House prices

I so agree with one your point s Nonnie we live in a house too big for us but having a cleaner and an occasional gardener means we can stay here. We wouldn't gain much either financial or in comfort and we like our home.

Some of you might find this interesting. I suspect this is the cheapest way to buy property in London. www.sharetobuy.com/firststeps/sharedownershipproperties

Lily thanks for clarifying. Not everyone can downsize though.

I don't know a lot about those places which are just for the elderly but I imagine the service charges must be huge to provide all the facilities. I also think that for someone living on a pension the thought of selling their house, which presumably they own outright, and then paying ground rent and service charges on a flat could be quite scary.

When I suggested that we would move to a bungalow or flat if the house became too much for us a friend pointed out that the cost of doing so might well be more than paying for someone to come in and help. A very good point.

Equity release schemes have had a very bad press and would obviously impact on the heirs as would care home fees.

All very complex.

Nonnie I said 'family' because I was thinking of the heirs! Unless it all goes on care. And you can always 'downsize' or move somewhere cheaper. There are schemes as well that allow you to realise the value of the house you go on living in.

One of the problems young families face when renting, is the lack of security. I'm not very familiar with the legalities, but it seems that a settled family with children in school could be asked to move at the end of a 6mth tenancy.

I would imagine that this is a very unsettling state to be living in. It is not always easy to up sticks and find another house in the same area.

Years ago tenancies were protected for a longer period.

Unfortunately houses are no longer seen as homes, by some, but as easy cash.

x

Nandalot they may well end up not being able to sell them at a profit. Markets go up as well as down! Don't they let them out? I would if I had lots of money!

I agree, Lilygran. You see new luxury 'apartments' being built in London. A lot of them will be bought by overseas investors and will remain empty until they are sold at a profit.

Another aspect is perhaps the number on one parent families which must impact on the number of homes needed.

Lily there is at least one family making a fortune because they were able to buy a house some years ago. Are they really 'making a fortune'? They have to live somewhere so any such profit is not disposable. If someone bought a house many years ago and is still living in it I think it is rather hard to criticise them. Then there are people like us who moved around for jobs and each time increased our mortgage each time (and therefore had to live frugally for years) so now have a bigger house than if we had stayed in our first one.

It does feel at times that if you work hard, give up living in the area you were brought up in and spend your earnings on property it is somehow seen as wrong. If you buy a little house and spend your money on having a good time, cars, holidays, wining and dining etc. it is somehow seen as better.

My parents first house was the one on the right behind the black car, it cost them £250.

This is an aspect of the housing shortage which is usually ignored. For every group of young couples who can't afford to buy a house, there is at least one family making a fortune because they were able to buy a house some years ago. There are people and hedge funds buying up flats and houses in expensive areas and leaving them empty so they can benefit from rising prices. My DS and DDiL could not now afford to buy the house they have lived in for the last ten years though when they bought it, it wasn't particularly expensive. I don't know what the answer is!

I think it is far more complex than Londoners buying second homes, I doubt there is a very high percentage who do that. It has to be down to supply and demand, most commodities are.

Those of us who bought our first house 40+ years ago had a very different experience from those buying today. Prices were based on one income only and that was up to 3 times salary. Nowadays it is normal for two people's salary to be taken into consideration and sometimes by more than 3 times salary. It is good that lenders now have to look at affordability.

There were always people who couldn't afford to buy a property but nowadays there seems to be an expectation that everyone can and that they shouldn't have to go without to do so.

When we bought our first house it was necessary to have saved with a particular building society for a period of time and then go and pretty much beg for a mortgage. Interest rates were a lot higher and not long after we were paying 18%.

We have helped all our DC to buy a property because in the long run they will be better off. In London this is particularly relevant as it is easy to pay £600 per month just to rent a room and it would be better to pay that off a mortgage. For many shared ownership is probably the only option.

DD1 has sold her house in Derby and I am shocked at what is available in their price range in her area. The same amount of money could buy much more house in an equivalent area around Leicester.

In 1975 we looked at 2 brand new houses one at £15,000 and one at £19,000. DH persuaded me that we could afford the more expensive one but I was really worried for ages that we had spent too much. Don't times change [and house prices!]

You are right Iam64. We live in the SW, and the average wage here is one of the lowest in the country, and yet property prices are out of reach to the majority of young people, for the very reason you mention.

The average wage in Torquay, for example, is quite similar to Middlesbrough. A quick check on the internet shows the prices for a 3 bedroom house start at under £20,000 in Middlesbrough, while in Torquay you can expect to pay a minimum of £120,000. Londoners don't want a holiday home in Middlesbrough, do they?

sorry, who will buy this (i should have said). It's the people who downsize, buy a smaller place in London and a house on the coast with the money from their original home. Or people borrowing on the strength of their increasing home value, investing in a 2nd home they rent out to create income. I don't have any bright ideas about how to stop this, or improve things, wish I did.

One of the big problems with London house prices is the impact they're having on other areas. The south west coast being a prime example. We're in the process of selling a relative's house in a town on the coast. The estate agents consistently recommended a starting price of double what you'd pay in almost any area north of Watford. Their comments included that half a million is nothing to people from London, and they're the one's who'll buy this as a 2nd home.

Because, gillybob, their 'own pile' is only worth silly money if they're going to sell it and move to a much cheaper area, to release some equity. Yes, they could do this and let their 'poor children/grandchildren' have some of the money thus realised to use as a deposit towards their own home in the South. In the meantime they're now living hundreds of miles away from their children/grandchildren.

Property isn't money until you sell it. And if you need that money to buy a new property, then it still isn't money. Swapping a £1m home for another £1m home in the South is no different from swapping a £100k home for another £100k home in the North. In fact it's worse because the estate agent's fees are higher, being a percentage of sale price!

How can anyone complain about the house prices in the South (my poor children/grandchildren can't afford to have a place of their own etc.) and then rub their hands together in glee at how much their own pile is now worth?

Not getting at anyone on this thread it's just every time you hear this in the news, it just seems to be the way.

You can't have it both ways can you?

We moved out of London in 1972 and lived in Newcastle-u-Lyme for 3.5 years- where we were able to buy a 2.5 bed semi for 6.500 - there was NO way we could ever go back and live in London, or in Surrey where DH comes from. Not in a month of blue Sundays. We moved to East Leics and as we were let down by dishonest sellers at the last minute, when I was 7.5 months pregnant with a toddler and NO family support- we had to stretch ourselves silly to find a family box we could afford- then the mortgage went up to 19.5% and we were in trouble- we managed to see it through. Our next house was our last in the UK and we did make a few bob on that- having lived in it for 30+ years and done a lot to it.

I live in NW London and feel that I am stuck here unless I moved to the wilds of Scotland because I really could not afford to move although my house is worth (to me) an eye watering amount.

In the early 80s we lived in N London, very near an underground station with only a couple of stops to central London.
We sold our very small semi-detached cottage and bought a 4 bedroom terraced house nearer the station, for the same price, under £50,000.

We had to modernise and do up the 4 bed, mostly out of income. Today there is no hope of a young couple doing this.

How do couples move from expensive 1 beds to family homes, unless they move out of London?

x

Indinana that made me smile as DH grew up in a large house in Islington. It was devided into flats (they were only renting) it has now been converted back to one large house and recently sold for 1.5 million So the opposite of your FiL.

My PiL sold their 4 storey town house in Islington in the 60s for around £2000 and were delighted to be able to buy a 3 bed semi with a small mortgage near Southend. That London town house has long since been divided into 4 flats, each of which is worth around half a million today. The semi is worth about £250k today (the one next door sold for £249,000 two months ago)

I sold my Dad's house 13 years ago for £290,000 and it has just resold for £595,000 ...... Not happy!
My daughter's house in Berkshire suburbia, a 2 up 2 down terrace, has been valued at over £300,000 while mine - a 5 bed, 3 reception detached Victorian with views over the sea to Edinburgh and a good sized garden would only fetch 500,000. It's all location, location, location - but I know where I'd rather be

We paid £11000 for our first house which was a two up two down terrace bought in 1975 it was sold earlier this year (not by us) for £120000.

apricot I agree, normally tatty bungalows are on a large plot but not this one, it has a small jungle of a garden which may take a very small extension but little else. Good luck to whoever throws their money at this dump.