Reply to: Won't somebody think of the children?

[BrilloPad]

What goes around comes around, the kids will leave them in the care of strangers 24 hours a day once they reach their dotage.

I remember hearing about a couple who looked after his father. He could not eat properly - so they made him a trough to eat out of.

Their child was playing with wood in the garden. They asked him what he was making. "A trough - so I can feed you both when you get old".

Quite.....

[bobspud]

Keep reminding yourself if you are on £43K you are well off in real terms. That's why they tax us higher. Most of you see that far in the rear view mirror. Can you buy a 2 bed flat in a reasonable area down south with that?

Probably Nowhere near London, but you did say reasonable area

[vetran]

AS someone who knows several early years teachers, they often DO have to take the role of surrogate parents of incoming reception children (age 4/5). Forget children having rudimentary reading/writing skills when they arrive, many cannot speak or interact with each other, cannot use the toilet, etc.

I agree this is pretty bad but you have to treat the symptoms as well as the cause.

This is total crap. You are a contractor. Your wife was presumably a high-earning professional. When both of you are on the median wage - or lower as many obviously are - it is much much harder. I know people who do make this sacrifice under those circumstances and it really IS a sacrifice.

Us on CUK do not generally know what it's like to be a regular person. That's not a good or a bad thing, but it is useful to be aware of.

our experience is the same. Various primary school teachers have told us similar stories and Mrs V has minded a few (unfortunately it tends to be the none professional parents that tend to have the kids who aren't potty trained etc).

Keep reminding yourself if you are on £43K you are well off in real terms. That's why they tax us higher. Most of you see that far in the rear view mirror. Can you buy a 2 bed flat in a reasonable area down south with that?

[vetran]

There's just one snag with that cunning plan Baldri, sorry, .. Milan.

It's unusual to find a whole neighbourhood where every property is on sale at the same time.

And if you did it would likely be down the road from a melted down nuclear reactor, or by the sea and being washed away twenty feet a year by winter storms.

or be a drug riddled hole up north where the council has given up.

[OwlHoot]

I have an easy solution, we have all witnessed how higher earners slowly and gradually over a number of years, perhaps a decade or two buy properties in cheaper more financially accessible areas (of cities) and slowly the area comes up

well what about, bring that to the modern age, gather together a group of like minded people, with the means to buy property in accessible areas, then together, pick an area, and then, all at the same time, buy all the available property there

voila, overnight a poor area becomes a nice area

I am surprised this is not executed in an organized planned way

Milan.

There's just one snag with that cunning plan Baldri, sorry, .. Milan.

It's unusual to find a whole neighbourhood where every property is on sale at the same time.

And if you did it would likely be down the road from a melted down nuclear reactor, or by the sea and being washed away twenty feet a year by winter storms.

[d000hg]

Wash your ears out then - https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...y-HPI-2016.pdf

£190275 is the national average. Only London is over £300k.

Cheers FAQ I must have mis-heard.

[sasguru]

Wash your ears out then - https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...y-HPI-2016.pdf

£190275

> 500K in London apparently.
Unless you have inherited a property or paid off your mortgage, there is no way in hell that one salary, even a reasonably highly paid one, will be enough to start a family hence the OP's point is crap.

[TheFaQQer]

Average can be a misleading term of course, but I'm sure I heard on the news the average house price is now £300k.

Wash your ears out then - https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...y-HPI-2016.pdf

£190275 is the national average. Only London is over £300k.

[d000hg]

By almost anywhere else I assume you mean down south? The national average in 2003 for the UK was £155k. Only London, the rest of the South East and the South West were above that.

Well most of the houses are down south. Certainly the NE is at the bottom in housing prices (possibly joint with Wales?) so even the rest of the north is pricey!

Average can be a misleading term of course, but I'm sure I heard on the news the average house price is now £300k.

Let's take two people each on £23k salaries. How long will it take them to save enough to buy a house, and reach a point that one of them can quit work and raise children and still pay the mortgage?

Our house is worth less than the national average and yet we only just reached the point we could live off my wife's teaching salary alone... I use hers since that's a fairly low professional salary but even that is considered quite high around here (£31k IIRC). We do not live a profligate lifestyle, no flashy cars or expensive holidays.

So it's no surprise people want to stay in work around their family!

[bobspud]

By almost anywhere else I assume you mean down south? The national average in 2003 for the UK was £155k. Only London, the rest of the South East and the South West were above that.

Yes there are plenty of houses in the rest of the country that would be affordable but not the high paid professional jobs to match.

2 bedroom flat for sale in Washbrook Road, Birmingham, B8

[bobspud]

To be fair, you're right. The model is different now - my cousin and his girlfriend have moved into a flat in north London together (he's from Middlesbrough, anywhere's a step up barring Bradford) and will probably have to postpone kids for a while. It's more a case of having to have kids later these days and the model will still work.

Im not sure it will. My salary when I bought my first place was £27k (nearer £40k with OT) I got a £50k mortgage on a £56k two bed terrace in Walthamstow. (bought it on my own) then a few years later I moved from that house to a barn in the country that cost £240k but I made 80k on the first house and in that time my salary had doubled to £80k. So at no point was my actual salary a stretch to buy either of the houses.

Moving on 20 years

This is around the corner from my little pad and it is quite literally ten times what I paid for my starter home.

2 bedroom terraced house for sale in Queen Elizabeth Road, Walthamstow, London, E17

In 2016 (23 year old) me would need to be earning at least 125,000k to get that mortgage. How does my wife ever get to stop working to pop a sprog with a 4k a month mortgage?

and that is the issue facing most of the people in the south east of England. The west is not much better.

[milanbenes]

no Dad.



Milan.

[oracleslave]

sas,

good one, subject and point are valid, maybe the sheep cannot get their heads around the concept

why wait for an area to become "nice" or "trendy", why not, get organised, gather together a group (large group) of people, with spending power, and colonise a run down area and over night make it a "nice" "trendy" "hip" "cool" area

simples

Milan.

Milan,

Are you a hipster?

[milanbenes]

sas,

good one, subject and point are valid, maybe the sheep cannot get their heads around the concept

why wait for an area to become "nice" or "trendy", why not, get organised, gather together a group (large group) of people, with spending power, and colonise a run down area and over night make it a "nice" "trendy" "hip" "cool" area

simples

Milan.

[sasguru]

no, more like a flash mob

a load of people who are in the market for a house in a city, group together, pick an area, and en masse buy up all the houses in that area

over night, the area becomes a nice area

voila

flash mob buying houses and taking a rundown area into a nice area in a flash

Milan.

Milan give it up and count some more tapes.