The Student Room Group

When do you think you'll be able to buy a house?

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"I wont be able to afford a house until Im 30"

Dont count on it. Understand you are part of an evil system that does not want you to own your own property. It wants slaves. Thats your role prole. You will also be told constant lies by every single politician, all of whom will never admit this blatantly obvious truth.
(edited 6 years ago)
really depressing to see the number of young people saying 'never' - let alone the number of people looking at their 30s as the time.

Honestly, this should be the issue that young people revolt on. You shouldn't be protesting trump, or the EU, or tuition fees... all of that is a side issue.

What you should be out on the streets protesting, is the fact that one of the greatest achievements in the UK over the 20th century, has now been destroyed, right in front of you.

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Back in the 1920, 80% of people rented. We were still in the tail-end of the land-owning elite, who controlled vast swaths of housing. After that though, we changed, we improved and we built houses, built them cheaply and gave people decent opportunities to buy.

By the 1960s, renting was down to around 50%.

By the 1990s and early 2003, we peaked at around 70% of people owning thier own homes, a further 10-15% in council homes, and only the small 10% of homes were rented by private landlords

-- but now, over the past 10-15 years, we have started to reverse a century of progress.

In just a little over a decade, we have doubled the number of people renting privatly, back up to 20%, and lowered the number of home-owners living in their own homes back down to the levels of the early 80s - and all trends show that this is continuing.
So what should young people do? Campaign on a few simple premises:

1. House building should always be tied to population growth. Simple.

Immigration/birth rate increases are not a inherent problem, as long as the house building matches the rises. If the goverment don't want to build more houses, slow down the rate of population growth.

2. Massively reduce the red-tape around planning permission.

Right now its very difficult to build your own home in much of the country, especially rural areas. Why? Because many rural councils have decided that enough is enough - now we have enough houses in our countryside, and any more will ruin it.

Oh, but we want more people, we want more migrants and more young people to drive the economy, that pays our pensions.. but we don't want you to build houses in our countryside! Just a quick look at the planning permission, and a look at existing houses, and in any rural town in the UK, you will see dozens of houses that people live in, but would not be allowed to be built today. In rural britain, older genertaions built lovely houses in rural places, then turned to their kids and said 'no.. you can't do what we did, we have enough hosues now'.

3. The right to live on your land

Simple principle that would help many in rural Britain: Everyone has a right to build a property on land that they own, if they adhere to the following principles:

1. They must intend to live in the property for at least 5 years. (with tolerance for extreme changes in circumstances)
2. They must source all building material and labor from within a 50 mile radius
3. The house cannot be rented for the first 10 years

What would you get? The ability for honest local people to build houses and live in their community. They would also be forced to source both labour and materials locally, meaning that properties remain in keeping with local styles, and help boost local industry. Property developers are locked out, as they cannot rent or resell the property imidiatly.

4. Restrict foreign corporations and individuals from purchasing UK property. (not ban, but heavily restrict).

The previous two were all about rural britian, but this is one for the cities. A massive restriction on foreign investment would immediately start to lower house prices in London and other major cities.

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So we have a ramped up building program that matches population growth, the right to build helping rural communities, and decreased foriegn involvement, helping urban comunities.

Its a shame it will never happen.
Honestly, this should be the issue that young people revolt on. You shouldn't be protesting trump, or the EU, or tuition fees... all of that is a side issue. What you should be out on the streets protesting, is the fact that one of the greatest achievements in the UK over the 20th century, has now been destroyed, right in front of you.

Fallen Acorns is spot on. Well said.

0.3% of the population own over two thirds of UK land. [Kevin Cahills. Who Owns Britain] Land is not taxed. Most of that land is subsidised by the renters. Through policies like the CAP. Land which does not pay its own way, should be taxed. Tax wealth, tax income less. Better for the vast majority of us. A land value tax, as first proposed by Lloyd George in his 1909 peoples budget would solve a LOT of problems. [Just Taylor Wimpeys alone are sitting on enough land to build over a million houses.]
In fact the benefits of a land value tax for most us seem unarguable. Yet its been blocked in the UK. A taboo subject.
Who blocks it, how are they able to, and why?

This is an excerpt from an email I received, from the ministerial contact unit, DEFRA, when asking similiar questions of William Hague, who recently announced the CAP budget.

'The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) is an EU-wide scheme under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) and as such, the UK does not have the unilateral authority to deviate from how the Scheme is implemented. Failure to administer the Scheme in accordance with the Scheme rules results in financial penalties, called disallowance, from the European Commission. So long as applicants meet the relevant criteria for BPS, including the 'active farmer' rule, then they can apply.
Leaving the EU means that we have an unparalleled opportunity to devise policies that best meet the needs of the UK. We think it is important in that context to stand back and consider how best to meet our objectives rather than feel compelled to work from existing mechanisms. Looking forward, we want the whole industry to work with us in considering how best to support our growers to allow them to grow more, sell more and export more of our food. However, until exit negotiations are concluded, the UK will remain a member of the EU with all of the rights and obligations that membership entails, including full participation in the CAP.'

Basically they ignored my questions, and sent me a blanket email....

A good start, for change would be if the government published online all the recipients of the CAP, and a decent journalist looked into how much of the £3 Billion + went to real farmers.

Also, the Land Registry should have a mandate to update the 'lost' 1872 Domesday book, and make it publicly available online, showing who owns what.

IMO the poorest taxpayers should not be funding, the richest landowners. Its ridiculous. The landowners, were described in one telegraph article I read as nothing more than very rich benefit cheats.

LINK: How we pay our richest landowners millions in subsidies:

(edited 6 years ago)
Not anytime soon. In my mid 20's currently renting a room within the hospital I work in, and although I'm on a stable career that would allow me to save for my own deposit on a house, I'm looking to sacrifice all that to go back to university for further study. So at the moment, trying to save enough capital to fund my further studies takes priority. Nevertheless, it is has always been one of my dreams to one day own my own home; especially since I come from a council house where we've never really had a lot of money or anything particularly nice. But I'm just not in the right position at the moment.
If you are priced out of housing, and want to know why, there are lots of answers at this land article;

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/LandArticle.html

And another one, written by Kevin Cahill here;

The great property swindle: why do so few people in Britain own so much of our land?
(edited 6 years ago)
By “buy” do you mean approval for a mortgage or do you mean purchase in full? I don’t count the former as buying a house, because while it might be in your possession, it’s not yours until you pay off the entire amount you owe, and can be taken off you at any time if you don’t keep up with agreements
The best solution we have is a [national, not by borough] Land Value Tax. So write to your MP and demand one!


Asked for his advice on how young entrepreneurs should succeed, the late Gerald Grosvenor [a knight of the garter] once replied;

“Make sure they have an ancestor who was a very close friend of William the Conqueror.”

https://whoownsengland.org/2016/08/17/to-the-manor-born-mapping-the-grosvenor-estate/

Prince Harry with his golden boy media image has just been made a knight of the garter by his Nan.....purveyors of misery and poverty.

Will this ever change? No. Probably not. 'You cant beat the establishment' as the old saying goes.....

We should all keep trying though......
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 68
Original post by OldishStudent
"I wont be able to afford a house until Im 30"

Dont count on it. Understand you are part of an evil system that does not want you to own your own property. It wants slaves. Thats your role prole. You will also be told constant lies by every single politician, all of whom will never admit this blatantly obvious truth.


Utter rubbish. Any couple who both work full time are able to afford housing in this country.
Original post by Reue
Utter rubbish. Any couple who both work full time are able to afford housing in this country.


I’m not sure that’s true if your wage is significantly below the median.

Even so, this is not the historical norm. A household with only one full time wage would previously have been able to get a mortgage for only a few times their income, rather than the 7+ times which is not out of the ordinary today.
Original post by Reue
Utter rubbish. Any couple who both work full time are able to afford housing in this country.


Yours sounds like an emotional response. Maybe you are in negative equity, or invested in BTL, or have some other personal financial reason for your post.

But Its not 'Utter Rubbish' at all. You responded to post number 63.

Try reading the following posts and the articles linked there-in for a much better understanding of how land is distributed and subsidised, in such a 'feudal fashion' as it is in the UK.

The rise of women in the workplace, means that the ONS, and the Nationwide, now measure the 'affordability' of housing, using 'median household income'
[I.E. Two peoples wages] vs property prices, as opposed to how it was measured for the latter half of the twentieth century, the individual breadwinner, 'individual household income' [I.E. one persons wage]

In a nutshell, the national average individual wage from the mid 1950's to 1997 was a median of 3.5x the national average house price. Today the national average house price is circa ten times the national average individual wage.

[In 1997 the national average house price was £55k.
The national average wage was £16,666
55/16,666 = 3.3x......So In 1997 it was 3.3x individual salary.]

[3.5x individual income was the long term median. On a couple of occasions it touched 5x salary, at the end of the 1980’s, but went back down again quickly enough. At other times, it was just 2.5x salary, 1960’s, for instance.]

The average mortgate rate over that same period was 7%.

Average Downpayment was 10%

So, 3.5x individual income was the definition of affordability for the latter half of the twentieth century. Today its 10x....and could even rise to 15x.....Its Criminal.

The rise of women in the workplace, yes, that has had some effect, as has immigration, as has the lowest period of house building since WW1, but a lot less than is widely believed.

Why are house prices so high?

The real reason house prices more than tripled in under a decade, 1997-2007, [whilst the median uk wage only rose by £6.5k over that same period], was a completely orchestrated banking boom, [which occurred worldwide] in which the rise of house prices, was allowed and encouraged.........[In the UK by our politicians, under Gordon Brown as COE, and then PM. But the same thing would have happened under the Tories if they had been in power.] Politicians are just puppets of central bankers.

[And our MP's were actually voting on policies, to encourage this BOOM, such as lowering CGT on second, third homes, whilst lining their own pockets in secret, by buying, and flipping homes, in a secret expenses system, using our money. Which came to light due to a freedom of information request made by a female reporter from The Telegraph, which Brown tried to block using a three line whip...Unbelievable. Worse than insider trading, it was market manipulation by our MP's, for the sake of personal greed. During this entire period Ive mentioned, Ministers number one investment was BTL. If you were not on the bandwagon, you were completely ignored by your MP]

If that wasnt bad enough, ruining millions of lives, by pricing people out. Brown then bailed out the banks, in effect, the renter, is now paying for the rentiers lifestyle.

So the people who missed this boat, you lot who came after, have in fact been forced to become underwriters of your own wage slavery, your wealth has been mis-directed to a bank, who lent too much money out, or were allowed to gamble it, [the dissolution of Glass-Stegal, the creation of the tripartite system etc, by Brown.]

You could say, you are being forced to pay for someone elses house, whilst never being able to afford your own. They got one or two houses for free, simply as a fluke of when they were born. And you're paying for that.

The direct result of this criminal mismanagement is the greatest divide between the haves and have nots since Dickens walked the streets of Victorian London.

And it was all completely orchestrated.

As Fallen_Acorns correctly says, in post no.64, you should be on the streets protesting this, because over the course of your entire working life, this sheer theft, will be your biggest impedement. Not student fees, or Trump, or leaving the EU......
(edited 6 years ago)
Reply 71
Original post by OldishStudent
Yours sounds like an emotional response. Maybe you are in negative equity, or invested in BTL, have some other personal financial reason for your post.


None of the above :smile:
Reply 72
Original post by trou_noir
I’m not sure that’s true if your wage is significantly below the median.


Both need to be working full time, however yes; still affordable on 2x minimum wage. Obviously not so if you decide to have children or loads of holidays instead. People need to prioritise.
Original post by 1secondsofvamps
Lol i never said or implied that.
I obviously meant if none of us have partners by then, we'd probably end up living together for a while


You don't want to buy a house with someone you intend on living with "for a while", that is a seriously bad idea.
Original post by Reue
Both need to be working full time, however yes; still affordable on 2x minimum wage. Obviously not so if you decide to have children or loads of holidays instead. People need to prioritise.


How? And what are you buying? You don’t just have to afford a mortgage, you also need a deposit which is difficult to save for if you are already renting and have other costs. A house isn’t really affordable for a couple if you have to choose between it and everything else anyway.

Some stats for the relationship between house prices and wages since 1971 from thisismoney.co.uk

HOUSE Price in 1971: £5,632 Price now: £247,000 How much they should cost? (using inflation figures since 1971): £67,483 WAGES Average in 1971: £2,000 Average now: £26,000 Where they should be (using inflation figures since 1971): £24,000 Where they would be if following house price inflation: £87,720


These are from 2013 http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2462753/How-items-cost-risen-line-house-prices.html bear in mind inflation has increased since then, as have house prices, while wages have not kept up with inflation.
Reply 75
Original post by trou_noir
How? And what are you buying?


2x minimum wage salaries (£14,625) can borrow about £100k. Say 10k deposit so £110k house value. That will get you a 2/3 bedroom house in many parts of the country.

Original post by trou_noir

You don’t just have to afford a mortgage, you also need a deposit which is difficult to save for if you are already renting and have other costs.


My example couple get a monthly net take home of over £2200. I don't believe they would be unable to save at least 7.5% of that which would give them the required deposit in a reasonable 5 years.
Original post by Reue
None of the above :smile:



I dont believe you.....
Reply 77
Original post by OldishStudent
I dont believe you.....


I wish I did have a BTL :biggrin:
Well, the introduction of a National Land Value Tax [which has been bandied about for over a century in parliament] is the best solution to this problem.

Even if that bill was successfully passed in parliament, my belief is that it would be passed up to the house of lords for review, and the landed gentry, in the house of lords, would use their influence to veto, [block] the bill.

The house of lords is unelected. We live in a thinly veiled feudal society, masquerading as a democracy.

Thats it. Every answer anyone could possibly want on 'why you cannot afford a house and how to rectify it' has been posted. :wink:

Hope it was helpful?

[When Lloyd George, along with a young Winston Churchill tried to introduce a land value tax, in their 1909 peoples budget, Lloyd George was called to the palace and told by the King, to stop it....In the 1970's when Harold Wilson was PM, and the establishment thought he might want to introduce a LVT, he was constantly bugged, and the families of the landed gentry at the top of the army, and security services, took over heathrow airport, calling it an exercise, without telling the PM, as a direct threat. As recalled by Wilsons Secretary in her memoirs. Google 'the plot against harold wilson']

I wonder what they would do to Corbyn if he tried to introduce one?

[Please feel free, to copy and paste the links Ive provided and my posts anywhere you want. The only way we will collectively change this situation, is by educating as many people as possible.]
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by chelseadagg3r
You might be saving already, have some plans, or you might not know at all. Is this something you've thought about? Do you have any idea about when you might be able to afford a house?


I can only afford to buy a house in Monopoly :sigh:

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