Standard of Living – Risen?

quote:

Originally posted by Martin Payne:
It would seem that these flats will help in some small way to alleviate this problem without turning yet another bit of green belt into concrete jungle.

I bet you they won't - some beeatch holding company will snap up all those flats and - hey presto! - bloody rip off rents and poor sod tenants - as per effing usual.

BTW Mick - I bet being a taxi driver can be just as stressful as upper management - get some pished-up chav puking all over your "office" and that's stress!

I get a lot of stress from Mick's posts. Repetitive strain injury from laughing so much is no fun when it's post-industrial strength. My grin is now so wide you could push me through a letterbox!

Looks like there are the usual two camps.

Camp 1 is the "Live to Work" camp, that Mr. Parry seems to be president of.

Camp 2 is the "Work to Live" camp, that so many others seem to populate.

My take on it, I have never heard of anybody on their deathbed bemoan the fact that they did not spend more time at the office.

regards,

michael

lol mykel, nicely observed.

I also know how to live the best of both worlds. If anyone would like to know, then please send a cheque for £200 to...

Andrew

Arguably most 'work' consists of wasting time producing polluting junk, not in enhancing human/world experience.

quote:

Originally posted by domfjbrown:
I bet you they won't - some beeatch holding company will snap up all those flats and - hey presto! - bloody rip off rents and poor sod tenants - as per effing usual.

Surely this is just supply and demand? If rents are high then there is a shortage of properties available. I can't see how you can moan about high rent and building more properties in the same post.

I agree. However, the demand for more housing can be driven by the basis of pure need without having to fuel the greedy middle tier of buy-to-let merchants. Without them houses will still be built because there is no shortage of potential first-time owner-occupiers.

Mr Toy

Instead of whinging about Buy to Let Landlords.........get off your ass and become one.

Regards

Mick

Not exactly an advantageous time to buy, and not exactly the easiest time to sell either...

Andrew

quote:

Instead of whinging about Buy to Let Landlords.........get off your ass and become one.

No way! I've got principles.

Mr Toy

There is nothing wrong with you occupying the moral high ground but by doing so, you lose the moral right to moan.

It is your choice, be a have or a have not and it is all entirely down to you.

Personally I think you are mad.

Regards

Mick

It would be mad to buy (to let or to live) right now.

Andrew

Mick,

I wouldn't be moaning if the state of the housing market as it is was purely down to market forces. In which case you'd be right in that I should become a more competitive player and work more intelligently/dilligently etc.

I'm moaning because I have this whiff of a suspicion that the market has been manipulated by the government to some degree. My efforts are thus better concentrated on pursuading people to vote Conservative at the next General Election. A Tory government should cut public spending by reducing the squandering of public (our) money, stop raiding pension funds and recreate an ideal climate for equities to flourish.

The Big Money will then hopefully fuck off out of domestic property and leave it for those who want to buy a roof over their heads.

Otherwise working harder and earning more money just drives the prices of houses up even more to the extent that any remaining disposable income would be the same as before we all got so greedy and industrious.

I suppose that with enough plebs around you, you can always be at the top of the pile, and I suppose also that you can rise to stratospheric levels in society even if you are only semi-literate.

My pension fund is underperforming because of this shift in where the Big Money goes - until the pension companies also invest in property. The problem there is that a relatively big pension payout will still be inadequate if folks are still renting or paying off mortgages well into their retirement.

And guess what happens this coming April...

Maybe common-sense is starting to prevail...
Reuters article

quote:

I'm moaning because I have this whiff of a suspicion that the market has been manipulated by the government to some degree. My efforts are thus better concentrated on pursuading people to vote Conservative at the next General Election. A Tory government should cut public spending by reducing the squandering of public (our) money, stop raiding pension funds and recreate an ideal climate for equities to flourish.

But the Torys created this situation. By allowing the right to buy social housing (not a bad thing) BUT the funds this created could not be used to build new social housing (a bad thing).

The result more owner occupiers, less social housing, so more private renting, pushing up rents, making buy to let more profitable, so pushing up house prices etc.

quote:

Originally posted by reductionist:
I can't see how you can moan about high rent and building more properties in the same post.

I've got no problem with houses being built - I DO have a problem with rich bastards snapping them up and then forcing everyone else (as tenants) to pay the flippin' mortgages.

Is there any way a "Buy to let" can be manipulated so I'm both landlord and tenant?? If so, I'm game for that (as I have 2 mates who'd also be up for being tenants)?

As for the Reuters article - reducing interest rates is a joke; house prices for first time buyers are so far out of whack from wages they earn that an interest rate of 0% won't enable them to buy at 3x their wages (standard mortgage multiple), since the average wage is around a fifth to sixth of an average house price as of right now.

Roll on the recession.

quote:

Originally posted by domfjbrown:
Is there any way a "Buy to let" can be manipulated so I'm both landlord and tenant?? If so, I'm game for that (as I have 2 mates who'd also be up for being tenants)?

As for the Reuters article - reducing interest rates is a joke...

Roll on the recession.

Actually there is a way, or at least you can count part of mortgage repayments off against rental income, get a good accountant and this can work well. Hoever, you are still buying at what many would say are inflated prices.

My reference was nothing to do with interest rates, intereset are so low that the issue is not interest repayments but actually repaying the actual cost of the home. My reference was to the annual decline in house prices from a source which isn't as biased as some (Nationwide, Halifax).

Agree, I will benefit from a recession save a few grand potentially lost on equities (nothing compared to a hundred grand or two low house prices where I live).

Matthew

Ok, house prices are now falling as I actually predicted 18 months ago (and why I didn't take the offer from my Old Man at that time for a nice deposit) but nobody is going to sell a house for less tha they paid for it, so they will ride the storm and rent it out.

I don't blame anyone for so doing, but the buy-to-let-fuelled housing boom should never have been allowed to start in the first place.

Mick,

I will most probably be buying a house within the next 18 months thanks to my father's resources gained during the we've-never-had-it so-good generation, i.e: yours. I'll thus be "all right Jack..." but what about the others who don't have parents like mine or yourself as parents?

BTW, there are so many parallels between yourself and my old man re. his career it's unreal!

MI ProdE etc?

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Toy:
I will most probably be buying a house within the next 18 months thanks to my father's resources gained during the we've-never-had-it so-good generation, i.e: yours.

Ah - but the "never had it so good" generation ain't all that. My dad worked his arse off from 1957 until 2004 (doing voluntary work from 1999), and has NOTHING. OK, he and my mum have a house, but they've been fucked over out of two inheritences that were rightfully theirs etc etc...

I doubt people WILL be able to keep renting out their paid over the odds houses once the interest rate rockets - it's only a matter of time too.

I'll be alright - I'll put all my stuff in storage and live in a tent if I can't afford rent.

quote:

Originally posted by domfjbrown:
I doubt people WILL be able to keep renting out their paid over the odds houses once the interest rate rockets - it's only a matter of time too.

What makes you say this Dom? I thought as the economy slows, interest rates will fall? It's not like the '80s where the Government can use interest rates as a political tool.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
It's not like the '80s where the Government can use interest rates as a political tool.

OH well... There goes another theory. That will mean people will STILL be sinking money into property instead of stocks. Great.

Possibly we live in our minds and bodies more than in the 'material' world,

Things change/sometimes so do we, and possibly (well actually really) the recent 'property' boom 'lull' is causing people to waste less on credit-purchases. Referring to original poster - will people buy adequate budget items rather than overpriced boxes?

Come on guys, time to enjoy your life now and not get caught up in the assets race. No matter how much you have there will always be someone richer than you but that does not mean they are happier, the person you envy will envy a richer person etc. Happiness is mostly created by your postition in your community not by material wealth.

By the time our generation (post boomers) retires the whole economic and demographic landscape will have changed. Not to speak about the physical landscape, if global warming takes off anything can happen.

Can anyone recommend a good recording of the International?

cheers
Gus

Yes - life should be for good healthy lucky enjoyable living, but it is tough for some people to get accommodation.

No. I have never listened to 'The Internationale' seriously right through, but I love all stirring bits I have heard on e.g. radio-film-TV-in Naim dealers. Initial Google or Amazon search not very forthcoming either.