Getting on the property ladder

[Dauphin]

Hey Whaleboy, you think you got it bad? Its the same for most people I know in their 20s. The average price for a terraced or flat in my neck of the woods is £250k. The low end of reasonable housing is closer to £170k though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/uk_house_prices/regions/html/region10.stm

At that price I'd need a £60k salary off the bat.

[Provost Harrison]

The interesting thing is, look at the total number of sales a year - just over 32k - in a city of 7m?! Looking at that, I would suspect that most of those people can only afford to buy somewhere is because they already own somewhere to sell...so it looks like we are collectively buggered in our agegroup. Let's hope the supply situation gets sorted out relatively soon...but I doubt it...

[Dinner]

Detached: £569,440 is the going rate for a detached in London? How old and what size are we talking? Are these tiny crap houses which are falling apart of actual decent homes?

[DanS]

£569,440? Yikes!

[Dauphin]

Detached: £569,440 is the going rate for a detached in London? How old and what size are we talking? Are these tiny crap houses which are falling apart of actual decent homes?

Detached houses in London are rare, unless you are looking at the surburbs, which is why they are expensive. Most homes are semi-detached/terraced, and can range from decrepit (but expensive) Victorian terracing in the West End of London to very cheap 90s trendy dockside apartments in the Eastend. In other words, what you get and what you pay aren't really related - its the area that sets the price far more than the accomodation.

[duke o' york]

I've thought about this, and realise I'm screwed for a house anywhere I'd actually like not be too worried to live. The answer is to share (get yourself to the moving-in stage with your girlfriend - at the very minimum that's a year off for me, even if I met my perfect match tomorrow) with whoever you can, or just rent (undoubtedly for more than you'd pay for a mortgage) until you've managed to earn enough to be able to afford somewhere not entirely unpleasant.
I'm in Leeds too, so London's going to be even worse!

[Dauphin]

The problem is these days you can't even sell your body for medical experiments to raise the deposit without turning into the elephant man.

[duke o' york]

What if you were to turn into the whale boy?

[Provost Harrison]

Where are those dying distant wealthy relatives when you need them?

[Skanky Burns]

Apparently in Sydney to own your own home is impossible. With current prices compared to wages, you will never pay it off.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Where are those dying distant wealthy relatives when you need them?

Inheritance tax kicks in at under £300k, so the taxman would get too much. Far better they stay alive and that they let you live with them.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

yes the houses here are such junk (quality wise), most of what I have seen is "the cheapest build" style and they cost an arm and a leg, and still someone buy this (my explanation is that in general British people have very low standard when it comes to appreciating good insulation/quality walls/good plumbing etc) so there is no real demand. ie the market cannot recognize a "better quality house" and will not pay for it so they are not being built.

It is what SD says

its the area that sets the price far more than the accomodation

which to me = morons that will spend thousands on repairing this POS like the one I am living in. It looks nice, relatively new (around 10 years) but in first 6 months of rent, plumbing, radiators, you hear people breathing upstairs... all in all, I coming from the perhaps overall less prosperous part of the world, but those commies at least built proper boxes when they built them this is well unbeliavable (and probably goes for 250-300k on the market)

and that what you buy in London for 1/2 a million (close to a mil USD) is well hardly worth the money. Somewhere else you will buy 20 flats from which you will be able to live like a millionaire just from modest rent .

32k sales for a city of 7 million just shows how unrealistic supply/demand is.

this is my area

Bracknell Forest
Average Cost: £222,975
Detached: £343,166
Semi-detached: £214,750
Terraced: £176,546
Flat: £162,292


Change in last quarter: 1.4%
Change in last year: 7%
Sales: 684

so for a average flat you need 40k salary, which is basically a manager level pay.

**** them I say

on the other hand this year I have seen flats below 100k! which is why I thougt even a 1 bed flat for 125K in Amen Corner which is a very good area... but yes overall - :throwup: (even 7% growth last year?!? perhaps the top end grew )

As if the market is not "free" and most likely reason for all this is that there are not enough houses being built and that the "investors" bought everything up during the boom... so there is still no good reason for the house prices starting to fall a bit more substantially, which is like and

[reds4ever]

Shoulda bought your house just before the prices went crazy....

[OneFootInTheGrave]

just for comparison check this which is current

http://money.guardian.co.uk/pay/story/0,,1415864,00.html

Research comparing salaries with the cost of living found that while Londoners take home 40% more than employees outside the capital - an average of £30,984 - their living costs are only 9.7% higher. This puts them top of the Wealth Index compiled by salary comparison website Payfinder.com.

According to Payfinder the national average salary is £22,411 but in many regions workers earn less. Among those at the bottom of the pay scale were the east of England, Wales and the south-west. Employees in some of these regions suffered a double whammy of low salaries and a relatively high cost of living.

Overall... market is working very poorly for the entrants that is for sure.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by reds4ever
Shoulda bought your house just before the prices went crazy....

yes 5x + in 10 years = insane; like stock market pre y2000 and probably for same reasons, but this seems resilient as people rent/live still for how long will this go is the question - slow stagnation for next 20 years like in Germany or a sudden fall like in early 1990's.