Gilly wrote:
If its a reasonable price why would you have difficulty paying the mortgage.....

andyh wrote:
I'm really surprised you'd ask that question. There are lots of people who can comfortably afford their mortgage initially, but then their personal circumstances change. People can lose their jobs and have to accept something on a lower wage for eg. Given that the typical life-span of a mortgage is 25 years, none of us knows what's going to happen to us within that time-span.

Equally, I've known people who've made huge equity in a relatively brief time, and become quite well off from property sales. There's an element of luck about it, as well as some know-how. The first house we got was about £35K, and at the same time, a couple who were our friends bought a house of the same value in another area. A few years later, my husband's work dried up (contracting as a structural steel draughtsman) and at the same time, I was made redundant, but as it was a relatively new company, I'd not been there long to collect more than buttons in redundancy pay.

So we needed to sell the house fast before we got in deep shit. We ended up accepting £2K less than our purchase price, because property wasn't moving in that area, and using the linked endowment to clear 2 months arrears and other debts that had arisen, like poll tax (which they were really muscling for). The bank employee who'd suggested that as an option btw, was scheduled to be disciplined for 'breach of compliance', had I not written a letter on her behalf, lying through my teeth, and stating that she'd never mentioned that option.

Our friends sold their house at the same time (which was not as good a house as ours) and made £15K in equity, without having made any home improvements to their place. My brother's made a fortune in buying & selling property.

But houses are expensive - nowt we can do about that! Plenty of people find they can just about manage a mortgage, but can be screwed if interest rates rocket. However, when interest rates are high, it has an impact on the cost of renting a property too, because often your rental charge is paying the landlord's mortgage to buy the property for him.

Gilly wrote:
No theres not a lot of people who can 'comfortably' afford their mortgage initially...thats why we used to have a cap on 3x their salary Gilly lol :p

You say theres nothing you can do, I say you don't fucking pay what you can't afford how captain obvious is that?

I've said it before and will say it again.

The only thing I will ever commit to for 25years in this lifetime, are my kids.

If me and my man had signed a 25yr mortage years back we'd have been fucked and lost the lot due to one thing and another. I have never looked back on the decision not to buy. Renting isn't dead money in my opinion, it's a method of survival that works.

psketti wrote:
As long as the rental price is OK. The same applies to rent as applies to mortgage.
Maggie Thatcher got rid of the fair rent act, this helped to kick off higher prices as greedy bastards saw a way to make more money.

andyh wrote:
Bollocks Andy. Captain obvious? How many people know what their financial circumstances are going to be in the future? Nobody except those who are genuinely rich. Even if you've a great income now, you can't be sure what's round the corner. I didn't know 20 years ago that I'd be on a lower wage now than I was then.

And how's it a solution to rent? If your income drops to the point that you can't afford your rent, you're still in the crap. Your landlord's not going to reduce your rent to suit your income.

Psketti, I said there are some advantages to renting. But it's Andy's attitude towards property purchasers that rankles.

I know plenty of people who've got an easy start in life due to inheriting property from parents, so I don't see that it's a thing to be sneered at.

Gilly wrote:
Since when was inherited property mentioned by myself?

Also since when is 10x your salary or even 4x 'comfortable', you need to get a grip along with everyone else who believes in this nonsense

If the price is 'comfortable' then periods of unemployment will be no issue. Its as simple as that, there is no amount of wriggling and worming you can do to avoid that conclusion. there is also no amount of wriggling and worming you can do to avoid seeing that eventually people are not going to be able to buy said stupidly priced property and the people left in such a position deserve everything they get.

If the price is too high you shop around until you find something thats right without needing to inflate the economy by borrowing ludicrous amounts from banks who then laugh and scoff when they get to take up properties defaulted on with money they never had in the first place whilst getting bailed out by taxpayers!

On the one hand you don't want bank bailouts but on this other you want to continue this madness...its fucking laughable to see it on this forum of all places.
You want a free ride, you want the easy life and its always someone or something else that somehow pays for it.

I've always talked about how anarchism is an evolutionary concept because it expects people to learn from their mistakes and here you are making the same mistakes despite everything thats happened...again and again and again and again and again and again and again....its THAT which I'm sneering at.

ftr I've rented my entire life.

Partly a security thing, My salary was paid by an annually reviewed grant, It could have ceased on a political whim.
Secondly, because I cannot accept that we can 'own' land or property. Yeah I know it sounds airy fairy but if we accept that idea then we roll it on to water, air etc as well. Which is where we are today and it's a clusterfuck .

It's my decision, I'm not judging anyone who went a different route and there are pros and cons on all sides.

feather wrote:
You're right, it is a clusterfuck.
Personally I've no issue with people wanting to buy...what I take issue with is BORROWING to buy.
If you have to borrow then is it not self evident that you cannot afford it? And is this not why we are in the situation we are today?
We have allowed the shylocks in by giving them opportunity and they'll take more than a pound of flesh.

feather wrote:
This.

Do you think many people who might have had some form of equity on their/the banks house have been using that to buy new cars every few years and go on holidays every year instead of paying off their mortgage?

Ive always rented,not for any other reason than the banks black listed me many years ago,Never been able to get loans or credit or any of that type of thing.

andyh wrote:
Since when did I say you mentioned inherited property? The point I was trying to make was that it's only where people have paid a mortgage that they're then in a position to leave a property to their kids - which gives them an enviable start in life, and imo, is something worth striving for.

I agree that those calculations (10 x wage) are insane. I'd be surprised if there were many people (relatively speaking) caught up in that kind of debt trap. But if you work out how many times your annual wage you'll have spent for renting over a 25 year period, with no ownership to show for it at the end, it won't be that staggering a difference.

And there are plenty of people who've done well out of the property market, which you're not acknowledging. My dad's an eg - owned his house outright for decades, and it was recently valued at £500K. I don't think it's stupid of people to have ownership as a goal, personally. And I also have relatives who are in that position of owning outright, who struggled with finances throughout their mortgages, but still made it in the end and are very glad they did.

But, as I said before, like Feather & Skett, I can see there are pros & cons to both buying & renting.

humanspirit wrote:
Probably. Couldn't guess how many though.

Gilly wrote:
How do you know what the rent difference is unless you agree the price to begin with?
What did I say above about the same applying to rent as to mortgages?

You 'ought' to be able to buy a house in cash, certainly a 3 bed mid terrace red brick sardine tin with a 20ft square garden is not worth 1 years salary, let alone 4 plus interest over 20 years.

The whole renting vs mortgage thing is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. The only thing that bothers me is people living beyond their means...it keeps getting avoided for some bizarre reason...

As for half a million quid ffs lol.... Thats over 20x the average salary, what kind of building could 20 men build in 1 year?

andyh wrote:
Just because you or I say what a house 'ought' to cost doesn't make it so, more's the pity.

I haven't avoided the living beyond your means issue. Like I said, take an unexpected hit in your pay packet & your landlord can eqally have you out on your ear, and with no possibility of clawing some equity back to help you start again.

It didn't seem unreasonable a few decades ago to expect personal 'means' / income to improve as the years progress, rather than most people struggling with a precarious work situation, as many are now.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. Although these glimmers of hope always seem to have the same end result.
The judges in the court work for the bank and have a completely improper relationship with them. Until these judicial-corporate-legal relationships are stopped the people will never win.... I mean, even having told countless people how the money from their mortgage was created and how it's a scam they just carry on regardless, so it's never gonna reach enough of a critical mass to be able to do anything about it.
I just can't see the day when there are gonna be people ringing me up and texting me saying 'were you mis-sold a mortgage on the basis that the lender created the money from your signature without the necessary lawful consideration? If so, you can text CLAIM now to 666 and be thousands of pounds that never existed better off, or better still keep your home for fuck all'!

Gilly wrote: Its not so much about what we say but what we are willing to pay.
If most people were unwilling to borrow to buy a house then prices would plummet.
It applies even harder to bare land and planning permission, land is at ludicrous price levels at the moment despite everything thats happened.
Then don't live beyond your means, simple as that. If its too much don't buy it/ don't rent it.
The whole idea of living within means is to take account of the economic situation, if you think your job is at risk then pay less.

Thats because people didn't give a shit so long as they had a cushy job. Income didn't improve, the numbers went up but so did the prices.
Income in reality only goes up if you spend less.
Its possible to win the lottery for example or even be a pop star and still end up broke.

Gerard Depardieu did the epic flounce when he went to russia when the frogs put the income tax up to 75% for top PAYE workers...gotta laugh...people might grumble at him but he did what he had to.
If he looked into it he could've avoided it by being canny about it, it was afterall only on income tax :p

I have pointed out many a time that income tax is of no consequence to the elite but ppl will whine at the likes of Depardieu.
Divide et impera. Money is brilliant at it.

Space Bandit wrote:
Yep, ridiculous irresponsibility and greed.

£££ $$$

I hope Gerard Depardieu gets ripped off by the Russian maffia

andyh said "andyh said "Then don't live beyond your means, simple as that. If its too much don't buy it/ don't rent it."

So, what, a family just lives in a tree until they see a property they feel is reasonably priced?

You are so full of shit!!