Hands up please

Nellie you put yourself in the right place at the right time, you made the decision to do that, it was a wise decision.

I know I have mentioned this before but for anyone not already aware of it shared ownership schemes are a great way for those who cannot afford to buy a property to get on the housing ladder. When they can afford more they can do what is called 'stair-casing' and buy another chunk of the property and reduce the rent they pay. My friend's son has done this in order to buy in London, he has a good job but it was the only way he could afford to buy.

We bought a 1948 ex council house semi in Barkingside in 1975 for £13K and sold it 12 yrs later for £69K when we moved to Cheshire.
We were then able to but a new 4 bedroom detatched house up in Cheshire withough a massive increase in our mortgage.

It was just about being in the right place at the right time. We could not have afforded any really big increase in our mortgage.

I think it was the value of the property compared to the value of ours, but of course that doesn't count, it is the service provided which matters.

That council tax is about the same as here.

That astonished me when we moved to London Charleygirl - the nearer to the railway station the more expensive the houses!!
The converse is true wherever we lived before.

Penstemmon sorry I didn't reply earlier , I was already in bed and couldn't be bothered to go back downstairs. It was on the link you posted that the monthly council tax was £202 and ours has just gone up this month to £204 it was a rise this year of 3.6%... Off hand I have not got the relevant banding but we are E. I was just comparing the location and I know £2 is nothing, it just surprised me.

The two railway stations were also very close so that would tick many boxes.

'Halls Adjoining' semis always go for more

Ours is more than that in the West.

Charges 2016-2017
BandMain part of the borough
(annual charge)Wimbledon Common Area*
(annual charge)
A£918.83£936.81
B£1071.98£1092.95
C£1225.11£1249.08
D£1378.25£1405.22
E£1684.52£1717.49
F£1990.81£2029.77
G£2297.08£2342.03
H£2756.50£2810.44

London Borough of Merton Council Tax We were band F

annesixty did you mean on the Zoopla link or are you referring to another post?

I just checked on the monthly costs and our council tax in Stockport, not the most salubrious area in the country is more than that as are our heating costs. I would suggest that those figures are massaged to get interest.

And it is on a busy road with night buses trundling past the window every 40 mins during the night! I loved living there..good for DDs as brilliant transport links etc. But if I had a million I would not but my old house..not worth it

Not huge is it? One bathroom,no utility and in need of modernization. Here in the North west that may make £300,000 but of course location is everything.

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/property/london/worple-road-sw20/sw20-8rq/?include_retirement_homes=true&include_shared_ownership=true&new_homes=include&price_max=1200000&price_min=950000&q=SW20%208RQ&radius=0&results_sort=newest_listings&search_source=refine

We lived in the house next door but one to this one. We sold it 5 years ago.

I am NOT a millionaire!

Some people who own mansions in the West country or Lincs have sold very ordinary homes in London and made ££££
There has always been inequality between London prices and most of the rest of the country; but in fact there is so much more of a discrepancy now - it is extraordinary.
We sold a very small ordinary house in GL area in the 1980s and bought a nicer, larger house in the West for the same price (definitely not a mansion) but we could not afford to buy back our London house now.

Our first house in London cost £35k and our current one is worth over £800k. We have been fortunate, but it has also come at a price .... stressful jobs, high cost of living, frequent moves to climb the ladder.
We've recently been looking at potential properties in the South West for retirement, and it seems to us that this time round we are going to have to get the best possible deal in a property as we will never see our investment increase to the same extent again.

Remembering what happened soon after we married, when the house prices serged, just as they did in 2002. I can well believe there are many who are exceptionally well off.
Especially if you remained in commuting distance to London. Along with two salaries, once the kids were at school and a lot of a wealthy inheritance, so i am sure a lot will have more than one house, which two people close to the family experienced, so are now travelling around the globe non stop.

In Solihull you can buy a 4 bedroomed house for £450,000 in London that would be the price of an average flat!

After the war house prices reflected the current situation of man working, wife staying at home looking after the children. Now they also reflect the current situation, 2 people with incomes and children looked after by someone else.

'Gold plated pensions', yes I think the public sector do have them, they are inflation linked which applies to very few outside the public sector.

Someone suggested that a person living in an expensive house and claiming support from the state should sell up and use the capital but is this any different from those living in social housing and claiming support? Why should they be protected from moving when they have spare rooms but not those who privately own? For anyone who has always lived in the same place the pressures must be the same except that it would be a lot more stressful to sell and buy than to simply move. We have moved away from that sort of security but I keep hearing it is hard to do.

If Cameron can declare his income so can I! My income is my state pension with a bit of SERPS and amounts to £165 a week. I own a house worth perhaps £90,000. My most valuable possession when new was my sofa which is not even comfortable!

A few months ago I was very fortunate to have found a small job for a few hours a week in a family business with flexible hours, which keeps my head above water, and keeps the car on the road. So far I have still not earned enough to pay income tax.

Thee insanity of the housing prices is shown by the current value of the first two homes my parents owned. The first home they owned, a three bedroomed Victorian semi in south London is now worth over £900,000. After the war we moved to Carlisle and my parents sold the London house and bought a similar one there. This house is currently worth about £120,000

I do certainly feel for young people who are priced out of home ownership. Although they have managed to buy, neither of my daughters and their partners, despite degrees and good jobs, could begin to afford the house we bought when we were considerably younger than all of them.
Everybody I know who has been lucky enough to inherit money has passed most or all of it straight on to their children, to help them with frightening housing costs (at least here in the SE).
I do get a bit fed up with hearing about 'greedy boomers'. Anyone would think we specifically voted for rocketing house prices. And we don't all go on non stop cruises and buy fancy cars, sticking two fingers up to children struggling with big mortgages and childcare costs. My kitchen is over 30 years old and my very ordinary car is well past its youth, but they still function fine, and I had no hesitation in passing a recent legacy directly to my daughters. I just feel so sorry for the many who can never expect any such help.

I for one would be very happy for house prices to come down considerably. I positively hate the attitude that rocketing house prices are a good thing. Not to mention the idea that my generation are constantly crowing smugly about how much our houses are worth, and telling younger people it's all their own faults because they spend money on iPads.

Here's an interesting article about London's housing problem, from the FT.

www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8ef50668-63b3-11e5-9846-de406ccb37f2.html#axzz45PO5RK3U

Must be a much posher part of the West Midlands Anya with far higher house prices. The nice bungalow I have in mind went for less than half. I'm talking half way between Wolverhampton and Walsall. Other relatives live in affluent Solihull and that has a housing market much more like the SE I suspect.

Main reason for rise in house prices is supply and demand - far too little building for the last 10 years. More of us are living longer than our parents. More of us are getting divorced as well. And in the SE the booming economy relies on immigration to fill the job vacancies - and they need somewhere to live.

The coalition sat on their bottoms and did little to boost building. Osborne would rather talk about HS2 than invest in social housing. Small rise recently due to his subsidy for house builders aka building "affordable" homes under Help to Buy. But if he had invested in social housing back in 2010 it would have boosted the economy and young people would not be in quite such a bad position.