Sir Howard Davies: Not that difficult to buy a home, says NatWest chair

I feel like you're now making my point for me in the sense that if housing is so unaffordable in the area you grew up in or now work, that you have move to a completely different part of the country and change jobs just to buy your first home, I would define this as a difficult process. Hence, my original argument that buying a home is difficult, rather than "not that difficult" as the NatWest chair suggested.

As you say, now there are more areas where housing is unaffordable, which means an ever greater share of the population grow up or work in an area where their only option is to move to a completely different part of the country - again, I think this justifies the tag of difficulty.

But I think your view, that many now are just not willing to compromise by moving to an area where it's easier to buy, is a bit too simplistic. Sure, there's a desire to be in high CoL areas due to the amenities, but it's also because of the abundance of jobs. I know dozens of industries which either don't exist or barely have a footprint in areas with low house prices, so it's often not as much of a choice as you make it out to be. For example, while I'm lucky enough to be in a role which means housing affordability in London isn't a problem, there are no companies in the UK outside London that are even similar to the one I work for, so if for example it was a low paying job instead, I wouldn't be able to move to a different part of the country to work in the same industry - which again highlights it's difficulty. In reality, labour isn't as geographically mobile as you make it seem.

You make the compromise of moving to a different part of the country for housing sound simple, but in reality it can mean living all your family & friends behind and switching jobs (and potentially sector/industry/job level/etc), all of which are difficult.

On your levelling up point, I don't necessarily disagree. But I think you have to create the desirable jobs in the areas of low house prices first, and this brings the people out of the high cost of living areas. Without a self-sustaining ecosystem of job creation across the skill spectrum, it's much more difficult to entice people to move away from high cost of living places where there are an abundance of opportunities for young people who are trying to figure out what jobs to forge a career in.

It is not an unreasonable position to take on my half. We have whole swathes of the world happy to move across continents to better their lives. Moving to the next town is hardly a big ask. Of course everyone wants to live in the area they like, but the reason they want to live there is usually the same reason they can't afford - everyone else wants to live there too and they have more money.

So the compromise is living in the box room of mum and dads house and living in a nice area or accepting that if you want some independence you are going to have to move. And it absolutely can be done.

For example, on £26k you bring home around £1830 a month
https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

In Manchester if you want to get shafted, you could rent this lovely studio flat for £850 a month.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/at-least-you-can-use-28430788

Except it is all bills paid so after £850 you have the best part of £1000 a month to do with as you please. Me - I would put £700 in a savings account and £300ish for spends. I would have a pretty hefty deposit in a very small amount of time. And where as this flat is in the up and come expensive part of south Manchester I would recognise that I would probably have to head east to afford a home. But affordable homes there are a plenty in East Manchester yet you still get to live in a vibrant city with world wide connections and huge employment opportunities.

I genuinely don't understand why people cling to the south east. There are so many other opportunities elsewhere. Except people can't see past the fact they want a house 2 minutes around the corner from mum and dad. It is a nice dream but it is not attainable.

It is not an unreasonable position to take on my half. We have whole swathes of the world happy to move across continents to better their lives. Moving to the next town is hardly a big ask. Of course everyone wants to live in the area they like, but the reason they want to live there is usually the same reason they can't afford - everyone else wants to live there too and they have more money.

So the compromise is living in the box room of mum and dads house and living in a nice area or accepting that if you want some independence you are going to have to move. And it absolutely can be done.

For example, on £26k you bring home around £1830 a month
https://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

In Manchester if you want to get shafted, you could rent this lovely studio flat for £850 a month.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/at-least-you-can-use-28430788

Except it is all bills paid so after £850 you have the best part of £1000 a month to do with as you please. Me - I would put £700 in a savings account and £300ish for spends. I would have a pretty hefty deposit in a very small amount of time. And where as this flat is in the up and come expensive part of south Manchester I would recognise that I would probably have to head east to afford a home. But affordable homes there are a plenty in East Manchester yet you still get to live in a vibrant city with world wide connections and huge employment opportunities.

I genuinely don't understand why people cling to the south east. There are so many other opportunities elsewhere. Except people can't see past the fact they want a house 2 minutes around the corner from mum and dad. It is a nice dream but it is not attainable.

I don't think your view is unreasonable, and I never said as such. It was just we disagreed on the our interpretations of what we think is deemed difficult or not that difficult. Personally, I think saving to buy a home can often be a difficult process, but I'm glad that personally you didn't find it difficult. And if saving to buy a first home includes moving far away from all your friends and family (not just 2 minutes or the next town as you suggested for some reason?), then that can make it even more difficult. It may just be that we value certain things differently.

Personally, I'm glad you didn't find it a difficult process. And all of this isn't to say that people shouldn't be prepared to make big sacrifices to own a home. In fact, it's the very sacrifices which is why it's difficult.

I suppose the reason it was relatively easy is because I bought my first house with my now wife. As I said earlier, buying on two incomes is easy because your joint income is reflected in house prices. However, it has always been difficult to buy as a single person and it is often singletons who complain about prices and affordability.

I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that it's easier to buy with a spouse than single. But given the average age of marriage is now 35.3 for men and 33.2 for women, clearly a much much larger share of under 40s individuals are unmarried than before (likely due to expansion of university education, social media, larger house deposits and rents themselves (relative to incomes) - less need to get married earlier if you can't afford a deposit for a house anyway - more expensive weddings and general shifts in religious/societal views on partners renting together before marriage.

Given it's generally legally and financially wise to get married before buying a house with a significant other, that less and less are now married at each age interval, makes it harder for the average household to purchase a house than before - greater prevalence of single income households. And so it's difficult to come to a solution, you can't just tell people they should get married earlier so they can buy a house earlier, that's definitely the wrong order of priorities haha. Nor does it feel like a reasonable viewpoint to say, right all the singletons off to the North and Wales, only married people in the SE, general equilibrium effects means that wouldn't work either.

So getting back to the original point, unless you've got a solution to radically drop the average age of marriage, then the greater prevalence of single income households makes housing affordability difficult. Mind, at least the average age of marriage is unlikely to slip much higher.

As a side note, interesting piece in the FT yesterday on these exact topics (https://www.ft.com/content/f21642d8-da2d-4e75-886e-2b7c1645f063), also showed that the house price to earnings ratio is now at its most stretched since 1876! But nah, buying a house isn't that difficult.

You don't have to be married to buy a house. I wasn't.

Jeez, is that really what you took from my post? Find me where I said that one has to be married to buy a house?

The most related comment I made was that "it's generally legally and financially wise to get married before buying a house with a significant other"...... And you've taken that as me meaning that I think you have to be married to buy a house? Do you know what the word 'generally' means? And even if I didn't preface it with 'generally' (which I did), saying it's wise to do something, isn't the same as saying you have to do something....

Now you're just building straw men to argue against.

I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that it's easier to buy with a spouse than single. But given the average age of marriage is now 35.3 for men and 33.2 for women, clearly a much much larger share of under 40s individuals are unmarried than before (likely due to expansion of university education, social media, larger house deposits and rents themselves (relative to incomes) - less need to get married earlier if you can't afford a deposit for a house anyway - more expensive weddings and general shifts in religious/societal views on partners renting together before marriage.

Given it's generally legally and financially wise to get married before buying a house with a significant other, that less and less are now married at each age interval, makes it harder for the average household to purchase a house than before - greater prevalence of single income households. And so it's difficult to come to a solution, you can't just tell people they should get married earlier so they can buy a house earlier, that's definitely the wrong order of priorities haha. Nor does it feel like a reasonable viewpoint to say, right all the singletons off to the North and Wales, only married people in the SE, general equilibrium effects means that wouldn't work either.

So getting back to the original point, unless you've got a solution to radically drop the average age of marriage, then the greater prevalence of single income households makes housing affordability difficult. Mind, at least the average age of marriage is unlikely to slip much higher.

As a side note, interesting piece in the FT yesterday on these exact topics (https://www.ft.com/content/f21642d8-da2d-4e75-886e-2b7c1645f063), also showed that the house price to earnings ratio is now at its most stretched since 1876! But nah, buying a house isn't that difficult.