[bazzais]

I do have a 'predicament' around the subject as I agree to both sides. But that brings me to believe thats its a 'divide' that should be adjusted - and adjusted up and together not bow down.

[bazzais]

There is no solution - only ideals.  I've given up politics to look after myself and when I can help others.  I spent hours and hours shouting and question time, delivering party political leaflets and trying to provide 'ideal' solutions. But in the end - if your not involved in politics - all you can do is what you can.

[doganjo]

Great to read, how despite her sad loss, Doganjo's efforts has enabled her to be where she is now.

The house build was a project to get me over the second sad loss when my second husband was killed in an avalanche (not his fault!), and each time almost all profits were ploughed back in - so i am not rich beyond compare - I have moved to Central Scotland where my new house in Aberdeenshire with 10 acres was worth the same as this one, smaller, and not so well built, with one acre (but near my kids which is worth millions more than any house)

[deepinthewoods]

dogano, please accept my apology here for saying you were smug, it was a bad choice of words on my part and not quite what i meant to say. for any offence caused, im sorry.

i admit to being a bit sore that my life hasnt enabled me to get anywhere near the housing ladder, the only time i did get close i had to stop and look after my daughter full time.
 it does annoy me that lots and lots of poeple in this country have to raise families in sheds, chalets, b+b's and caravans (i dont mean travellers, they choose that way) and statics, because there is no adequate social housing provision. the rise of the slum landlord is well documented.
it also really p.....s me off that buy to let mortgages are being paid off with housing benefit from the government.
the house market bubble was and is still financed by the government.
 i recieve benefits but still work and pay income tax, if i could work full time, my income still would not be enough to afford me buying a house, so now nearing 40 im accepting of the fact i will never own my own house. and that does, i confess p..s me the f..k off!!

[robert waddell]

simplified there is the haves and the have nots      if you buy a plot of land and are successful in getting planning and able to afford the house build you should make money as does everybody along the gravy train so what what about the old couple that bought a bungalow in the fifty's for a few hundred pounds and never moved there house is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds  even the farmer that bought his farm for £50 per acre  now worth £10000 an acre and that is without the farm house times change and inflation is the only cause of this spiraling  valuations there always were people that could not afford there own house and always will be

[bazzais]

The first mortgage I had was from Northern Rock - self certified - no proof of earnings was needed and I did it right on the tailend before the collapse.  I simply lied and made up what I was earning and claimed it was my first year in self employment and had no proof of earnings on paper.

Luckily I was single, had a job and no kids - so it made no sense to be paying cash for rent as a mortgage was not only cheaper but I was also paying into a mortgage fund that would eventually mean the house was signed over to me.

Today its harder to lie and get a mortgage you have to invent a company and then say you work for them, get a few payslips printed and hardest of all come up with a substantial deposit to show your committed. Or you need to have a job that earns over your outgoings so you can save.

I agree with robert - simplified there will always be the have and the have nots - but in the housing market it swings both ways.  People renting have:- (in an ideal world) no responsibility for upgrading properties in any way like fixing boilers, putting new roofs on every few years, painting and decorating, they are not tied to the housing market if they want to move, building insurance costs etc etc

The housing market is also not the only market where you see such 'profits'  - if you had kept that old ford escort you had as a teenager it would be worth thousands now.  If you'd have bought that domain name for £50 early on in the internet boom it could be worth £xxx,xxx now, if youd invested in land 20 years ago youd be creaming it.

Landlords also pay tax on their income and also tax on any profits from the sale of properties - but I guess the area is rife with fraud and unscrupulous landlords.

I am speaking as a total outsider here as I own a 5 properties now with no mortgages on any of them - but this is my business - and I pay tax on every penny of my income and paid tax on every penny it cost me to buy those properties.

The housing price bubble is and never was powered solely by housing benefit claimants - most landlords will not rent to housing benefit claimants because most of them dont know how to look after a house as their own.  - Ok so I am playing devils advocate here - but their is no 'right' to own a house - Thatcher + successive governments should have never sold off housing stock - we should as a country be able to supply and build housing for everyone at costs that can be sustained by the tax paying workers.  I certainly dont want a load of homeless people living in caravans parking up near me where their only income is robbing and stealing to survive.  Its why I pay tax because I believe I've had a little more cake than I deserve and should spread a little around.

[deepinthewoods]

i agree that there is no right to OWN a house, but there is a human right to live in one.
that right is being undermined by the housing market,in 24 years i have yet to rent a property where the landlord has undertaken any work to the betterment of the property, i have asked before for improvements on properties and consequentially recieved my notice to leave. there is always someone waiting to take any house in whatever state it is. some estimates put the number of homeless in temporary accomodation in this country at 800 000.
 im lucky, ive got somewhere, but I know of families living in places you wouldnt house a dog, and paying rent to a landlord through housing benefit. this is NOT uncommon. i appreciate that maybe im coming at this from a slightly different angle, having struggled through to a position where i now have a house, and indeed the internet.
there is, i agree, always going to be the haves and have nots, but when hope is lost as it is now for most of the have nots, where does that leave society as a whole?
 i wonder how many peoples 2nd home mortgages have been paid off by tenants on housing benefit? its happening all around me here in cornwall. the landlord just increases the rent to cover his increase in taxes, the housing benefit gets more and more reduced and more families are put into poverty. it isnt sustainable,it isnt moral, it isnt humane and the riots of last year were only a hint of what could happen if housing in this country isnt sorted. more 21k houses please and LOTS of them.

[robert waddell]

well i will disagree with bazzais
that old ford escort  i had one and a succession of Opel's the proper Opel's  they were rotten and to rebuild them properly costs more than they are worth
the last council house building programme was full of corruption and the unit cost of each was far greater thanself build
but that white manta  A  and kadett c coupe were sex on wheels and still are if you can afford one

[deepinthewoods]

and ive got a rather special mk1 golf in my shed

[robert waddell]

very lucky you DTW 

[deepinthewoods]

ah mite be broke robert, but i ent daft.

[Dizzycow]

If anyone is looking for a builder in Central Scotland then get in touch with Craig's Eco Construction. Michal Sroka, a (rather handsome, ladies!!!) Polish guy, runs the company and they were astonishingly cost effective, time effective, willing to work with eco materials and technology, clean, honest, fun, tidy, skilled...... I could go on and on. Michal has recently started doing prefab houses using cost (and eco) effective materials. I feel so strongly about this company that every year I attend the Homebuilding And Renovations Show in Glasgow, and stand with them as a client promoting this company. We encountered many cowboy builders on our initial foray into tenders, and were horrified by the lack of detail and information in quotes, the attitudes..... again - I could go on. And no, they're not paying me. 

[Smalltime]

Buy to Let is what has effectively destroyed the housing market for first time buyers and I would end it immediately with huge taxation for owning more than one home. Soon, however, the free market will finally tip the scales back into the favour of the working young. Rents are not going up in the foreseable future because people just cannot pay anymore and increasingly they actually will not. Interest rates, however, run in cycles of consecutive periods of an average of fifteen. Therefore you can expect, from such historic lows, 15 - 20 rises in interest rates of at least 0.25% a time. From present levels it does not take mastermind to work out that mortgage rates will triple from current levels and soon many bald headed eggheads will appear on the news to tell us how they knew this would happen all along with the printing of extra money, as it always has historically led to gross inflation. More QE is on the horizon so more to blame it on coming soon. Once rates have reached 7% or 8% again and no tenants can possibly afford to pay double their existing rent and no landlords can possibly afford to subsidise the additional mortgage payments the inevitable selling will begin, along with defaults, repossessions and more screaming unhappy families crying on the news. The housing market will collapse, albeit briefly, either through interest rate rises or just the fact our society cannot be permanently housed and sustained by the tax paying few, especially given another 5 million immigrants have joined it over the past decade. House prices and rents have never been so grossly distorted when compared to the average wage and anyone who thinks this is sustainable in any long-term way is the likely to be the type of idiot who is renting out three homes he 'owns' through overpriced, buy-to-let mortgage arrangements and when the wheels fall of that particular wagon we may start to solve the housing problem for first time buyers.

I think the price of housing and the opportunities to buy a home for the first time is a pretty touchy subject for those of us between 30 and 40 who have been unable to get onto the housing ladder. Many who normally would have been able to have been absolutely crippled throughout their 20's paying off university expenses and many I know still are. Once they have paid off that 20 - 30k they can start saving the same again to eventually be able to borrow 20 times their salary - does that sound like a working and sustainable system to you?

[deepinthewoods]

ive finished paying my student loan about 7 yrs ago.
to buy a house now, if i could raise a 10% deposit of 25k id have to borrow about 10x my annual income. so to pay off a mortgage it would take half of my income for the next 20 yrs. that would buy me a small 2 bed cottage here in cornwall. with no land i might add so where would my poor chickens go??

[robert waddell]

but that old golf might just get you the deposit