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'Social Housing' .. and Rip Off Landlords

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  • Reading this thread makes me aware of how differently I view things to the way many other people do.
    There was something @kentaddick said above about shelter being a basic fundamental human right. I agree with that. 
    I like to boil things down to the notion that if a person does an honest day’s work, without having to take a second job, then that ought to be enough to put a decent roof over their head.
    I also agree with saving up, and not splashing out on fripperies, in my case it was hardly having a holiday beyond a tent in my motorcycle luggage and Youth Hostels.
    However the assumptions about living at home, getting money from parents, having to be part of a couple and most especially working all hours seem to me to be a distraction from @kentaddick’s fundamental.
    The cat came out of the bag above when it was suggested you put your place up for sale for £200,000. Find a buyer at that price, but somebody comes in at £250,000 so you let down the original buyer. It is framed as ‘good on yer mate, it is common sense to dump the original person for the more money’.
    My question would be if somebody was happy, and able to manage their affairs at the £200,000, then salivating at the higher offer seems like greed to me. I simply don’t get the kind of thinking or mind set of a person who would do that.
    Maybe it is an example of how much I am at odds with others that I don’t see what seems ‘obvious’ to many people.
  • I see little point in delving too deep into this as there is a such a generational difference between experience, market comparables, mindset and spend / lifestyle patterns.  

    Housing was more attainable in previous eras but individuals in general were more disciplined in their approach to achieving it. This was before the spend easiness of online shopping, tap & pay and the mindset of happily debt building on credit card on non-essentials. You went out for evening with £30 and you had to ensure your evening stayed within that blah blah.

    Certainly non of our money when saving for a place was spent on gyms, nail parlours, tanning shops, tattoos, online betting, streaming, expensive bars and eating out / Deliveroo 4 times a week. Car purchases were happily modest yet I rarely see an U25 not in an Audi, Merc or BMW these days. If that’s how people want to spend their disposable, then fair enough that’s their choice. I probably wish my mindset was more frivolous in terms of spending than it still remains but I think once you have that mindset, it’s hard to change. 

    Who knows what is right or wrong. Not saying I am. I feel very fortunate I first got on the housing ladder early when I was 22 and I fear the situation is only going to get worse for the next generations coming through and I really don’t know what the answer is. I find elements I agree with on both sides of the argument; it needs to be more achievable but there also could / should be an element of discipline & sacrifice attached to it. That may mean starting somewhere smaller, less desirable or further out. Never got my head around why someone wants to pay £2300 a month in Elephant & Castle when you can get comparable in say for Sidcup for £1500 a month. Allocate an extra £100 to your travel and you’ve an extra £700 a month to either save up or spend on a sleeve tattoo. 
    Feeling very targeted here.... as i step away from Charltonlife to jump on a train to finish my chest piece and look in the job shop windows for more work 😆
  • I wasn’t saying it’s shit to do 2 jobs and work your arse off. I was saying it ain’t compulsory and it’s the sort of thing that’s becoming more and more lauded.  Let’s ogle Philip Green and Jeff Bezos as heroes while we have to work 90 hours a week for years to get a few shiny things.

    probably saying it badly. 

    I’d love the world to just calm down and stop consuming shit and thinking we all have to be rich and on the property ladder etc. it’s a fucking con to keep us in our place started by that horrible dead bitch.The chances of getting anywhere are the worst they’ve been for 50 years, inequality is rife and these pigs in charge play on how thick everyone is.  A good example is this Roland Rat midget fucking the green agenda for years just to have an opposite view to that wanker Khan as that’s all they’ve got and they know it. And people will fall for it. 


    Whilst not compulsory, it's an option, no? 

    Whether it's what I did of working 90+ hours a week, coveredend as articulated sacrifices for 9+ years to get on the ladder then further one's when on, or my parents renting a room from an aunt for the first three years of their married life and saving to buy a sh1tty house in Rainham, kent.

    You make your own choices, some sadly have very little choice and are really really struggling, but I see many people bemoaning their situation when in reality a few changes to their lifestyle would make a massive difference.


  • Going to a gym regularly is time/money well spent. Mine's £18/month, cheaper than a Charlton season ticket.
  • Anyone struggling to buy a house I think we've cracked it for you over the past couple of pages. Live with your parents until you save enough money, ignore the fact if you don't get on with them, whether they want you there or even if they are both alive or not. Don't worry about where your job is because you can commute as that is really cheap. Live in Sidcup because the highlight of your week should be going to Toby carvery. Don't go to the gym, have a car basically don't buy anything. Do all that for long enough you just might be able to afford a deposit after 10 years or so. 
  • The problem seems to me to be about a notion that if you don’t work 70-90 hours a week you have no right to bemoan the fact you’re homeless.
  • seth plum said:
    Reading this thread makes me aware of how differently I view things to the way many other people do.
    There was something @kentaddick said above about shelter being a basic fundamental human right. I agree with that. 
    I like to boil things down to the notion that if a person does an honest day’s work, without having to take a second job, then that ought to be enough to put a decent roof over their head.
    I also agree with saving up, and not splashing out on fripperies, in my case it was hardly having a holiday beyond a tent in my motorcycle luggage and Youth Hostels.
    However the assumptions about living at home, getting money from parents, having to be part of a couple and most especially working all hours seem to me to be a distraction from @kentaddick’s fundamental.
    The cat came out of the bag above when it was suggested you put your place up for sale for £200,000. Find a buyer at that price, but somebody comes in at £250,000 so you let down the original buyer. It is framed as ‘good on yer mate, it is common sense to dump the original person for the more money’.
    My question would be if somebody was happy, and able to manage their affairs at the £200,000, then salivating at the higher offer seems like greed to me. I simply don’t get the kind of thinking or mind set of a person who would do that.
    Maybe it is an example of how much I am at odds with others that I don’t see what seems ‘obvious’ to many people.
    I don't recall someone saying dump an initial buyer, more so someone offering above asking price. I moved in 2021, house was up for £925k (I think to illicit offers as it was cheap at that price IMHO), I bought it but ended up paying £962,500. Should the seller have let me have it for 925k? Even though all four parties were offering above that? Should they have gone with the lowest bid, rather than my highest bid?

    I don't see the issue of achieving the highest possible price on something you are selling, property or something else. As always something is only worth what someone is prepared to pay, many houses go for far less than the asking price, should that be allowed?

    Where I think I would agree is dumping someone. We sold our house to a lovely couple, about a week before exchange a previous viewer came in with an offer of £8k more, cash, I declined on the basis I'd agreed a sale and my buyer had gone through expense of surveys, mortgage etc. Had they have offered at the same time as my buyer did, then that would have been different.
  • seth plum said:
    The problem seems to me to be about a notion that if you don’t work 70-90 hours a week you have no right to bemoan the fact you’re homeless.
    Where has anyone said anything about bemoaning homelessness? No one.
  • colthe3rd said:
    Anyone struggling to buy a house I think we've cracked it for you over the past couple of pages. Live with your parents until you save enough money, ignore the fact if you don't get on with them, whether they want you there or even if they are both alive or not. Don't worry about where your job is because you can commute as that is really cheap. Live in Sidcup because the highlight of your week should be going to Toby carvery. Don't go to the gym, have a car basically don't buy anything. Do all that for long enough you just might be able to afford a deposit after 10 years or so. 
    Don't go out in the weekend, don't drink coffee, don't see the world, don't have kids and don't eat smash avocado on toast. Then when you're in your 40s you can start enjoying life.
  • Rob7Lee said:
    Whilst as lot of that is true I'd question the 1995 and only 29% of salary. On a gross basis (on £20k) that would be £480 a month/£5760 a year, I'd make it more like £700/£8400 or 40-45%, net I'm not sure but tax at that salary level was higher back then.

    Where I would agree, London is a harder place to buy than maybe it once was, but then again certainly the generation before me, i.e. my parents, couldn't afford London so their first houses were out in places like Rainham or Gillingham.

    I did manage to buy in London, all be it Grove Park so one of the cheaper areas. EDIT, should probably add the only reason I could do that was I on purpose and purely from a housing/mortgage perspective changed jobs to a building society to get a 5% mortgage, salary in 1993 was £12,500.
    If we want to do it that way, by my maths, the 2023 repayment would now be around 90% of the net income
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  • colthe3rd said:
    Anyone struggling to buy a house I think we've cracked it for you over the past couple of pages. Live with your parents until you save enough money, ignore the fact if you don't get on with them, whether they want you there or even if they are both alive or not. Don't worry about where your job is because you can commute as that is really cheap. Live in Sidcup because the highlight of your week should be going to Toby carvery. Don't go to the gym, have a car basically don't buy anything. Do all that for long enough you just might be able to afford a deposit after 10 years or so. 
    At last, common sense. Well spotted what people used to have to do. No gym, no car, no toby carvery, no going out

    As for commute have you ever tried cycling from Bethnal Green to Sidcup, onto Chislehurst then at midnight back to Bethnal Green? Although I admit some nights I slept in the office or conference centre where I worked the bar.
  • Rob7Lee said:
    At last, common sense. Well spotted what people used to have to do. No gym, no car, no toby carvery, no going out

    As for commute have you ever tried cycling from Bethnal Green to Sidcup, onto Chislehurst then at midnight back to Bethnal Green? Although I admit some nights I slept in the office or conference centre where I worked the bar.
    The Karoshi culture.
  • Don't go out in the weekend, don't drink coffee, don't see the world, don't have kids and don't eat smash avocado on toast. Then when you're in your 40s you can start enjoying life.
    Don't forget to save for your pension too, so you can enjoy life if you ever retire.
  • edited September 2023
    Was it hard to buy a house in the 80's and 90's. Houses were only 4x earnings, the mortgage market was less regulated, mortgages were easier to get and sometimes even with 5% deposits. The deposit amounts themselves were much less. Rent was cheaper, entertainment was cheaper, transport was cheaper, groceries were cheaper, energy was cheaper. There was more money left at the end of the month to save towards a deposit that also cost far less. And when you did get a house, you paid it off much quicker.

    It will never be that easy again. 
  • Nah, mate, nobody should have to make any sacrifices whatsoever these days.

    Entitlement is where it's at for a lot of folk in 2023. That and equating good honest advice to something that nobody has said or alluded to because the advice, to them, is an affront to that entitlement.
    Even sacrifice your mental and physical health. 

    Here's some good advise, get a decent work life balance and exercise regularly. 

    shine166 said:
    Don't forget to save for your pension too, so you can enjoy life if you ever retire.
    That's another issue for young people that we haven't even mentioned! If you're in your 20s now you've probably got another half century to go.
  • Chunes said:
    Was it was hard to buy a house in the 80's and 90's. Houses were only 4x earnings, the mortgage market was less regulated, mortgages were easier to get and sometimes even with 5% deposits. The deposit amounts themselves were much less. Rent was cheaper, entertainment was cheaper, transport was cheaper, groceries were cheaper, energy was cheaper. There was more money left at the end of the month to save towards a deposit that also cost far less. And when you did get a house, you paid it off much quicker.

    It will never be that easy again. 
    Tell that to the people in the 80's/90's who lost everything, including their home.

    Whilst it was 70's/early 80's you could generally only get a mortgage from a building society, to do so you would have had to save with them for at least 3 years before they would even consider an application. Mortgages did get easier in the mid 90's though.

    If I didn't have a second job I would have struggled to survive let alone save anything.
  • edited September 2023
    Rob7Lee said:
    Tell that to the people in the 80's/90's who lost everything, including their home.

    Whilst it was 70's/early 80's you could generally only get a mortgage from a building society, to do so you would have had to save with them for at least 3 years before they would even consider an application. Mortgages did get easier in the mid 90's though.

    If I didn't have a second job I would have struggled to survive let alone save anything.
    You could have moved to a cheaper part of the country and commuted into London, or lived with your parents... 
  • edited September 2023
    Rob7Lee said:
    I don't recall someone saying dump an initial buyer, more so someone offering above asking price. I moved in 2021, house was up for £925k (I think to illicit offers as it was cheap at that price IMHO), I bought it but ended up paying £962,500. Should the seller have let me have it for 925k? Even though all four parties were offering above that? Should they have gone with the lowest bid, rather than my highest bid?

    I don't see the issue of achieving the highest possible price on something you are selling, property or something else. As always something is only worth what someone is prepared to pay, many houses go for far less than the asking price, should that be allowed?

    Where I think I would agree is dumping someone. We sold our house to a lovely couple, about a week before exchange a previous viewer came in with an offer of £8k more, cash, I declined on the basis I'd agreed a sale and my buyer had gone through expense of surveys, mortgage etc. Had they have offered at the same time as my buyer did, then that would have been different.
    In answer to your first question, yes indeed the seller should have stayed at the original price. There is something rather fundamental wrapped up in the first come first served notion. Children understand that maybe better than adults.
    I am heartened that you think dumping someone is wrong, but I suspect had it been £80k rather than £8k that principle would have been tested.

    As a slight aside many here think it is disgraceful that an institution like Southend United should die off for the want of a weeks wages for a top footballer. The market is poison in that instance. Yes I know that Southend ought to have managed things better, but ultimately the free market mindset leads to Manchester City playing Manchester City reserves forever. Yet Manchester City needs an opposition to play, even Southend.
    Anybody who has ever completed a game of Monopoly or Risk knows that it ends when one person has everything, and the rest nothing.

    I suspect I do not think like you, or see the world in the same way. I see interdependence as a fundamental for a coherent society, and interdependence means sacrifice on occasion.
  • No wonder people used to have midlife crisis at 40 and blow there family which they've grafted so hard to make and then give half/most of it away. I'm starting to realise that finally getting in the head space at 40 to buy, isn't such a bad thing after all. 
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  • Rob7Lee said:
    Where has anyone said anything about bemoaning homelessness? No one.
    Maybe it is only me that detects an underlying negative judgement directed at others if they don’t work 70-90 hours a week in order to have a roof over their head.
  • Even sacrifice your mental and physical health

    Here's some good advise, get a decent work life balance and exercise regularly. 

    That's another issue for young people that we haven't even mentioned! If you're in your 20s now you've probably got another half century to go.
    You're only a reference to death away from completing the set. Most debates like this will eventually boil down to someone using death or another drastic reason for not wanting or having to do something. As I say, usually down to good advice being taken as an affront by others.
  • You're only a reference to death away from completing the set. Most debates like this will eventually boil down to someone using death or another drastic reason for not wanting or having to do something. As I say, usually down to good advice being taken as an affront by others.
    I already did. 🤷🏻‍♂️I paid off my mortgage in my 30s so my advise is probably a load of shit anyway.
  • Chunes said:
    You could have moved to a cheaper part of the country and commuted into London, or lived with your parents... 
    For me living with parents was not an option unfortunately, and Bethnal Green was about as cheap as it got within a 50+ mile radius!! Trust me if I could have found somewhere cheaper to live I would have. It wasn't a pleasant place to be.

    Let me put things another way;

    Why is it that when my Daughter was a manager at McDonalds there were numerous people there, often a married couple (both working at McDonalds) who managed to buy a small place in Woolwich/Charlton, effectively on not much more than minimum hourly wage.

    Yet there are people at my work earning individually 200% plus them combined but 'can't'?

    Maybe it's because the McDonalds couple didn't holiday in Dubai but if anything a week in camber sands in October for £100, didn't have a car and used busses instead of a new Audi/BMW etc on HP, didn't spend £350 a month on lunch or £200 a month on coffee (yes that still amazes me is common place). Whilst saving rented a room in a shared house in Woolwich rather than a shared flat in Notting hill and 5x the cost.

    seth plum said:
    Maybe it is only me that detects an underlying negative judgement directed at others if they don’t work 70-90 hours a week in order to have a roof over their head.
    It wasn't about having a roof over your head, but purchasing/saving a deposit rather than renting.

    seth plum said:
    In answer to your first question, yes indeed the seller should have stayed at the original price. There is something rather fundamental wrapped up in the first come first served notion. Children understand that maybe better than adults.
    I am heartened that you think dumping someone is wrong, but I suspect had it been £80k rather than £8k that principle would have been tested.

    As a slight aside many here think it is disgraceful that an institution like Southend United should die off for the want of a weeks wages for a top footballer. The market is poison in that instance. Yes I know that Southend ought to have managed things better, but ultimately the free market mindset leads to Manchester City playing Manchester City reserves forever. Yet Manchester City needs an opposition to play, even Southend.
    Anybody who has ever completed a game of Monopoly or Risk knows that it ends when one person has everything, and the rest nothing.

    I suspect I do not think like you, or see the world in the same way. I see interdependence as a fundamental for a coherent society, and interdependence means sacrifice on occasion.
    With respect I think you are very out of touch with property selling. It's common place now for houses to be marketed at a lower price than expected, with 'offers over' - often like when I bought it was a weekend of viewings then sealed bids by close of play on the Monday.

    FWIW I wouldn't have switched for £80k either, generally there's a reason someone waits until the final hour and I'd have had no doubt that particular buyer would have tried to reduce their offer as it approached exchange. Just ask Damo and his Patel buyer experience..........
  • edited September 2023
    I worked in the Fire Brigade for 30 years. 
    On my days off I worked a second job for 30 years. 
    I could of course chose to play golf or go fishing or something but I didn’t. 
    I chose to work. 
    Glad I did as I'm now mortgage free and dept free.
    We all have choices to make and sometimes if you want something bad enough sacrifices have to be made. 
    My sacrifice was doing 2 jobs for 30 years. 
    And I'm glad I did.
    Most firemen work second jobs don't they? Because they work two weeks on and two weeks off. My brother-in-law has his own contracting business outside of being a fireman. 
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