Are we that desperate to get on the housing "ladder"?

[darmstadt]

intersting but...

renting - each month you pay x and get nothing but a roof over your head for that month so imho dead money

I rent and:

- my landlord has to do all the repairs and maintenance
- they have to take the bins out to the street
- they have to clear the snow
- they have to clean the stairs and other areas
- the have to deal with all the crap like boilers, noisy neighbours, cable, etc.
- lots of other tulip I can't be bothered with
- its very easy to move when I get bored
- ....

buying a house - each month you pay y, get a roof over your head and pay a little bit more towards the house you are buying

You have to do all the above stuff and then you die...

[Ignis Fatuus]

intersting but...

renting - each month you pay x and get nothing but a roof over your head for that month so imho dead money

buying a house - each month you pay y, get a roof over your head and pay a little bit more towards the house you are buying


not saying that the housing market is a good investment to make money but it seems to make more sense than renting in the long term?

Depends on x and y. Doesn't make more sense if y - x > "a little bit more towards the house you are buying".

[formant]

Are we that desperate to get on the housing "ladder"?

My little brother bought rather than rented, then rented out as he moved. He is now considerably richer than Dim.

wish I had done it.

That sort of thing used to work reliably well a decade or more ago. It's gotten a lot more risky since. :-/

[MarillionFan]

I bought a house in 1991 for £24K - sold 2 years later for £26.5K. That was enough for a deposit on a £59K house, which we sold three years later (1996) for £64K. Rented a bit, then bought a house for £179K, sold it 3 years later for £230K. All very nice, especially as I put quite a lot of the profit into my Swiss pension fund, which was a tax deduction, resulting in zero income tax for a year.

The house I own now costs about £1200 a month in mortgage payments. It would cost at least double that to rent it.

Bought my first house in 1665 for a shekkel, sold in 2350 for 3 Zillion Interglalactic credits, before buying a pyramid again in -3000 BC.

Threaded.

[Ignis Fatuus]

I was once there in the same mindset, but after being a good tenant but still being evicted twice at really bad times due to:

a) landlord wanted to convert large house into two smaller properties, then
b) landlord finances going titsup and moving back into their previously rented out house.

...buying a house was the only way to be sure it never happened again.

The whole point is that if you are young and don't have a family, that is not a huge downside. Conversely with a family you buy because that would be a big problem.

[formant]

Are we that desperate to get on the housing "ladder"?

I rent and:

- my landlord has to do all the repairs and maintenance
- they have to take the bins out to the street
- they have to clear the snow
- they have to clean the stairs and other areas
- the have to deal with all the crap like boilers, noisy neighbours, cable, etc.
- lots of other tulip I can't be bothered with
- its very easy to move when I get bored
- ....



You have to do all the above stuff and then you die...

If the UK rental market was anything like the German one, I'm sure there'd be much less desire to buy. Although my family owns a few places, growing up in Germany has no doubt added to my reluctance to buy.

I found the greatest advantages of renting in Germany to be that you simply have a lot more rights as a tenant, and that you get a lot more stability and little risk of eviction. Also that you're allowed to decorate the place as you see fit, and in most cases keep whatever pets you like. All these things are a huge hassle when renting in the UK.

[Ketchup]

Looking at the chart below:


The salary to house price ration is almost double what it was in the mid-90's, if it were like that now i would love to buy. But what you get for your money is now awful. When i was a permie on 50-60k, with a 15% deposit i could only afford a 2 bedroom semi, and what was earning nearly 3x the average UK salary.

[OwlHoot]

But what you get for your money is now awful. ...

WHS - Driving past a newly built average sized house on my way to clientco, I noticed it is being sold as 5 or 6 separate vertically arranged dwellings, not flats exactly, but each must be as thin and pokey as a drainpipe. None has been sold for several months AFAICS, and is that surprising? Who wants to live one house with several others squashed in like kippers? Horrible.

[DimPrawn]

If the UK rental market was anything like the German one, I'm sure there'd be much less desire to buy. Although my family owns a few places, growing up in Germany has no doubt added to my reluctance to buy.

I found the greatest advantages of renting in Germany to be that you simply have a lot more rights as a tenant, and that you get a lot more stability and little risk of eviction. Also that you're allowed to decorate the place as you see fit, and in most cases keep whatever pets you like. All these things are a huge hassle when renting in the UK.

That's why your main home should be bought not rented.

I've had rental agreements that are so restrictive you'd have more freedom in a hotel room. And even if you pay the rent on time every month, if your landlord pisses the money up the wall and fails to pay the mortgage it's you evicted not him.

[VectraMan]

That sort of thing used to work reliably well a decade or more ago. It's gotten a lot more risky since. :-/

Indeed. And that's the problem: people have failed to notice that the situation has changed. As I said I should have bought somewhere in the mid 90s - in fact I had the perfect oppurtunity, a flat for £40K (which seems absurd now) that I could have easily sold for £140K 10 years later. But I wanted the freedom etc., so didn't, rather stupidly.

But 10 years later when I was seriously looking, the mortgage interest (which is just as much dead money as rent) would have been double the rent. That would have been a huge mistake: chances are I'd have been stuck in negative equity, and wouldn't have been able to up sticks to find work through the recession. What a nightmare that would have been. I'm so glad I didn't listen to my parents and all the other experts telling me to buy a house as property "always goes up" etc.