Maybe it isn't all your fault

MorkandMindy said:

My father in law stated that a lot of his wealth was due to having the wisdom to buy his house back in 1967 when the price was low, 13,000 for a large house now worth over 800,000.

The property attached allowed the construction of another house fairly recently worth around 600,000 for a build cost of 100,000 so that's another 500,000 gain, a total of 1,300,000 for a purchase price of 13,000, exactly 100 times as much.

Allowing for inflation that's a gain of ten times, still a good wad of money.

The house price bubble in the South of England has transferred money from the younger generation who need to buy or rent to the older generation who sell or take second mortgages. It really is about time the older generation thanked the younger generation for handing them so much money instead of constantly complaining about the younger generation which is all I ever hear.

In the 8 years I rented a house I paid one and a half times as much rent as it would cost today to build the house. Following the post war rules which held until 1971 I would own that house. Instead I was given notice to quit and left with nothing, not even anywhere to live.

I don't feel a failure because I know the difference is due to the change in rules.

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In Florida manufactured homes cost half as much to build as masonry or stick built homes on concrete slabs. Some of these homes are selling for under $100,000. The newer ones built after Hurricane Andrew are rated to withstand hurricane winds of 140-150 mph. In San Francisco the median price of a new home is $1.6 million. One article described San Francisco is in a housing bubble becase only 25% of people there could afford their homes. People are leaving California, going to where the grass is greener. I read that a young lady in New York City was earning $25 an hour and could not afford to live in NYC without financial assistance from her parents.

An online article stated housing in the US is neither over priced or under priced. A well known investment adviser reported the beginnings of a U.S. housing bubble.

The US stock market has been rising through the years. I read foreigners own 40% of the US stock market. Numerous times the US stock market has outperformed US real estate in price appreciation. There are also real estate investment trusts that people used to invest in real estate without owning an entire home or lot. I checked last night and found some BBB corporate long term bonds are paying 5% interest.

I did some research and found that after President Nixon enacted tariffs inflation started to rise.

In New York and other metropolitan areas, real estate is still used for money laundering.

MorkandMindy said:

The excessive house prices in Southern England are not due to lack of land, I omitted London where there is a scarcity of land which also drives up prices.

But there is no shortage of land in the rest of Southern England.

It is all about rules and regulations which allow only people with more expensive houses which have space on the property to build another house and landlords who own large amounts of land in the country or in the town which include under used properties or empty spaces, who own all the properties around them and therefore don't get objections to applications for planning permission.

I know one, and he buys properties around barns or agricultural sheds and then stuffs as many houses or apartments into the underdeveloped spaces as he can, and makes 2 or 3 million profit, each year, on top of a huge rental income from the other properties.

While hard working Brits work for a lifetime to earn under 2 million and lose most of that on rent or mortgage interest and other costs of living.

That's a clear example from England of both the older generation ripping off the undeserving younger generation and government policy designed to make the rich richer.

The simplest way to understand politics or economics is to follow the money. Whatever the rich want, that's what's going on.

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I was given a notice to quit last year. After 5 years in the house, paying £72000 in rent my letting agent had the cheek to try to steal my deposit for.... unclean oven (it was clean, only my rinsing must not been perfect because there were apparently crumbs) I'd forgotten to clean the soap tray when I cleaned the washing machine. The letterbox flap had broken off from the outside. (Blame the postman not me, I'd left the parts for it to be fixed). There was a dirty mark on the stair carpets.. (but never mind that they were old already when I moved in and were already fraying 5 years ago.) There were two slats missing from the downstairs blinds (which I maintained had been missing when I moved in. I would have kept them safe... also the blinds were already old when I moved in). I had accidently left a swing ball set in the garden. So that had needed moved (also chargeable).

They said that the house was impeccably clean otherwise and smelled fresh. But I couldn't believe there audacity. They said the appliances would need professionally cleaned etc which was ridiculous. I had even used toothpics to clean in the smallest of gaps. I'd clean EVERY INCH of the house, even repainted the dining room, hall and one bedroom. (Every other house I had hitherto received my full deposit. My sense of duty says I need to leave a house/hotel/caravan shiny and spotless.

Thankfully they had brought in a deposit protection scheme. They managed to get £100 of my deposit still, because I didn't get contacted by the scheme until they had paid out, so I have no idea what they received it for.

The letting agents seemed to think that I should be grateful for them putting a roof over my head and it is unfair for the landlord to pay for these things??? After 5 years they should have been thankful that the house had been looked after. I feel sad going passed the house now because the new tenants aren't caring for the garden. It was a lot of stress cutting those hedges and finding time and energy for the weeding.

MorkandMindy said:

There are problems either way, with the rich / landlords lording it over everyone, or with the poor in charge.

In my case I had a fairly clean house but rather than spend hours trying to get it perfect I moved out a day early and paid 110.00 pounds for it to be professionally cleaned. I got back my deposit after that.

Then although I'd fixed a major electrical problem in the house and a minor one that would have made some smoke and wrecked the immersion heater, namely the terminal screw was totally loose, the landlady regretted returning my deposit because there were two pinholes down in the corner of each sitting room curtain so she wanted both replaced.

It took me about a week to realize that was where the makers safety pin the measurements of the curtain to it with a little card. If I had paid for a replacement it would have had the same holes.

Otherwise she was par for a landlady, wouldn't accept blacks, wouldn't accept Irish, wouldn't accept Orientals, pretty much what you'd expect.

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Housing discrimination by apartment complexes is illegal in the States. Small landlords are not as scrutinized, there are exceptions for them. There are ethnic neighborhoods and mixed neighborhoods.

There are large areas of Florida with poor sandy soil and few inhabitants. The sand is full of nematodes and can not hold nutrients as they quickly leached out. Can drive there for miles without seeing a house or car. It is abandoned scrub. Farms went bust. A few large ranches remained. Better areas saw citrus orchards. Now citrus greening is killing the citrus industry. Ground water conditions are variable. Tampa had to build a desalinization plant. Miami is sinking as they pump out the ground water and the land subsides.

They wrote that if you move much, it is cheaper to rent. If you are going to stay in one place a long time, it is better to buy. If it is a housing bubble, there are other calculations to consider.

MorkandMindy said:

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That's a clear example from England of both the older generation 1 ripping off the undeserving younger generation and government policy designed to make the rich richer.

The simplest way to understand politics or economics is to follow the money. Whatever the rich want, that's what's going on.

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1 ... some of ...

I agree utterly how disgusting this attitude is. Strangely the worst affected people increasingly go eating out of the hand of those that bite them.