First Time Buyers go on strike over extortionate house prices

They might need services provided by people with families, who might not want to live in an area with no schools.

Well if they're happy to wait 90 minutes for an ambulance if the have a heart attack or stroke, no problem.

Governments never do a good job of "social engineering". It'll either not work or the cost will be prohibitive.

It doesn't matter what the percentage of the population is. If the local schools and hospitals are crap because they can't get enough/decent staff, this is likely to have a downward effect on prices. House prices can vary massively with the perceived quality of local schools.

But the crazy things is the further they push prices up, the harder they will fall. What a ludicrous policy.

cd

I'm going on a Ferrari strike. I'm not prepared to pay ludicrous prices for what is little more than a suped up Fiat. I'm voting with my feet and am not going to pay for an overpriced Italian car.

"Andy Pandy" wrote

What sort of services are only performed by people with *families*, and never single people/couples??

"davidof" wrote

That's brilliant, thanks David - "Crowley's Law" will mean that all Ferrari's will suddenly be a whole lot cheaper in 6 months to a year's time!

wrote

But we're less than half-way into this year yet - does that mean FTB% will be over 36% by the year-end?

No, you miss the point. Although retired people themselves may have no direct interest in local schools, *some* of the people who provide services they require will. Some won't, but by putting off a significant percentage of them, there may not be enough people to supply the service, or the service will be expensive because there are fewer suppliers.

Do people really think that? I was 28 and several years in teaching before it finally started getting to me that if I stayed in teaching on a s**te salary, I would never be able to buy a house. Fortunately for me, the combination of the recession and a change in career to something that paid a non joke salary, meant that I got on the property ladder.

Why did I want to get on the property ladder? Well because living in private rental accommodation is insecure, expensive and shit. People say, 'we should have the same attitude to housing as on the continent', without appreciating that the private rental market is much healthier and more affordable there than it is here. It probably would be a good thing for fewer people to buy houses but boom or recession, the desire to own your own place is not going to go away.

That's odd. Many people I know are renting their place for around half the cost of an interest-only mortgage on the same house or flat... mortgage interest is wasted money, particularly when prices are dropping.

It's nice to see so many selfless 'buy to let' 'investors' so eager to subsidise their tenants in this day and age.

Mark

Maybe they would prefer feral robs roaming the streets mugging them for their pension money?

Maybe they would prefer feral robs roaming the streets mugging them for their pension money?

Perhaps that's a phenomenon of an over saturated 'buy to let' market? It was certainly never affordable when I was renting. You are certainly right that if prices are dropping then the best place to be - from a purely financial pov - is in a rental.

The large buy to let component of the market makes the situation risky and unpredicatble. If it is the case than the rent on a property might be half the mortgage interest on it, then the only reason why investors are not selling up, is because they think they will make a return on the value of the house. Once the market starts declining that may provoke panic selling and the 'hard landing' everyone has been fretting about.

I felt exactly the same when the salesman at the local volvo dealers sneered at me. I put most of the £12000 I had in cash back in the bank and went around the corner to the Lada dealer. Got a 3 yr old Lada with 10000 miles on it for £1300. Very reliable car once one got used to the steering.

X-No-Archive: yes

Jest not! That I let my places at below the market price is not so much due to any degree of altruism on my part but for sound, economic reasons. Firstly offering good value for money means that the local agent can cherry-pick reliable tenants, eliminating DSS subsidized dross and pus stains from the East European criminal gypsy republics.

The reasonable rents and prime seafront positions [1] usually attracts tenants with good payment track records from other properties managed by the agent. Direct debit payments are mandatory. The agent has authority to spend up to GBP200 on repairs/replacements without reference to me.

Such repairs are carried out immediately. The agent knows all the reliable local tradesmen. They provide them with a lot of work so my tenants get a good service. Flats are fitted out with identical appliances throughout with replacement fridge-freezers, extractor fans, cookers and spares etc kept in my lock-up garage. An appliance that goes tango uniform is replaced immediately and the duff unit sent for repair or a replacement is ordered.

All this ensures that tenants have an incentive to stay put. It takes around three months to install a new tenant, during which time I'm now liable for the full council tax, also there's a lot of paperwork involved in ensuring that telephone, leccy accounts etc are squared.

Most important of all is a feeling of pride in providing decent folk with decent homes at reasonable rates. A bit old-fashioned in our Blairite Cool Britannia dog-eat-dog society but I'm old-fashioned.

[1] At first I was little concerned about my seafront only buying policy because at weekends it does get rowdy at nights along the esplanade with drunken revellers spilling out of the all night nightclubs. A tenant, whose lounge window overlooks a seafront bus shelter assured me that he wouldn't miss the weekend free show for the world with half-naked power lap-dancing slappers, bum-floss thong knickers yanked to one side, bouncing their eager beavers on male laps.

Maybe I should put his rent up?

Rental yields now are generally about the same as mortgage interest rates - but of course rent includes stuff like buildings insurance, maintenance, perhaps furnishings etc which an owner has to pay.

6 years ago rental yields were about 10% so renting *was* expensive. But house prices have risen much faster than rents since then.

You had realised that the word 'strike' was a metaphor, not to be taken literally?

If the target market for Ferraris did just that then 'crowley's law', which is just market economics 101, would mean precisely a fall in retail prices of Ferraris. But it's not going to happen for the same reason that the sale of mansions is unlikely to be adversely affected by any fall in the general housing market. The target market of the very wealthy is not as susceptible to the winds of economic change as is the prosective buyer of your 3 bed semi.

Well on average Joe would be say 50% dead, I would suggest that would impact his life much more significantly than someone having to live next to some different neighbours.

Jim.