OT : House buying

dwb wrote:

[renting]

Mainly because the accepted wisdom that renting is bad as you're throwing
money away and have nothing to show for it at the end. To be successful
you must buy a house.

Neither do they say how fucking great it is to live for 20 years in
absolute penury living in fear of losing your job.

 

But you've got a job for life ;-)

 

Well I can tell you from personal experience that the cost of renting,
particularly in the south, is pretty horrendous.

Also - over the past few years, there's been a huge increase in people
buying second (or 3rd/4th etc) houses to let = less for first time
buyers to buy.

 

Cheaper than renting:

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/Comment/2003/c030424d.htm

 

A 3 bed semi is not a starter home IMO. A 1 bed terrace is. Or a 1
bed flat.

 

And renting isn't bad? After all - it is throwing away the money on
something you won't end up owning..

I think you are doing this life thing wrongly then..

Phil

--
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Fuking luxury. Our starter hoime was a one bed flat.

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Catman wrote:

Heh - my "starter home" as in the first (and only) house I bought was a
4 bed semi, which had been converted to a 3 bed semi. [1]

Now, even if I sold said property, I couldn't afford much more than a
shite 1 bedroom flat.[2]Unless I split a mortgage with someone else.
Which in this area would set me back £130k. 180k plus for a 3 bed [3]
terrace with garage.

[1] In the north
[2] because I'm back in the south
[3] well two and a boxroom

Hence I'm renting, and chucking loads of my companies money down the drain.
Although soon it will be my own money

 

So like smoking then?[1]

Phil

[1] Apart from the lung cancer, clogged arteries and inability to
breathe without an oxygen cylinder

--
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"I'm training the bats who live in my cubicle
to juggle mushrooms"
Remove sick person to email me

 

No they don't. Maybee oop North, but I've had <counts> at least four
mortgages in the UK over twenty years and was never asked for this.
The occasional 'financial adviser' suggested it, but I always told
them to go screw themselves.

Why would you need the CAB? Most lenders have actual real human people
working for them, and it's normally possible to talk to them. They'd
much rather reduce, or suspend, payments than have you get into
massive unplanned arrears.

But in general I agree with your sentiments. Renting is just about
feeling free and easy with no committments - fine if you want to stay
where you are in life, but not much good if you're looking to improve
your circumstances, which has been normal a expectation for the last
couple of generations in the UK.

 

Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is almost exactly the point I made.

Not I. It was an oblique reference to wage slavery.

 

This is the key bit for me.

 

It can't be the south at those prices, more like the midlands. A two up
two down terrace is £210k+ round here. (Rent £800 - £900 pcm).

I'm getting a strange sense of deja vue.

 

a really shitty bit of the south, maybe.

 

Bexhill

 

Andrewr At Work wrote:bored us all completely to death with wittery
prose along the lines of:

Just a bit of info. 25 year mortgages are rare in France. 20 years,
becoming more popular, but most are either 10,12 or 15 years.

I've a 15 year on on the current place and a 12 year one on the one
dahn sarf.

I'm already 1/3 the way through the one darn sarf. What a psychological
difference it makes to have a shorter mortgage, IMO.

And no, the payments between the 10,12 and 15 year mortgages are not
that much more than the 20 year on that was offered to us.

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Guess it depends on what you call south dunnit?

High Wycombe area - 30 mins west of London, so it's generally not what I
would think of as Midlands, which would be Brum, Derby, Notts etc.

You're brighton aren't you? I seem to remember Brighton prices being
inflated compared to neighbouring towns of equivilent size, just because
it was Brighton - is that still the case? (I'm talking 6/7 years ago).

And don't get me wrong, it'd be very easy to spend much larger sums
round here (Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross are neigbouring towns),
that's just the two cheapest form of housing about..

 

Piffle. Those are Midlands prices where I am. 200k for 2 bed flat
or newish terrace. 250k for a 2 bed semi.

 

I meant where DNC lives, not you, you dumbass.

 

darsy wrote:

Indeed, and you're not wrong, but it serves a purpose for now.