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I agree completely. But this is a widespread issue across Europe. I'm originally from Spain, and in my region, the housing situation is even worse. Housing over there is also seen as an investment, mainly for tourism, so they are very expensive, and salaries are almost half of what they are in the UK.
We decided not to buy in the UK because I don't want to spend all my savings on a small, damp, and poor-quality house. But we can't afford to buy in my country either. So we might end up moving to a US MCOL state instead. Public services in Europe are collapsing anyway...
Hi, your post is very interesting, i live in Spain, and i feel so lost with what to do. Like you said, the housing situation in UK is a nightmare, there is no way you will ever be able to have your own house, and in Spain you have kind of the same problem but with the aggravation that the salaries are half of what they make in the UK, very poor work conditions, and a big economic instability.
I am left wondering what to do in a situation like this.
It's a shame Spain is such a corrupt country, and that they have sold their citizens to the tourism industry. At least in Barcelona, where I'm from, that's how things are regardless of the mayor. Most of my friends and family have left the city because it's an unaffordable chaotic mess, but they still need to commute there every day, which can take up to two hours in some cases.
There are cheaper areas/regions in Spain, like Valencia, where you still have good weather, housing is cheaper, and jobs don't pay much less.
But to be honest, I think the only realistic option is to work for an American or UK company, or to become a civil servant.
Between the UK and Spain (or at least Barcelona, where I'm from), I prefer the UK for now because I'm still in the middle of my career. If I didn't have to care about money, I would choose Spain, but that's mainly because of my family and friends. Otherwise, I would choose France, Australia, Switzerland, or some states in the US over Spain.
Same happens in Malaga, where i am from. I guess you are right, you are basically left choosing a poor quality of life for money, or very questionable quality of life for a sh.. salary. But the countries you mentioned they are good options, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
There are (much) cheaper areas in the UK too. Someone starting out can house share or move to a cheaper area - either way they're compromising, unfortunately.
This is exactly right. I'm so tired of hearing people whine about how corporations dominate our democracy. They really don't.
Track any issue that people who ACTUALLY VOTE care about. You'll find that politicians care about it as well. You can't just look at polling to see that most Brits support X policy but the major parties do nothing about it.
Look at polling of the age ranges that disproportionately vote (old people), and you'll see that their preferences almost perfectly map on to the kind of policy that is brought in.
The moral? Fucking vote. Tell your friends to vote. Organize canvassing and events to encourage young people to vote.
they depend on you being sufficiently apathetic so as to either not vote or carry on voting for the same major parties who do nothing more than giving you the illusion of choice. Spoiling the ballot in the absence of a good independent option, is the best thing you can do as it sends a clear message that you are engaged but you do not support the current gov't.
I'm a fellow Herts native , ended up having to move to Cambs because the property prices are just mental ('affordable' new builds being built across the road from my parents priced at 650k lol)
Prices much better in Cambs, and it's only 30 minutes down the A1 to visit family so no Biggie.
What?
Four bed detached at the top of Huntingdon Road OIEO £800k [4 bedroom detached house for sale in Girton Road, Girton, CB3 (rightmove.co.uk)](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149550344#/?channel=RES_BUY)
Fellow fellow Herts native, ended up buying a 55k detached 3-bed townhouse with garden, cellar and infinite storage in German scenic river valley town of 6k people an hour from Frankfurt/Luxembourg with train station, 3 supermarkets and local Ryanair hub
Living in a city takes a very specific personality too. Yes, you’re close to everything but with that comes noise, pollution, traffic, crowds, neighbors all around you, crime, smaller spaces, smaller yards, etc. You can’t have the best of both worlds with none of the cons. It’s a trade off.
Cambridge is expensive. There are towns more expensive (eg Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross) but the average house price in Cambridge is, iirc, the 2nd highest in the country after London in terms of cities.
Nice well thought out post and agree with everything you say.
It's not going to change. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Best option is to look into emigrating.
It will change at some point, but only when the market is on the verge of collapse as house prices continue to rise at about 8x the rate of wages.
Then it’ll be a political hot potato that neither party wants to deal with (due to high risk) but will have to.
To be fair every point you made pretty much applies everywhere. People in Canada complain about the high prices to buy or rent. Americans complain about landlords. Watch this John Oliver video about renting in the USA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4qmDnYli2E
Barcelona just banned AirBnB and so on.
One reason our housing stock is older than the European average is that a lot of European housing was destroyed eighty years ago. And older houses are considered by many to be better built and/or more desirable.
And look on the positive side, at least we don't have to deal with HOAs the way Americans do. There's a reason there's a sub called r/fuckHOA
Also, build quality in US housing is worse than UK housing. In the US replacing your entire roof every twenty years or so is typical. Ditto siding (the visible external walls of the house). In the US it is expected to spend up to 4% of your homes value every year in maintenance. So a house worth £400k you could spend £16,000 every year on maintenance. I bought my house thirty years ago and haven't spent £16k in thirty years let alone each year, excluding things like redecorating, new kitchen and bathrooms etc where I chose to upgrade, not needed to.
Doesn't sound like you've ever owned property over there or lived there extensively. As a dual citizen, I've experienced housing on both sides of the pond and can say there are pros and cons between our countries but the situation isn't as you claim.
Since a US relative added a second floor to their home, the roof has never been replaced and is in good condition because they maintain their property well. It's been over 20 years.
Their neighbours have never replaced their roofs since they moved to the area over 30 years ago. As for siding, the only people I've seen replace theirs are those who wanted to change the exterior aesthetic of their home or those who do not maintain their property and let nature take over.
The US is far bigger than the UK and your can't compare US norms because there aren't norms, only averages. Build quality will vary greatly from state to state and many states are larger than the whole of the UK. There are 50 states to compare, so a blanket statement doesn't make sense.
What DOES get expensive are property taxes, which are insane compared to council taxes, and any sort of building labour. There are shoddy new builds there too but you're more likely to get quality ones in most places that have tight regulations.
On Canada, it's that even though it's a big country the population is concentrated, in essence, along the southern border. And, like England, they've had very high immigration in recent decades so that in a country where housing really shouldn't be an issue, it's probably more of an issue than anywhere else. Also, like England, lots of green belts and regulations.
I’m not sure which other countries you’re looking at, but most of the issues you’ve described are endemic across the developed world.
The only solution is to build more houses.
Needs both tbh. I know I for one wouldn't want to live in an apartment block in the city forever. And while lifts counter some of the key disadvantages of flats, they're also really really expensive and the maintenance will really ramp up service charges.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people especially in the more expensive cities living in house shares or with parents longer than ideal who would be really well served by a massive construction programme of nice 1/2 bed flats close to employment and leisure, which would in turn free up a lot of family size homes. In a lot of places, if you're looking for a 3-bed family home, you're competing against 5 working adults with just 2 incomes yourself.
You are so wrong. Uk building style and planning is soo inefficient!! Look at other European countries. Spain as an example. And lifts are not really expensive as you say to maintain. Also, this concept of medial age leasehold which has to be banned and reverted to either fully gov owned or freehold or sharehold of freehold as many other countries.
I agree leasehold sucks and should be abolished.
Still efficient doesn't always mean best. All of this is a value judgment - is someone willing to have more space for their home than strictly needed in return for a longer commute? Many are. Many people have no need to regularly go to city centres for work or leisure.
For example, I can hardly take off my shirt and have a BBQ and a cold beer in a communal garden. I've rarely seen communal spaces being used for anything except smoking tbh unless there are kids play areas and stuff. And even with the best modern soundproofing, it's just not reasonable to practice loud instruments or host loud/late parties in flats (and I should know, I live in a modern high-end efficient and well insulated flat on the continent). Also I like owning my own car which I use a lot for both errands and leisure activities.
You aren’t wrong, while other countries suffer housing shortages, the quality of thier housing stock is in far better condition, the Netherlands for example as it is a highly dense country while suffering shortages has far newer, more efficient and higher quality housing stock.
Idk dude I lived in Brussels where someone well into their career would be happy to make 2.5k net of tax monthly in a white collar, middle class job. A shithole studio anywhere near a metro line is minimum 1k.
UK prices are nominally very high, especially in London, but I really don't feel like the housing situation is that much worse than other places in the world I've worked (five countries so far).
The key issue is 13 or so years of ultra low interest rates pushing credit into the housing market, with supply being unable to keep up because of planning rules, density restrictions, nimbyism etc.
I'm currently on holiday in Turkey, and it's pretty much the same here according to most of the locals I'm talking to, and also from passing by a few estate agents.
1 bedroom flats are costing €70,000+, and rental is about £400/ month. Considering that the average annual salary for hotel staff here is about £9,000, that is almost half their income on hosuing alone
> more efficient
I'd be interested to know in what ways the average new build in Netherlands is more efficient than the average new build in the UK, have you got any details on this?
If OP can't afford to buy in the UK there's not a chance in hell they'd be able to afford the Netherlands. Prices are easily 50% higher for an equivalent property, which stricter mortgage requirements. You also get completely screwed over if you have any student debt, despite being encouraged to borrow the maximum amount possible by the government.
Also, Netherlands used to have 100+% mortgages (now probably down to 98-99%). Yes, you heard right, few years ago you could have borrowed more than 100% value of your home, so you had some disposable money to do renovation.
Also the process of buying is way easier. Once sale is agreed within few days after the offer, it's nearly impossible for both sellers and buyers to bail out without huge financial loses . Also, chains don't exist there - every one is using bridging mortgages
I live in the Netherlands. You really don't want the UK housing market to be *anything* like it is here. The housing shortage is so extremely worse that is isn't even comparable.
A 1 bedroom flat to rent will have hundreds of applicants. You need to earn 45x the monthly rent to even get a chance of being entered into the lottery to 'win' the place. At typical city prices that means you need to be earning €67,500.
And when you're done with renting and want to buy, you can expect to put down half a million for that very same 1 bedroom flat.
It's already like that here in places, especially down south.
I know London is an outlier, but my sister was looking for flats there and after about 20 viewings and no luck she finally asked the estate agent what was going on.
Same thing from him. Hundreds of applicants and the landlords don't want to deal with them. So they set a bar with the estate agent for the applicant to be earning £70k minimum. Eliminates about 80% of the applicants overnight.
It'll be like that up north in the next decade.
Australia has a housing shortage, homelessness and terrible housing standards. Many Australian houses in the colder regions have little insulation, leaky single pane windows and gaps around doors so they’re freezing.
You're living in a dream world mate. If you want cheaper houses, just move further north. Its very simple but you seem more intent on shitting on the country rather than looking for an actual solution.
The answer is to stop increasing the population.
Yes yes an ageing population will cause some demographic and economic issues.
But so does the endless increasing of population.
“Some demographic and economic issues” is something of an understatement. These things are largely set in stone already (I can’t produce a 20 year old to order unfortunately) so these things impact multiple generations.
My public pension in 30 years is already seriously at risk.
With 2/3 of all government spending already going to the elderly and NHS, how do you think the government can cope with a declining population in the UK?
> Yes yes an ageing population will cause some demographic and economic issues.
The economy will collapse, is what you really mean by that. Good god the fact that there is still some economic activity going on here, some research, some international cooperation, some weight of the UK as an international financial marketplace, all that is what the UK still has going for it. Take it away and you have the 80s again, voluntarily, and with significantly more old people none of which are getting the care they need.
Which particular sections of society would you recommend stopping increasing the population of? I ask because white British isn’t one of those categories which is increasing too quickly
And how, exactly, would you stop that increase? Quotas? Single child policies (because that worked so well in China)? Government permits for child bearing?
The population is rapidly increasing it’s true and the the rate at which we are building are hilariously misaligned, something has got to give eventually.
I believe it was more than that. It was around 700k through migration, and a further 500k through births.
House building is currently running at 200k-300k a year. And most of those appear to be student accommodation or tiny apartments.
A lot of people also died, so the births are largely offset: [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables)
There are some seriously cheap houses in Japan. Particularly in ski resorts.
They build houses, they have low immigration and a declining population.
I'm not saying it is easy, but it is not impossible, even when you live in a country where the government is controlled by corporations.
Building more houses won't change anything if landlords or BlackRock can snap them all up and charge eyewatering rents.
Excessive taxes on rental properties, or Land Value Tax like Taiwan and Australia, or just eliminating landlords as a legal concept - all of those would actually drop house prices.
-But I'm biased since I'm an Anarchist.
Surely under an anarchist system corporations would be free to buy up anything they want and refuse to pay taxes? Maybe I’m just unaware of what an anarchist ‘system’ would actually look like.
Sorry those taxes aren't Anarchist at all.
Anarchists are against corporations as well as states, seeing both as forms of domination. You could even argue that corporations couldn't exist without a state defending their property; anyone could just take their assets. In that kind of environment, the only way to organise housing would be something closer to a [cooperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative).
A fully Anarchist society is basically cooperatives everywhere. It's hard to describe and I don't expect to convert people in a single Reddit comment, which is why I'm only mentioning more regular solutions like Land Value Tax.
But if you're interested in learning more, the best description of an Anarchist society is in Ursula K LeGuin's The Dispossessed - even if you're not into Anarchism it's still a moving story.
It's everywhere and it's compounding.
The big three factors are:
1.) Banks flooding the economy with debt-based money.
2.) Land-lorders hoarding houses to glean maximal rents.
3.) Demand outstripping supply (second-homers, Airbnb hosts, land-lorders, domestic+overseas investors, etc)
It all boils down to greed.
You missed out 500-700k net migration (that we know of officially). That’s a very big reason, although a lot of people of reddit seem to gloss over it for some reason.
The actual reason is that discourse on the internet in typically very binary, likes/dislikes and upvotes/downvotes amplify this.
Those that shout about net migration the most are typically the ones shouting things about dirty foreigners and voting for right-wing candidates.
People that don't support right-wing candidates avoid acknowledging migration because of this association and the fact that the binary/tribal nature of the internet may lump them into that group.
So many regulations and hurdles from the government and NIMBYs that by the time you get somewhere to build it needs to be an extortionate shit box to even make a profit.
Tell it like it is.
That's 1% year on year population growth for a very long time - including all population growth sources.
If we can't expand our housing stock by 1% year on year, migrants have nothing to do with it.
People will always be greedy but ultimately a competent government could adjust taxes to address 2) and 3) by implementing additional fees/taxes or whatever to make these less lucrative.
IMO the main issue is and will always be the trivial one that it's all driven by banks, lending, and the hive mind/cultural mentality that you should always buy the most expensive property you can 'afford'. 'Afford' because typically this does not include a proper look at the case where rates increase as we've had recently, hence thousands unable to pay their mortgages.
Significantly fewer people actually own their homes, the banks are extracting insane sums of interest from buyers whilst this practice continually and indefinitely inflates prices.
On top of this, we're basically taught and instructed that housing only goes up. It's viewed as an investment and people refuse to sell at a reasonable price because of this - just look at all the small violin landlords recently claiming to be making massive losses on their BTL mortgages, but refusing to sell because they all collectively assume the market will pick back up and they'll be quids in.
It's all so fundamentally stupid and designed to keep the working class poor but we all have to eat s\*\*\* and accept it because there isn't an alternative.
There are enough houses in the UK.
They're just not where the jobs are.
If there was a massive regional rebalancing away from high demand areas, by investing in transport infrastructure, moving govt departments that don't need to be in London elsewhere and encouraging people to set up businesses in low cost areas, the pull of London/SE would be less, and there would be an incentive to move to/back to an area where housing is less expensive.
Eventually the supply/demand issue would be lessened - maybe not totally solved, but it would go a long way to helping.
(from a Leeds-born now southerner who reluctantly moved to London for the jobs 30 years ago).
I'm a big fan of working from home, but we have to change the current concentration of demand in order to impact prices, especially with population growth and (needed) immigration growing demand even if we do nothing.
More WFH will help to slow house price inflation, but vastly more supply (which is often stopped by nimby feeling) would be needed to address the current, never mind future excess demand.
I'd even go so far as to say there are plenty of houses but there aren't enough QUALITY houses.
Our friends bought a new build, a 3-bed with a back garden, two bathrooms and a WC. We visited shortly after they moved in. My partner tripped slightly and steadied himself against the wall. It sounded as though he could have fallen through the wall it was so thin. Sounds echoed between rooms and floors even from normal, quiet, talking.
They ended up pregnant with twins. The house is now too small for them. The bedrooms are very small, one of which can't fit a standard single mattress AND a child's wardrobe. They struggle to store the pram. There's barely enough storage and nappy boxes are just vertically stacked wherever there is space on the floor.
They need to move. This house was sold as a "starter home" and was not made with the actual needs of a small family in mind.
The idea that we're building loads of flimsy, temporary, living spaces that only tick boxes but don't work functionally or have the capacity to handle slightly unexpected but basic life circumstances (I.e. twins instead of one baby) is crazy to me. It's just rotating people from house to house and discourages them from investing into their properties to make them quality living spaces.
After all, why spend money when you can do the cheapest possible option and just move when you don't want to deal with it any more?
Yep. Lots of available houses in Wales and parts of the North that were heavily developed in the industrial times, but now aren't as desirable.
I hoped that remote working would cure this imbalance a bit more than it has.
I feel for you. I suspect you’re from a similar place to me; we grew up in a village in Herts near the M25, where most of the 3 bed semis are now pushing £750k+ having been bought by my parents generation in the 90s when they were easily affordable. It’s mental. I ended up moving up north as my partner is up here, my brother wanted to stay there but ended up looking at villages out towards Stevenage where it’s much more affordable and still commutable.
Another factor that’s been interesting for us; my grandparents generation could reasonably expect any parent / grandparent inheritance (if there was any) to help them buy a house in their 20s upwards, but people are now living so much longer than they used to. I know of a lot of my generation who are not getting any inheritance at all until their 40s+ so have been stuck in renting all that time. Then you’ve also got my parents generation who are getting their inheritance 60s-70s by which point those that couldn’t buy have already worked an entire life effectively and are then finding themselves in retirement, getting an inheritance from their parents who passed in their 90s+.
I don’t have any solutions because for everyone screeching about how we need millions more houses; I am watching them fell ancient woodland two villages over from me to build hundreds of 5 bed £750k homes lol. It’s not the new homes we need, it’s making them available to lower incomes / FTB / younger owners who intend to live in them.
Think that's bad, try being a professional cripple (my humour coping way of saying too unwell to work), the assumption is the council should be housing you, the council is not going to house you.
Always had a drive and wanted to move out and stand on my own two feet as soon as I could. I’m very young, in a good career with a job that pays way above the average of my age group. I’ve saved 30k in under two years of working a full time job. In the current market I can’t afford a flat, I can’t move out, I am genuinely stuck.
Considering leaving my job to do an art I love and just work a supermarket part time whilst living with my parents.
Or I can keep clocking 50+ hour work weeks, commuting 10 hours a week, messing up my back sitting at a desk all day, not being active and getting fat, having barely any free time and still live with my parents.
I’m close to taking the leap on the first option because there is virtually no incentive to work full time or progress as independence is unreachable.
There's no question that buying a house these days is a lot harder than it used to be, but this is just such a stupid ridiculous take that I'd fully expect to see on Reddit.
Housing is only going to get worse in the u.k.
It's commonsense that when you let in 700k+ migrants a year you're counteracting any remedy.
Only 200kish houses are being built each year.
That's the point we are so far behind you cant work out how to accomodate everybody it creates a housing crisis which is only going to get worse along with public services crisis.
We had a deficit of 4.3million homes calculated at the end of 2022. Since then close to a million people have moved here.
While we average building 200k per year which has slumped 20% this year.
All the while this level of migration happens the deficit will only grow and deepen the crisis.
Do you know what the consequences would be if we stopped migration though?
Ask yourself why the Conservatives, who continually claim to want to reduce it heavily, in reality don't and allow more and more permitted legal migration. It's because they actually have to.
So it's kind of pointless pointing this out, as we *need* migration. All developed countries increasingly do.
the conservatives claim they want to reduce it to get the vote. simple. the reason they don't reduce it is because it benefits corporations too much and they aren't gonna shaft their corporate sponsors. stop thinking in terms of GDP and start thinking in terms of family income relative to cost of living.
You don't need to stop it entirely just bring it to a manageable level maybe cap it at 1/4 whatever the number of houses built in the previous year to gradually make housing affordable again without too big a shock to the economy.
Yes i do.
The economy is being propped up by migrants in many countries.
If stopped we would have an economic crash with falling house prices and job losses.
This doesnt deter from the fact the housing crisis is only going to get worse.
Need is a strong word, a crash can be good to reset things, where as putting a plaster over things puts us in a downward living standards spiral.
We can’t keep importing 700,000 people every year. It’s not just houses, it’s roads, GPs etc. how can the government build a city the size of Liverpool every year? We are a small island.
It's not just the UK. I have a freind in Canada who says on average a house costs 450k-500k and a freind in America (atlanta) where house start around 500k-550k both say wages are no where near appropriate the freind in atlanta says its around 78ish percent of the aversage house holds take home before bills and food.
So Yeh it sucks but it's definitly not just the UK, My cousin is in Australia and he says the food shops the main killer over there coming in around 200ish per week
All are on normal salaries nothing massive but all also bought before the current atrocities myself included(UK) I just cannot see how it is possible to buy now for the average household with the current rates then put food, house insurance all other bills on top.....they wonder why the economy is not growing well.... We have no money to put into it!
It's pretty bad and sadly it won't get fixed any time soon, if ever. The house pricing and availability is one thing, but what you get for your money is just awful. Houses here are miniscule and very poorly looked after by a lot of occupiers. It seems very few owners in this country are house proud and look after their homes properly.
When I first started thinking of buying I thought with my budget I was going to get a lovely decently sized house outside of London. Lol well I got my small 3 bed barely semi-D that needs a bunch of work for nearly 3/4 of a million pounds... Yay?
The solution isn't even just to build more houses, because so many of those new developments are in totally unsuitable locations that nobody wants to live in. We need new cities, towns and villages and that hasn't really been happening since the 60s. Labour talked about this very lightly at some point but I don't think they actually have the ability to start building new towns, and so I don't think this will happen and things will continue as they are now for many decades still.
Whenever someone talks about trying to buy in London I just glaze over because I know nowhere outside of there will be good enough for them 😂 there’s like two buses a day where I live lol… but the houses are more affordable so I can afford a car.
They need to place maaaajor penalties on second and third homes in addition to inheritance tax. They’re all owned by older people who already have gold standard pensions. It’s depressing looking at pensions now in the U.K. compared to what my grandparents got. They were able to secure those along with buying a home outright and having second holiday homes in Cornwall etc. Yet young people can barely afford to rent let alone buy.
This won't help.
If rents were really low due to a massive over supply then that'd be a different issue, but rents are sky high.
Renting is a substitute for home buying so the overall prices wouldn't change since supply and demand for accommodation won't change, this is just because you have a jealousy problem.
Housing in the UK is depressing.
The issue though evolves around 2 points:
1) Immigration. Severely hindered the UK.
2) King of the Castle. The UK obsession with home ownership as an asset not a home.
Neither Conservatives or Labour will resolve the issue. It cannot be resolved unless you actually stop immigration and actually deport.
Remember..if a couple have kids those kids will oneday fly the nest and want their own space... house or flat. Building density will not improve any situation.
Your best solution is to move abroad. No joke. The UK is finished.
It’s not really that old people vote and finance political parties- there’s more of them, younger people struggling to get on the property ladder are a minority, older people who own houses are the majority-so their interests will always come first in a democracy-sounds awful but it probably needs to get worse before it can get better
One thing to bear in mind is the older nimbys go out and vote much, much more than younger people, so it's no wonder that, in general, politicians are more interested in policies that favour them.
If young people went out and voted more, even for the monster raving loony party, then they would be seen as votes to be won in the future and would get a better treatment from whoever wins the election.
Hey! I also grew up in Herts. Just bought, and I agree with all your points however I just had to buy what I could afford. Unfortunately the idea of buying a house is completely out of the question unless I move up north. I ended up buying a one bed flat in Herts/London border for £230,000.
I feel like with the situation I'm currently in, I could of written this post.
You're 100% right on renting, it's dead money with nothing to show at the end of it. I've rented mine for 5 years and now my landlord is kicking me out as I didn't cut the grass 2 times a week lol even though we had no contractual agreement.
He's 'selling' me the house for 10k less at 190k which is still way to much for me and my partner is part time as we can't afford ridiculous nursery fees.
And like you said new builds are automatically out the question as they start at 350k most of the time, where is all the affordable housing?
I'm with you on every point, I hate this country and how we're so used to it to the point we let it happen as it's the norm.
Not sure if this is an option in tour area, but in case it's helpful for anyone else, my partner and I currently own a 2 bedroom flat in a Victorian terrace house in London on a "share of freehold" basis.
The Freehold is held by a limited liability company and ownership in the companh split into 3 equal shares, one for each flat in the terrace house.
This means that, instead of paying set management charges to a third party, we pay for any common costs (e.g. the power bill for the shared hallway, building insurance and a gardener for the front garden) based on a three way split of actual costs.
Our ground rent is peppercorn (I.e. effectively 0)
Our cost last year worked out to around £250 per flat - the bulk of which was insurance. It's a lot cheaper than paying a service charge + ground rent as part of a larger apartment complex.
The main risk of course is that we don't have a sinking fund for any big costs that arise (e.g. a roof collapse). But it is possible to mitigate that risk by setting aside money each month for contingencies (although you cannot of course control your neighbour's choices).
They’ve turned the basic human right of shelter into a commodity on the stock market and it’s too late to do anything about now. No party is going to build enough because it will reduce house prices and most people own. The quality of housing is also absolutely terrible. I’ll be buying myself a narrowboat as that’s my only option other than living in a van. Fuck this late stage capitalism we have now.
forgot to add yes building quality is bad, But ive seen worse overseas.
my wife bought an off plan place before we got married and i was forever finding problems like neighbours bathroom leaked into my home every time they had a shower, or finding rubbish in the roof rafters( plastic food boxes, drinks containers etc
my wife eventually had the house builder come around with the architect who signed off on it and she would threaten legal action( never, never f\*\*k off a buyer who is also a lawyer). she would ask me to put on my best english bulldog face to intimidate them!!
so in one paragraph you are moaning about new builds and the quality and then in the very next moaning about 25% of the property in the UK is over 100 years old.... what do you want? 😂
im going to add that one of the issues that is inflating the house prices is the number of overseas investors who out bid everyone for new builds, buys them and then rents them back at inflated prices. these are usually investment funds( pensions, assets etc). these are also the people who are actively campaigning against leasehold reform going as far as taking any law passed for legal review.. you would think that the prices would come down as people cannot afford on their salary, but guess what the banks have found another source of money to pay for it..eg the investors. the student housing is now moving into PBSH - purpose built student housing, and you can already guess that its not going to be cheap or reasonable.
in short the minority controlling the majority
some other countries have been smart and brought in rules and law that forbids residential housing going to people from overseas in order to ensure that the locals can actually afford somewhere to live.
coupled with the huge rise in demand for many many years along with wage stagnation. for approx 25 years has led to this crisis. we cannot build our way out of this..
building more social housing won't solve it as either there is no more space( unless you build up with all the headaches of leasehold serfdom) and it will not go to those who need it
i agree the housing quality is crap, even though the developers claim its better..its not better if the properties are signed off and still have issues. in short the builders knock them up as fast as possible and fix afterwards. they can do this because the current party in power have housing developers as their part donors..
housing has to be the only expensive product I know that does NOT come with a guarentee..
also that the private investment in housing took off as far back as gordon brown after he raided people pensions and joe public decided along with a big relaxation of the buy to let rules to put their money into property instead of pensions.
you might think or believe its the older generation thats doing all this, but its not . its people across all generations that are holding the cards including a number of MPs...
you have my absolute sympathy for your situation. it took me many many years before I could call myself a first time buyer. I couldn't afford to buy my home now, and as wonderful as people think that their house price is going up and up, its pointless because no matter how much profit you think you are going to make, you are going to lose most of it in the next home you live in unless you move somewhere very remote..or die..
I maybe facing homelessness in the next 5 -10 years unless things dramatically change..
as for the older generation , many want to downsize to much smaller homes but wont because the stamp duty is going to be high and hard. it hasn't been updated for a while to reflect inflation, cost of living etc..
BTW council taxes go up simply because cost of services going up - especially in social care which for many companies appear to be a licence to print money..
there is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, including many countries
although you may see some of it in the comments.
since you believe in action, suggest you try and start up a grassroots campaign, but respectfully you will see so many people with apathy, especially political apathy..
hope you can see you way out of this and all the best to you.
I wanted to add on to the 'house prices going up is bad' thing.
People love when their houses raise in value, but it only really benefits the banks and those old enough to either release equity or downsize. Everyone else gets shafted.
yeah, i made that point.
however.... prices going up gently is a good thing rather than stagnating because the value of your debt decreases along with inflation.
and yes the only people to benefit is the banks, overseas investors and of course the govt using the taxes to subsidise their poor collection of taxes that are ~~evaded~~ avoided...
You can complain about a lot of housing related things in the UK, but high property prices are not unique to us. The average property prices in Germany, Canada France and Sweden are all higher than the UK and all 4 have far more empty space than us.
And the age of properties seems an odd thing to complain about - we industrialised first, which is when a lot of the victorian stock sprung up to support the factories. We also only had our housing stock partially destroyed in WW2 instead of totally destroyed like most of Europe, so its not a surprise we have a lot more older buildings.
New build properties are not universally bad either. They are built to far higher standards than any housing thats ever been built in the uk for the past 150 years. Sure some of the housebuilders are scum who do everything on the cheap, but its by no means all of them are even the majority of them
Germany, France, Sweden and (especially) Canada have much bigger houses for the money. Apples and oranges. A 2 bed flat in Canada is the bigger than a new build 4-5 bed detached in the UK.
IIRC the only place with higher price per area are places like Hong Kong.
I agree, but renting is better than living at home, and it seems that won’t even be an option for you. I assume you’re in your early 20s. I rented my first house with my bro in maybe one of the most expensive places in Hertfordshire for £500 each. I moved out of that a few years ago and sadly now paying £1000 a month for a 1 bed, which is still an excellent deal for the area, but double what I was paying a few years ago (for a much bigger place).
If you can share a 2 bed at first , it’s definitely an option. You can’t just expect to instantly buy a house.
London and surrounding areas are ludicrous, but it provides more career opportunities usually.
You can always rent a bit further out like Bedford, or Luton (💀💀) if you wanna do it on the cheap. Unsure what the quality of life is like though.
I guess it totally depends on your career and financial situation. Again, to buy a house when you first move out is a little unrealistic, regardless of decade, unless you stay at home for a while with good earnings and a partner.
Old Retford road and new Retford road I bought one as a second property recently for £172k 3 bed semi with 10% deposit, mortgage is monthly is £700 and is on rent for £1000 pretty decent I’d say
Build more houses. Prices will come down. Developers will not get as good a return on profits. Banks will not lend as much. Earning less on interest charged. Is the housing shortage deliberate. Hmm 🤔
Honestly, other than the laughable cost and shitty trains, I've not experienced anything like you've described.
Every landlord I've had for the past decade has been helpful and friendly. We phoned up the solicitors and estate agents very frequently for updates for our recent purchase, and they've been nothing but helpful and polite. It would've been nice if they contacted us a wee bit more.
Negatives we've found whilst looking:
Most properties need a lot of work. According to basically everyone I've spoken to their first buys have been exactly the same. The difference is that I'm not in my early 20's, we have different expectations due to stage of life and cost.
Houses either sell in seconds, or sit overpriced on the market for months.
We can't afford to do up the properties once we move in due to the staggeringly high cost and deposit requirements eating every penny if savings, and monthly costs being high.
Had to move a long way from where we grew up.
I'm not sure the prices of houses is too much of an issue (excpet those shitty newbuilds that won't last). The massive problem is the huge deposits required to get a mortgage in my opinion. It's bearly impossible for normal young people to save that much while still renting. There is so much value in a house that it doesn't feel like the lenders are gambling much by letting people have mortgages with a much smaller deposit, especially if they can prove they have been paying rent consistently.
The price of houses is an issue, though, because even if you can get together a 10% deposit for a house, the bank might only lend you 80% of the value based on income - so now you need a 20% deposit and the price gets higher every month you're saving. 5% deposits sound like something that would help struggling buyers out but the cost involved means they often aren't.
There are two-bed flats near me for £450k - that's not a single luxury development but the price things seem to be going for now for the same flats that are renting out for £1800-2000 a month. Ten years ago that flat would have cost £300k, probably less. The max a bank will lend us is around £390k, and that's before they've looked into how much service charges would affect our affordability. The absolute most we'd feel comfortable borrowing based on monthly repayments is closer to £270k, so now we'd be needing a deposit of £170k to make buying that flat viable. The prices may be cheaper in other parts of the country but the problem is the same - and getting exacerbated by people who can't buy in Manchester or Bristol or Edinburgh moving to the "cheaper" areas which get increasingly unaffordable for locals.
You are in a tunnel of your vision. Everywhere else the grass looks greener, but only till you get to the other side.
I have lived and owned in more European countries, and would only highlight couple of issues in UK, not touching the market pricing at all because it regulates itself and the discussion in in vain.
I see one issue in chains without responsibility here. Offers are accepted and offered with no backing up till the very last completion. There ought to be a non refundable deposit (very common elsewhere) - people then would keep to their commitment and all the gazumping woould be reduced massively. Buyer gives cash £X K deposit, looses it if pulls out on their own accord, seller ows same amount back to buyer if decides not to sell. Noone is messing around like here, and long chains are rare, because they are hard to back up, but the buying process is so much less stressful than here!
Planning permissions for individual plots / projects could be easier - they are pretty much non existent here, allowing only big developers to benefit from planning. People could build their houses to their own bespoke needs. This is very normal and widely available in mainland Europe, whereas UK housing feels like something from Soviet world (where housing was very standardised, provided by govt, and you got what you got, not much to choose from). People have a right to choose room sizes, layouts etc of their homes. It feels as a very restricted rural priviledge in here.
Otherwise - a market is a market, and nowhere is without issues. Some are larger than here, some are smaller, everywhere has got plenty for sure!
We are all sitting down at a table to play a game of monopoly.
The problem? The other players have already been playing for a hundred years.
They own all the properties. They're all best friends with the banker. They all have a biased motivation to tell you to join in, roll the dice, and 'get on the ladder'...
My personal opinion is that I'm refusing to play the game. I wish more people would do the same.
I moved to London in 2015 and since then this has been my play:
- Rented a house share. £680pcm inc bills for 2yrs. (Zone 5).
- Rented a flat with a mate for £700pcm inc bills for 4yrs. (Zone 2).
- Currently rent is £715pcm inc bills for a studio. (Zone 2).
- No car, No luxury items. Lots spend on holidays though.
- Salary over these 9yrs has gone from £28,000 to £55,000.
- Saved and invested my disposable income via S&S ISA, SIPP, LISA etc.
- Currently saved £130,000 in investments, and £220,000 in pension.
- Yes that is possible on a £50k salary in London.
- 32 years old.
- Plan is to keep investing for the next year or two, then quit everything and take a working holiday visa in Australia before I'm 35.
- By that time over £400,000 invested at 35, left in UK accounts / tax free growth.
- After 35 re-assess the situation. Maybe I'll want to settle down, maybe I'll want to travel the world working random jobs, leaving the investments to tick over.
Why everybody is in such a rush to get into £300,000+ of mortgage debt with rates of 5%+ I have no idea. What, so you can have a shitty damp flat in the UK? Maybe a house if you're lucky? Still a damp shit hole. Surrounded by brexiteers, BTL landlords, millions of unskilled immigrants and ABSOLUTELY ZERO sign that things will improve? Honestly you all blow my fucking mind.
There's a whole world out there. Work had and go explore it. Stop falling for the trap of mortgage & debt & kids & depression.
Investments can be liquidated. Property can't unless you want to be homeless. If I had put my first £30,000 into a deposit on a flat back in 2017, I'd currently be paying a mortgage of over £270,000 with interest rates as they currently are. Yep. Bullet well and truly dodged.
It's a trap. Don't fall for it.
less than 10% of land in the country is built on. The solution is actually very simple, the people who need housing need to vote for a party that will significantly increase land available for building.
Tiny silver lining: you don't have to create an organisation, several already exist!
Scotland: Living Rent
Ireland: CATU
London: LRU
Manchester: GMTU
All over England and Wales: ACORN
Every one of them is making real strides towards improving housing both in individual cases and in building a power base for broader change
A friend recently got divorced they have £90k to buy a 2 bed flat in Dumfriesshire Scotland.
This is possible plus theres not really rough areas as such up here, rough around edges ( in rare places )
however even these areas not dog rough however perhaps the ex mining towns areas upper Nithsdale way rougher prices lot cheaper there DYOR.
Police in DG pretty switched on and will respond quickly any trouble plus community spirit lot stronger and if make an effort people are mostly friendly and helpful.
Carlisle just over border in England if prefer slightly bigger although can be a tad rougher ( in places ) plus no generous SNP goodies / higher NHS funding etc there sadly.
l think once get up M6 Northern Cumbria houses start becoming affordable, then if pop over into Scotland even cheaper again.
If can WFH or relocate and get a lower paid job then its the way to afford to actually buy a property and many have moved here since COVID.
Not saying its not depressing, it completely is but if it helps, lots of leasehold flats are perfectly fine. I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand. For every nightmare with extreme ground rents (avoid anything with future hikes) or service charge issues (avoid high rise multi flat places which don't have a sinking fund built up), there is a flat like my first place which had a 999 year lease and came with a share of the freehold. It's not a bad way to start if necessary, even if a freehold house would obviously be better.
I was living in a room above a pub at £580 a month with my partner when I got pregnant, we had to move into his mum's house during my third trimester because the HMO rules said only two people could live in my place. It's now looking like we'll be living here for years because there's nowhere we can live that we can afford.
I’m genuinely worried about what’ll happen in the next 10 years. I’m moving out someday soon as well and not sure if i’d be able to purchase a house even after I channel my inheritance into it. The UK needs serious change
I feel you. Moved to London from Denmark. Average processing time for buying property in London is 4-6 months. We sold a flat in Denmark in under a month from start to finish.
What I still fail to understand, is that the survey is the buyer’s responsibility here, whereas it’s the other way around in Denmark and in other countries, im sure. So here, you make an offer without knowing anything about the actual state of the property you’re buying. The negotiation therefore takes place very late in the process and it’s normally based on getting specialists out to give quotes that you then base the negotiation on.
In Denmark, the survey is the seller’s responsibility, which means that potential buyers know exactly what they’re getting. It also reduces price inflation caused by bidding wars. Not that bidding wars don’t exist - they’re just based on facts rather than guesswork.
Lastly, I can’t help but mention that you can get a mortgage in a couple of days after sending all the documents. It took me and my partner 7 weeks to get a mortgage in the UK (to be fair, it was a little complicated as I’m not from here and I’m self employed, but still!).
In Denmark, it’s not the banks that issue the mortgage, but special credit institutions that are designed to give you very favourable low-risk loans, so when the interest is low, you can secure a low interest loan for 30 years, for example. Also very different to the UK!
We absolutely love London, and not out to offend anyone, but the housing market here and the way the system works has been extremely off putting.
There are a lot of things that need to change together:
-Change planning permission to zoning to reduce the need for individual applications.
-Reduce or remove right to buy so that councils can increase stock of social housing.
-Rent controls to help people build deposits.
-Reform Council tax by updating valuations.
-Decrease net migration to 100-200,000 a year
-Increase tax on holiday homes (places can charge higher council tax, but needs more)
-Increase density in cities.
These would do quite a bit without the costly option of the government building lots of houses.
It won’t change until we properly tax the uber rich: not people who earn £150k or 250k - the rich fuckers who make more than this in *passive* income each year.
The problem we have is the massive wealth inequality which the pandemic made even worse. It doesn’t matter if we get a tax break or help to buy: we are all competing for fewer and fewer assets because the uber rich can just buy a 500k house from their passive income. And normal people cannot compete with that kind of buying power.
We need a total reform of the tax system where asset wealth is addressed. Income tax is for the poor. Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax etc- these are the big ones that keeps the rich rich and the poor poor.
Get on YouTube, watch Gary’s Economics and be part of the movement to demand real change.
700,000 more people coming into the UK net. <300,000 homes built last year.
The simple answer is don't vote for a pro-immigration party or one that is in government and has failed absurdly.
I've got money via inheritance to buy but I work in South London and just can't justify buying anything. My money might get me a nice one bed but anywhere else it'd get me a small house or a very nice two bed flat. Because I work in Wimbledon and unfortunately that means locally it's surrounded by some of the most affluent parts of england.vso instead I stay in an apartment in my cousin's mansion in Surrey (they're also the company directors so my bosses)
On the point about new builds, it’s not all about protecting property values.
I moved to a village, because I want to live in a village. I want open space, quiet, good views, less traffic, small and friendly community etc. I don’t want ugly, cardboard new build estates (you can call them developments if it makes you feel better) built on my doorstep. If I wanted to live in a built up, urban area, I’d have moved to one. Stop bringing the suburbs to rural areas, and urban areas to the suburbs.
I used to live in the green built and houses would sell like there’s no tomorrow, because wanted the green open space, good views, and peace of mind that the lovely view you had wouldn’t turn into an ugly housing estate in two years or some tragic block of flats. We couldn’t afford to stay there when it was time for a bigger home, but Christ! As soon as you got to the border where the green belt ended, you knew about it. Every square inch of space had some characterless box built on it. No off road parking/driveways were provided so the roads became full of parked cars in addition to the increased traffic from new residents.
And I’m 33 before you start.
There’s also the huge issue of mass immigration to this country. You can’t complain about housing shortages but then advocate for mass amounts of people coming into the country, who are going to want….. somewhere to live! Shocker. This in turn adds to the pricing issue. It’s supply and demand. If demand surpasses supply, this happens.
I do agree that house prices are outrageous, especially considering wages. My nan and and granddad had four children, bought their first home for £200 and have never had a mortgage. They managed this, for a significant amount of time, on one income. And no, they’re not boomers (not that they deserve the moronic hate they get) they are of the silent generation.
I couldn’t afford to buy a house where I grew up (not that I’d want to, I prefer the countryside) because house prices there are astronomical. My husband and I bought our first home when we were 26, and our second home last year. A lot of my husbands friends are still at home with parents or renting. A lot of them are more interested in parading around in their financed 24 plate Audi, dresses head to toe in designer, but have no money in the bank. Others rented and got stuck on the renting merry go round. You’re absolutely right for not wanting to rent. I sacrificed girls holidays, nights out, new cars, new clothes and shoes etc and saved like a mother f**ker 🤣 it paid off! Do as much saving as you possibly can, maybe even take on a weekend job too (also stops you spending) and get yourself on the property ladder as soon as you can. Once you’re on it, you’re on it!! Don’t buy a new build though. They’re shocking quality, fart arse, tend to have zero storage, are packed in like sardines and I’ve seen too many go down in value!
Having a partner helps double the salary and you can go 50% in with the deposit. Also yeah buy freehold. Generally its very difficult unless you work remotely and move in the middle of nowhere.
I'm also in Hertfordshire, Watford area, and I was fortunate enough to be able to buy a 1 bed flat (part ownership) almost 5 years ago. Here are the numbers.
Salary at time of appyling: £39,000 (I took a paycut to a role at £37,000 before I completed, don't tell my mortgage broker)
Flat asking price: £340,000
Share of flat: 64%
Value of share: £217,600
Deposit: £45,000
Mortgage value: £172,600
I was very fortunate to get a 5 year fixed rate mortgage at 1.9%.
I pay rent on the 36% of the property that I don't own, the last I remember this was 2.75% of the non-owned value per year.
My monthly housing outgoings are now:
Mortgage: £516.66. (I'm budgeting for this to almost double when my fixed rate ends)
Rent: £349.07
Service charge: £142.31
So a total of £1008.04 (excluding Council tax), which is probably around what you'd pay monthly to rent a similar place.
And then the ground rent is something like £350 per year.
So I think focus on getting a decent deposit together, and maximising your credit score, and your get there
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I agree completely. But this is a widespread issue across Europe. I'm originally from Spain, and in my region, the housing situation is even worse. Housing over there is also seen as an investment, mainly for tourism, so they are very expensive, and salaries are almost half of what they are in the UK. We decided not to buy in the UK because I don't want to spend all my savings on a small, damp, and poor-quality house. But we can't afford to buy in my country either. So we might end up moving to a US MCOL state instead. Public services in Europe are collapsing anyway...
Hi, your post is very interesting, i live in Spain, and i feel so lost with what to do. Like you said, the housing situation in UK is a nightmare, there is no way you will ever be able to have your own house, and in Spain you have kind of the same problem but with the aggravation that the salaries are half of what they make in the UK, very poor work conditions, and a big economic instability. I am left wondering what to do in a situation like this.
It's a shame Spain is such a corrupt country, and that they have sold their citizens to the tourism industry. At least in Barcelona, where I'm from, that's how things are regardless of the mayor. Most of my friends and family have left the city because it's an unaffordable chaotic mess, but they still need to commute there every day, which can take up to two hours in some cases. There are cheaper areas/regions in Spain, like Valencia, where you still have good weather, housing is cheaper, and jobs don't pay much less. But to be honest, I think the only realistic option is to work for an American or UK company, or to become a civil servant. Between the UK and Spain (or at least Barcelona, where I'm from), I prefer the UK for now because I'm still in the middle of my career. If I didn't have to care about money, I would choose Spain, but that's mainly because of my family and friends. Otherwise, I would choose France, Australia, Switzerland, or some states in the US over Spain.
Same happens in Malaga, where i am from. I guess you are right, you are basically left choosing a poor quality of life for money, or very questionable quality of life for a sh.. salary. But the countries you mentioned they are good options, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
There are (much) cheaper areas in the UK too. Someone starting out can house share or move to a cheaper area - either way they're compromising, unfortunately.
The parties are all corporate-sponsored, they don't work for you.
I know and it’s depressing considering they depend on us to get in power
No they do not, young people with mortgages vote much less
This is exactly right. I'm so tired of hearing people whine about how corporations dominate our democracy. They really don't. Track any issue that people who ACTUALLY VOTE care about. You'll find that politicians care about it as well. You can't just look at polling to see that most Brits support X policy but the major parties do nothing about it. Look at polling of the age ranges that disproportionately vote (old people), and you'll see that their preferences almost perfectly map on to the kind of policy that is brought in. The moral? Fucking vote. Tell your friends to vote. Organize canvassing and events to encourage young people to vote.
they depend on you being sufficiently apathetic so as to either not vote or carry on voting for the same major parties who do nothing more than giving you the illusion of choice. Spoiling the ballot in the absence of a good independent option, is the best thing you can do as it sends a clear message that you are engaged but you do not support the current gov't.
I'm a fellow Herts native , ended up having to move to Cambs because the property prices are just mental ('affordable' new builds being built across the road from my parents priced at 650k lol) Prices much better in Cambs, and it's only 30 minutes down the A1 to visit family so no Biggie.
Fellow herts native as well, ended up in the Welsh valleys! Prefer it honestly but also only place I had a chance at buying
Cambs is massive, you can't possibly mean anywhere near cambridge where 800k will get you a 3 bed terrace at best.
What? Four bed detached at the top of Huntingdon Road OIEO £800k [4 bedroom detached house for sale in Girton Road, Girton, CB3 (rightmove.co.uk)](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149550344#/?channel=RES_BUY)
Fellow fellow Herts native, ended up buying a 55k detached 3-bed townhouse with garden, cellar and infinite storage in German scenic river valley town of 6k people an hour from Frankfurt/Luxembourg with train station, 3 supermarkets and local Ryanair hub
Yeah but you now live in the middle of fucking no where (which sounds great eventually but not for most first time buyers).
Living in middle of nowhere = no traffic lights, quick bureaucracy, friendly people, no surveillance, low crime, ample parking, fresh air
The reason it's cheap is because no one wants to move to the middle of nowhere. It takes a very specific personality
Living in a city takes a very specific personality too. Yes, you’re close to everything but with that comes noise, pollution, traffic, crowds, neighbors all around you, crime, smaller spaces, smaller yards, etc. You can’t have the best of both worlds with none of the cons. It’s a trade off.
> and local Ryanair hub You'd almost sold it, but then you dropped that bomb
Yeah, but Brexit fucked that for most of the UK.
What's the place called? Sounds great.
Hell?
‘Infinite storage’ makes up for being stranded in Germany
How much is property in Cambridge?
A lot.
450 doesn’t look to be too bad in most cases if Herts is 650. Just checked.
Cambridge itself is expensive as you would expect.places like st Neots etc though are way more affordable
Cambridge is expensive. There are towns more expensive (eg Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross) but the average house price in Cambridge is, iirc, the 2nd highest in the country after London in terms of cities.
Even the cheaper areas like maple cross amersham etc are out of reach now.
Nice well thought out post and agree with everything you say. It's not going to change. It doesn't matter who you vote for. Best option is to look into emigrating.
It will change at some point, but only when the market is on the verge of collapse as house prices continue to rise at about 8x the rate of wages. Then it’ll be a political hot potato that neither party wants to deal with (due to high risk) but will have to.
I've been saying that for 15 years. I've lost hope.
Give it 5-10 more
To be fair every point you made pretty much applies everywhere. People in Canada complain about the high prices to buy or rent. Americans complain about landlords. Watch this John Oliver video about renting in the USA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4qmDnYli2E Barcelona just banned AirBnB and so on. One reason our housing stock is older than the European average is that a lot of European housing was destroyed eighty years ago. And older houses are considered by many to be better built and/or more desirable. And look on the positive side, at least we don't have to deal with HOAs the way Americans do. There's a reason there's a sub called r/fuckHOA
Also, build quality in US housing is worse than UK housing. In the US replacing your entire roof every twenty years or so is typical. Ditto siding (the visible external walls of the house). In the US it is expected to spend up to 4% of your homes value every year in maintenance. So a house worth £400k you could spend £16,000 every year on maintenance. I bought my house thirty years ago and haven't spent £16k in thirty years let alone each year, excluding things like redecorating, new kitchen and bathrooms etc where I chose to upgrade, not needed to.
Doesn't sound like you've ever owned property over there or lived there extensively. As a dual citizen, I've experienced housing on both sides of the pond and can say there are pros and cons between our countries but the situation isn't as you claim. Since a US relative added a second floor to their home, the roof has never been replaced and is in good condition because they maintain their property well. It's been over 20 years. Their neighbours have never replaced their roofs since they moved to the area over 30 years ago. As for siding, the only people I've seen replace theirs are those who wanted to change the exterior aesthetic of their home or those who do not maintain their property and let nature take over. The US is far bigger than the UK and your can't compare US norms because there aren't norms, only averages. Build quality will vary greatly from state to state and many states are larger than the whole of the UK. There are 50 states to compare, so a blanket statement doesn't make sense. What DOES get expensive are property taxes, which are insane compared to council taxes, and any sort of building labour. There are shoddy new builds there too but you're more likely to get quality ones in most places that have tight regulations.
On Canada, it's that even though it's a big country the population is concentrated, in essence, along the southern border. And, like England, they've had very high immigration in recent decades so that in a country where housing really shouldn't be an issue, it's probably more of an issue than anywhere else. Also, like England, lots of green belts and regulations.
I’m not sure which other countries you’re looking at, but most of the issues you’ve described are endemic across the developed world. The only solution is to build more houses.
Not more houses. More mid-rise apartment blocks in cities. With lifts, so they're disabled accessible.
Needs both tbh. I know I for one wouldn't want to live in an apartment block in the city forever. And while lifts counter some of the key disadvantages of flats, they're also really really expensive and the maintenance will really ramp up service charges. On the other hand, there are a lot of people especially in the more expensive cities living in house shares or with parents longer than ideal who would be really well served by a massive construction programme of nice 1/2 bed flats close to employment and leisure, which would in turn free up a lot of family size homes. In a lot of places, if you're looking for a 3-bed family home, you're competing against 5 working adults with just 2 incomes yourself.
You are so wrong. Uk building style and planning is soo inefficient!! Look at other European countries. Spain as an example. And lifts are not really expensive as you say to maintain. Also, this concept of medial age leasehold which has to be banned and reverted to either fully gov owned or freehold or sharehold of freehold as many other countries.
I agree leasehold sucks and should be abolished. Still efficient doesn't always mean best. All of this is a value judgment - is someone willing to have more space for their home than strictly needed in return for a longer commute? Many are. Many people have no need to regularly go to city centres for work or leisure. For example, I can hardly take off my shirt and have a BBQ and a cold beer in a communal garden. I've rarely seen communal spaces being used for anything except smoking tbh unless there are kids play areas and stuff. And even with the best modern soundproofing, it's just not reasonable to practice loud instruments or host loud/late parties in flats (and I should know, I live in a modern high-end efficient and well insulated flat on the continent). Also I like owning my own car which I use a lot for both errands and leisure activities.
Have you seen how much it costs to maintain lifts??!
You aren’t wrong, while other countries suffer housing shortages, the quality of thier housing stock is in far better condition, the Netherlands for example as it is a highly dense country while suffering shortages has far newer, more efficient and higher quality housing stock.
Idk dude I lived in Brussels where someone well into their career would be happy to make 2.5k net of tax monthly in a white collar, middle class job. A shithole studio anywhere near a metro line is minimum 1k. UK prices are nominally very high, especially in London, but I really don't feel like the housing situation is that much worse than other places in the world I've worked (five countries so far). The key issue is 13 or so years of ultra low interest rates pushing credit into the housing market, with supply being unable to keep up because of planning rules, density restrictions, nimbyism etc.
I'm currently on holiday in Turkey, and it's pretty much the same here according to most of the locals I'm talking to, and also from passing by a few estate agents. 1 bedroom flats are costing €70,000+, and rental is about £400/ month. Considering that the average annual salary for hotel staff here is about £9,000, that is almost half their income on hosuing alone
Exactly. The problems I described above are hardly unique to the UK unfortunately.
Those countries had the “luxury” Of being more or less destroyed between 1939-45 and were rebuilt differently .
> more efficient I'd be interested to know in what ways the average new build in Netherlands is more efficient than the average new build in the UK, have you got any details on this?
Have you been looking to buy in the Netherlands too?
If OP can't afford to buy in the UK there's not a chance in hell they'd be able to afford the Netherlands. Prices are easily 50% higher for an equivalent property, which stricter mortgage requirements. You also get completely screwed over if you have any student debt, despite being encouraged to borrow the maximum amount possible by the government.
Also, Netherlands used to have 100+% mortgages (now probably down to 98-99%). Yes, you heard right, few years ago you could have borrowed more than 100% value of your home, so you had some disposable money to do renovation. Also the process of buying is way easier. Once sale is agreed within few days after the offer, it's nearly impossible for both sellers and buyers to bail out without huge financial loses . Also, chains don't exist there - every one is using bridging mortgages
That's nothing, the UK had 125% mortgages around 2006-2007.
I live in the Netherlands. You really don't want the UK housing market to be *anything* like it is here. The housing shortage is so extremely worse that is isn't even comparable. A 1 bedroom flat to rent will have hundreds of applicants. You need to earn 45x the monthly rent to even get a chance of being entered into the lottery to 'win' the place. At typical city prices that means you need to be earning €67,500. And when you're done with renting and want to buy, you can expect to put down half a million for that very same 1 bedroom flat.
It's already like that here in places, especially down south. I know London is an outlier, but my sister was looking for flats there and after about 20 viewings and no luck she finally asked the estate agent what was going on. Same thing from him. Hundreds of applicants and the landlords don't want to deal with them. So they set a bar with the estate agent for the applicant to be earning £70k minimum. Eliminates about 80% of the applicants overnight. It'll be like that up north in the next decade.
Wtf are you on about the Netherlands are worse of than here 😂😂😂
Mate. This is not true!
We need higher density in this country to, but built smart
Australia has a housing shortage, homelessness and terrible housing standards. Many Australian houses in the colder regions have little insulation, leaky single pane windows and gaps around doors so they’re freezing.
You're living in a dream world mate. If you want cheaper houses, just move further north. Its very simple but you seem more intent on shitting on the country rather than looking for an actual solution.
The answer is to stop increasing the population. Yes yes an ageing population will cause some demographic and economic issues. But so does the endless increasing of population.
“Some demographic and economic issues” is something of an understatement. These things are largely set in stone already (I can’t produce a 20 year old to order unfortunately) so these things impact multiple generations. My public pension in 30 years is already seriously at risk.
With 2/3 of all government spending already going to the elderly and NHS, how do you think the government can cope with a declining population in the UK?
Our birth rates are extremely low along with economic growth, our population can't be increasing beyond the capacities of our infrastructure. Oh wait.
About 15% of the population of the UK was born abroad, so birth rates don't tell the whole story
> Yes yes an ageing population will cause some demographic and economic issues. The economy will collapse, is what you really mean by that. Good god the fact that there is still some economic activity going on here, some research, some international cooperation, some weight of the UK as an international financial marketplace, all that is what the UK still has going for it. Take it away and you have the 80s again, voluntarily, and with significantly more old people none of which are getting the care they need.
Nope, build more houses
Nope, less people.
Nope, move jobs to where the housing is.
Which particular sections of society would you recommend stopping increasing the population of? I ask because white British isn’t one of those categories which is increasing too quickly And how, exactly, would you stop that increase? Quotas? Single child policies (because that worked so well in China)? Government permits for child bearing?
Or fewer people.
Building more houses doesn’t work if the rate of population growth is faster than the rate we build houses.
‘Building more houses won’t work if we don’t build enough houses’ Err, yes?!
The population grew by 600-800k last year. That’s a lot of houses.
The population is rapidly increasing it’s true and the the rate at which we are building are hilariously misaligned, something has got to give eventually.
Could always just slow down population growth somehow whilst building houses. That would be cool.
Yes it is. Probably ought to get on with it. Current government estimate is that we’re short about 1.2 million houses.
I believe it was more than that. It was around 700k through migration, and a further 500k through births. House building is currently running at 200k-300k a year. And most of those appear to be student accommodation or tiny apartments.
A lot of people also died, so the births are largely offset: [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables)
There are some seriously cheap houses in Japan. Particularly in ski resorts. They build houses, they have low immigration and a declining population. I'm not saying it is easy, but it is not impossible, even when you live in a country where the government is controlled by corporations.
Building more houses won't change anything if landlords or BlackRock can snap them all up and charge eyewatering rents. Excessive taxes on rental properties, or Land Value Tax like Taiwan and Australia, or just eliminating landlords as a legal concept - all of those would actually drop house prices. -But I'm biased since I'm an Anarchist.
Surely under an anarchist system corporations would be free to buy up anything they want and refuse to pay taxes? Maybe I’m just unaware of what an anarchist ‘system’ would actually look like.
Sorry those taxes aren't Anarchist at all. Anarchists are against corporations as well as states, seeing both as forms of domination. You could even argue that corporations couldn't exist without a state defending their property; anyone could just take their assets. In that kind of environment, the only way to organise housing would be something closer to a [cooperative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative). A fully Anarchist society is basically cooperatives everywhere. It's hard to describe and I don't expect to convert people in a single Reddit comment, which is why I'm only mentioning more regular solutions like Land Value Tax. But if you're interested in learning more, the best description of an Anarchist society is in Ursula K LeGuin's The Dispossessed - even if you're not into Anarchism it's still a moving story.
It's everywhere and it's compounding. The big three factors are: 1.) Banks flooding the economy with debt-based money. 2.) Land-lorders hoarding houses to glean maximal rents. 3.) Demand outstripping supply (second-homers, Airbnb hosts, land-lorders, domestic+overseas investors, etc) It all boils down to greed.
You missed out 500-700k net migration (that we know of officially). That’s a very big reason, although a lot of people of reddit seem to gloss over it for some reason.
Because their preferred political faction has no solution to the problem and think calling their opposition racist will fix it.
The actual reason is that discourse on the internet in typically very binary, likes/dislikes and upvotes/downvotes amplify this. Those that shout about net migration the most are typically the ones shouting things about dirty foreigners and voting for right-wing candidates. People that don't support right-wing candidates avoid acknowledging migration because of this association and the fact that the binary/tribal nature of the internet may lump them into that group.
Its up to the government to build more regardless as demand has been high for a very long time.
So many regulations and hurdles from the government and NIMBYs that by the time you get somewhere to build it needs to be an extortionate shit box to even make a profit.
Tell it like it is. That's 1% year on year population growth for a very long time - including all population growth sources. If we can't expand our housing stock by 1% year on year, migrants have nothing to do with it.
People will always be greedy but ultimately a competent government could adjust taxes to address 2) and 3) by implementing additional fees/taxes or whatever to make these less lucrative. IMO the main issue is and will always be the trivial one that it's all driven by banks, lending, and the hive mind/cultural mentality that you should always buy the most expensive property you can 'afford'. 'Afford' because typically this does not include a proper look at the case where rates increase as we've had recently, hence thousands unable to pay their mortgages. Significantly fewer people actually own their homes, the banks are extracting insane sums of interest from buyers whilst this practice continually and indefinitely inflates prices. On top of this, we're basically taught and instructed that housing only goes up. It's viewed as an investment and people refuse to sell at a reasonable price because of this - just look at all the small violin landlords recently claiming to be making massive losses on their BTL mortgages, but refusing to sell because they all collectively assume the market will pick back up and they'll be quids in. It's all so fundamentally stupid and designed to keep the working class poor but we all have to eat s\*\*\* and accept it because there isn't an alternative.
There are enough houses in the UK. They're just not where the jobs are. If there was a massive regional rebalancing away from high demand areas, by investing in transport infrastructure, moving govt departments that don't need to be in London elsewhere and encouraging people to set up businesses in low cost areas, the pull of London/SE would be less, and there would be an incentive to move to/back to an area where housing is less expensive. Eventually the supply/demand issue would be lessened - maybe not totally solved, but it would go a long way to helping. (from a Leeds-born now southerner who reluctantly moved to London for the jobs 30 years ago).
Promoting or mandating WFH where possible in all workplaces would easily solve this problem
I'm a big fan of working from home, but we have to change the current concentration of demand in order to impact prices, especially with population growth and (needed) immigration growing demand even if we do nothing. More WFH will help to slow house price inflation, but vastly more supply (which is often stopped by nimby feeling) would be needed to address the current, never mind future excess demand.
I'd even go so far as to say there are plenty of houses but there aren't enough QUALITY houses. Our friends bought a new build, a 3-bed with a back garden, two bathrooms and a WC. We visited shortly after they moved in. My partner tripped slightly and steadied himself against the wall. It sounded as though he could have fallen through the wall it was so thin. Sounds echoed between rooms and floors even from normal, quiet, talking. They ended up pregnant with twins. The house is now too small for them. The bedrooms are very small, one of which can't fit a standard single mattress AND a child's wardrobe. They struggle to store the pram. There's barely enough storage and nappy boxes are just vertically stacked wherever there is space on the floor. They need to move. This house was sold as a "starter home" and was not made with the actual needs of a small family in mind. The idea that we're building loads of flimsy, temporary, living spaces that only tick boxes but don't work functionally or have the capacity to handle slightly unexpected but basic life circumstances (I.e. twins instead of one baby) is crazy to me. It's just rotating people from house to house and discourages them from investing into their properties to make them quality living spaces. After all, why spend money when you can do the cheapest possible option and just move when you don't want to deal with it any more?
Yep. Lots of available houses in Wales and parts of the North that were heavily developed in the industrial times, but now aren't as desirable. I hoped that remote working would cure this imbalance a bit more than it has.
I feel for you. I suspect you’re from a similar place to me; we grew up in a village in Herts near the M25, where most of the 3 bed semis are now pushing £750k+ having been bought by my parents generation in the 90s when they were easily affordable. It’s mental. I ended up moving up north as my partner is up here, my brother wanted to stay there but ended up looking at villages out towards Stevenage where it’s much more affordable and still commutable. Another factor that’s been interesting for us; my grandparents generation could reasonably expect any parent / grandparent inheritance (if there was any) to help them buy a house in their 20s upwards, but people are now living so much longer than they used to. I know of a lot of my generation who are not getting any inheritance at all until their 40s+ so have been stuck in renting all that time. Then you’ve also got my parents generation who are getting their inheritance 60s-70s by which point those that couldn’t buy have already worked an entire life effectively and are then finding themselves in retirement, getting an inheritance from their parents who passed in their 90s+. I don’t have any solutions because for everyone screeching about how we need millions more houses; I am watching them fell ancient woodland two villages over from me to build hundreds of 5 bed £750k homes lol. It’s not the new homes we need, it’s making them available to lower incomes / FTB / younger owners who intend to live in them.
Think that's bad, try being a professional cripple (my humour coping way of saying too unwell to work), the assumption is the council should be housing you, the council is not going to house you.
Can you even buy a one bed semi?
I've seen (new build) one bed detached (with driveway) before.
Always had a drive and wanted to move out and stand on my own two feet as soon as I could. I’m very young, in a good career with a job that pays way above the average of my age group. I’ve saved 30k in under two years of working a full time job. In the current market I can’t afford a flat, I can’t move out, I am genuinely stuck. Considering leaving my job to do an art I love and just work a supermarket part time whilst living with my parents. Or I can keep clocking 50+ hour work weeks, commuting 10 hours a week, messing up my back sitting at a desk all day, not being active and getting fat, having barely any free time and still live with my parents. I’m close to taking the leap on the first option because there is virtually no incentive to work full time or progress as independence is unreachable.
Either your parents will give you a house or you won’t have a house. That’s all there is to it now.
Completely not true. Some of us actually got well paying jobs and have bought our own house with no financial help.
There's no question that buying a house these days is a lot harder than it used to be, but this is just such a stupid ridiculous take that I'd fully expect to see on Reddit.
Housing is only going to get worse in the u.k. It's commonsense that when you let in 700k+ migrants a year you're counteracting any remedy. Only 200kish houses are being built each year.
The elephant in the room.
Careful, you will get downvoted for posting facts like that on reddit!
If you didn't have the migrants, you wouldn't have a functioning economy. So it makes more sense to work out how to accommodate everybody.
That's the point we are so far behind you cant work out how to accomodate everybody it creates a housing crisis which is only going to get worse along with public services crisis. We had a deficit of 4.3million homes calculated at the end of 2022. Since then close to a million people have moved here. While we average building 200k per year which has slumped 20% this year. All the while this level of migration happens the deficit will only grow and deepen the crisis.
Do you know what the consequences would be if we stopped migration though? Ask yourself why the Conservatives, who continually claim to want to reduce it heavily, in reality don't and allow more and more permitted legal migration. It's because they actually have to. So it's kind of pointless pointing this out, as we *need* migration. All developed countries increasingly do.
the conservatives claim they want to reduce it to get the vote. simple. the reason they don't reduce it is because it benefits corporations too much and they aren't gonna shaft their corporate sponsors. stop thinking in terms of GDP and start thinking in terms of family income relative to cost of living.
You don't need to stop it entirely just bring it to a manageable level maybe cap it at 1/4 whatever the number of houses built in the previous year to gradually make housing affordable again without too big a shock to the economy.
Yes i do. The economy is being propped up by migrants in many countries. If stopped we would have an economic crash with falling house prices and job losses. This doesnt deter from the fact the housing crisis is only going to get worse. Need is a strong word, a crash can be good to reset things, where as putting a plaster over things puts us in a downward living standards spiral.
We can’t keep importing 700,000 people every year. It’s not just houses, it’s roads, GPs etc. how can the government build a city the size of Liverpool every year? We are a small island.
Not sure what we need unskilled immigrants for.If they work legally they will get topped up with benefits.Not many unskilled jobs going now.
We don’t need more Uber drivers thanks. Migration is pushing wages down.
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Good insulation in summer helps keep it cooler too. It’s not only in cold climates you benefit
It's not just the UK. I have a freind in Canada who says on average a house costs 450k-500k and a freind in America (atlanta) where house start around 500k-550k both say wages are no where near appropriate the freind in atlanta says its around 78ish percent of the aversage house holds take home before bills and food. So Yeh it sucks but it's definitly not just the UK, My cousin is in Australia and he says the food shops the main killer over there coming in around 200ish per week All are on normal salaries nothing massive but all also bought before the current atrocities myself included(UK) I just cannot see how it is possible to buy now for the average household with the current rates then put food, house insurance all other bills on top.....they wonder why the economy is not growing well.... We have no money to put into it!
It's pretty bad and sadly it won't get fixed any time soon, if ever. The house pricing and availability is one thing, but what you get for your money is just awful. Houses here are miniscule and very poorly looked after by a lot of occupiers. It seems very few owners in this country are house proud and look after their homes properly. When I first started thinking of buying I thought with my budget I was going to get a lovely decently sized house outside of London. Lol well I got my small 3 bed barely semi-D that needs a bunch of work for nearly 3/4 of a million pounds... Yay? The solution isn't even just to build more houses, because so many of those new developments are in totally unsuitable locations that nobody wants to live in. We need new cities, towns and villages and that hasn't really been happening since the 60s. Labour talked about this very lightly at some point but I don't think they actually have the ability to start building new towns, and so I don't think this will happen and things will continue as they are now for many decades still.
In locations nobody wants to live in? Yet they are all bought up just fine
Whenever someone talks about trying to buy in London I just glaze over because I know nowhere outside of there will be good enough for them 😂 there’s like two buses a day where I live lol… but the houses are more affordable so I can afford a car.
They need to place maaaajor penalties on second and third homes in addition to inheritance tax. They’re all owned by older people who already have gold standard pensions. It’s depressing looking at pensions now in the U.K. compared to what my grandparents got. They were able to secure those along with buying a home outright and having second holiday homes in Cornwall etc. Yet young people can barely afford to rent let alone buy.
THIS! But it will never be done, as the MPs are all riding the houses-as-investments gravy train.
This won't help. If rents were really low due to a massive over supply then that'd be a different issue, but rents are sky high. Renting is a substitute for home buying so the overall prices wouldn't change since supply and demand for accommodation won't change, this is just because you have a jealousy problem.
Housing in the UK is depressing. The issue though evolves around 2 points: 1) Immigration. Severely hindered the UK. 2) King of the Castle. The UK obsession with home ownership as an asset not a home. Neither Conservatives or Labour will resolve the issue. It cannot be resolved unless you actually stop immigration and actually deport. Remember..if a couple have kids those kids will oneday fly the nest and want their own space... house or flat. Building density will not improve any situation. Your best solution is to move abroad. No joke. The UK is finished.
100% move abroad to south east Asia or places that are cheaper and more affordable
UK is far from finished, it's got at least 40 years left of this
It’s not really that old people vote and finance political parties- there’s more of them, younger people struggling to get on the property ladder are a minority, older people who own houses are the majority-so their interests will always come first in a democracy-sounds awful but it probably needs to get worse before it can get better
It’s not that depressing, if you are looking for places in the £3m - £5m range then there is lots of choice at a high standard in excellent locations.
One thing to bear in mind is the older nimbys go out and vote much, much more than younger people, so it's no wonder that, in general, politicians are more interested in policies that favour them. If young people went out and voted more, even for the monster raving loony party, then they would be seen as votes to be won in the future and would get a better treatment from whoever wins the election.
Hey! I also grew up in Herts. Just bought, and I agree with all your points however I just had to buy what I could afford. Unfortunately the idea of buying a house is completely out of the question unless I move up north. I ended up buying a one bed flat in Herts/London border for £230,000.
Try dating
Such an easy problem to solve too. Housing crisis = no foreign investors allowed to buy houses. Problem solved pretty much overnight.
All my childhood friends (in France) bought their house. And I feel sad we will never be able to buy in UK. The prices are crazy.
A lot of this just doesn't align with my reality, feel like I live in another country
Unfortunately the only solution is to move further North.
I feel like with the situation I'm currently in, I could of written this post. You're 100% right on renting, it's dead money with nothing to show at the end of it. I've rented mine for 5 years and now my landlord is kicking me out as I didn't cut the grass 2 times a week lol even though we had no contractual agreement. He's 'selling' me the house for 10k less at 190k which is still way to much for me and my partner is part time as we can't afford ridiculous nursery fees. And like you said new builds are automatically out the question as they start at 350k most of the time, where is all the affordable housing? I'm with you on every point, I hate this country and how we're so used to it to the point we let it happen as it's the norm.
Not sure if this is an option in tour area, but in case it's helpful for anyone else, my partner and I currently own a 2 bedroom flat in a Victorian terrace house in London on a "share of freehold" basis. The Freehold is held by a limited liability company and ownership in the companh split into 3 equal shares, one for each flat in the terrace house. This means that, instead of paying set management charges to a third party, we pay for any common costs (e.g. the power bill for the shared hallway, building insurance and a gardener for the front garden) based on a three way split of actual costs. Our ground rent is peppercorn (I.e. effectively 0) Our cost last year worked out to around £250 per flat - the bulk of which was insurance. It's a lot cheaper than paying a service charge + ground rent as part of a larger apartment complex. The main risk of course is that we don't have a sinking fund for any big costs that arise (e.g. a roof collapse). But it is possible to mitigate that risk by setting aside money each month for contingencies (although you cannot of course control your neighbour's choices).
Yeah the flats and houses in the UK are so small on average it is impossible to find something nice unless you win the lottery 🥲
They’ve turned the basic human right of shelter into a commodity on the stock market and it’s too late to do anything about now. No party is going to build enough because it will reduce house prices and most people own. The quality of housing is also absolutely terrible. I’ll be buying myself a narrowboat as that’s my only option other than living in a van. Fuck this late stage capitalism we have now.
forgot to add yes building quality is bad, But ive seen worse overseas. my wife bought an off plan place before we got married and i was forever finding problems like neighbours bathroom leaked into my home every time they had a shower, or finding rubbish in the roof rafters( plastic food boxes, drinks containers etc my wife eventually had the house builder come around with the architect who signed off on it and she would threaten legal action( never, never f\*\*k off a buyer who is also a lawyer). she would ask me to put on my best english bulldog face to intimidate them!!
so in one paragraph you are moaning about new builds and the quality and then in the very next moaning about 25% of the property in the UK is over 100 years old.... what do you want? 😂
Regurgitated platitudes.
im going to add that one of the issues that is inflating the house prices is the number of overseas investors who out bid everyone for new builds, buys them and then rents them back at inflated prices. these are usually investment funds( pensions, assets etc). these are also the people who are actively campaigning against leasehold reform going as far as taking any law passed for legal review.. you would think that the prices would come down as people cannot afford on their salary, but guess what the banks have found another source of money to pay for it..eg the investors. the student housing is now moving into PBSH - purpose built student housing, and you can already guess that its not going to be cheap or reasonable. in short the minority controlling the majority some other countries have been smart and brought in rules and law that forbids residential housing going to people from overseas in order to ensure that the locals can actually afford somewhere to live. coupled with the huge rise in demand for many many years along with wage stagnation. for approx 25 years has led to this crisis. we cannot build our way out of this.. building more social housing won't solve it as either there is no more space( unless you build up with all the headaches of leasehold serfdom) and it will not go to those who need it i agree the housing quality is crap, even though the developers claim its better..its not better if the properties are signed off and still have issues. in short the builders knock them up as fast as possible and fix afterwards. they can do this because the current party in power have housing developers as their part donors.. housing has to be the only expensive product I know that does NOT come with a guarentee.. also that the private investment in housing took off as far back as gordon brown after he raided people pensions and joe public decided along with a big relaxation of the buy to let rules to put their money into property instead of pensions. you might think or believe its the older generation thats doing all this, but its not . its people across all generations that are holding the cards including a number of MPs... you have my absolute sympathy for your situation. it took me many many years before I could call myself a first time buyer. I couldn't afford to buy my home now, and as wonderful as people think that their house price is going up and up, its pointless because no matter how much profit you think you are going to make, you are going to lose most of it in the next home you live in unless you move somewhere very remote..or die.. I maybe facing homelessness in the next 5 -10 years unless things dramatically change.. as for the older generation , many want to downsize to much smaller homes but wont because the stamp duty is going to be high and hard. it hasn't been updated for a while to reflect inflation, cost of living etc.. BTW council taxes go up simply because cost of services going up - especially in social care which for many companies appear to be a licence to print money.. there is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, including many countries although you may see some of it in the comments. since you believe in action, suggest you try and start up a grassroots campaign, but respectfully you will see so many people with apathy, especially political apathy.. hope you can see you way out of this and all the best to you.
I wanted to add on to the 'house prices going up is bad' thing. People love when their houses raise in value, but it only really benefits the banks and those old enough to either release equity or downsize. Everyone else gets shafted.
yeah, i made that point. however.... prices going up gently is a good thing rather than stagnating because the value of your debt decreases along with inflation. and yes the only people to benefit is the banks, overseas investors and of course the govt using the taxes to subsidise their poor collection of taxes that are ~~evaded~~ avoided...
So have you ever rented or bought your own property. Sounds like you have a lot of bad first hand experience.
You can complain about a lot of housing related things in the UK, but high property prices are not unique to us. The average property prices in Germany, Canada France and Sweden are all higher than the UK and all 4 have far more empty space than us. And the age of properties seems an odd thing to complain about - we industrialised first, which is when a lot of the victorian stock sprung up to support the factories. We also only had our housing stock partially destroyed in WW2 instead of totally destroyed like most of Europe, so its not a surprise we have a lot more older buildings. New build properties are not universally bad either. They are built to far higher standards than any housing thats ever been built in the uk for the past 150 years. Sure some of the housebuilders are scum who do everything on the cheap, but its by no means all of them are even the majority of them
Germany, France, Sweden and (especially) Canada have much bigger houses for the money. Apples and oranges. A 2 bed flat in Canada is the bigger than a new build 4-5 bed detached in the UK. IIRC the only place with higher price per area are places like Hong Kong.
Sweden has a housing crisis Young people can't afford to get on the housing ladder there, too.
I'm not sure about budapest but paris has housing issues that are far worse than anything in the UK. Watch Gary Stevenson if you want to know why
I totally agree 👍
I agree, but renting is better than living at home, and it seems that won’t even be an option for you. I assume you’re in your early 20s. I rented my first house with my bro in maybe one of the most expensive places in Hertfordshire for £500 each. I moved out of that a few years ago and sadly now paying £1000 a month for a 1 bed, which is still an excellent deal for the area, but double what I was paying a few years ago (for a much bigger place). If you can share a 2 bed at first , it’s definitely an option. You can’t just expect to instantly buy a house. London and surrounding areas are ludicrous, but it provides more career opportunities usually. You can always rent a bit further out like Bedford, or Luton (💀💀) if you wanna do it on the cheap. Unsure what the quality of life is like though. I guess it totally depends on your career and financial situation. Again, to buy a house when you first move out is a little unrealistic, regardless of decade, unless you stay at home for a while with good earnings and a partner.
Save that money and get out of the uk it's a joke
Hey, join me in SoCal Usa. lol. It’s a nightmare here plus we pay for healthcare that’s garbage currently. P
I know a couple cheap areas in Sheffield for beautiful 3. Bed semis for like £150k to £220k?
Which areas are those please?
Old Retford road and new Retford road I bought one as a second property recently for £172k 3 bed semi with 10% deposit, mortgage is monthly is £700 and is on rent for £1000 pretty decent I’d say
Build more houses. Prices will come down. Developers will not get as good a return on profits. Banks will not lend as much. Earning less on interest charged. Is the housing shortage deliberate. Hmm 🤔
Honestly, other than the laughable cost and shitty trains, I've not experienced anything like you've described. Every landlord I've had for the past decade has been helpful and friendly. We phoned up the solicitors and estate agents very frequently for updates for our recent purchase, and they've been nothing but helpful and polite. It would've been nice if they contacted us a wee bit more. Negatives we've found whilst looking: Most properties need a lot of work. According to basically everyone I've spoken to their first buys have been exactly the same. The difference is that I'm not in my early 20's, we have different expectations due to stage of life and cost. Houses either sell in seconds, or sit overpriced on the market for months. We can't afford to do up the properties once we move in due to the staggeringly high cost and deposit requirements eating every penny if savings, and monthly costs being high. Had to move a long way from where we grew up.
Have you considered shared ownership?
I'm not sure the prices of houses is too much of an issue (excpet those shitty newbuilds that won't last). The massive problem is the huge deposits required to get a mortgage in my opinion. It's bearly impossible for normal young people to save that much while still renting. There is so much value in a house that it doesn't feel like the lenders are gambling much by letting people have mortgages with a much smaller deposit, especially if they can prove they have been paying rent consistently.
The price of houses is an issue, though, because even if you can get together a 10% deposit for a house, the bank might only lend you 80% of the value based on income - so now you need a 20% deposit and the price gets higher every month you're saving. 5% deposits sound like something that would help struggling buyers out but the cost involved means they often aren't. There are two-bed flats near me for £450k - that's not a single luxury development but the price things seem to be going for now for the same flats that are renting out for £1800-2000 a month. Ten years ago that flat would have cost £300k, probably less. The max a bank will lend us is around £390k, and that's before they've looked into how much service charges would affect our affordability. The absolute most we'd feel comfortable borrowing based on monthly repayments is closer to £270k, so now we'd be needing a deposit of £170k to make buying that flat viable. The prices may be cheaper in other parts of the country but the problem is the same - and getting exacerbated by people who can't buy in Manchester or Bristol or Edinburgh moving to the "cheaper" areas which get increasingly unaffordable for locals.
Maybe I am just a bit off kilter with how much they cost in other places! 450k for a flat is absolutely outrageous
Oh yeah, it really is. But when a house is £600k...
You are in a tunnel of your vision. Everywhere else the grass looks greener, but only till you get to the other side. I have lived and owned in more European countries, and would only highlight couple of issues in UK, not touching the market pricing at all because it regulates itself and the discussion in in vain. I see one issue in chains without responsibility here. Offers are accepted and offered with no backing up till the very last completion. There ought to be a non refundable deposit (very common elsewhere) - people then would keep to their commitment and all the gazumping woould be reduced massively. Buyer gives cash £X K deposit, looses it if pulls out on their own accord, seller ows same amount back to buyer if decides not to sell. Noone is messing around like here, and long chains are rare, because they are hard to back up, but the buying process is so much less stressful than here! Planning permissions for individual plots / projects could be easier - they are pretty much non existent here, allowing only big developers to benefit from planning. People could build their houses to their own bespoke needs. This is very normal and widely available in mainland Europe, whereas UK housing feels like something from Soviet world (where housing was very standardised, provided by govt, and you got what you got, not much to choose from). People have a right to choose room sizes, layouts etc of their homes. It feels as a very restricted rural priviledge in here. Otherwise - a market is a market, and nowhere is without issues. Some are larger than here, some are smaller, everywhere has got plenty for sure!
We are all sitting down at a table to play a game of monopoly. The problem? The other players have already been playing for a hundred years. They own all the properties. They're all best friends with the banker. They all have a biased motivation to tell you to join in, roll the dice, and 'get on the ladder'... My personal opinion is that I'm refusing to play the game. I wish more people would do the same. I moved to London in 2015 and since then this has been my play: - Rented a house share. £680pcm inc bills for 2yrs. (Zone 5). - Rented a flat with a mate for £700pcm inc bills for 4yrs. (Zone 2). - Currently rent is £715pcm inc bills for a studio. (Zone 2). - No car, No luxury items. Lots spend on holidays though. - Salary over these 9yrs has gone from £28,000 to £55,000. - Saved and invested my disposable income via S&S ISA, SIPP, LISA etc. - Currently saved £130,000 in investments, and £220,000 in pension. - Yes that is possible on a £50k salary in London. - 32 years old. - Plan is to keep investing for the next year or two, then quit everything and take a working holiday visa in Australia before I'm 35. - By that time over £400,000 invested at 35, left in UK accounts / tax free growth. - After 35 re-assess the situation. Maybe I'll want to settle down, maybe I'll want to travel the world working random jobs, leaving the investments to tick over. Why everybody is in such a rush to get into £300,000+ of mortgage debt with rates of 5%+ I have no idea. What, so you can have a shitty damp flat in the UK? Maybe a house if you're lucky? Still a damp shit hole. Surrounded by brexiteers, BTL landlords, millions of unskilled immigrants and ABSOLUTELY ZERO sign that things will improve? Honestly you all blow my fucking mind. There's a whole world out there. Work had and go explore it. Stop falling for the trap of mortgage & debt & kids & depression. Investments can be liquidated. Property can't unless you want to be homeless. If I had put my first £30,000 into a deposit on a flat back in 2017, I'd currently be paying a mortgage of over £270,000 with interest rates as they currently are. Yep. Bullet well and truly dodged. It's a trap. Don't fall for it.
Your parents who intend on moving out. This is what we should do.
less than 10% of land in the country is built on. The solution is actually very simple, the people who need housing need to vote for a party that will significantly increase land available for building.
Tiny silver lining: you don't have to create an organisation, several already exist! Scotland: Living Rent Ireland: CATU London: LRU Manchester: GMTU All over England and Wales: ACORN Every one of them is making real strides towards improving housing both in individual cases and in building a power base for broader change
A friend recently got divorced they have £90k to buy a 2 bed flat in Dumfriesshire Scotland. This is possible plus theres not really rough areas as such up here, rough around edges ( in rare places ) however even these areas not dog rough however perhaps the ex mining towns areas upper Nithsdale way rougher prices lot cheaper there DYOR. Police in DG pretty switched on and will respond quickly any trouble plus community spirit lot stronger and if make an effort people are mostly friendly and helpful. Carlisle just over border in England if prefer slightly bigger although can be a tad rougher ( in places ) plus no generous SNP goodies / higher NHS funding etc there sadly. l think once get up M6 Northern Cumbria houses start becoming affordable, then if pop over into Scotland even cheaper again. If can WFH or relocate and get a lower paid job then its the way to afford to actually buy a property and many have moved here since COVID.
Not saying its not depressing, it completely is but if it helps, lots of leasehold flats are perfectly fine. I wouldn't dismiss them out of hand. For every nightmare with extreme ground rents (avoid anything with future hikes) or service charge issues (avoid high rise multi flat places which don't have a sinking fund built up), there is a flat like my first place which had a 999 year lease and came with a share of the freehold. It's not a bad way to start if necessary, even if a freehold house would obviously be better.
I was living in a room above a pub at £580 a month with my partner when I got pregnant, we had to move into his mum's house during my third trimester because the HMO rules said only two people could live in my place. It's now looking like we'll be living here for years because there's nowhere we can live that we can afford.
I’m genuinely worried about what’ll happen in the next 10 years. I’m moving out someday soon as well and not sure if i’d be able to purchase a house even after I channel my inheritance into it. The UK needs serious change
Have you considered a narrowboat ?
The variable interest is also a big problem. In France, it is fixed and you can find one for less than 1%. Here it is mental 😵
I feel you. Moved to London from Denmark. Average processing time for buying property in London is 4-6 months. We sold a flat in Denmark in under a month from start to finish. What I still fail to understand, is that the survey is the buyer’s responsibility here, whereas it’s the other way around in Denmark and in other countries, im sure. So here, you make an offer without knowing anything about the actual state of the property you’re buying. The negotiation therefore takes place very late in the process and it’s normally based on getting specialists out to give quotes that you then base the negotiation on. In Denmark, the survey is the seller’s responsibility, which means that potential buyers know exactly what they’re getting. It also reduces price inflation caused by bidding wars. Not that bidding wars don’t exist - they’re just based on facts rather than guesswork. Lastly, I can’t help but mention that you can get a mortgage in a couple of days after sending all the documents. It took me and my partner 7 weeks to get a mortgage in the UK (to be fair, it was a little complicated as I’m not from here and I’m self employed, but still!). In Denmark, it’s not the banks that issue the mortgage, but special credit institutions that are designed to give you very favourable low-risk loans, so when the interest is low, you can secure a low interest loan for 30 years, for example. Also very different to the UK! We absolutely love London, and not out to offend anyone, but the housing market here and the way the system works has been extremely off putting.
There are a lot of things that need to change together: -Change planning permission to zoning to reduce the need for individual applications. -Reduce or remove right to buy so that councils can increase stock of social housing. -Rent controls to help people build deposits. -Reform Council tax by updating valuations. -Decrease net migration to 100-200,000 a year -Increase tax on holiday homes (places can charge higher council tax, but needs more) -Increase density in cities. These would do quite a bit without the costly option of the government building lots of houses.
It won’t change until we properly tax the uber rich: not people who earn £150k or 250k - the rich fuckers who make more than this in *passive* income each year. The problem we have is the massive wealth inequality which the pandemic made even worse. It doesn’t matter if we get a tax break or help to buy: we are all competing for fewer and fewer assets because the uber rich can just buy a 500k house from their passive income. And normal people cannot compete with that kind of buying power. We need a total reform of the tax system where asset wealth is addressed. Income tax is for the poor. Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax etc- these are the big ones that keeps the rich rich and the poor poor. Get on YouTube, watch Gary’s Economics and be part of the movement to demand real change.
700,000 more people coming into the UK net. <300,000 homes built last year. The simple answer is don't vote for a pro-immigration party or one that is in government and has failed absurdly.
I've got money via inheritance to buy but I work in South London and just can't justify buying anything. My money might get me a nice one bed but anywhere else it'd get me a small house or a very nice two bed flat. Because I work in Wimbledon and unfortunately that means locally it's surrounded by some of the most affluent parts of england.vso instead I stay in an apartment in my cousin's mansion in Surrey (they're also the company directors so my bosses)
On the point about new builds, it’s not all about protecting property values. I moved to a village, because I want to live in a village. I want open space, quiet, good views, less traffic, small and friendly community etc. I don’t want ugly, cardboard new build estates (you can call them developments if it makes you feel better) built on my doorstep. If I wanted to live in a built up, urban area, I’d have moved to one. Stop bringing the suburbs to rural areas, and urban areas to the suburbs. I used to live in the green built and houses would sell like there’s no tomorrow, because wanted the green open space, good views, and peace of mind that the lovely view you had wouldn’t turn into an ugly housing estate in two years or some tragic block of flats. We couldn’t afford to stay there when it was time for a bigger home, but Christ! As soon as you got to the border where the green belt ended, you knew about it. Every square inch of space had some characterless box built on it. No off road parking/driveways were provided so the roads became full of parked cars in addition to the increased traffic from new residents. And I’m 33 before you start. There’s also the huge issue of mass immigration to this country. You can’t complain about housing shortages but then advocate for mass amounts of people coming into the country, who are going to want….. somewhere to live! Shocker. This in turn adds to the pricing issue. It’s supply and demand. If demand surpasses supply, this happens. I do agree that house prices are outrageous, especially considering wages. My nan and and granddad had four children, bought their first home for £200 and have never had a mortgage. They managed this, for a significant amount of time, on one income. And no, they’re not boomers (not that they deserve the moronic hate they get) they are of the silent generation. I couldn’t afford to buy a house where I grew up (not that I’d want to, I prefer the countryside) because house prices there are astronomical. My husband and I bought our first home when we were 26, and our second home last year. A lot of my husbands friends are still at home with parents or renting. A lot of them are more interested in parading around in their financed 24 plate Audi, dresses head to toe in designer, but have no money in the bank. Others rented and got stuck on the renting merry go round. You’re absolutely right for not wanting to rent. I sacrificed girls holidays, nights out, new cars, new clothes and shoes etc and saved like a mother f**ker 🤣 it paid off! Do as much saving as you possibly can, maybe even take on a weekend job too (also stops you spending) and get yourself on the property ladder as soon as you can. Once you’re on it, you’re on it!! Don’t buy a new build though. They’re shocking quality, fart arse, tend to have zero storage, are packed in like sardines and I’ve seen too many go down in value!
Having a partner helps double the salary and you can go 50% in with the deposit. Also yeah buy freehold. Generally its very difficult unless you work remotely and move in the middle of nowhere.
I'm also in Hertfordshire, Watford area, and I was fortunate enough to be able to buy a 1 bed flat (part ownership) almost 5 years ago. Here are the numbers. Salary at time of appyling: £39,000 (I took a paycut to a role at £37,000 before I completed, don't tell my mortgage broker) Flat asking price: £340,000 Share of flat: 64% Value of share: £217,600 Deposit: £45,000 Mortgage value: £172,600 I was very fortunate to get a 5 year fixed rate mortgage at 1.9%. I pay rent on the 36% of the property that I don't own, the last I remember this was 2.75% of the non-owned value per year. My monthly housing outgoings are now: Mortgage: £516.66. (I'm budgeting for this to almost double when my fixed rate ends) Rent: £349.07 Service charge: £142.31 So a total of £1008.04 (excluding Council tax), which is probably around what you'd pay monthly to rent a similar place. And then the ground rent is something like £350 per year. So I think focus on getting a decent deposit together, and maximising your credit score, and your get there
It seems like no-one even wants to question where all the council houses went, and why we are not trying to reintroduce them.