Monthly housing costs

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Monthly housing costs
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How much a month is your rent/mortgage

Less than ï¿½100

21%

[ 13 ]

Less than ï¿½200

[ 5 ]

Less than ï¿½400

18%

[ 11 ]

Less than ï¿½600

21%

[ 13 ]

Less than ï¿½800

11%

[ 7 ]

Less than ï¿½1000

[ 3 ]

Yikes

13%

[ 8 ]

Total Votes : 60

Author

Message

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 12 9:25 pm Post subject:
Less than ï¿½1000 covers most of the other options...

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 4:18 am Post subject:

I'd be surprised if anyone with a family buying anywhere near London could get a (repayment) mortgage for less than 1000 a month - the house prices are so high that I don't see any other possibilities, other than squeezing into a small property and stick all t'kids in one room. I refer, of course, to people with normal salaries, not people who buy a new property every year at bonus time.

And yes, we do still have our house in Blighty. I ticked the last box, although we currently have some nice tenants paying the mortgage for us.

oldish chris

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 6:19 am Post subject:

I think you need a zero. I've been mortgage free for bout 10 years. I've always tried to keep my debts to a minimum - so when others borrowed sackloads for a motorcar, I had a dead cheap Lada. I think I've got the last laugh.

Right now, there are loads of people who are around 50 years old, are weighed down with debt and are facing additional financial problems.

Outside of London, houses are affordable, though I suppose parents need to help with the first purchase - quite a bit of our nest-egg has gone that way. Then the little darlings must learn to avoid continental holidays and big cars (never "up-size" in other words).

Penny Outskirts

Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 23385
Location: Planet, not on the....

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 6:35 am Post subject:

oldish chris wrote:

Outside of London, houses are affordable, though I suppose parents need to help with the first purchase - quite a bit of our nest-egg has gone that way. Then the little darlings must learn to avoid continental holidays and big cars (never "up-size" in other words).

Houses aren't affordable for the majority outside London.

Sally Too

Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 2511
Location: N.Ireland

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 7:27 am Post subject:

oldish chris wrote:

Mortgage free here too, but not quite so long. Like you we didn't lead an extravagant lifestyle even while many around us were borrowing to do so...

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 7:30 am Post subject:
You could also do with an option of net debt free. We're currently mortgage free but with the artificially low interest rates, lack of housing stock etc it would probably make sense to buy another property to rent out.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 8:50 am Post subject:
Percentage of income would be a better way of looking at it IMO - ï¿½1k as 10% of income is rather different to ï¿½1k as 50% of income. Though HB complicates matters, if it applies.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 9:12 am Post subject:
There are any number of ways of looking at it. All of which make it rather too complicated for a simple poll. My consideration was "life choices". e.g. I'm kind of looking at it from a point of view of people who are living somewhere they are reasonably happy living, and whether they could keep living there whilst choosing a job on the basis of what they want to do, rather than what it pays.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 9:18 am Post subject:

Agreed. Be far too difficult for a simple poll to draw any kind of really useful information. People may have no mortgage, but huge credit card debts, or a massive mortgage, but an even more massive trust fund to pay for it.

Interesting tho.

I suppose one interesting figure would be net worth, but again, there'd be someone living in a huge mansion, with little income to pay for the heating, and they'd be worse off, in many people's books than others.

Too many factors to draw any kind of conclusion.

Pilsbury

Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 5645
Location: East london/Essex

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 9:19 am Post subject:

I am sort of in the lucky position of ticking thr less than ï¿½600 box for a London property. However that is still over 50% of the salary from a job I enjoy doing and came at the price of losing my mum when I was 28 so some good, lots of bad.
I got the house 10 years ago when prices were relatively normal and my brother already owned a property so only had to take a 50% mortgage to buy out isw inheritance, other than that I would have absolutely no chance of owning.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 9:22 am Post subject:

@ jema - I get you. The fact that it's very very difficult to house yourself cheaply AND earn enough to live without claiming benefits is, IMO, one of the things that is screwing this country up. Mortgage and rent payments are only part of the story though - the other unavoidable fixed costs of living don't go away when you become mortgage free (water rates, council tax, power supplies) and you still have to maintain the property.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 11:32 am Post subject:

marigold wrote:

the other unavoidable fixed costs of living don't go away when you become mortgage free (water rates, council tax, power supplies) and you still have to maintain the property.

Very true, and I would probably not have posted the poll if we had not recently replaced the dying flat roof. You don't really have a relatively free roof over you head if the place is about to fall down.

Bebo

Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 12590
Location: East Sussex

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 11:41 am Post subject:
Talking of the cost of housing, it ain't going down, but housing benefit is. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18567855

chez

Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 11:47 am Post subject:
I really hope they're going to legalise prostitution at the same time. B*stards.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Sun Jun 24, 12 12:05 pm Post subject:

The problem with HB, is that a lot of it actually ends up in the pockets of private landlords, thus fueling the BTL boom which creates MORE inequality. Rent caps and higher taxes on rental income would be a better way of sorting things out, but no government is going to suggest that. Making poor people homeless or forcing them to live in substandard accommodation is considered a much better policy than squeezing BTL landlords.

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