The Housing Shortage

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

3 hours ago, SteveN8458 said:

You are refering to where they are NOW, not when the chose to rent. So go back to my question

So if the mortgage cost is the same as the rent, why rent??  genuine question.

As for my daughter, yes her flat is in Norwich. She saved her deposit & chose a 40 yr mortgage so she could maintain her lifestyle.

But your research shows there are properties available @ £110k, so did Dylans couple 'choose' not to go for a flat?

As for:

"I'm afraid you've just spouted a load of classic 'boomer' talking points that don't actually stand up to reality"

I beg to differ, we do not know all of the relevant info for the couple, but with a rent of £1000/m I feel there were other options they chose not to follow, as is they right. But they CHOSE a route, not had one forced upon them because they had no other options.

No more than that.

You've got it easy in Norwich. My uncle has a prefab two bedroom house on wheels in the Medway towns. It's comfortable, but the plot is barely bigger than the house itself he pays 200 quid a month to the ground rent owner after the 350000 quid for the caravan. And this on an area of land with about 300 other similar chalets almost on top of each other.

The land owner is making a fortune for **** all. Most of the people there are pensioners, so basically the landowners living is purely a drain on pensions.

But he's doing well compared to his stepson, in the same job for 20 years and reduced to living in a motorhome parking up in different places every night to avoid attention from the police moving him on after his divorce.

Edited April 2 by littleyellowbirdie

[Fen Canary 849]

10 hours ago, SteveN8458 said:

So if the mortgage cost is the same as the rent, why rent??  genuine question

The median house price in the East of England is currently £330k, or 11 years median salary (£30k). The UK median price as a whole is £270k, or 9 years salary.

Going on the national average, a 20% deposit would be £54k which is 93 weeks pay (before tax). They’re supposed to save this while paying on average £280 a week rent (1/2 their before tax wages). If they do manage to find the deposit then they’re left with a mortgage of £276k, which on a 25 year term at current 4.5% interest rates means repayments of £350 a week.

Now let’s compare it to when you bought your first home, which on average would have cost around 3 years salary, which today would be £90k. A 20% deposit therefore would be £18k which is 31 weeks pay (1/3 of that faced by youngsters today. You’d then be left with a mortgage of £72k, which even if interest rates sat at 20% would mean weekly repayments of £280.

So you see, not only was you only had to save a deposit a third of the size (while paying cheaper rent), even at the absolute peak of the interest rates your weekly repayments would still have been less than those faced by youngsters today. Could you have saved enough money to buy your house outright, while losing half your salary in rent? Because that’s essentially what you’re berating the youngsters for not being able to do, and for them that’s just the 20% deposit.

So to answer your question, most are renting because they can’t afford to do anything else, even though they know it’s dead money 

Edit: I also see you mentioned the 5% deposit, however this incurs a higher interest rate usually around the 8% mark. So on a standard property of £270k, a deposit would be £13.5k leaving a mortgage of £256.5k. On a 25 year term at 8% you’re looking at weekly repayments of £455. The median wage before tax is £575.

Edited April 3 by Fen Canary

[dylanisabaddog 4,949]

15 hours ago, SteveN8458 said:

So if the mortgage cost is the same as the rent, why rent??  genuine question

Halifax (other lenders available) do first time buyer mortgage for £210k property with 5% (£10500) deposit, 35 yr, £1k monthly.

£10k deposit? Dream on

[SteveN8458 64]

I bow to ALL of your greater knowledge than I.

What I fool I must be to have a different opionion than the 'experts' on here.

 

PLEASE ACCEPT MY HUMBLE APPOLOGIES FO BEING SUCH A FOOL.

[Fen Canary 849]

18 minutes ago, SteveN8458 said:

I bow to ALL of your greater knowledge than I.

What I fool I must be to have a different opionion than the 'experts' on here.

 

PLEASE ACCEPT MY HUMBLE APPOLOGIES FO BEING SUCH A FOOL.

It’s not a question of having a different opinion. I pointed out why I think it’s much, much harder today. If you believe that isn’t the case then feel free to provide your own figures and I’ll happily listen

[king canary 7,624]

1 hour ago, SteveN8458 said:

I bow to ALL of your greater knowledge than I.

What I fool I must be to have a different opionion than the 'experts' on here.

 

PLEASE ACCEPT MY HUMBLE APPOLOGIES FO BEING SUCH A FOOL.

It isn't about opinions though.

I am sure there are some people who make poor choices financially and then complain about not being able to afford a nice house. But as various people have pointed out for the average person it is, factually, harder to get on the property ladder than it once was without significant help from family.

[king canary 7,624]

7 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

The median house price in the East of England is currently £330k, or 11 years median salary (£30k). The UK median price as a whole is £270k, or 9 years salary.

Going on the national average, a 20% deposit would be £54k which is 93 weeks pay (before tax). They’re supposed to save this while paying on average £280 a week rent (1/2 their before tax wages). If they do manage to find the deposit then they’re left with a mortgage of £276k, which on a 25 year term at current 4.5% interest rates means repayments of £350 a week.

Now let’s compare it to when you bought your first home, which on average would have cost around 3 years salary, which today would be £90k. A 20% deposit therefore would be £18k which is 31 weeks pay (1/3 of that faced by youngsters today. You’d then be left with a mortgage of £72k, which even if interest rates sat at 20% would mean weekly repayments of £280.

So you see, not only was you only had to save a deposit a third of the size (while paying cheaper rent), even at the absolute peak of the interest rates your weekly repayments would still have been less than those faced by youngsters today. Could you have saved enough money to buy your house outright, while losing half your salary in rent? Because that’s essentially what you’re berating the youngsters for not being able to do, and for them that’s just the 20% deposit.

So to answer your question, most are renting because they can’t afford to do anything else, even though they know it’s dead money 

Edit: I also see you mentioned the 5% deposit, however this incurs a higher interest rate usually around the 8% mark. So on a standard property of £270k, a deposit would be £13.5k leaving a mortgage of £256.5k. On a 25 year term at 8% you’re looking at weekly repayments of £455. The median wage before tax is £575.

Crazy people still need this explaining to them.

It was tough 8 years ago when I first bought, it is harder now.

Me and my wife were living in a one bed in London (where our jobs were), paying £1350 p/m in rent- after energy, water, internet, council tax and travel to work we were spending about 50% of our take home pay on essentials. That isn't including food, general household upkeep. We could usually save about £200 p/m maximum, and that was without taking holidays or running a car.

To buy the one bed flat we lived in with a 10% deposit we'd have needed £40k- so based on how much we could save that would have taken us about 16 years to get there. Even then no bank would have leant us £360k on our combined salaries.

We instead wanted to buy a house somewhere out of London but commutable because we wanted to start a family. We settled on a place in Hertfordshire and the house prices for a 2 or 3 bed were about £250k- most of these needed some work doing too. Affordable but we still needed to save at least £12.5k (if someone would lend us 95%, not guaranteed) meaning at least 5 years of saving at our current rate, while basically denying ourselves any real fun. This is also before you factor in the other costs which come with buying a house (agent fees, lawyer fees, stamp duty, surveys etc etc).

Instead we were able to buy due to a combination of inheritance from my wife's grandfather, some money from my parents and the government help to buy scheme. We ended up with a nice new build we could live in for 5 years and start a family in. Without that though we'd either still be renting or we'd have had to have put any plans to have a family on hold while we bought a one bed flat.

The issue for a lot of young people is it feels like the social contract has been broken. The idea was that if you did the right things, studied hard, got good grades, maybe went to uni, got a good job that you'd be able to afford the basics of a nice life. However we're now in a place where that isn't the case anymore and yet you've got people who were able to buy houses in much more favourable conditions claiming it is all because they buy too many takeaway coffees or go on holiday once or twice a year. No wonder most don't have time for that sort of ****.

 

[SteveN8458 64]

1 hour ago, Fen Canary said:

It’s not a question of having a different opinion. I pointed out why I think it’s much, much harder today. If you believe that isn’t the case then feel free to provide your own figures and I’ll happily listen

All of your historical data/info is fine, but we live in ‘today’ NONE of the historical data helps pay TODAY’S bills.

And YES I accept that it IS harder today.

The couple that Dylan mentioned have a rent of £1100/m, which equates to roughly half their income (from memory)

All that I have said is that I believe they had a choice, buy with a mortgage of £1100/m or rent at £1100m. I have no knowledge of where they live or the property prices in their area.

So you can throw in that they live in London and hence the property costs are out of their reach, but the rent they are paying would not be £1100/m. But even if that were the case, they still have choices. However unpalatable they could move/relocate to say here in Norwich where properties are soo cheap!

 

Those of you who have dismissed my reference to a mortgage with Halifax, have you actually checked their website?

OR

Coventry

Now I’m not saying they would qualify for a mortgage from any of these lenders, but at face value they could at least ask.

 

In this particular case, any very many like them, they have proved that they can pay the rent. So, for me, that proves they can afford the equivalent mortgage. A ‘real life stress test’ if you like. But, the financial ‘stress tests’ will most likely mean they can’t. And there stands the elephant, a condition introduced by government is blocking them.

[TheGunnShow 5,956]

As a Halifax customer, I'll say this if mortgages are similar to loans - it is very possible that rates offered vary radically. I was looking at taking a loan out for some home improvements and they said, based on income/loan situation that they could loan me up to £25K. That was far more than I wanted, and I checked it several times over a month.

Got a good mate in to price up some work which came to £12K. Checked out the loan repayments and was happy with the instalments. Then all I did was move £15K of cash into a cash ISA to tie it in for a year. Logged back in, the most they could lend me was £7K. Couldn't do the works after that. Had to do plan B (just renovate the kitchen instead of gutting the kitchen and bathroom, and did a few smaller jobs as well).

In other words, don't assume that deals are always that readily available.

[king canary 7,624]

12 minutes ago, SteveN8458 said:

All of your historical data/info is fine, but we live in ‘today’ NONE of the historical data helps pay TODAY’S bills.

 

And YES I accept that it IS harder today.

The couple that Dylan mentioned have a rent of £1100/m, which equates to roughly half their income (from memory)

 

All that I have said is that I believe they had a choice, buy with a mortgage of £1100/m or rent at £1100m. I have no knowledge of where they live or the property prices in their area.

 

So you can throw in that they live in London and hence the property costs are out of their reach, but the rent they are paying would not be £1100/m. But even if that were the case, they still have choices. However unpalatable they could move/relocate to say here in Norwich where properties are soo cheap!

 

 

 

Those of you who have dismissed my reference to a mortgage with Halifax, have you actually checked their website?

 

 

 

OR

 

Coventry

 

Now I’m not saying they would qualify for a mortgage from any of these lenders, but at face value they could at least ask.

 

 

 

In this particular case, any very many like them, they have proved that they can pay the rent. So, for me, that proves they can afford the equivalent mortgage. A ‘real life stress test’ if you like. But, the financial ‘stress tests’ will most likely mean they can’t. And there stands the elephant, a condition introduced by government is blocking them.

 

But in your whole post you completely fail to mention you need to have THE DEPOSIT.

That is most of the issue for young people who are renting. When I bought my first house the mortgage was actually about £500 p/m lower than my rent at the time- me and my wife could easily afford the mortgage. But we needed a sizable desposit even at 5% which was very difficult to save for when renting.

Also to add in you'd need the £1,000 product fee, usually £1500+ in legal and conveyancing, likely another £1000 for surveys and valuations etc etc.

So for this example house the couple will need likely close to £15k in savings.

I've seen it suggested before that people who can demonstrate they have paid rent for a significant amount of time should potentially be eligible for 100% mortgages, which would be interesting but very risky.

 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

Personally, I think many would prefer to buy once in a stable job / location.

That said - the issue is of course the deposit and other fees and costs. I recall in my early twenties struggling to raise a 10% deposit when already renting in London - must be a nightmare these days even with the 5% figure given without help. I guess that's why most first time buyers are now much older and couples (two incomes) - well into their 30s!

5 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

As a Halifax customer, I'll say this if mortgages are similar to loans - it is very possible that rates offered vary radically. I was looking at taking a loan out for some home improvements and they said, based on income/loan situation that they could loan me up to £25K. That was far more than I wanted, and I checked it several times over a month.

Got a good mate in to price up some work which came to £12K. Checked out the loan repayments and was happy with the instalments. Then all I did was move £15K of cash into a cash ISA to tie it in for a year. Logged back in, the most they could lend me was £7K. Couldn't do the works after that. Had to do plan B (just renovate the kitchen instead of gutting the kitchen and bathroom, and did a few smaller jobs as well).

In other words, don't assume that deals are always that readily available.

Just saw this - yes - it's easy to borrow money when you don't need it at preferential rates plus a few 'loss' marketing leaders.

[TheGunnShow 5,956]

16 minutes ago, king canary said:

But in your whole post you completely fail to mention you need to have THE DEPOSIT.

That is most of the issue for young people who are renting. When I bought my first house the mortgage was actually about £500 p/m lower than my rent at the time- me and my wife could easily afford the mortgage. But we needed a sizable desposit even at 5% which was very difficult to save for when renting.

Also to add in you'd need the £1,000 product fee, usually £1500+ in legal and conveyancing, likely another £1000 for surveys and valuations etc etc.

So for this example house the couple will need likely close to £15k in savings.

I've seen it suggested before that people who can demonstrate they have paid rent for a significant amount of time should potentially be eligible for 100% mortgages, which would be interesting but very risky.

 

Without putting too much thought into the bit in bold (as someone who's never had a mortgage I can't speak from experience), couldn't a bank minimise their exposure by suggesting that if the mortgage is far lower than the proven rent, that new buyers pay at the same rent level for a few months to a year to build up a cushion, then go back to a lower monthly instalment if they want more security?

[king canary 7,624]

39 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Without putting too much thought into the bit in bold (as someone who's never had a mortgage I can't speak from experience), couldn't a bank minimise their exposure by suggesting that if the mortgage is far lower than the proven rent, that new buyers pay at the same rent level for a few months to a year to build up a cushion, then go back to a lower monthly instalment if they want more security?

I think you'd need a knowledge of finance and risk well beyond my understanding to know but in concept it sounds like a solid idea.

[Nuff Said 5,150]

On 01/04/2024 at 16:50, SteveN8458 said:

An interesting topic, my thoughts:

Part of the problem is too many young families expect too much and are not prepared to for-go 'essentials/luxuries' to better themselves.

Now before  get lynched, by 'essentials/luxuries' I means holidays/latest Iphones (other makes available) multiple cars etc.

When my wife & I were dating we bought our first house together. Her salary went 100% on the mortgage (circa 15% at that time)

It was a 2 bed terrace, and we spent 18 months renevating before we got married & moved in. We had 1 car, an old Avenger, our honemoon was in the UK for 7 days. Every penny we had went on the house. When we moved, we again bought a property needing renovating. Our first holiday abroad was on our 10th aniversary.

Feels a bit like a Monty Python sketch!!

My wife now works part-time in an infants school. Most of the families have 2 holidays abroad each year. Christmas on the credit card. The thought of NOT having the latest mobile is painfull to them. Yet the complain when prices go up, inc the rent! They feel 'entitled'

Now I agree that there should be more council houses available to rent, I was brought up in one. Nothing wrong with social housing, just there isn't enough. Why is there so few? Didn't a certain M.T. encourage people to buy their council house at a discount? Yet at the same time restrict councils from using the income this generated from building more social housing.

 

The tories & labour both have-it-in for private landlords, yet if they didn't exist would the tenants they house be able to afford to buy the house?? would they pass the 'tests' to be offered a mortgage to buy the house? there are no tests to rent a property. My youngest son rented for a while. His rent was higher thatn a mortgage for the same property yet he could not get a mortgage as he failed the affordability test for the mortgage yet the rent for the very same house was £100+/month more than the mortgage.

Then we have to consider those people who cross the channel in boats, once they have bee granted official entry into the UK they will need homes, where will these come from?

Sorry need to get off the soap box 😞

Tl;dr: it was better in the old days

[Fen Canary 849]

1 hour ago, SteveN8458 said:

All of your historical data/info is fine, but we live in ‘today’ NONE of the historical data helps pay TODAY’S bills.

 

And YES I accept that it IS harder today.

The couple that Dylan mentioned have a rent of £1100/m, which equates to roughly half their income (from memory)

 

All that I have said is that I believe they had a choice, buy with a mortgage of £1100/m or rent at £1100m. I have no knowledge of where they live or the property prices in their area.

 

So you can throw in that they live in London and hence the property costs are out of their reach, but the rent they are paying would not be £1100/m. But even if that were the case, they still have choices. However unpalatable they could move/relocate to say here in Norwich where properties are soo cheap!

 

 

 

Those of you who have dismissed my reference to a mortgage with Halifax, have you actually checked their website?

 

 

 

OR

 

Coventry

 

Now I’m not saying they would qualify for a mortgage from any of these lenders, but at face value they could at least ask.

 

 

 

In this particular case, any very many like them, they have proved that they can pay the rent. So, for me, that proves they can afford the equivalent mortgage. A ‘real life stress test’ if you like. But, the financial ‘stress tests’ will most likely mean they can’t. And there stands the elephant, a condition introduced by government is blocking them.

 

“Part of the problem is too many young families expect too much and are not prepared to for-go 'essentials/luxuries' to better themselves”

“It's all about choices, and yes they do have some”

“They have chosen to rent, what we do not know is why they chose that route?”

“they CHOSE a route, not had one forced upon them because they had no other options.”

 

Just thought I’d cherry pick a few of your earlier comments that implies that the youngsters struggling to get onto the housing ladder is through their own poor choices.

Your solution to this is to recommend somehow finding a property that’s around a third cheaper than the average for Norwich (£290k, the average price for a mid terrace is £270k), with a 5% deposit (thus incurring much higher interest rates and weekly repayments, plus establishment fees) on a 35 (!) year mortgage?

You're right, I don’t know what they’re complaining about. They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like we did! It’s always been hard! Avocado’s something something! 

[Mello Yello 2,297]

A buddy of mine lives in rented accommodation on his own and has recently had a rent increase of 18%.....

 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

5 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

A buddy of mine lives in rented accommodation on his own and has recently had a rent increase of 18%.....

 

This is the larger point. It's the cost of renting and buying that has risen out of all proportion as compared to the 'good old days'..

Edited April 3 by Yellow Fever

[SteveN8458 64]

21 hours ago, Mello Yello said:

A buddy of mine lives in rented accommodation on his own and has recently had a rent increase of 18%.....

 

Point your buddy to here:

HERE

But if he was on a low rent for the property they can increase the ent above the 18% you mention.

[SteveN8458 64]

21 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

“Part of the problem is too many young families expect too much and are not prepared to for-go 'essentials/luxuries' to better themselves”

“It's all about choices, and yes they do have some”

“They have chosen to rent, what we do not know is why they chose that route?”

“they CHOSE a route, not had one forced upon them because they had no other options.”

 

Just thought I’d cherry pick a few of your earlier comments that implies that the youngsters struggling to get onto the housing ladder is through their own poor choices.

Your solution to this is to recommend somehow finding a property that’s around a third cheaper than the average for Norwich (£290k, the average price for a mid terrace is £270k), with a 5% deposit (thus incurring much higher interest rates and weekly repayments, plus establishment fees) on a 35 (!) year mortgage?

You're right, I don’t know what they’re complaining about. They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like we did! It’s always been hard! Avocado’s something something! 

Yes ‘cherry picking’ is common place on here for a few people.

I guess you failed to understand that the figure of £210k came from a post by DLD when he mentioned a couple he knew.

You would have made a stronger point if you had used that figure when you searched for Norwich properties, but then you would have found circa 100 on rightmove at that figure or LESS. With the cheapest @ £110k

As for the average price of a mid-terrace being £270k, I guess that calculation included Rochester Court @ £3.5M and Harvard Court @ £2.7M which both come up when restricting the search to terraced properties only.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

3 hours ago, SteveN8458 said:

Yes ‘cherry picking’ is common place on here for a few people.

 

I guess you failed to understand that the figure of £210k came from a post by DLD when he mentioned a couple he knew.

 

You would have made a stronger point if you had used that figure when you searched for Norwich properties, but then you would have found circa 100 on rightmove at that figure or LESS. With the cheapest @ £110k

 

As for the average price of a mid-terrace being £270k, I guess that calculation included Rochester Court @ £3.5M and Harvard Court @ £2.7M which both come up when restricting the search to terraced properties only.

 

You also have to consider supply of housing in different price bands, but also there are plenty of buy to leters out there with spare income to mop up the 100k ones and then rent them out to the people who would have otherwise bought them.

There needs to some protection to ensure that the cheapest housing is actually prioritised to people who are first time buyers instead of going to people simply using the housing market to create income streams for themselves at the expense of those less well off.

Edited April 4 by littleyellowbirdie

[king canary 7,624]

18 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

You also have to consider supply of housing in different price bands, but also there are plenty of buy to leters out there with spare income to mop up the 100k ones and then rent them out to the people who would have otherwise bought them.

There needs to some protection to ensure that the cheapest housing is actually prioritised to people who are first time buyers instead of going to people simply using the housing market to create income streams for themselves at the expense of those less well off.

Also to add that buying a flat is fraught with extra issues and costs- ground rent and service charges for example, with lots of stories in the news about the latter suddenly soaring.

Personally I think buying a leasehold property is a pretty bad investment- if your service charge increases year on year it can leave you in a very tough position when it comes to selling.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

Also to add that buying a flat is fraught with extra issues and costs- ground rent and service charges for example, with lots of stories in the news about the latter suddenly soaring.

Personally I think buying a leasehold property is a pretty bad investment- if your service charge increases year on year it can leave you in a very tough position when it comes to selling.

It's a really good point about leaseholds. There also exists a model for collective ownership of the freehold that I've seen for some housing. Possibly a scheme where leaseholders are given the right to buy the freehold collectively at a realistic market rate might be a way to tackle that and establishing the freeholding in a cooperative to deal with shared property services/maintenance.

Edited April 4 by littleyellowbirdie

[king canary 7,624]

19 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's a really good point about leaseholds. There also exists a model for collective ownership of the freehold that I've seen for some housing. Possibly a scheme where leaseholders are given the right to buy the freehold collectively at a realistic market rate might be a way to tackle that and establishing the freeholding in a cooperative to deal with shared property services/maintenance.

My first buy was a new build house and due to stretched budgets the council refused to adopt the road- meaning we all had to pay a private service company for 'maintenance.' The most I saw them doing was a bit of low level gardening of the green spaces yet there were over 100 houses paying about £300 p/y for the service. Felt like a bit of a scam to me and I've no doubt those charges will have gone up since I moved out.  

[SteveN8458 64]

Leasohold Reform Bill

 

[king canary 7,624]

13 minutes ago, SteveN8458 said:

Leasohold Reform Bill

 

It's good but it has been watered down considerably over the last few weeks. Better than nothing but not ideal.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

It's good but it has been watered down considerably over the last few weeks. Better than nothing but not ideal.

Those who have the freeholds will no doubt have been lobbying.

[Foxy2600 305]

We can’t house anymore people unless we build at least Birmingham and a half every year.

UK is 242,000 sq km with probably 80m people

Let this sink in….

Canada 38.8 million people in 9.9 MILLION sq km

Australia 26.8 million people in 7.8 MILLION sq km

and even lowly (land mass wise at least) NZ is bigger at 268,000 sq km with a third of the population of London at 5.2 million people

We can’t take any more, the UN needs to address this inequality - not have Remoaners saying Take Back Control blah blah 

I can’t go to any of those countries and claim asylum - I’d be arrested and deported 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Aggy 757]

On 04/04/2024 at 15:00, king canary said:

My first buy was a new build house and due to stretched budgets the council refused to adopt the road- meaning we all had to pay a private service company for 'maintenance.' The most I saw them doing was a bit of low level gardening of the green spaces yet there were over 100 houses paying about £300 p/y for the service. Felt like a bit of a scam to me and I've no doubt those charges will have gone up since I moved out.  

That’s not really limited to leaseholds though - a freehold can have an estate service charge. 

Now you can’t charge ground rents on new leases, leasehold will start to go out of favour (except in apartment blocks where it’s necessary). I expect it won’t be too long before they ban ground rents from continuing to be charges on existing leases as well. The current bill is more about having to pay to extend your lease - if you e got a 999 year lease it’s not so much of a issue, but if only 99 then it could be especially as many lenders don’t like leases with less than c.70 years on them.

[Herman 9,796]

10 hours ago, Foxy2600 said:

We can’t house anymore people unless we build at least Birmingham and a half every year.

UK is 242,000 sq km with probably 80m people

Let this sink in….

Canada 38.8 million people in 9.9 MILLION sq km

Australia 26.8 million people in 7.8 MILLION sq km

and even lowly (land mass wise at least) NZ is bigger at 268,000 sq km with a third of the population of London at 5.2 million people

We can’t take any more, the UN needs to address this inequality - not have Remoaners saying Take Back Control blah blah 

I can’t go to any of those countries and claim asylum - I’d be arrested and deported 🤷🏼‍♂️

Asylum seekers are a tiny reason for the lack of housing. To use it as the reason is wrong considering most are put into hotels or other mass housing units.

The actual reasons;

Lack of appropriate house building, size and location.

Rise in single occupancy.

Rise in buy to let, holiday homes, Air BNB etc.

House speculation/investment.

Expansion of universities.

Natural population increase.

Aging population.

Immigration.

Etc etc etc.

 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

9 hours ago, Aggy said:

That’s not really limited to leaseholds though - a freehold can have an estate service charge. 

Now you can’t charge ground rents on new leases, leasehold will start to go out of favour (except in apartment blocks where it’s necessary). I expect it won’t be too long before they ban ground rents from continuing to be charges on existing leases as well. The current bill is more about having to pay to extend your lease - if you e got a 999 year lease it’s not so much of a issue, but if only 99 then it could be especially as many lenders don’t like leases with less than c.70 years on them.

Developers are getting around that by starting to go for prefab chalets on wheels where you can have a ground rent.