London Livaboard Life in the Morning Star

[Dartagnan]

25 minutes ago, Athy said:

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.

 

Historically you are correct though that trend is reversing primarily I suspect through them watching the profit made from housing in the U.K.  I do not know when but I genuinely believe social unrest is coming to the U.K. primarily through housing and wealth inequality issues.  I am 60 years old so one those baby boomers who was fortunate enough to get on the property ladder in the mid 80’s (when interest rates on a mortgage were 15%!).

My daughter returned to London and joined the Metropolitan police.  There is absolutely no way she can afford to live in London on her salary due to the cost of housing, both purchasing or renting.  Renting is more expensive than purchasing in London due to the size of the deposits required.  Therefore, sadly, the bank of mum and Dad has to supplement her income in order that she can work!  There are probably thousands in our situation.  What happens when the baby boomer generation becomes extinct ?

The hedge fund barons are buying huge swathes of property for rental purposes to cash in on the shortage thus further aggravating the situation.  More and more residential REITs are coming to the financial markets if proof were needed for my thesis.

It can only end in tears!

Just in case people may question my political persuasion, I used to think Ghengis Khan was a communist though in later years I have relented a little!

[mrsmelly]

14 minutes ago, Dartagnan said:

Historically you are correct though that trend is reversing primarily I suspect through them watching the profit made from housing in the U.K.  I do not know when but I genuinely believe social unrest is coming to the U.K. primarily through housing and wealth inequality issues.  I am 60 years old so one those baby boomers who was fortunate enough to get on the property ladder in the mid 80’s (when interest rates on a mortgage were 15%!).

My daughter returned to London and joined the Metropolitan police.  There is absolutely no way she can afford to live in London on her salary due to the cost of housing, both purchasing or renting.  Renting is more expensive than purchasing in London due to the size of the deposits required.  Therefore, sadly, the bank of mum and Dad has to supplement her income in order that she can work!  There are probably thousands in our situation.  What happens when the baby boomer generation becomes extinct ?

The hedge fund barons are buying huge swathes of property for rental purposes to cash in on the shortage thus further aggravating the situation.  More and more residential REITs are coming to the financial markets if proof were needed for my thesis.

It can only end in tears!

Just in case people may question my political persuasion, I used to think Ghengis Khan was a communist though in later years I have relented a little!

A good analogy. It will end in tears for sure. All in our modern " Classless " society  Love you last line

Edited January 1, 2018 by mrsmelly

[Athy]

5 minutes ago, Dartagnan said:

 one those baby boomers who was fortunate enough to get on the property ladder in the mid 80’s (when interest rates on a mortgage were 15%!).

 

Oh yes, I remember it well. I think they were still 15% in 1989 when our first mortgage started. When they went down to about 10%, and we of course had had a couple of yearly salary increments, we began to feel almost prosperous. I sometimes wonder if, had canals been available in Surrey, we might have considered a liveaboard option. 

Is your daughter not interested in moving to a branch of the force in a less expensive part of the country? It is, of course, axiomatic that policing is a job which, unlike many business jobs which could relocate elsewhere as noted earlier, needs personnel in London.

[Dartagnan]

21 minutes ago, Jerra said:

To me it all began with Maggie 

Correct, selling off the local authority housing for the purpose of gerrymandering has had dreadful consequences 

21 minutes ago, Jerra said:

To me it all began with Maggie 

Correct, selling off the local authority housing for the purpose of gerrymandering has had dreadful consequences 

[Jerra]

13 minutes ago, koukouvagia said:

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

Rachman's tenants were compared to the whole of the rented sector a tiny minority.  The vast majority of lets (in our area at least) were what would now be called social housing and were then council houses.

[mrsmelly]

6 minutes ago, Athy said:

Oh yes, I remember it well. I think they were still 15% in 1989 when our first mortgage started. When they went down to about 10%, and we of course had had a couple of yearly salary increments, we began to feel almost prosperous. I sometimes wonder if, had canals been available in Surrey, we might have considered a liveaboard option. 

Is your daughter not interested in moving to a branch of the force in a less expensive part of the country? It is, of course, axiomatic that policing is a job which, unlike many business jobs which could relocate elsewhere as noted earlier, needs personnel in London.

Its a fact that " Getting in " the met is and always has been the easiest force to join. We used to joke that if you had both eyes and both legs we could re locate to the met. The hardest has historicaly been Devon and Cornwall and for that the reasons to police are obvious. Just moving forces is not so easy as it seems its not like changing ships for instance in the Royal navy ( If there were any ships left )

[Dartagnan]

16 minutes ago, Athy said:

Is your daughter not interested in moving to a branch of the force in a less expensive part of the country? It is, of course, axiomatic that policing is a job which, unlike many business jobs which could relocate elsewhere as noted earlier, needs personnel in London.

She tells me that all the different forces are poaching each other’s officers so transferring isn’t an issue but sadly for me she wants to live in London.  She is seriously considering leaving the police and the stories she tells me I can fully understand why.  Senior management are gutless and the cuts to their budgets has effectively made them impotent and as for being politically correct!

[mrsmelly]

11 minutes ago, Dartagnan said:

She tells me that all the different forces are poaching each other’s officers so transferring isn’t an issue but sadly for me she wants to live in London.  She is seriously considering leaving the police and the stories she tells me I can fully understand why.  Senior management are gutless and the cuts to their budgets has effectively made them impotent and as for being politically correct!

It always was a crap job and like most others it will not be improving.

[Peter X]

5 hours ago, Dartagnan said:

... What happens when the baby boomer generation becomes extinct ?...

Their children will inherit their properties and no longer have cause for complaint.

My children haven't complained, they've just worked around the problem of housing, partly by living with me into their 20s. My daughter married, had three children and ended up crowded into a flat in Woking and only just breaking even after paying the rent. So four years ago they all moved to a cheap part of Canada where she's doing very well now, living in a 4 bedroom house which they're buying. My son who's single moved out at 28 into a shared house locally, and has a bit of money left over after paying his rent. He's planning to move closer in to London to cut down on commuting time and cost, but accepts he'll have a smaller room for the same money as a result.

[Matt&Jo]

Its a stark reminder of how hard getting on that housing ladder can be when you hear these stories. ....

[Richard10002]

19 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

Its a stark reminder of how hard getting on that housing ladder can be when you hear these stories. ....

The stories usually seem to be about highly priced areas, like London or The South East in general.

I got on the housing ladder in Derby in 1983. I got off it in 1987, and back on in Altrincham in 1989.

i have never had the wherewithal to get on the housing ladder in the South East, and have never wanted to.

It would be interesting to know what people’s perceptions are of how much is needed to get on the housing ladder?

Where I live and work, a first time buyer, or couple, can get on the ladder with around £80,000 to £100,000. Not too difficult in terms of the income and deposit required?

[Bewildered]

7 hours 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?

My house is in Ruislip in west London and is therefore rented out for a stupidly high sum. I could rent it out 50% cheaper but it was marketed at the going rate. My tenant has a choice, pay the going rate or live in a cheaper area; the same choice I had when I bought the house. If I had bought a house for half of what I paid for this one then I would expect to only get half the amount from renting it, and no doubt a bigger commute if I wanted to work in west London. As the saying goes "you get what you pay for"

[mrsmelly]

13 minutes ago, Bewildered said:

My house is in Ruislip in west London and is therefore rented out for a stupidly high sum. I could rent it out 50% cheaper but it was marketed at the going rate. My tenant has a choice, pay the going rate or live in a cheaper area; the same choice I had when I bought the house. If I had bought a house for half of what I paid for this one then I would expect to only get half the amount from renting it, and no doubt a bigger commute if I wanted to work in west London. As the saying goes "you get what you pay for"

yes you do " Get what you pay for " the problem for todays youngsters is they don't have the options that we did. Youngsters simply cannot borrow the insane sums now needed to buy a house even in cheaper areas like I used to live. Their incomes simply cannot make it to the starting grid. Having an I am alright Jack attitude that most older generation do isn't helping kids at all. A massive housing crash is what we need PDQ but it never happens.

[Bewildered]

Never going to have a housing crash with an exponentially expanding population. WW3 that's about the only guaranteed way we will have more houses than people to fill them

[BilgePump]

National living wage, that one that adults get for dealing with us in stores etc all day, gets what £15k? Bare minimum costs for running a house before rent/mortgage will run 3+. Means of transport, be it car or season tickets take another 2k. A few pot noodles, new socks and two minute phone calls, maybe a dog or cat., they all add up. The difference between those and income must be the maximum rent or mortgage  someone can afford, but where? When jobs offer a London weighting many seem to only cover a fraction of the rent difference. If the old mulltplier of 3x wages applied where would someone who can only qualify for a 45k mortgage go? The system is broken and nowadays the options are awful. Live ten to a house, rent off a dodgy boatlord, live in the North (as a Manc I'm biased).

[MtB]

The curious thing is 'unaffordable property prices' in London (or anywhere else) is clearly a non sequitur. All houses for sale in London (or anywhere else) eventually get sold so we know there are enough people around who can afford the prices which is a constant puzzle to me. If property prices were truly and genuinely unaffordable, the 10% of the national property stock on the market at any given time would remain unsold in perpetuity.

This really just illustrates how wide the spectrum of wealth we have in society today. Loads of people who can't afford todays prices are balanced by enouygh who can. No-one ever analyses where the people who are buying at todays prices are getting the money from. This would be highly illuminating. 

And an ancedote to illustrate the sheer amount of money about, broadly unrecognised, a bell tower where I ring needed the bells renovating last year so a fund to raise £70k was launched. At the launch party, in a tinly wiltshire village and attended by a couple of hundred country folk, the whole £70k was raised in one evening.

[Dartagnan]

41 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

A massive housing crash is what we need PDQ but it never happens.

Trust me it does!  In about 1990 I had just settled the financial side of my divorce including our property in London.  Basically I bought her half then the market crashed.  Talk about timing lol

I fully agree about a housing crash even though I own a property.  Not everyone wants to purchase a property but it does allow those who do to get on board.  There are many people who for their own circumstances prefer to rent.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Dartagnan
To correct date

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Dartagnan said:

Trust me it does!  In about 2000 I had just settled the financial side of my divorce including our property in London.  Basically I bought her half then the market crashed.  Talk about timing lol

I fully agree about a housing crash even though I own a property.  Not everyone wants to purchase a property but it does allow those who do to get on board.  There are many people who for their own circumstances prefer to rent.

 

The last proper house price crash that I can remember was 1993-ish.

At the time the econony tanked and I was truly up against it money-wise and was living hand-to-mouth. I remember seeing Reading terraces changing hands for £25k and to me this looked an amazing bargain but all the lenders I approached laughed at me saying prices are falling and I'd be wasting my money and theirs, so no deal. 

Today, those terraces are selling for £300k. Just an anecdote to bung into the ring. 

[Peter X]

2000 was one of several setbacks in the general upward trend of London property prices, others being 2008 and 1989-92. Bargains were available after each, as MtB saw. But none of those was a massive crash, and only something truly drastic would trigger one because London property does have a lot of intrinsic value. But it's very plausible that something will trigger another setback again soon.

[system 4-50]

Please - no housing crash yet. I've just put my London house on the market.

[MtB]

5 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Please - no housing crash yet. I've just put my London house on the market.

 

I'll give you £100k for it, tomorrow. No survey and minimal legals!

Get in before the crash

[Richard10002]

1 hour ago, BilgePump said:

National living wage, that one that adults get for dealing with us in stores etc all day, gets what £15k? Bare minimum costs for running a house before rent/mortgage will run 3+. Means of transport, be it car or season tickets take another 2k. A few pot noodles, new socks and two minute phone calls, maybe a dog or cat., they all add up. The difference between those and income must be the maximum rent or mortgage  someone can afford, but where? When jobs offer a London weighting many seem to only cover a fraction of the rent difference. If the old mulltplier of 3x wages applied where would someone who can only qualify for a 45k mortgage go? The system is broken and nowadays the options are awful. Live ten to a house, rent off a dodgy boatlord, live in the North (as a Manc I'm biased).

There has always seemed to be an assumption, by some, that people have a God given right to own a home of the type they want, in the location they want..... that there is something wrong with a "system" that doesnt automatically make this happen.

extrapolating a bit, 2 people on your minimum wage can qualify for a £90k mortgage which, as you suggest, buys a property of one kind or another "'oop North". Any more than minimum wage, say the average of about £27k, and they can borrow about £160k... a nice little semi detached in lots of places within commuting distance of large conurbations, other than London.

Is it "all about London??"

[system 4-50]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I'll give you £100k for it, tomorrow. No survey and minimal legals!

Sorry, out by a factor of 10. (It is not a telephone box. You don't remember what a telephone box is? Its a bijou apartment for one, with average to bad comunication facilities.)

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:

Sorry, out by a factor of 10. (It is not a telephone box. You don't remember what a telephone box is? Its a bijou apartment for one, with average to bad comunication facilities.)

 

You said it was a HOUSE!

Deal's orf, sorry. I don't buy leasehold.

[system 4-50]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You said it was a HOUSE!

Deal's orf, sorry. I don't buy leasehold.

Eh? It IS a house - or was when I last went upstairs. It is NOT a telephone box, as your offer suggested.