, paying their taxes and contributing should be able to afford a house near to where they work. That's the kind of country I want to live in!
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
The suggested commuting lifestyle is one that leads to high levels of stress and obesity, not worth it apart from if a necessary evil for a short period imo. This may all change dramatically due to covid, commuting 1-2 days a week would be very different to 4-5 days. Much will depend what happens to office life in the next few years.
What we need is an economy less centered on London. Indeed isn't that what the Tories promised? To create opportunities across the old coalfields.
Plenty of affordable housing in Stoke and Hartlepool if the jobs moved there.
Hopefully not. My youngest Is due to begin A Levels on September 1. Will be tricky for the school if they don't know who has the grades to begin which subject. More logic problem with the awarding of grades.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
Why do you think you should be able to afford that? Why are you better than all the other people in the world who are competing for the limited number of residential units?
He contributes to the success of London by working there. Foreign owners don't, they benefit from his hard work (and mine, and yours) and contribute absolutely nothing to the city except empty property in prime locations.
I'm in a similar position, single, early 30s, renting in London for the past ten years.
I've a decent income (top 10 percentile) and a deposit saved up that would be fine anywhere outside of London.
To be honest, moving to suburbia (having grown up there) and doing an hour-ish commute fills me with dread. But I similarly can't bring myself to drop getting on for half a mil for a shoebox in Zone 3.
I know, worlds smallest violin and all that. I've a new role that affords me a bit of location flexibility, so I'm thinking about Manchester. Parents are down South, but I've family up there. And I hear they love Southerners... what could go wrong...
Thanks for sharing. I have great sympathy for your position and I wish it was different.
Hope it works out for you, I lived "up North" for a while and quite liked it.
For me, I would be happy to commute into London in the future but for now my job is in London and that is where my friends and my social activities are.
So whilst I appreciate the advice on commuting in from far away, it's simply not feasible for me to do that. And frankly I simply do not think I should have to game the system in order to live where I want to.
The good Software Eng jobs are mostly concentrated around and and in London and since I have no intention of leaving, that is where I will keep working.
Like I said, many like me are in the same boat. We simply cannot afford a house in London or near by, without parental assistance. To me that's a massive scandal and an issue the Tories have failed to resolve.
I wish I had the luxury of working elsewhere but especially in the current climate, I am going to stick working where I can.
I hope the new ways of working will mean in time I can work from further out - but I do not see this having a huge impact regardless of where I commute in from, as I do not want to be too far away from my relatives or friends.
I hope that makes sense.
At the risk of being thought brutal, that suggests that buying a house isn't exactly top priority. If it is, one moves somewhere and perhaps spends one - two years of weekends improving it, and makes new friends.
Looking around, there are houses (not flats) within 30-60 minutes' rail commute of London main stations in the £200-£250k range, and that is without following the traditional route of doer uppers and auction or repossession purchases.
I checked places like Luton and Wellingborough.
That is a far less painful route onto the housing ladder than followed by many people over the last 50 years.
My point was that I don't see why I should have to do that, that's all. I think I should be able to afford to live in, or outside London, where my friends and family are. That doesn't seem too much to ask for me.
I get what you're saying and if I was really desperate I would probably do it.
As I said, luckily I am in the privileged position of not needing to worry so much, I earn a decent salary and I have parental support if I ever fell on hard times. A lot of people do not.
For now I am continuing to rent - which feels like I am throwing money down the drain but that is the reality in terms of renting. Luckily I have other sources of income that more than cover it.
I think your expectations are off. London has morphed from being a national city to being a global city. It is horribly expensive.
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Well we disagree then and that's okay. I think somebody in my position should be able to afford to live in/just outside of London and I can't without help. I think that's unacceptable.
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
You don't a have a right to force other people to sell you something at a price of your choosing.
I don't think I am arguing that, I think I am arguing the price is currently too high, where most people can't afford it. To me that's unreasonable.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
I actually agree with you on this, which is what I've been arguing. The solution is to build more homes That's happened in the North in recent years which has helped keep prices down up here and enable more people to get onto the ladder.
In London its a different matter - personally I would abolish the green belt but I'm not sure how that would help in central London.
With the GCSE 'results' due this week, the Government have an opportunity not only to repeat the errors of this week, but actually to make them much, much worse...
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
The suggested commuting lifestyle is one that leads to high levels of stress and obesity, not worth it apart from if a necessary evil for a short period imo. This may all change dramatically due to covid, commuting 1-2 days a week would be very different to 4-5 days. Much will depend what happens to office life in the next few years.
What we need is an economy less centered on London. Indeed isn't that what the Tories promised? To create opportunities across the old coalfields.
Plenty of affordable housing in Stoke and Hartlepool if the jobs moved there.
If more Software Eng jobs could be created outside of London, I'd be very willing to look at them!
The solution is to build more houses, so houses are more affordable.
My belief is that somebody earning a decent salary, paying their taxes and contributing should be able to afford a house near to where they work. That's the kind of country I want to live in!
Unfortunately you live in a country where most people think houses are a wonderful investment and get hopping mad — there's a lot of it about — when people want to build anything.
I'm in a similar position, single, early 30s, renting in London for the past ten years.
I've a decent income (top 10 percentile) and a deposit saved up that would be fine anywhere outside of London.
To be honest, moving to suburbia (having grown up there) and doing an hour-ish commute fills me with dread. But I similarly can't bring myself to drop getting on for half a mil for a shoebox in Zone 3.
I know, worlds smallest violin and all that. I've a new role that affords me a bit of location flexibility, so I'm thinking about Manchester. Parents are down South, but I've family up there. And I hear they love Southerners... what could go wrong...
I know of a nice one bed flat for sale in Zone 1 for 400. Lovely little stroll to Canary Wharf/Greenwich
No doubt the next piece of condescending advice will be "just move".
£144,000 will buy you nothing in the proximity of London.
I'm a Northerner, I can't speak about London. I have no intention of speaking about London.
But yes Londoners should commute is the general idea isn't it? Not that it is my area of expertise, so I am not speaking about London. But Londoners also earn more wages so should be able to save more than £100 a month hopefully.
For a couple if they could save £250 a month for five years between them that would provide the deposit of a £360,000 house.
Do you know how much commuting costs?
I feel like you're talking out of your rear.
A quick google tells me that the average house price in London is £435,000.
The average house price in Grantham - which is 1 hr 15 minutes from Kings Cross - is £176,000.
A season ticket for Grantham to London varies from just under £8000 to just under £9000 depending on which service you use.
On that basis you could commute for a decade - spending £90,000 on season tickets - and still be better of by almost £180,000.
That's a complete pile of shite. Firstly not everyone works withing walking distance of King's Cross so you're adding another £1.5k per year for a zone 1-2 pass on. You also need to take into account the additional travelling time within London itself. I work in the City which means getting to Moorgate or Liverpool Street, it's about another 20 minutes once one includes getting down to the platform from the main station (worse if one arrives into St Pancras). A commute is door to door, and I can pretty much guarantee that coming in from somewhere like Grantham is going to take around 2h in each direction and be prone to delays and train strikes.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
The suggested commuting lifestyle is one that leads to high levels of stress and obesity, not worth it apart from if a necessary evil for a short period imo. This may all change dramatically due to covid, commuting 1-2 days a week would be very different to 4-5 days. Much will depend what happens to office life in the next few years.
What we need is an economy less centered on London. Indeed isn't that what the Tories promised? To create opportunities across the old coalfields.
Plenty of affordable housing in Stoke and Hartlepool if the jobs moved there.
Yes that is definitely part of the answer, all in favour. It doesn't stop house prices being a real and current problem for millions of people in London and the SE though.
Also just got back from a very sunny week in Dorset with my partner and we got engaged too
Congratulations!
But Kamala Harris not markedly increasing Biden's lead is unsurprising. There cannot be too many Americans who hate Biden and were planning to vote for Trump but have now switched their allegiance because Kamala Harris has a nice smile.
Everyone laughed when Dan Quayle misspelled potato(e). No-one changed their vote.
Thanks.
Yes I agree Harris was picked more on the basis of being a potential POTUS if needed and being a safe pair of hands rather than on the basis she would pick up many new voters
I was told last week that she was the third choice.
Klobuchar was first, but then Minnesota happened (that’s what my source said but I don’t know what they were referring to)
Whitman was second but she turned it down. Partly to focus on Covid, but also because she thought that she would get all sorts of shit tipped on her by BLM because she is white & it would damage her long term political career
Kamala was third choice and made at quite short notice (hence the focus of Beau’s relationship with her - Biden didn’t have a compelling argument to make as you why he wanted her as his VP.
Who knows whether it’s true or not (my source isn’t in Biden’s inner circle) but it’s plausible at least
"Minnesota happened" = killing of George Floyd.
Which indeed scuppered whatever chance Sen. Klobuchar had this year. However, that was MONTHS before Biden made his final decision.
Part of VP consideration / vetting / selection is that potential picks go up and down and (sometimes) back up as the process proceeds.
Whitman turned it down because it would effect her long term political career? Hmmm. Colour me sceptical.
Being veep to a guy who is 77? That's not a career move?
We do know Gretchen Whitmer was summoned to a meeting with Biden just a fortnight ago, so @Charles's sequence is broadly plausible even if incomplete. It does certainly look as if Kamala Harris was not Biden's first choice, even if she was always the most solid option. But as well as those mentioned, there was also evidence that Susan Rice, Karen Bass and Tammy Duckworth were seriously considered.
Comments
Some systems don't discharge patients until they are no longer excretion virus.
People here moan about HTB etc helping house builders, but by doing so its seen house building actually reach population growth levels in recent years - which has seen house prices plateau. Again, basic supply and demand.
Building more houses keeps prices from going up further. If we built dramatically more houses then they might actually go down.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/04/why-do-muslim-states-stay-silent-over-chinas-uighur-brutality
An exception is Indonesia, which has protested.
Or maybe an alliance with Layla??
This gap - the difference between the current housing stock and the number needed for everyone to have a decent home to live in - is more than one million homes, according to the BBC Housing Briefing.
I hope they just leave the party, to be honest. Can't see a -60 leader having much electoral chance.
"We find that the rise in real house prices since 2000 can be explained almost entirely by lower interest rates. Increasing scarcity of housing, evidenced by real rental prices and their expected growth, has played a negligible role at the national level."
https://bankunderground.co.uk/2019/09/06/houses-are-assets-not-goods-taking-the-theory-to-the-uk-data/#more-5400
You don’t have a right to live here or anywhere - you tailor your choice and make compromises as needed. I would have loved to been able to stay in the part of the country that I knew as a child, but I couldn’t afford a house and a garden. So I compromised and moved to the suburbs...
Maybe everyone loves Boris! And Gavin!!
I accept the reality with which I am faced and that is a decision I will have to make over the next year or so - but I think my point is valid.
If I could work elsewhere I would - but just now I am not going to tempt fate!
Some of the individual downgrades are clearly indefensible.
I thought about what I would have done and it became blindingly obvious. At an early stage there should have been an open process of consultation on how to proceed and the algorithm and software should have been published and reviewed in advance. Hopefully such an open source approach would have gained agreement in advance from "stakeholders" to defuse the politics and would also have resulted in a better outcome.
The senior decision makers have to be sacked.
Also it's not just the travelling time, it's pissing money away on season tickets. In terms of monthly costs for a mortgage, being able to afford a £700 season ticket is currently the equivalent of around £130k in additional mortgage borrowing for a repayment mortgage.
Finally, you also haven't taken into account the misery that comes with being so far away from friends and family. You'd be reading in quality of life for little to no long term gain.
Your "solution" just smacks of the same anti-London bullshit that we've had to endure for years from non-Londoners who can't seem to get over the fact that they couldn't cut it in London and now feel the need to trash our greatest city on every occasion.
Until 16 March 2020 I'd had a daily commute of 1 hour 15 minutes each way (five years driving to the south coast and 6 years on the train to London). It's what we do (or, rather, did). I can understand the frustration of @CorrectHorseBattery, but plenty of people make sacrifices in life to get somewhere.
The good news is that, according to DCLG figures reported in the press last November, the country managed to create a net 240,000 new homes in 2018-19. The bad news is, of course, that there's still a vast amount of catching up to do - and that a substantial minority of those new homes were also created by change of use of existing buildings, the regulations for which are so lax that developers can create rabbit hutches far smaller than even the rather permissive standards governing new builds allow.
There's still a very, very long way to go, and vast numbers of nimbies for Government to enrage, before we get close to meeting demand.
Thanks for posting your experience and I'm glad it worked for you.
Tehran doesn’t like Sunnis and Sufis
Cairo doesn’t know its arse from its elbow
My job - like many in Software Eng - is based in London.
The solution is to build lots more houses and I am fully supportive of that approach.
As for me, I will see where things are in a year or so but I suspect I'll see what can be purchased in and around London. Touch wood I am still employed at that time.
Why can't we see it too?
I think this is why I will be more likely to buy outside of London (if I can afford it) - but still within a reasonable distance for the aforementioned social side.
The government is failing to address this serious issue and they've had 10 years. Osborne did ok with some of the enveloped purchase stiff and with the multiple hits on landlords. Rishi has been seriously lacking in that regard, the 500k threshold on stamp duty should not have been made available to anyone buying additional residential property and been reserved for owner occupiers only.
We need to smash foreign owners hard or London will continue to see unaffordable housing for the people work there. As I've said many times, it's absolutely crushing for ordinary people that it takes the combined salaries of a senior investment analyst (me) and a senior corporate intelligence analyst (my wife) to buy a house with a garden where we live.
I honestly think the plug should be pulled on the whole process, and everyone should sit an exam when it is possible for them to do so. It's really the only fair and objective way out of this situation.
I have commuted into London before, 1.5 hours there and 1.5 hours back. I can't say I miss it!
Thanks for your response.
It's not my preferred choice but if needs must!
1. Sack Gavin Williamson
2. Use the sacking as a cover for changing policy and accepting all teacher grade recommendations. Scrap the Ofqual revisions.
3. Have a Williamson go on tour around the country, being placed in stocks in every town and city so the public can get rid of some of their frustration by pelting him with rotten fruit.
Therein lies the logical fallacy from which all else flows.
I've a decent income (top 10 percentile) and a deposit saved up that would be fine anywhere outside of London.
To be honest, moving to suburbia (having grown up there) and doing an hour-ish commute fills me with dread. But I similarly can't bring myself to drop getting on for half a mil for a shoebox in Zone 3.
I know, worlds smallest violin and all that. I've a new role that affords me a bit of location flexibility, so I'm thinking about Manchester. Parents are down South, but I've family up there. And I hear they love Southerners... what could go wrong...
If prices don't rise but wages do then the price-to-wage ratio will continue to fall.
My belief is that somebody earning a decent salary, paying their taxes and contributing should be able to afford a house near to where they work. That's the kind of country I want to live in!
Plenty of affordable housing in Stoke and Hartlepool if the jobs moved there.
Will be tricky for the school if they don't know who has the grades to begin which subject.
More logic problem with the awarding of grades.
Hope it works out for you, I lived "up North" for a while and quite liked it.
In London its a different matter - personally I would abolish the green belt but I'm not sure how that would help in central London.
For example
https://twitter.com/fifisyms/status/1295107939397705729
All is not well if the Sun is getting concerned