Getting on the property ladder

[Standup]

Perhaps it is. If my wife goes out tomorrow and racks up her credit card, I have no legal responsibility for that. If it were a joint card, I would be responsible.

Until a recent change in the way credit ratings were done people living at the same address as you but with no financial connection could get you a bad credit rating. Supposedly this has been resolved now so your lodger/brother/girlfriend ect shouldn't mess your change of getting credit.

From what friends in the states have said there's also much more high quality, affordable rental properties. One of the reasons i got fed up renting was that most of the properties for which i'm paying a third of my salary are pretty poor.

As someone else said though why the rush to get on the property ladder at 21? So far this month i've had my new council tax at £1800, electrical work for £1600, a £300 gas bill and i can't even remember how much the water was. Oh and the garage roof is leaking.

[reds4ever]

"2 up, 2 down" means 2 floors each with two rooms. Usually the kitchen and front room ("lounge" if youre posh) downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs occupying the same area.

[Cort Haus]

Early 20's is young - plenty of time to work and save money. I'm nearly 40 and still haven't bought a place. Spending most of my 20's in bands and with no money didn't help, but having had to start my career from the bottom twice, I'm, finally ready, with my girlfriend, to buy somewhere later this year. We've saved hard for years, got to a combined income of around £80k and should have over £50k to put down against a flat in the £250k-£300k range. Our trouble is that we're addicted to the buzz of Central London and it would feel like being dead to live away from it.

[Provost Harrison]

I'm sure you can buy somewhere alright if you go somewhere south of the river and be pretty central - just be very careful about the area...

[DanS]

Originally posted by reds4ever
"2 up, 2 down" means 2 floors each with two rooms. Usually the kitchen and front room ("lounge" if youre posh) downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs occupying the same area.

Ah, OK. You're right, we don't have something similar in the US. The closest thing would be a small row house.

[Provost Harrison]

I think that is the equivalent...someone put up a picture of somewhere in New England and the housing style did look pretty equivalent to terraces...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Oh I geddit you all earn at least £100k a year (or live in 30sq feet houses underground where rates are a bit less) ... I wander which one is it

Underground cubicles

[Provost Harrison]

£100k a year (divided by 3 )

[DanS]

Some of these descriptions make Kuciwalker's neighborhood sound like Shangri-La. Super Size me!

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I'm sure you can buy somewhere alright if you go somewhere south of the river and be pretty central - just be very careful about the area...

Sahf of the river? Dunno about that mate! I couldn't bear to be more than three miles from Highbury...

There are some nice new flats going up in Battersea though, as I noticed from the car on my way through there this week. They start at £279k, but river views - tasty.

I agree with those who are calling more more development. There is a new class divide - the propertied and unpropertied classes. It's tough to break into unless you're prepared to move to somewhere where nobody wants to live. Supply needs boosting to meet demand. I disagree with those advocating mass buying-to-rent. That's anti-social behaviour in my book, sorry.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Part of it is releasing land for construction and approving construction so new units can be produced, but, there is also the issue of how to make more units. Building new units is very expensive so developers tend to only build when they're almost assured a return on their investment (which is sensable from their point of view). Perhaphes there are ways the government lower the cost of new construction to insure the finished product is more affordable.

We have government subsidised* housing here, so low income families can rent flats instead of sleeping on the streets. They used to have another kind of subsidised housing here that was for sale, but that obviously put a tiny dent into the real estate developers' ungodly profit margin, so they whined loudly and the govenment kowtowed.

Anyway, having these are nice, but another problem was created. It's the so called "sandwich class," people who make too much to be eligible for subsidised housing, but not enough to buy their own.

Now the Singapore government has the right idea. Uni grads can buy cheap flats. I can deal with that.


* Not really subsidised in the sense that the government pays $ out of its own pockets. These housing complexes do make some money overall. The government just forgoes collecting certain kinds of fees during the initial stage.

[Standup]

I think the problem with building more properties is that they'll all be in the south east with poor transport, community resources, badly made and all look identical.

I don;t have a solution but covering Berks, Surrey and others in Barrat estates isn't going to help. I've seen what it's done to my home town and it;s now a souless place surrounded by identikit houses where everyone drives.

I'm probably being selfish but if were going to build loads of houses lets do it properly with enough infrastructure. Even small things like loft insualtion, cavity wall could be made compulsory for very little cost.

or maybe we shouldn't have sold all the council houses without reinvesting the income ?

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DanS


Ah, OK. You're right, we don't have something similar in the US. The closest thing would be a small row house.

You guys have too much room to need tight terraces. When you've got ~60 million people on a small island, space becomes a premium. I expect only Japan is more dense.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Standup
I think the problem with building more properties is that they'll all be in the south east with poor transport, community resources, badly made and all look identical.

I don;t have a solution but covering Berks, Surrey and others in Barrat estates isn't going to help. I've seen what it's done to my home town and it;s now a souless place surrounded by identikit houses where everyone drives.

I'm probably being selfish but if were going to build loads of houses lets do it properly with enough infrastructure. Even small things like loft insualtion, cavity wall could be made compulsory for very little cost.

or maybe we shouldn't have sold all the council houses without reinvesting the income ?

And this is exactly the problem. Use those brownfield sites first of all, and build taller. But if new areas are going to be built, they need to be comprehensive and structured with new transport links and facilities. I was reading about some of these new Thames Gateway developments, and they sound like hellholes because there has just been absolutely no strategy...

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Standup
I think the problem with building more properties is that they'll all be in the south east with poor transport, community resources, badly made and all look identical.

I don;t have a solution but covering Berks, Surrey and others in Barrat estates isn't going to help. I've seen what it's done to my home town and it;s now a souless place surrounded by identikit houses where everyone drives.

Surrey isn't gonna be covered with Barrat homes, and in fact it's too hard to build in rural Britain. That's partly why the cities are choking, because of the Nimbyism of people who've moved out of town and want it all to themselves. The Greenbelt thing has become a dogma.

I do take the point about soul-less developments though. The land around Dublin is a case in point. Villages and small towns are growing - not into real towns, but into clusters of isolated estates with no cohesion. A real town or city has districts, all with ameneties, culture, and transport links. Just building houses isn't enough for a proper community - but we do need more houses.