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'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

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Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#101

Post by Brakenshire »

joosters wrote: post #42
CalRobert wrote: post #8

It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. The community may require housing, but the homeowner has an interest in seeing housing prices go up forever. It's similar to this ridiculous notion that expensive housing is a good thing. We give absurd tax breaks to homeowners (why can't I deduct the lost interest on my rent?), and people lament falling…

What? London is full of new housing under construction. Many of the flats will be tiny as well. The problem (for those trying to live in the city) is that the houses will be hugely expensive. For London in particular, the problem is that there are too many people who want to own a house there. That's why the prices are high. You can't call the place underdeveloped, it's not a lack of supply due to regulations. If you…

It's a matter of perspective. On the one hand you're right that it's sheer demand that is a big part of the problem in London. On the other hand it is obvious that everywhere in the UK has serious restriction of supply, because house building has been less than half of what's necessary for many decades, house prices are spiralling, and median house price to income ratios are double now what they were 15 years ago (again, that applies to all parts of the country, even unfashionable places far away from the capital [1]).

Obviously there's the issue with green belts, but even beyond that there's massive potential for increasing the housing density of outer London. Both because of its current low density, and because a lot of the existing housing stock is made up of grey suburban estates which would be more or less unmourned if redeveloped. Look up 'densification' for more information.

Also, of course, it is important to try to reduce demand by making the Northern cities an alternative centre of gravity (HS2, HS3, new local powers for unified city mayors in Manchester and Birmingham, and so on).

[1] - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#102

Post by srgvd »

peteretep wrote: post #90
srgvd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zone 4, two hours a day commuting already.

Sure. I used to commute from Zone 2 to Zone 2, and it took over an hour. Had I instead moved out of the city, and commuted in from Reading, it would have been 45 minutes. Don't assume that commuting in from outside of London will take longer than commuting across London.

I'm next to straight underground line going right to my office.

'Just go to Reading' was exactly my point. In order to save enough for a basic housing in London, my quality of life have to drop significantly for years to come. Yet I'm considered to be 'rich' by HMRC. (Practically, this'd mean switching schools for one of my children, and waiting forever for free timeslots in nearby nurseries for another - while saving maybe extra £5-6k/y in rent, which is peanuts when counting towards possible mortgage).

Avg. house prices in my current ward are ~$750-900k for a 3bd terrace. That's ten years of my net income - and you don't have to work for that! Just sell a house you bought 15 years ago for a fraction of this cost - and here you go. Sure, you'd have to rent - just as I do. Yet, all those people are not considered to be wealthy (and they aren't, with many of them struggling with today's job market), and not taxed on the wealth they hold.

So, for me - it's all about taxation and government imposed incentives. If they want to put a leash on a younger britons generation and then pass it to Chinese landlords - they're on the right track.

Changing taxation alone can drastically shift the power balance between landlords and tenants to ease underlying supply-demand issue.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#103

Post by gambiting »

rjaco31 wrote: post #19
SandB0x wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living in London is insane and it is a really interesting thought experiment. A lot of my friends are moving out of the city and I can't see myself staying here more than another year or two. But for some context, West Hampstead is a fairly nice suburb on three different train and tube lines. The rent for a one-bed flat is high as they are bid up by couples who are both earning. You are at a big disadvant…

How can rail transport be that expensive? (I'm genuinely asking)

Because UK uses a stupid system of surge pricing for their trains. Rather than a flat rate for a journey, you will pay more the closer it is to the departure and the busier the route is. So even if you buy a ticket 6 months in advance, a Monday morning ticket to London is going to cost you 100 pounds+, depending where you are travelling from.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#104

Post by crdoconnor »

mseebach wrote: post #100
crdoconnor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you still don't seem to see the irony of bearded new media workers being priced out of the same market they were busy pricing others out of a decade ago. Because there is no irony. I bitched about that too. I don't want ANYBODY priced out. >I'm also curious about just how many Arab Oil Barons and Russian Oligarchs you think there are, as a percentage of an 8m person city? One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Centra…

> One unoccupied oil baron's mansion in Central London could be demolished and replaced by affordable housing for hundreds of people. LOL. No. The politics of building on the greenbelt might be thorny, but it's nothing compared for what it'd be like to suggest demolishing listed regency buildings anywhere, much less central London. The best you can hope for is to replace the extremely wealthy absent foreigner with an…

* I've stayed in youth hostels in regency houses in London that housed maybe a hundred people. You do realize that they could all fit more than one family?

* Not every house in London is one of those, and there are PLENTY of eyesores that could be demolished and replaced by desperately needed social housing if the politics of London weren't driven by servicing the whims of the ultra-wealthy.

Nobody's going to cry about replacing these eyesores with something affordable:

http://ee24.com/media/articles/uploads/2014/05/15/onehydepar...

Or these:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/31/inside-london...

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#105

Post by grey-area »

sghi wrote: post #97
peteretep wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, ya know, do what everyone else does and commute in?

I understand that is a possible option, but isn't the whole point of this that it's not feasible to live in the city? Being forced further out to commute is kind of the point.

It is feasible to live in the city, there are rents from £70 to £50,000 per week. It is an expensive city, there is a shortage of housing and the options may not suit your aspirations or expectations, but they do exist.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#106

Post by crdoconnor »

mseebach wrote: post #39
CalRobert wrote: post #8

It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. The community may require housing, but the homeowner has an interest in seeing housing prices go up forever. It's similar to this ridiculous notion that expensive housing is a good thing. We give absurd tax breaks to homeowners (why can't I deduct the lost interest on my rent?), and people lament falling…

> It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. > landed incumbents voting to screw over the young That pesky "democracy" and "giving everybody a voice" getting in the way of what I want right now . (oh, and a small nitpick: Homeowners don't have conflict of interest, they simply have a different interest which may conflict with yours)

>That pesky "democracy"

Apparently some people are a fan of the type of democracy that limits voting rights to property owners.

Would you like to return to a time when blacks and women couldn't vote either?

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#108

Post by chrisseaton »

zo1 wrote: post #93
chrisseaton wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And finance will pay you more than double that, and give you a 100% bonus on top of that again. http://oxfordknight.co.uk/jobs/all-jobs/core-risk-and-pricin...

Oxford Knight looks like some sort of recruitment agency. Any link to the actual institution offering that?

No, and to be fair it is the top salary I could find publicly. But I have a couple of friends who are compensated not far off that. Another twist - they're both humanities students, that HN loves to claim will never get a job with their classics and literature.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#109

Post by pjc50 »

CalRobert wrote: post #8

It's maddening that property owners can vote against new construction, when they have a deep conflict of interest. The community may require housing, but the homeowner has an interest in seeing housing prices go up forever. It's similar to this ridiculous notion that expensive housing is a good thing. We give absurd tax breaks to homeowners (why can't I deduct the lost interest on my rent?), and people lament falling…

The lack of reasonable property tax is a big part of pushing valuations into the stratosphere. Look at the outrage over the "mansion tax", for example, which would only apply to million-pound homes.

Apparently socialist New York has a 1.8% property tax? Edit: Austin, Texas has 3% property tax! If you tried that in the UK you'd be denounced as a Communist.

Re: 'Nobody My Age Can Afford to Stay Here Forever'

#110

Post by Gurkenmaster »

peterjancelis wrote: post #29
Gurkenmaster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand you can sell your flat for a higher price in the future.

I would be cautious making assumptions like that. Interests rate have been very low, at times negative even, for a long time.

Right. I forgot that they have to pay (hopefully) 4% interest for the next 25 years. That's an insane amount of money for a flat.
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