Is Housing unaffordable for the young?
 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/o...sopp-dpt9q3v3c

For comparison, we bought a small 3 (2.5 really) bedroom house in Leeds for £27k in 1985, and last year the next door but one house (same size, same layout) was sold for £281k - an over 10 times increase in price.

I was earning £11k per year at the time, so could get 2.5 times salary mortgage, with a small deposit we had from selling our first house in Thatcham - pretty sure anyone in the same job I was in at the time (software programmer) isn’t earning £110k per year in Leeds at the present time…

Even worse Down South - our first house was in Thatcham, near Newbury (in 1984), and I earned £10k and the 2 bed semi cost us £26k; it’s now on the market at £306k…

I believe the most of the current mortgage lenders are basing their offers on four to five times annual salary, with a deposit of at least 10% - so for our previous little 2.5 bed semi in Leeds, a deposit of nearly £30k and an annual salary of £50k would be needed.


*her father, Charles Henry Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip, was Chairman of Christie’s at the time…

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

So typical of these people . . and the shows they appear on . . to have no idea of anything outside of their 'privileged' comfort zone.

Bought my first house (3 bed terraced) in 1972 at 18 years of age . . on apprentice wages. Try doing that now :rolleyes:

The infamous 'affordable housing'* is the only realistic option for many nowadays . . and they're lucky if they can afford that.




*2 bed rabbit hutch

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

The house price increases have gone up a lot faster since Kirsty bought her house when she was 21! No wonder she got on the housing ladder quickly.


There is also the fact that back then there were most likely grants still available for university. Young people these days are coming out of education with mountains of debt even before their lives have fully begun.


Yes, there are a lot of luxuries that people could cut back on and I have seen many people lose money from just forgetting about services they pay for eg. spotify, netflix etc and basically paying for things they never use.
And there are so many companies that will still screw you over, for example if you have a phone on contract and then the contract ends and they just keep reeling in the money when you could be paying probably half of what you are paying.


You could argue that people should be aware of these things but equally businesses just want to make money off us and won't just stop taking your money.


I know that I would have found it very hard to get on the property ladder if I hadnt done it by coming together with my girlfriend at the time.


Sadly with costs of living going up and salaries staying put, I feel many young people will be stucki in the renting game where money just gets thrown out the window.


It is also shocking to see the terrible quality houses that get put up within weeks. For the prices people pay it is crazy!

Visited a new estate recently and saw what was described as a 3 bedroom house. The 3rd bedroom was basically a cupboard. I doubt you'd even get an adult single bed in there!

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

From the end of the Times article.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

She’s obviously not speaking from personal experience but it’s churlish to dismiss her professional expertise based on who her family is. I’m reminded of a show that was on TV probably 15 years ago now with Alvin Hall, the personal finance expert. Week after week he’d help out someone who “couldn’t afford it” (whatever major life purchase “it” was) and every single time there was poor personal financial planning and even just basic weekly budgeting at the root of it.

Housing has certainly got a lot more expensive but is there really nothing valid in her ladyship’s observations about personal finances and the things we think we “need” to spend money on that are hindering our ability to save for a deposit?

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

TBF, take London/South East out of the equation and it will be significantly less.

---------- Post added at 14:12 ---------- Previous post was at 14:08 ----------

No, there's nothing valid at all.

I believe I read earlier, that by applying all the things that she should be done it would would save you approximately the amount of money that your deposit % has increased by in the past 12 months. approx £2k

---------- Post added at 14:13 ---------- Previous post was at 14:12 ----------


You've absolutely hit the nail on the head.

---------- Post added at 14:18 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Similar story, SWMBO and i bought our first house twenty years ago, in Boro for £45k for a three bedroom terrace. she was on about 11.5k and i was on about 17k. Current house we're in has gone up approx 60k in the five years we've lived here.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

I get annoyed when people keep talking about the "property ladder". As if the sole aim is to make easy money out of increasing house prices. It periodically ends up in tears when house prices crash, because not enough other people have the money to buy the houses with ever increasing costs. Same with any other sort of financial related crash, when nobody can or wants to buy, the price plummets.

If your only aim is to get on the property ladder as opposed to buying a home, then you should be prepared to make sacrifices and buy outside of London and other expensive areas,

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

My niece (21) is current doing a 3/4 year degree in psychology, she has told me that her and her girlfriend (19) want to get a place together.


But currently there is no way they could afford a mortgage.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

I think most people do it for split reasons (excluding B2L), 1. and predominantly to buy a home, 2. to have an asset to pass onto their children

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

At what point in past would anybody in that situation have been able to buy a house?

---------- Post added at 15:16 ---------- Previous post was at 15:12 ----------

Buying a house is meant be an aspiration, not a right. If you're not buying as a home only, then people should quit whinging about it. Eg You can't really complain about not being able to buy a 3 bed house, when you've just graduated and only yourself is going to be living there.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

My friend is a doorman in Bedford and I can regularly be found up there with him even though my days of working them are now over sadly and the amount young people spend is eye-watering and they do it every day of every weekend, they could have the odd night out and save over 10k a year easily so I think Chris' point is valid, guess it comes down to either luck or how much you want it, I never thought I'd buy somewhere let alone in London but I got lucky, I saved up for legal fees and settlement for a divorce that was settled amicably

I don't get annoyed by it but I do agree, a home should be for living in as a sole aim imo, anything else is a bonus that comes later

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

You're over thinking it.
The "property ladder" is just a phrase, most people who move do so to move into somewhere bigger, as needs arise, not a money making scheme.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_ladder

I bought my first house (a 2 bed) in 1983, and my second house (a 3 bed) in 1992 (I still live in it).

Prices have changed so much since then - based on its current estimated value, I dont think I could afford to buy it were I looking now.

Kirstie Allsopp as a clueless moron who should keep her mouth shut about matters she doesnt seem to understand.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

I know darn well I wouldn't be able to afford this house (3 bed detached with garage) if I was buying it now.

I also know that, even though its price is around 3.5 times what I paid for it, I couldn't afford to sell up and move elsewhere unless downsizing . . even if I was younger and still working.

I've also thought a few times when having a new bathroom, new kitchen, double glazing, electrics, central heating boiler, and all the fencing, that It would have cost me less if I was in a council house . . . ;)

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

All of our daughter's mates, who left the nest before the pandemic, have returned to their parents' homes.

Most were renting, but a few had mortgages.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

You seem to be following the US model, where more often that not people are happy to rent something which has historically never been a part of the UK mindset.

You can complain however if you can't afford to buy a property because of an influx of second home buyers driving prices up to simply exorbitant levels. Or, you can complain if you're buying a ridiculously overpriced 1 bed flat due to its commutable distance to a major city.

---------- Post added at 16:56 ---------- Previous post was at 16:52 ----------

SWMBO's best mate lives in a council house (in one of the rougher areas of Boro) her and her husband probs pulling in between them £45k a year , they have two kids living at home, probs pay about $300 a month in rent for a three bed semi detached, with all the work covered, in the past year it's had new roof, new windows & doors.

Really really annoying when they could be easily paying a mortgage and freeing up that home for someone who actually needs it....

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Renting is wasted money, you can pay over £500 a month in my town for one room in a joint house.

Not long a got that was a mortgage monthly payment.

Plus owning a home can be an investment.

My Brother In-laws dads house in huge, if he wanted he could sell it easily for £600,000+, but he doesn't want too.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

But in the areas where people are complaining about second home owners, has there really been a time in the past when those complainers could've afforded the local houses?
You have people on low incomes complaining that they can't buy houses in those areas.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

Yes, there has been a time in the past when this could happen - just like when people could afford houses in London.

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

Around 327 AD wasn't it?

:D

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

You should know..:D

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

Couldn't even afford one back then . . . so moved North ;)

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

To watch Montrose?

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

A quick search on Right Move for properties within 40 miles of me, in West Yorkshire, yielded 237 semi-detached / terraced houses available for £50,000.

They may not be the most desirable properties in the most desirable locations but they are out there.

What people are complaining about is that there are few houses they would want in areas they would want to live.


That’s very different to saying there isn’t any affordable houses out there, just not affordable where people want to live.

It will obviously vary around the country.

I bought my first property for £55K in 1999, and paid top dollar for a 2up, 1 down end terrace but that end terrace had small area to the side, enough to extend. So we extended. I sold it in 2008, just weeks before the crash for £210K

I had to borrow the £5K deposit as a personal loan, naughty naughty!!

Re: Of course young people can afford a home — just move somewhere cheaper, says Kirs
 

On the bucket list ;)

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Depends where the jobs are as well. Young single people wanting to buy near an urban center where their job is more likely to be will obviously find it harder.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

On potential side effect of this whole COVID thing will be the rise in home working. If it really sticks, then we could easily a flattening of the housing market where cheaper areas will become a possibility if you only work from home. The opposite will be true for classic commuter towns.

We are certainly asking that question here - why are we paying so much to live in a location convenient for commuting into London when we don't actually commute into London? We could easily cash out on our ex-council 3 bed semi worth over half a million and get something verynice elsewhere..

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Yes, have been thinking along the same lines too. Providing you've got a good internet location then you can live anywhere in the country, though living abroad does present some issues.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

We cashed in very nicely by doing this, 20 odd years ago. We moved from just outside the M25 to central Scotland by negotiating a move from head office to a customer service centre on the basis that a significant number of the teams I actually worked with were based there, even though my own department and reporting line remained down south. We had only owned our ex council terrace for 5 years but its value had increased by more than 50% in that time. Needless to say we could afford rather more in Scotland than we could in the orbit of London.

The British economy has become absurdly imbalanced towards London and the southeast, which is bizarre when you consider how recently this wasn’t the case at all. When manufacturing of various sorts was our thing, there was immense wealth in the north of England. With that gone, the powerhouse is financial services in the City of London, and it is so powerful that it forces everything in towards the centre. I had a conversation with someone high up at Boots years ago who used to complain that despite being headquartered in Nottingham, they had to invest first and most in flagship stores in central London because the city investors they needed to keep onside were too basically lazy to jump on a train or drive their Porches beyond Watford Gap services.

There have been attempts at regional regeneration in the past but its all been small beer in the grand scheme of things. Even the Northern Powerhouse initiative is obviously fragile and its various levelling up projects are near the top of the list of things to cut when times are hard. The step-change is indeed likely to come from both the rollout of super-high-speed networks and also the realisation that many more of us can actually stay home and use them. Last night I had a Zoom meeting with some folks and halfway through it occurred to me that 2 years ago, despite the technology being widely available via multiple messaging services, culturally we simply wouldn’t have considered it and the meeting would have been arranged at someone’s house, with all the inconvenience of having to plan to go out on a wet midweek winter night.

Later this year I’m moving to a house with FTTP. I can’t wait. :D

---------- Post added at 09:26 ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 ----------

There are difficulties with remote working if you’re part of a team that functions best when it is able to swap ideas across desks, and not just in formal meetings. Furthermore if you’re customer facing it becomes increasingly difficult to forge relationships with people if you’re too distant from their everyday points of reference. It’s one of the reasons why overseas call centres are always a bad idea. I suspect in time we will achieve a balance of remote and in-person working, and it’s that requirement to be semi-available that presents the biggest challenge to those who fancy working for a British company from the comfort of a sun lounger in Marbella.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Cleaners, bus drivers, refuse workers, retail staff, hospitality workers, nurses, garage mechanics, gardeners, double glazing installers, boiler installers, emergency workers, postal workers, meter readers, traffic wardens, car park attendants, doormen . . . and many more.

Most of the above have no realistic option of working from home, never mind actually owning a home they could sell to move away.

Still, I guess if there's a mass exodus from the major UK cities, homes may become cheaper . . . unless holiday homes in London/Manchester/Birmingham become the next big thing :D

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

On the other hand, those are the very occupations that have to exist everywhere there’s a town. So if you’re fed up not being able to afford a house as a mechanic in Watford, moving to Northampton might be an option. I get that not everybody will be able to do that because of family connections and so on, but the reality is that the southeast is overpopulated and excessively expensive. Something has to give sooner or later.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Definitely agree that something has to give sooner or later, maybe more 'home working' is the start of the something.

The other side is, possibly people moving from the cities to the outer areas will push those house prices up, leaving the 'locals' even worse off.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

Re: Is Housing unaffordable for the young?
 

Is there some point to your post/quote ?

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

There is another problem with the concept of an exodus from urban areas, or mostly the South-East, to elsewhere in that this pushes up the prices of the areas people are moving to as well often at the expense of the locals. The housing problem is nationwide. We don't build enough. Homeworking might solve the problem for professionals in service industries based in the South East, less so for people who grew up in Cornwall and can't afford the ever-increasing prices there.

The other thing is this thread is entitled 'young people' who are more likely to want to live near certain areas such as London. Ideally, you expect people would want to go from renting/owning a small place in a city, to a home in the suburbs when they have a family.

The country needs a cultural and political change from seeing houses as an investment rather than homes. At the moment you have the government pursing policies to keep the rises going such as Help To Buy.

Re: Is Housing unaffordable for the young?
 

It was an extract from a previous post, and a poor attempt at humour.

Re: Is Housing unaffordable for the young?
 

Increasing interest rates by 5% should sort it all out. Borrowing money and mortgages have been too cheap for a long time, which has fuelled the crazy prices. BTL landlords have it coming too, as well as second home owners leaving their holiday houses empty most of the year , whilst locals have to go elsewhere.

Re: Can young people can afford a home? Move somewhere cheaper!
 

2019 - young people can’t afford houses due to eating avocado toast and drinking espresso

Parts of 2020/21 - you must support our economy !! Eat avocado toast and drink espresso

2022 - young people can’t afford houses due to eating avocado toast and drinking espresso

Re: Is Housing unaffordable for the young?
 

The housing issue in Britain has been a problem for a long time and isn't simple to sort out. Certainly there is (was) a problem in SE and especially London. Covid allowing many to work from home has pushed some out of the city centres. That then pushes up prices and demand elsewhere. It also leaves some areas it trouble as businesses that started to accommodate that population close/relocate then leaves behind a deprived neighbourhood with declining investment and opportunities. Those that can also leave even if not ideal and further decay sets in.



WFH has also changed what people are looking for from focus on flats and maisonettes to houses with gardens (thinks about some developments near here where a large house with large garden is knocked down and 5-6 five bed boxes with little or no garden are erected). It's already been mentioned about "wealthier" people moving in and 2nd homes pricing locals out, especially in rural settings where locals work "on the land" at lowish pay but have always been able to cope because prices were lower too.



Higher prices also stop the usually move up the chain as people get more wealthy. It's cheaper and easier to extend. Profit is important for builders and there is more profit in larger houses so that's their focus. But we really can't simply build our way out. If there is empty stock somewhere that somewhere should be filled first before we destroy more countryside and enlarge towns. And simply building large estates around towns/cities may not be the best solution as often infrastructure isn't always there to cope either. And NIMBYism is also valid, I live within 150m of open countryside and I'd like to keep it that way. So instead of a few thousand homes around my home city why not spread it out so a few homes around each of a few hundred villages. Less impact on roads/schools etc.