BBC: "Graduates face home ownership woe"

[IBBoard]

...people don't want news, they want olds...

Why is that always so true? The BBC have come up with a news article called Graduates face home ownership woe.

The average graduate starting wage is probably about £24,000. The national average house price was £180,000 but has probably broken £200,000. Ignoring the face that we'd need the deposit, me and my fiancee tried calculating monthly mortgage costs and if you paid 10% of the house price and took a normal 25 year mortgage for the rest then you would end up spending just about all of one person's wages on the payments. Compare that to renting where about half of my wages go on the rent...

Not exactly suprising graduates think they can't afford houses!

[Simguinus]

I bought my flat at Uni in St Andrews for £45k. I got my parents to be gaurantors and rented out two of the rooms to my mates to cover the mortgage costs. My then-girlfriend, now wife did much the same, only earlier. I sold my flat and moved in with her at the end of my 3rd year, and cleared £7k on the flat, which enabled me to pay off me student overdraft, student credit card and still go a bit mad - this when I bought 3000 pts of Undead.....

We moved to Dundee in 2004, having sold our flat in St Andrews for £102,000 . It was a 2-bedroom student flat, FFS. We bought a 3 bedroom semi in Dundee, and managed to only have a £40k mortgage. So, my mortgage and council tax is actually cheaper than renting.

A mate of mine in Edinburgh recently bought a flat for £145,000. On an interest only mortgage. Jesus.

[IBBoard]

£145K on interest only? That'll hurt when the mortgage period ends!

I know my parents' house was comparatively cheap when they got it in about 1989. Maybe it's just because I lived near Bolton and Manchester, but I was expecting reasonable semis to be about £100K to £120K at the most, not £160-£180+!

Although as a show of alternate viewpoints, my fiancee is from near Basingstoke and to her and her family the semis in Hereford are comparatively cheap Still, it's far more than we can afford at the moment and the forseeable future :\ Makes you wonder why the government decided that tax break on second homes was a good idea.

[Simguinus]

Makes you wonder why the government decided that tax break on second homes was a good idea.

No comment. If I did I'd get into trouble.

[IBBoard]

Are you one of these people stealing all of our affordable houses?

It's not always so bad - after all, the people we rent from are just a couple with kids who could afford the house when they bought it and are renting it out to save up for retirement. It's when the government (who are supposedly left-wing) give tax breaks for people just buying and holding on to multiple houses that they don't normally live in :\ maybe if it was means tested (so it was more left-wing, as Labour are supposed to be) and we had excess housing then it wouldn't be so bad...

[Simguinus]

Nah, my job prevents me from commenting on government taxation policy.....