London Livaboard Life in the Morning Star

[Steilsteven]

19 hours ago, David Mack said:

And quite a lot of the existing building workforce are from other EU countries. How many of those will be with us after Brexit?

I was reading a construction industry article the other day which stated that a minimum of 400,000 workers per year would be recruited to overcome the current skills shortage. This is regardless of what happens following brexit.

Keith

[smileypete]

2 hours ago, Steilsteven said:

I was reading a construction industry article the other day which stated that a minimum of 400,000 workers per year would be recruited to overcome the current skills shortage. This is regardless of what happens following brexit.

I'd regard that as highly suspect coming from the big players in the construction industry, they simply want to pay a pittance for skilled people.

In a normal economy you'd simply pay more then over time the law of supply and demand would eventually solve the problem.

Until parents consider a skilled trade as a worthy alternative to a degree for whatever reason, where are you going to get them from?

[Ray T]

1 hour ago, smileypete said:

I'd regard that as highly suspect coming from the big players in the construction industry, they simply want to pay a pittance for skilled people.

 

Super Hod despite being unskilled did alright for himself in the 1970's and subsequently.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/729849/the-word-of-hod/

Edited December 31, 2017 by Ray T

[DaveR]

Having married a London girl and managed to persuade her to leave old London town, the rest of her siblings remain and struggle to find a home they can afford. With a budget of 400k it was a coice of a 2 bed flat or (here up North) a 3 bed semi with garage, garden and 230k left over. To me it was a "no brainer" but Londoners just do not, easily, leave the capital.

Persuading employers to move North is nothing new. A company based in Hertfordshire decided to relocate to Hartlepool. Weeping and wailing ensued until the employer brought employees and families to see the area. Once they realised that selling a small property gave enough cash to buy a mansion then their attitude did change. The down side to this is that if other employers did the same then the problems of house purchase would be spread country wide.

It is a great selling point in the education business to say on a teachers salary you can afford to live in the North. In the South, no chance.

[Athy]

10 minutes ago, DaveR said:

 

It is a great selling point in the education business to say on a teachers salary you can afford to live in the North. In the South, no chance.

It may indeed be a good selling point for recruiting teachers outside the South East, but I am unsure that it is true. Teachers in the South East receive extra salary, known as "weighting", for working in areas in and around London. A teacher starting work in the "fringe" area (Surrey, parts of Herts, Bucks etc.) gets an extra £1,500 per year added to his salary; in outer London it's about £4,000 extra, and in central parts it's a generous £6,000 +. These allowances help teachers to achieve a decent standard of living - and of course some of them live in less expensive areas and commute to their schools so they're even more "quids in".

[Chewbacka]

4 minutes ago, Athy said:

It may indeed be a good selling point for recruiting teachers outside the South East, but I am unsure that it is true. Teachers in the South East receive extra salary, known as "weighting", for working in areas in and around London. A teacher starting work in the "fringe" area (Surrey, parts of Herts, Bucks etc.) gets an extra £1,500 per year added to his salary; in outer London it's about £4,000 extra, and in central parts it's a generous £6,000 +. These allowances help teachers to achieve a decent standard of living - and of course some of them live in less expensive areas and commute to their schools so they're even more "quids in".

Two grand for a season ticket plus 2 hours each way on an overcrowded train is not my idea of quids in.  Twenty years ago I turned down a job in London, even though it was a lot more money, looking back it was the best decision I ever made.

[Sea Dog]

Plenty of northerners had to move south when it was grim up north (remember the Norman Tebbit "get on your bike" speech?), but when it gets a bit hard for those who live in London, somehow it's everyone's problem. Fact is, few of us can afford to live in Chelsea (or insert name of alternative London Borough here......) so few of us do. Now, where's my tin hat..?.

[johnmoly]

I read an article recently in the Daily Telegraph where it said that while the wages of those living in the south east where 30% higher than the rest of the country, the cost of living was 66% higher than others.  

[Athy]

46 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Two grand for a season ticket plus 2 hours each way on an overcrowded train is not my idea of quids in.  Twenty years ago I turned down a job in London, even though it was a lot more money, looking back it was the best decision I ever made.

We evidently had differing experiences. I taught for five years in a central London prep school, and lived in W.1 for most of that time, and loved it, not least because (being younger and single) I was financially secure and my substantial salary enabled me to enjoy the city's attractions. My commute was about 25 minutes and consisted of walking up Gloucester Place and across Regent's Park, unless it was raining in which case a caught a no. 74.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Athy

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, Athy said:

We evidently had differing experiences. I taught for five years in a central London prep school, and lived in W.1 for most of that time, and loved it, not least because (being younger and single) I was financially secure and my salary enabled me to enjoy the city's attractions.

How long ago?  It is possible things have changed a little.

[Athy]

1 minute ago, Jerra said:

How long ago?  It is possible things have changed a little.

Early 1980s. No, London was more expensive than much of the rest of the country even then.

[Jerra]

1 minute ago, Athy said:

Early 1980s. No, London was more expensive than much of the rest of the country even then.

I was thinking more proportionally to others pay/costs etc and also compared to the stagnation of education pay.   Was the prep school on teachers standard pay scales IIRC it would be Burnham then.

[mrsmelly]

17 minutes ago, Athy said:

 Early 1980s. No, London was more expensive than much of the rest of the country even then.

Let us explain Athy. My nephew recently bought a very nice 3 bedroomed semi in immaculate order with a large garage and large front and rear gardens in a lovely little village in North Yorkshire for 135k. Now I have no idea how much such  house would cost anywhere in London but I am damn sure the extra 6k London weighting would be about as much use as a chocolate fireguard trying to mortgage such a property. The village we have just left outside oxford had a 3 bed terrace for sale on the main road at 410k so how does the teacher in that area buy that? Teachers and Police officers " House share " in that area. You and I had it very very easy but those days are long gone

Edited January 1, 2018 by mrsmelly
numpty

[Athy]

15 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I was thinking more proportionally to others pay/costs etc and also compared to the stagnation of education pay.   Was the prep school on teachers standard pay scales IIRC it would be Burnham then.

Yes. Costs were substantial (from memory the flat was £100 a week) but it was easy to find sub-lessees for the spare bedroom. At various times my flatmates included a Rhodesian fashion model, a U.S. Navy officer and a future Australian test cricketer. It was an interesting era.

[Athy]

14 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Let us explain Athy. My nephew recently bought a very nice 3 bedroomed semi in immaculate order with a large garage and large front and rear gardens in a lovely little village in North Yorkshire for 135k. Now I have no idea how much such  house would cost anywhere in London but I am damn sure the extra 6k London weighting would be about as much use as a chocolate fireguard trying to mortgage such a property. The village we have just left outside oxford had a 3 bed terrace for sale on the main road at 410k so how does the teacher in that area buy that? Teachers and Police officers " House share " in that area. You and I had it very very easy but those days are long gone

You introduce a new, and valid, dimension, that of house purchase. It was just the same in the 1980s. Owning a property did not interest me while I was single. I moved to a prep school in Surrey after that, where I lived in a very sweet Victorian lodge belonging to the school; when I married Mrs. Athy in 1987, we would have struggled to buy even a two-bedroom house in the area (Bletchingley), even on a Head of Department's and a Sister-grade nurse's salaries. So I became the only person I know who moved to Sussex for the cheap housing.

[mrsmelly]

5 minutes ago, Athy said:

You introduce a new, and valid, dimension, that of house purchase. It was just the same in the 1980s. Owning a property did not interest me while I was single. I moved to a prep school in Surrey after that, where I lived in a very sweet Victorian lodge belonging to the school; when I married Mrs. Athy in 1987, we would have struggled to buy even a two-bedroom house in the area (Bletchingley), even on a Head of Department's and a Sister-grade nurse's salaries. So I became the only person I know who moved to Sussex for the cheap housing.

Things are awful now for youngsters. My first terrace house I bought in about 81 was £ 8450. my salary then was 11k the same house is on line today again for sale for 100k a young bloke doing the same job is now on about 25/30k and sometimes less. You don't need to be a teacher to work out I had to borrow less than one times my income to buy whereas today they have to borrow 3/4 times their income for the same property. Barmy.

[Athy]

1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

Things are awful now for youngsters. My first terrace house I bought in about 81 was £ 8450. my salary then was 11k the same house is on line today again for sale for 100k a young bloke doing the same job is now on about 25/30k and sometimes less. You don't need to be a teacher to work out I had to borrow less than one times my income to buy whereas today they have to borrow 3/4 times their income for the same property. Barmy.

I would guess that your purchase was not in the Home Counties?

I can remember that our first mortgage, in 1989, was a frightening £61,000 but I can't recall what our salaries were - but I do remember that for the first year each's month's repayment was almost exactly half our combined net income. It was very useful that both of us were working.

[mrsmelly]

4 minutes ago, Athy said:

I would guess that your purchase was not in the Home Counties?

I can remember that our first mortgage, in 1989, was a frightening £61,000 but I can't recall what our salaries were - but I do remember that for the first year each's month's repayment was almost exactly half our combined net income. It was very useful that both of us were working.

No I lived in a crap hole called Castleford a dump if ever there was one but nice folks mainly. I was lucky my motgage was paid for me in those days as a perk of the job. We either got rent free housing or rent allowance a huge perk, this has also been removed from that job now so a double whammy for youngsters wanting to buy. I am not even sayin that everyone needs to own property but renting was fairer then in that it was cheaper to rent than to buy but today rents are obscene and often higher than mortgage payments would be but these kids cannot get a mortgage

[Athy]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

 renting was fairer then in that it was cheaper to rent than to buy but today rents are obscene and often higher than mortgage payments would be but these kids cannot get a mortgage

Yes, we landlords perform a useful service . (Our rents are not obscene as far as I know).

It seems to be a peculiarly British trait to consider house ownership as a sine qua non. In France and, I think, Germany too, renting is seen as the norm rather than as a socially inferior option, as many people seem to view it here.

 

[koukouvagia]

I first came to London in the sixties and the only way to get on the property ladder was to find an unfashionable and run down area of the city and buy a property cheaply. I had areas such as Bow, Hoxton, Dalston, Hackney and Shoreditch to chose from, although finding someone willing to lend on such properties was a real challenge. The trick was to get in before the artists colonised the area because these would be quickly followed by the trendy middle classes and the process of gentrification would have begun. Property prices would rise as the fashionable bars and shops appeared and ordinary folk would be priced out.

The problem is that such run down areas no longer exist within reasonable commuting distance. Every inch of inner city space is being developed mostly with flats far beyond the reach of teachers such as myself or Athy.

Nearly thirty years ago we bought our flat on a site next to the river. Then it was the only inhabitable building in a wilderness of bombsites and the dereliction of the redundant docklands. The price had to be reduced significantly because no one wanted to live in such an area. No chance of doing that now.

Once upon a time millionaire’s Chelsea was a cheap and cheerful area for bohemians, Islington was full on half bombed multi-occupied properties, Notting Hill was was synonymous with Rachmanism. Now look at these areas. Even our old house in Bow which we lived in during the 70s recently fetched an astronomical price. There is no way we could have afforded to buy it now.

The attractions of London will always entice the young. For my generation the price was to live in a grotty area with few amenities and poor schools; today’s millennials have to put up with huge commuting distances or crowded flat-shares or, dare I say it, live on a boat.  How right mrsmelly is.  Things truly are awful for youngsters.

Edited January 1, 2018 by koukouvagia

[mrsmelly]

19 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yes, we landlords perform a useful service . (Our rents are not obscene as far as I know).

It seems to be a peculiarly British trait to consider house ownership as a sine qua non. In France and, I think, Germany too, renting is seen as the norm rather than as a socially inferior option, as many people seem to view it here.

 

So why not reduce your rent fifty percent? So why do you own a house? Do you consider it ok for people our ages to have bought property but people of similar ilk now adays shouldn't want to do what you and I did?

[Jerra]

19 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yes, we landlords perform a useful service . (Our rents are not obscene as far as I know).

It seems to be a peculiarly British trait to consider house ownership as a sine qua non. In France and, I think, Germany too, renting is seen as the norm rather than as a socially inferior option, as many people seem to view it here.

 

To me it all began with Maggie prior to that everybody I knew seemed to live in rented accommodation and be happy.

[Athy]

10 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

So why not reduce your rent fifty percent? So why do you own a house? Do you consider it ok for people our ages to have bought property but people of similar ilk now adays shouldn't want to do what you and I did?

Rhetorical'R'Us.

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, Jerra said:

To me it all began with Maggie prior to that everybody I knew seemed to live in rented accommodation and be happy.

I don't know if the Thatchers owned their own house or not.

It is perhaps due at least in part to conditioning during one's upbringing. My parents already owned a house (well, the bit which didn't still belong to the bank) when I was born, and I vividly remember their having a new one built when I was 13 or 14. So, to me, owning a house was something to aspire to although, as noted earlier, it was not high in my list of priorities until I married Mrs. Athy.

[koukouvagia]

10 minutes ago, Jerra said:

To me it all began with Maggie prior to that everybody I knew seemed to live in rented accommodation and be happy.

You obviously never met any of Peter Rachman's tenants, then.

Edited January 1, 2018 by koukouvagia