Mansion Tax, Oh Boy What A Gaff!

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

Nowt wrong with sharing bedrooms, its just a room and if you want privacy go sit in another room or go outside. Anyway, its part of growing up and getting along with each other.

Standard of life, what a load of bollocks. This is no right to a perceived better standard of life. If they want it better (as perceived by the person) then go earn it. You don't earn the house just because you lived there while you used it. As for networks etc, there will be new networks to explore in the new place.

Social housing/council houses are there to aid you at that specific time, not to keep you in a specific lifestyle.

If people need the extra room or wider houses that is all part of the need and should be taken into account to aid the person/people.

 

[David B]

People in Britain have had the wool pulled over their eyes regarding property ownership. Most people see having a large mortgage (debt) as a sign of success. How ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more. It's a flawed marker of success (IMO) and in Europe at least seems to be a peculiarly British thing - in Germany owning rather than renting your home is the exception rather than the perceived norm. The newspapers' [1] obsession with high house prices doesn't help matters either.

David

[1] I say 'newspapers', but it's fairly obvious which two scaremongering purveyors of casual tabloid bigotry are in particular the main culprits.

 

[drcarlos]

People in Britain have had the wool pulled over their eyes regarding property ownership. Most people see having a large mortgage (debt) as a sign of success. How ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more. It's a flawed marker of success (IMO) and in Europe at least seems to be a peculiarly British thing - in Germany owning rather than renting your home is the exception rather than the perceived norm. The newspapers' [1] obsession with high house prices doesn't help matters either.

David

[1] I say 'newspapers', but it's fairly obvious which two scaremongering purveyors of casual tabloid bigotry are in particular the main culprits.

So just who owns the homes in Germany then, someone must do? Just because there is a large rental market it doesn't mean that someone doesn't own them. If they are owned by more affluent people who rent them out to lower income people, those affluent people owning the houses (be it outright or via a mortgage) must be by definition more successful.

Also in 20 years when my mortgage is finished I will own my house outright and have a 500k asset to my name, where if I had rented it I would have paid about the same but own nothing at all and still have to pay rent on somewhere to live. I can then either sell and downsize and still have no mortgage of live there payment free. Even if the value drops I will still own it (unlikely as I got a decent deal), yes, I will have paid a bit more that the average rental but I will still have a sizable asset where they will still own zip.

Carl.

 

[Neil]

People in Britain have had the wool pulled over their eyes regarding property ownership. Most people see having a large mortgage (debt) as a sign of success. How ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more. It's a flawed marker of success (IMO) and in Europe at least seems to be a peculiarly British thing - in Germany owning rather than renting your home is the exception rather than the perceived norm. The newspapers' [1] obsession with high house prices doesn't help matters either.

David

[1] I say 'newspapers', but it's fairly obvious which two scaremongering purveyors of casual tabloid bigotry are in particular the main culprits.

I'm getting the words, "Daily Mail" - spirits are very strong, today, very strong...

I've kinda made up my own motto for the Daily Mail: The Daily "Making prior restraint seem acceptable, since 1896" Mail.

 

[Neil]

People in Britain have had the wool pulled over their eyes regarding property ownership. Most people see having a large mortgage (debt) as a sign of success. How ridiculous.

Couldn't agree more. It's a flawed marker of success (IMO) and in Europe at least seems to be a peculiarly British thing - in Germany owning rather than renting your home is the exception rather than the perceived norm. The newspapers' [1] obsession with high house prices doesn't help matters either.

David

[1] I say 'newspapers', but it's fairly obvious which two scaremongering purveyors of casual tabloid bigotry are in particular the main culprits.

So just who owns the homes in Germany then, someone must do? Just because there is a large rental market it doesn't mean that someone doesn't own them. If they are owned by more affluent people who rent them out to lower income people, those affluent people owning the houses (be it outright or via a mortgage) must be by definition more successful.

Also in 20 years when my mortgage is finished I will own my house outright and have a 500k asset to my name, where if I had rented it I would have paid about the same but own nothing at all and still have to pay rent on somewhere to live. I can then either sell and downsize and still have no mortgage of live there payment free. Even if the value drops I will still own it (unlikely as I got a decent deal), yes, I will have paid a bit more that the average rental but I will still have a sizable asset where they will still own zip.

Carl.

You touch on a point that's relevant, here.

Often people see, and compare with other countries, draw inferences, and then see a lot of negatives for the British predilection for home ownership.

But it's kind of missing the point. It's really more about things like mortgages, and pensions - at the culmination, providing something beyond merely salting something away for a rainy day - for those that do / have the discipline.

The real point, is that en-masse, without such schemes, people, by and large, don't. Mortgages and pensions cater for that lack of perspective, in that they are "enforced" savings schemes. Not infallible, and not without any cons, but all the same, they're there, because without them, most wouldn't, would have their general finances run to purely the here and now, and at the end of it, mostly, wouldn't have a pot to piss in.

Now yes, I suspect that looking at Britain, does have society that defaults towards an ideal of home ownership, perhaps not as evident elsewhere - but then, we're a relatively small chunk of rock.

 

[Bats]

Re: Re:

Nowt wrong with sharing bedrooms, its just a room and if you want privacy go sit in another room or go outside. Anyway, its part of growing up and getting along with each other.

How are they meant to sit in another room when you've just said they don't need, and shouldn't have another room? Pointing to the kitchen or livingroom is no good, because frankly if you're saying a young lad should play with himself in a shared part of the house... :shock:

Trust me on this, you get kids hitting puberty and you want them in their own rooms. Spend some time chatting to social workers and you'll learn why.

Standard of life, what a load of bollocks. This is no right to a perceived better standard of life. If they want it better (as perceived by the person) then go earn it.

Ah but it's not about getting better, it's about NOT getting worse. Which is what the bedroom tax situation creates by forcing people to move. Especially in the current market, where actually affordable, quality housing is at the end of a years long waiting list, and the only way to get a house quicker is an overpriced hovel from some buy-to-let bastard.

You don't earn the house just because you lived there while you used it.

Even thatcher disagreed. It was a big part of her plan. "Go on! Buy your council house! After all, you deserve it, paying rent for years and years."

As for networks etc, there will be new networks to explore in the new place.

You quite dramatically miss the point, somehow I suspect you don't know what I meant. Neighbours, friends you've known for years? Family members who live close? People you can trust to watch your kids for an hour. If you're a granny, someone to help shift the wheely bin. You don't bring that with you when you've been forced to move. All you get is the potluck of weather your new neighbors will be uninterested strangers at best or absolute sods at worst.

Social housing/council houses are there to aid you at that specific time, not to keep you in a specific lifestyle.

Actually Council houses were very specifically built to be your home for life or until the day fortune favoured you and you got enough dosh that you could get brick and mortar you owned. It was a lot easier to do that, back in the day, because the large stock of council housing with do-what-you-like-to-it lifetime tenancy agreements helped keep house prices down via lack of demand.

Pretending council houses are temporary solutions for people who "need help" is ideologically driven ahistorical rubbish. Even after 30 years of attempting to destroy them through neglect and market manipulation, it's still a better house for your money than you get with a mortgage in loads of parts of the country.

If people need the extra room or wider houses that is all part of the need and should be taken into account to aid the person/people.

That's what I've been saying, but you've been arguing against it. I assume your standards of "need" are higher than a normal person's because you don't want anyone getting what you've not. As I said before, fight to get richer, not to keep everyone down with you. It's reactionary nonsense.

Certainly, this thing I'm arguing against doesn't give a damn if you've got a wheelchair or what have you. You didn't, last page. Even if you've got an entire room's worth of machines that go "ping!" you don't get any consideration before they declare you a naughty boy with a wasted room who should be punished.

And lord, it's not as if what I'm saying is unreasonable. Putting kids in separate bedrooms, in a decent house big enough for their needs, for affordable rent... This isn't fantasy here, this is how british people lived. Why scorn that? Did the low-paid act unfairly when they stopped having six kids in a two-up two-down with an outside toilet?

 

[Bats]

Also in 20 years when my mortgage is finished I will own my house outright and have a 500k asset to my name, where if I had rented it I would have paid about the same but own nothing at all and still have to pay rent on somewhere to live. I can then either sell and downsize and still have no mortgage of live there payment free. Even if the value drops I will still own it (unlikely as I got a decent deal), yes, I will have paid a bit more that the average rental but I will still have a sizable asset where they will still own zip.

Carl.

Except in 20 years time the housing market will have ceased to exist in it's current form as it is unsustainable - you can't have growing house prices forever because you start pricing people out (this is already happening), and so demand falls, so nobody buys it, so you either sit on it forever or you drop prices enough that a customer can actually afford to take a punt.

Given the UK economy relies entirely on selling each other loans and mortgages, I've no idea what they're going to do about this. I suspect it'll be a huge disaster though I hope it isn't, and either way if your house is half a million now, it probably won't be half as much then. Sorry.

Regarding rentals and not owning something... It doesn't matter much. You're paying for a roof over your head, primarily, and the state of the market proves the dangers of treating it like an investment. That leaves the advantage of eventually living there for free when your mortgage is paid off... Might as well just go full Lenin and abolish rent. It would have been less heartache for everyone.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

Many parts of the UK have little housing stock in the 1/2 bedroom category.

It is relatively expensive to build to that spec.

We ought to be building a million new homes, and making them cheaper to rent or buy to ease the problem long term.

In amongst the many things we have recently been considering has been buying a property with a large building plot with permission already granted. Our concept is to go into partnership with a social landlord to purpose build a couple of semi-detached eco friendly adapted bungalows. Like most of our ideas it probably won't happen, but there is a huge number of people sitting on permission granted land without the capital to actually build. Such partnerships are a way we can get a lot more housing fast.

We have to do something.

The rent/mortgage balance is only the way it is thanks to an artificially inflated market. My ex partner and I rented a lovely flat, small but sweet, off Upper Street back in the day for a tiny fraction of the mortgage our neighbours were paying.

 

[Neil]

Also in 20 years when my mortgage is finished I will own my house outright and have a 500k asset to my name, where if I had rented it I would have paid about the same but own nothing at all and still have to pay rent on somewhere to live. I can then either sell and downsize and still have no mortgage of live there payment free. Even if the value drops I will still own it (unlikely as I got a decent deal), yes, I will have paid a bit more that the average rental but I will still have a sizable asset where they will still own zip.

Carl.

Except in 20 years time the housing market will have ceased to exist in it's current form as it is unsustainable - you can't have growing house prices forever because you start pricing people out (this is already happening), and so demand falls, so nobody buys it, so you either sit on it forever or you drop prices enough that a customer can actually afford to take a punt.

That doesn't mean the market is unsustainable, nor that the plane will crash into the side of the fecking mountain.

The housing market hasn't been immune from boom-and-bust, nor having to respond to the first rung on the ladder being a leap too high. All the same, there's nothing new under the sun, here - I hardly think economic issues of most recent times are going to entirely destroy the concept.

There might be some ebb and flow, but all the same, as a generalism, houses are worth more than they were 20 years ago. Looking at it purely on a return on investment perspective, as opposed to investing in an asset that will experience some growth, perhaps some people may be underwhelmed, all the same, I'm not buying that the 'arris is going to fall out of the market.

I first bought a house when I was 20, in 1990. House prices weren't particularly low then, in fact they boomed and then crashed a bit soon afterwards. In the short term, looking at the balance books, I was worse off. 10 years down the line it was a different story. But here's the difference. I bought a house as a fairly young bloke, had a reasonable job, nothing more though, had no mobile phone of my own, no car, spent precious little on going out or booze. These days, "standards of living" have become an entitlement. If young people haven't got an iPhone, semi-recent car, and money to go out regularly socialising, then apparently it's time to call in the United Nations.

What they don't get, is that if people managed to do things like buy a house at a younger age, in previous times, they did so, because they worked hard, and made sacrifices and economies - effectively living pretty basic existence for a good while. Now yes, I get, that base price to get on the ladder has gone up, perhaps disproportionately - but equally, so have expectations and a certain sense of entitlement.

 

[drcarlos]

Also in 20 years when my mortgage is finished I will own my house outright and have a 500k asset to my name, where if I had rented it I would have paid about the same but own nothing at all and still have to pay rent on somewhere to live. I can then either sell and downsize and still have no mortgage of live there payment free. Even if the value drops I will still own it (unlikely as I got a decent deal), yes, I will have paid a bit more that the average rental but I will still have a sizable asset where they will still own zip.

Carl.

Except in 20 years time the housing market will have ceased to exist in it's current form as it is unsustainable - you can't have growing house prices forever because you start pricing people out (this is already happening), and so demand falls, so nobody buys it, so you either sit on it forever or you drop prices enough that a customer can actually afford to take a punt.

That doesn't mean the market is unsustainable, nor that the plane will crash into the side of the fecking mountain.

The housing market hasn't been immune from boom-and-bust, nor having to respond to the first rung on the ladder being a leap too high. All the same, there's nothing new under the sun, here - I hardly think economic issues of most recent times are going to entirely destroy the concept.

There might be some ebb and flow, but all the same, as a generalism, houses are worth more than they were 20 years ago. Looking at it purely on a return on investment perspective, as opposed to investing in an asset that will experience some growth, perhaps some people may be underwhelmed, all the same, I'm not buying that the 'arris is going to fall out of the market.

I first bought a house when I was 20, in 1990. House prices weren't particularly low then, in fact they boomed and then crashed a bit soon afterwards. In the short term, looking at the balance books, I was worse off. 10 years down the line it was a different story. But here's the difference. I bought a house as a fairly young bloke, had a reasonable job, nothing more though, had no mobile phone of my own, no car, spent precious little on going out or booze. These days, "standards of living" have become an entitlement. If young people haven't got an iPhone, semi-recent car, and money to go out regularly socialising, then apparently it's time to call in the United Nations.

What they don't get, is that if people managed to do things like buy a house at a younger age, in previous times, they did so, because they worked hard, and made sacrifices and economies - effectively living pretty basic existence for a good while. Now yes, I get, that base price to get on the ladder has gone up, perhaps disproportionately - but equally, so have expectations and a certain sense of entitlement.

I agree with that and to answer on the following quote:

Given the UK economy relies entirely on selling each other loans and mortgages, I've no idea what they're going to do about this. I suspect it'll be a huge disaster though I hope it isn't, and either way if your house is half a million now, it probably won't be half as much then. Sorry.

This is just simply wrong. The UK economy does not entirely revolve around simply buying and selling loans and mortgages, this is a ridiculous statement. Large parts of the economy rely on feeding and clothing ourselves, then there are leisure industries, transport, white goods, electronic goods to name but a few.
Some of these industries are obviously non-essential but some are and all the time there is population and population growth they will continue to thrive. Unless there is a cataclysmic event on a Hollywood scale things are unlikely to change massively, granted there will be some leveling events where prices drop but unless a comet hits the planet it will not implode in the way you suggest and if it does how I pay my mortgage will probably be the last thing on my mind.

HF,

I agree about building the small and affordable homes and one thing that occurs to me is that we have a massive amount (certainly in the south) of empty and unused business parks, some of these in my opinion should be flattened and turned into housing. A far better use for land that is already built on than developing new areas.

Carl.