Yes, utterly super. Got that on tape of all things. -- Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply) 116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2 Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see. www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Hell, I don't care what it looks like on the outside TBH. -- Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply) 116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2 Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see. www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Was that the one that they put a storey underground with a glass roof at one end? I liked that one. The ones that amuse me are when they build a one or two bedroom house and then the woman gets pregnant during the build so they end up bedroom short before they've even moved in.
Not quite as mad as recent years where average prices approached 6 times average earnings. It approached 5 times in the 70s and barely broke through 4 in the 80s.
But people have always wanted nice houses in nice areas. Prices have gone through the roof as a result of the easy availability of cheap credit so there's been much more 'money' chasing the same houses.
It did in the mid '80s. I bought my first house with a mortgage based on my earnings alone (2.5 x basic and 1 x overtime) and that got me a 3 bedroomed semi that today would cost about £175k and would be out of my price range if using the same guidelines.
Here is my view. In summary affordable housing can be produced tomorrow, but there are too many interests that prefer it that the price of land remain high. It will never happen is my prediction. Anyone who doesn't like it needs to emigrate or revolt. There is a shortage of "building" land. This is controlled by the government i.e. the voters. As already discussed the price of houses in the more popular areas is controlled by the price of land. I knew someone who had a house in one of the more desirable parts of London that in about 2000 was valued at £1M (real value, a firm offer) and was insured for the purpose of rebuilding for £150k. The surveyors report on the rebuilding cost was only a couple of years old. For the last say 10 years money has been very cheap. The price of houses was set by the amount of money people could borrow. The above has generated a boom in house prices which incidently I suspect many people have come to see as their right. i.e. free pension. It will be interesting to see what happens if the dip continues down for a couple of years more. I guess that a lot of people will be complaining a lot. "I was miss-sold my house, I want my 'pension' back!" I suspect that there are also factors concerning the movement of capital from abroad into UK housing and also the movement of people which I suspect may be increasing demand also. Unless land is freed for building, house prices will remain dominated by the value of the land. I lot of people are betting that this will continue. Since those people are voters, it may turn out that they will be able to maintain the restricted supply of building land. I personally, perhaps only because I do not own any land, feel that the division that this puts on our society is likely to be unsustainable. The landed and the un-landed forever seperated. Hopefully prices will soon return to their 1996 levels at which time I was looking to buy good 2/3 bed flat in Islington for <£150k. Sadly I was not settled at work and did not do the deal. Such a place would now rent for something approaching £2k a month I would think. Some people will of course emigrate to more enlightened places where housing is not a financial tool which moves money from one section of our society to another but not everyone has that option.
Same applies for the mid to late 90's. In 95 I was earning about 14K and bought a 2 bed mid terrace for 36K, and in 99 got the current 3 bed detached house for 68K. It all went mental around 2004 by my estimation.
My old gaff in Kempston was built in 1995/96, it has a double garage and a 6 car drive. Every house on the close has parking for at least three cars on the drive and a garage. Only three houses out of 28 had a double though.
I have to assume so, or we would never have got on the property ladder. In fact, our first flat was considerably less than 3x salary. -- Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply) 116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2 Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see. www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Personally I really don't think the value of the land in Islington has any bearing on the values of the flats that are built on it *except* as something upon which to build more flats IYSWIM. -- Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply) 116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2 Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see. www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Could have been, there's a list on Wikipedia of all the builds. I think more houses should have storeys underground, or at least garages on the ground floor. Then you could get double garages on all houses without adding to the amount of land needed.
Three storeys, 1st floor garage, 2nd & 3rd accommodation? I like that idea. The problem we found when looking at places with integral double garages is that it impinged on the living acommodation too much. I think that for our needs we'd have to move the bedrooms downstairs and have kitchen, dining & lounge upstairs. It would make fitting a nice conservatory onto the lounge a bit of a bastard though...
