Wage inflation

[AtW]

A mortgage is a debt you have on a mandatory outgoing i.e. somewhere to live. Not quite a luxury item for most of us anyway.

Yes, like travel or food - only if you overstretch yourself using taxies and red caviar then you will be broke.

[doodab]

They should have bought cheaper house, maybe even in Scotland - anywhere in the UK is better than risk of overextending oneself on massive debt given that only an idiot or home owner believed that house prices will only go up.

OH FOR ****'S SAKE YOU STUPID MAN.

I'm not talking about people who overextended themselves. I am talking about people with cheap houses in a cheap part of the UK, I'm talking about older people like my parents who bought their house in the midlands 10 years before the boom and who's mortgage was less than £50k, and people my age and a bit older who have saved and worked and bought their houses with 10-20% deposits using money their parents gave them and a 3 or 4 times earnings multiple mortgage in places like Sheffield and Newcastle. People who drive an hour to work, or rent a cheap room in London for work, precisely because they bought a house somewhere they could afford and are now getting shafted on fuel. People who sold two flats in London and moved out to the south coast so they could afford somewhere that would accommodate 2 kids. Some of the most boring people I know, people who don't have any debt apart from a relatively small mortgage and whose idea of extravagance is buying the dog a new bone.

Do you really think the only people struggling are the ones with massive debts and oversize mortgages? You are nearly as out of touch with reality as the bloody politicians mate.

[shaunbhoy]

Yes, like travel or food - only if you overstretch yourself using taxies and red caviar then you will be broke.

Whilst I can see the appeal for you, with your Russkie roots, of living in a flea-ridden bedsit in darkest Brum, some of us have set the bar a bit higher.

[doodab]

I never tried heroin, that does not mean I don't know enough about it to avoid it.

Mortgage is just another kind of debt - the most important part in dealing with debt is making sure you don't overextend yourself and also stress test the system with changed parameters: being out of job, rates go through the roof, banks don't lend so no liquidity in the market (can't sell).

If you don't have a mortgage you are paying rent. If you have responsibility for an entire household the cost is about the same.

[gingerjedi]

AtW has a strange attitude to risk, buying a house is a huge concern but spending 10 years of his life downloading the internet in an attempt to upend Google™ seems like a good gamble.

[Sysman]

Nobody forces you to live in London, especially if you work in IT - frankly if half the people on here spent as much time on Plan Bs there would be another Silicon Valley in UK.

You are totally wrong with the London bit. I long ago realised that if I wanted to return to the UK, it had to be London to find continuous work.

As regards Silicon Valley, the UK has never been as friendly to technology startups as the US.

[lilelvis2000]

They would have borrowed money when rates were 5-6%.

Now rates are 0.5% and they had unexpected few good years with lots more cash they were not meant to have.

Now it's time for rates to go up to 5-6% so that they can keep repaying debt at the rates that were common at the time.

What's the problem? It's not like inflation is under control.

Actually, my mortgage rate when up to 5% two years ago. because we came off a lower rate product and on to the standard tracker. All the products would have cost us £700 and would only have lowered our monthly payment by about £10 over two years. So if the BoE rate goes up our rate will surely go over 6%.

£700 for some twat to punch two keys on a keyboard and hit return...I wish I was in the business.

And to top if off...I've been essentially on bench for 8 months so I and son living on less that £1000/mnth..the wife blows about £1000 on her "essentials" each month. All these increases aren't helping.

I wonder what a interest rate would do anyway..I reckon piss all.

Thanks to the banks of the world for printing money and causing commodity prices to rise..which brings in much more VAT, much more profit for oil companies, and hence more tax. What plan...I wonder what F**ker though it all up.

[lilelvis2000]

Nobody forces you to live in London, especially if you work in IT - frankly if half the people on here spent as much time on Plan Bs there would be another Silicon Valley in UK.

If I wanted steady well-paying work...and not the website design and Joomla! stuff for peanuts I have to to...I would have to be in the Cambridge-Reading-London triangle.

Silicon valley will never happen in th UK. Its far too London centric. And who has enough money to afford London rents and salaries. It is the wrong way to start a company...ask any of the Dragon's.

[AtW]

You pathetic mortals - I'll answer you in full in the morning when I get over the effects of watching "Battlefield Earth" movie

[AtW]

AtW has a strange attitude to risk, buying a house is a huge concern but spending 10 years of his life downloading the internet in an attempt to upend Google™ seems like a good gamble.

I sure made the right choice, and I am sure so did you - the only difference is that one of us will be dating prom queen and the other one will live a pathetic life with the only highlights of posting tulip on CUK