Thread: Our first house cost what a nice car costs today Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
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What in heaven's name is going on? We actually bought while I was a full time grad student. It was cheaper than renting. Even when interest rates exceeded 15% on the mortgage. The second house had increased in value by 10 times. How on earth will any young people ever own a home unless they inherit? Our mortgage was written for 25 years. We paid it off in 12. Rather a different world.
What is going on? How did this happen? What's your situation with housing?
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on
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It was several years ago that Dad almost refused to buy a good 2nd hand car on the grounds that its price was the same as our home had been 30+ years earlier.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
What in heaven's name is going on? We actually bought while I was a full time grad student. It was cheaper than renting. Even when interest rates exceeded 15% on the mortgage. The second house had increased in value by 10 times. How on earth will any young people ever own a home unless they inherit? Our mortgage was written for 25 years. We paid it off in 12. Rather a different world.
What is going on? How did this happen? What's your situation with housing?
One factor is that the market is geared to two earning adults rather than one-and-a-bit (as was the case until c 1980). Interest rates are low at the moment (five year fixed rates now c 4%) so it is possible to sustain lending for five or six times combined salary.
Average UK salary: £25,000
Two earners: = £50,000
Times five/six: = £250,000 to £300,000.
Which is around the average house price for first time buyers.
God knows what will happen if interest rates go to the level they did in 1992, when the UK crashed out of the ERM and they went from 10% to (temporarily)15%. That was the basic rate, so heaven knows what your mortgage rate was. Ours was about 13% for a time, then it went up and now we rent ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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It is what it is.
When we bought our first and only house, its cost was just under 5x my annual salary (not counting Mr. Lamb's). Within a year I was unemployed, he was threatened with it, and things kinda went to hell. (But we're still here, so far)
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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Rampant housing speculation?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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The mantra in real estate is location, location, location. It does depend on where you are. There are significant swathes of the US where if you bought a house thirty years ago it has slumped in value in the interval.
I live in a major metro area, and I could not afford to buy my house today. It has roughly quintupled in value since we bought in 1984. The upside: it forms the major asset in my retirement plan. The downside: I will have to move when I retire.
Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on
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My youngest daughter and her husband just bought a house in Nashville. She turned 23 in September, married in October, bought it somewhere around then. It can be done, especially with interest rates as low as they are. I told him it is a brand new time-honored tradition that when the youngest daughter marries, her parents can come live with her and her husband for free. So, there's that, too.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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In the United States, one of the issues in the major cities is global competition. New York City has a lot foreign billionaires buying very expensive housing as a way to put some money out of the way of being seized during tumults where they made the money.
The federally sponsored tax advantaged mortgages also have their effects. People saw real estate as a good investment for all of their money and builders and the market ended up building ever more expensive houses.
Some of the millennial generation may be reversing this trend. They are much less likely to have cars and live in the suburbs and may actually live in apartment/condos. This may be a lack of money to afford the big expensive house. Of course some interesting things are going to happen to the housing market as the boomers retire and downsize.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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Take a look at the changes in the population growth curve. The demographic transition has hit most countries. Births are below replacement level in many or most countries. Increasing life span and a few underdeveloped countries are still increasing total population, but at slowing rates.
When I was a kid in the 50s world population was about 2.5 billion. that doubled in about 37 years to 5 billion. chart Here's a year by year list Such a rapid increase put huge pressure on housing stock, all those Boomer babies of the late 40s and 50s needing a place to live as adults in the later 70s and 80s.
The year by year list suggests it won't reach 10 billion until 2062, about 80 years instead of 37 years to double. If ever. Many predict the world population will never reach 10 billion.
We have had tremendous population growth pressure on housing stock, and also major movement to big cities pressuring city stock. But will housing in general continue to increase in price? In my father's day, pre-war, housing depreciated.
In parts of Europe you can buy abandoned houses in remote areas for not much. In my town, house values have been pretty much stagnant, but a friend in San Francisco has seen his house value triple in the same 15 years.
It's about location. There are cheap places to live. I thought internet commuting would be moving people out of cities into smaller towns by now.
Anyway, I don't know that housing will continue to increase in cost except in specific desireable locations because the population pressures are not growing like they once were. Could be when the Boomers are ready to sell their vacation homes, they won't find ready buyers, not like the days when anything resembling housing was snatched up.
Posted by Cathscats (# 17827) on
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I live in a village where a third of the housing is second homes. Over the past few years a fair number of these have been put up for sale - effects of the recession. However few have sold. Now, you might think that this would mean that the sellers would drop their price, but no. They can't afford to get less than the market value. Meanwhile grown up children of locals continue to build new homes in their parents back gardens, as this is cheaper than buying the properties which are for sale.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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When I bought my first house, it was 3-4 times my salary - I was married, so we could just about afford it.
Today, the same house - which we still own - is worth 6 times my salary now. Today - with all of my increase in salary - I would struggle to buy it.
That is ridiculous.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
In the United States, one of the issues in the major cities is global competition. New York City has a lot foreign billionaires buying very expensive housing as a way to put some money out of the way of being seized during tumults where they made the money.
Similar thing happening in London, I believe. Also, some (e.g. Stuart Lowe, at the University of York)would argue, rising house prices are part of the shift away from state and collective welfare to individual provision. As (Anglophone) states withdraw from welfare and pensions provision, people are encouraged to see their residential property as capital investments upon which they can draw for support in need or retirement.
Mortgages and lending (again, in Anglophone states) are also much more freely available than in previous generations- this has beeen a conscious decisison by neo-liberal governments from the late 1970s onwards; and of course when more money is chasing a commodity, its price, left to itself, rises. Banks see residential property as a safer lending bet than businesses, because a home can always be repossessed whereas a business collapse might leave very few assets behind. So not only do house prices rise, finance is diverted from productive sectors of the economy.
The whole thing is a deeply flawed and unsustainable system. These levels of inflation- because that is what house price rises are- would not be tolerated if they applied to any other essential commodity. But people go along with them because they see them as a route to increasing their own wealth, over time, and because low interest rates and (until recently) genrous lending made the costs more affordable day to day. Meanwhile, of course, Anglophone capitalism loves having lots of people in substantial debt, because it keeps them worried and hard working.
We need to get back to the idea of homes- and lots of other essentials too- as things for use rather than for profit.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
We need to get back to the idea of homes- and lots of other essentials too- as things for use rather than for profit.
I couldn't agree more.
I think all utilities should be run not-for-profit.
Our first house cost £9000!
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
We need to get back to the idea of homes- and lots of other essentials too- as things for use rather than for profit.
I couldn't agree more.
I think all utilities should be run not-for-profit.
Our first house cost £9000!
It's more historic still but our sister-in-law moved into a detached bungalow with a decent plot of land just about fifty years ago.
It cost them just over £2,000. While it has now been enlarged a little and has more land, you would now have to pay about a hundred times that.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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One reason for the increase in price (not the only reason by a long shot) is that the population has increased and the amount of land has remained the same.
Moo
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One reason for the increase in price (not the only reason by a long shot) is that the population has increased and the amount of land has remained the same.
Moo
It's certainly one factor. In the UK as a whole it has increased by a bit under twenty percent in the last fifty years. That's due to high birth rate, immigration and increasing life expectancy.
Two other reasons are that home ownership is seen as morally good and credit for home buying has become far easier. For some reason house price inflation is actually seen as a Good Thing!
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
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We didn't buy a house until my husband retired from his 22 year military career. All that time we lived in rented apartments, some so layered in previous tenants dirt that I had to soften it with bottles of stripper and then scrape it off with a butter knife. Such experience made me long for a brand new house and we finally bought one ten years ago for $250,000 cash. It's now worth about $180,000. We don't really care because we plan to live out our lives here and leave it to my son who lives with us. He, with his Walmart salary, not only couldn't afford to buy a house, he couldn't afford to rent any of the few offerings in this town.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
...Home ownership is seen as morally good and credit for home buying has become far easier. For some reason house price inflation is actually seen as a Good Thing!
Home ownership is seen as a social stabilizing factor - if people get really upset at the system, they are less likely to destructively riot if houses they themselves own would be endangered by that activity.
Home value inflation is seen as a good thing by city authorities where taxes are based on value because they get more tax money to spend on public services (which attract more to the community which increases the taxable value of real estate through more development or price pressures) and higher salaries for themselves.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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Not so here: our property taxes are based on historic valuations (most recently in Wales I think c 2005 and IIRC in England as long ago as c 1990). There is strong political pressure against more frequent revaluations because they might lead to people paying more tax. But of course higher property taxes, based on value, might provide an incentive to contain price rises.
You're right that home ownership is seen as socially stabilising. But it is also about encouraging people of what are actually quite modest means to think of themselves as people of property and therefore to side with the rich when, for example, redistributive tax rises are proposed- even if the more modestly off might actually benefit from redistribution.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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My Dad was a Minister. So he had a tied house. They saved £500 so that they could buy a 'nice cottage by the sea' when they retired.
When they did retire they bought a new 'fridge with the money!
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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My first house cost less than the price new cars that were sold at the garage down the road! So the garage was Mercedes-Benz but still. I remember the first time I saw a car in the garage that cost less than my house had. That was just under twenty years ago. I could easily sell my house, and buy several new cars today (even bottom of the range Mercedes Benz).
Jengie
Posted by Coa Coa (# 15535) on
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I just bought a new car for $30,000.00 and nearly choked- even though we waited till our old one rusted through and we managed to find a 0 down 0% deal. We bought a house in 2011 for $204,00.00. Living in rectories means we had no equity built up with which to finance so we used all our RRSP's (register retirement savings plan funds) as a down payment. Where I currently serve there were no rentals-at all! My house cost more than 3x what my stipend is and all being equal I will be eligible to retire in 11 years but I pray there is fill in work I can do till age 75 why? because I needed to use my retirement fund to buy a place to live!…this new math? It sucks. But I am far better off than many of my contemporaries and light years ahead of my children.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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We are fortunate, in having a house near to London that our children can live in if they want to work around here. Eldest has recently finished an apprenticeship, which he could only do because he was living at home for free.
Youngest might want an internship in London, meaning he could live at home for, but would need to cover the £3000 travel costs. Even without rental costs (never mind buying costs), he would struggle.
I know someone on twitter who works in the charity sector. She struggles to find somewhere to rent, and has no hope of even considering buying anywhere in London. Ever, while she stays within the charity sector.
That is wrong. I accept that our house in London is an investment, so in one way I am delighted that prices are rising. But I have kept my investment there because prices are rising and rents are good. It works as an investment.
The problem is that, because it is a good investment, it is poor to be on the other side.
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Not so here: our property taxes are based on historic valuations (most recently in Wales I think c 2005 and IIRC in England as long ago as c 1990). There is strong political pressure against more frequent revaluations because they might lead to people paying more tax. But of course higher property taxes, based on value, might provide an incentive to contain price rises.
You're right that home ownership is seen as socially stabilising. But it is also about encouraging people of what are actually quite modest means to think of themselves as people of property and therefore to side with the rich when, for example, redistributive tax rises are proposed- even if the more modestly off might actually benefit from redistribution.
Dear me, that old chestnut. I can't believe I'm doing this, but see Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. The Province of Ontario completely redid the property assessment system in 1998. Now it's actually fair and current, and gets updated regularly.
I witnessed a man complaining in my local municipal council office about his new assessment, but it was actually $30,000 less than what he paid for the property. End of argument.
Besides, you only pay more tax under MPAC's system if your house increases in value faster than the average; a municipality must decrease its average tax rate to equal the increase in its assessable tax base when it gets a reassessment.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One reason for the increase in price (not the only reason by a long shot) is that the population has increased and the amount of land has remained the same.
Well yes. But we live on (total built-up area including roads, factories, everything) only 7% of the land. We could probably stretch to 8% and allow folk to have a place to live.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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In the 80s and 90s I scrimped and saved for a deposit until I was just £2000 short. I figured that if I spent one more year in the 90s living as frugally as I could, I would have it by the end of that year and would finally get my own home.
That was the year that house prices went crazy and by the end of that year I needed £14,000 to bridge the gap and get the cheapest one-bed house on the market.
I've never been able to make up the difference, and it wasn't until later in life that I realized that a) the advertised price of a house is open to negotiation - you may not necessarily need the full sum; and b) there are shared housing schemes where a housing association will lease you a property at half the usual cost, if you have a deposit. However, because I'm now older than the average, mortgage repayments are higher because I have fewer years available to repay them, which has pretty effectively put almost anything worth having out of my reach.
Basically you need to be a couple or else earning considerably more than the average wage to afford your own home. Still, it's all been a useful exercise in how to live on a shoestring, and often as not, in a shoebox.
Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on
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Houses are sold to the highest bidder and the estate agent (UK) that sets the asking price gets a percentage cut. Is house inflation a surprise?
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rogue:
Houses are sold to the highest bidder and the estate agent (UK) that sets the asking price gets a percentage cut. Is house inflation a surprise?
Agents have always tried to get the highest price for the vendor (if they don't, they are failing in their duty) so that has always been the case.
A combination of increased demand, the higher multiples of salary that are taken into account, lower interest rates and far easier credit that have driven prices up. Thirty years ago the amount building societies could lend was highly regulated, now most lending is by banks and the situation we are now in has been caused by over-enthusiastic lending by those banks.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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Yes, deregulation of mortgage credit has a lot to do with it- and as I say it all fits into a larger politcal and ecconomic picture. But making estate agents charge a fixed fee couldn't do any harm, surely.
Posted by Edith (# 16978) on
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The whole thing is barmy. Our house cost £16000 in 1979. It's now 'worth' £600000. And our children, Londoners to the core, can't afford to live here.
I remember when we moved here our neighbour was the leader of the LSO and his cello was worth more than his house. Not any longer.
Posted by OddJob (# 17591) on
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House price inflation also discriminates against single people, with resulting social ramifications. My first house in 1987 cost just under the 3xincome lending cap for me as a trainee professional in my mid-20s. Provincial economic factors, obviously. But it couldn't be done now.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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[tangent] High end cellos and violins have had their own hyperinflationary spiral. [/tangent]
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
[tangent] High end cellos and violins have had their own hyperinflationary spiral. [/tangent]
AFAIK the really good ones last a lot longer than the typical home, and while they aren't making land any more, they just aren't making Strads any more either! The value of these is more akin to artworks and Bugattis than to homes.
Posted by marzipan (# 9442) on
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Not everyone downsizes when they retire. My parents live in a small cut de sac of about ten houses, when we were growing up most people living there were families with kids roughly the same age, and the same people are still living there (bar maybe one or two of the houses) twenty years later.
So where do the families with young kids move to in that area? The houses they could be moving into are still occupied by retired couples (or one half of the couple) who have paid off their mortgages and don't plan to move any time soon.
The answer seems to be to build more houses for the next generation - but that's only possible in that area because they live in what used to be a small village and all the green spaces and random fields are being filled in.
This isn't possible in bigger places, where all the gaps have already been filled in with houses long ago, and the green belt stops them sprawling further out. So prices go up and up.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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I remember when studying sociology O-level (a long time ago now) our teacher told us that within some social classes the car was more important than the house and that some people would have a car worth more than the house it was sitting outside.
I suppose you could still get that, but I would have to have a Veyron or a koenigsegg one:1 to manage that today. Maybe that has been a social change that houses are considered the possession to have, rather than other things. That change means that increasing prices feels better.
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on
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I bought my own appartment last year. I would never have been able to except that I inherited some money. The banks over here are asking for 30% deposit. How many 39 year olds have 45000 euros saved up?
Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on
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When I bought 20 years ago, the house was worth just over 3x my salary. I have been promoted four times since then, earning now roughly twice what I earned then in real terms.
That house is still worth 3x my salary, so someone starting at the bottom of the salary scale hasn't got a hope of buying it.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I bought my own appartment last year. I would never have been able to except that I inherited some money. The banks over here are asking for 30% deposit. How many 39 year olds have 45000 euros saved up?
How common is home ownership in Finland, AO? AIUI in many northern European countries renting, privately or socially, has always been much more acceptable and general than in say the UK. Is Finland like that, or is the dynamic a bit different? Would be interesting to know how you see it.
Posted by Steve_R (# 61) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Not so here: our property taxes are based on historic valuations (most recently in Wales I think c 2005 and IIRC in England as long ago as c 1990). There is strong political pressure against more frequent revaluations because they might lead to people paying more tax. But of course higher property taxes, based on value, might provide an incentive to contain price rises.
Actually the fact that we use historic valuations is not strictly a problem with regards to inflationary house prices. The council tax is based on price bands and these will only change if there is a change in the relative price of properties even if there is a general revaluation. So a house in band D in 1995 (or whenever the original valuation was) will still be in band D now unless other properties have increased in price by a greater (or less) percentage than that property since the original valuation.
Aside from this I passed a great milestone last year when I paid more for my new car than my first house cost (£28,500 in 1982).
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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Yes, of course you're right.
Posted by TonyK (# 35) on
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Well, you wouldn't get a much of a nice car for what we paid for our first house in 1967.
Just over £6,000 for a 4 bedroom, 2 reception semi-detached on the outskirts of Greater London.
We sold it in 2011 for over 50 times what we paid - not that it did us much good financially, as we spent it all on our new house!
But I'm really glad I'm not a first-time buyer today - even at the peak of my earnings I couldn't realistically afford anything approaching a similar property!
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by OddJob:
House price inflation also discriminates against single people, with resulting social ramifications. My first house in 1987 cost just under the 3xincome lending cap for me as a trainee professional in my mid-20s. Provincial economic factors, obviously. But it couldn't be done now.
This post made me think. My house in 1990 cost me 2.5 my annual earnings; (if I had not retired) it would now cost me 5.3 times my annual earnings. The provincial Conservatives revised our rates formula when they were in power, using a charming mechanism called market value, so my rates are now calculated on a slightly hysterical market, propelled by the febrile excitement of pharmaceutically-fuelled real estate agents.
I rue the day when, as a student in Dublin, I turned down the chance to buy a £3,500 terraced house..... I could be a wallowing in the euros by now as . this place, a double of the one I declined, would show.
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I bought my own appartment last year. I would never have been able to except that I inherited some money. The banks over here are asking for 30% deposit. How many 39 year olds have 45000 euros saved up?
How common is home ownership in Finland, AO? AIUI in many northern European countries renting, privately or socially, has always been much more acceptable and general than in say the UK. Is Finland like that, or is the dynamic a bit different? Would be interesting to know how you see it.
Renting is much more common here than in England.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by marzipan:
The houses they could be moving into are still occupied by retired couples (or one half of the couple) who have paid off their mortgages and don't plan to move any time soon.
Your story is familiar. My grandparents built a house when they were married, and lived in it until my grandfather died. Most of their neighbours were of a similar vintage. We would travel to stay with them a couple of times a year, and they had space to put us up in.
My parents still live in the house that I grew up in, and will live in it until they die, or become sufficiently infirm to require alternative arrangements.
This is a steady state. There are, more or less, at any one time, three generations of living Cnihts, two of which own family homes, and one of which are children and live with their parents.
This doesn't represent new housing pressure (certainly there was increased housing pressure as a one-time deal when two generations of adult Cnihts started living in separate homes, but for most people, that has happened.)
New house builds are required because the population is increasing, not because the oldies are hogging the houses.
(Divorce put a big bump in the number of required houses, as a whole load of households became two households. Again, that was a one-off demographic shift that has more or less happened.)
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This is a steady state. There are, more or less, at any one time, three generations of living Cnihts, two of which own family homes, and one of which are children and live with their parents.
Here I would disagree - there are currently 3 generations of adult Feet, all living independently. People are living longer and not all are having children later. I only have to look around locally to see the number of 80-100 year olds living on their own in family homes, visited by their 50-70 year old children, 20-40 year old grandchildren and so on to see that more generations are alive at the same time and needing space to live.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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Could take a while - most I've spent on a car is £6K
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One reason for the increase in price (not the only reason by a long shot) is that the population has increased and the amount of land has remained the same.
Moo
Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that urban sprawl might not be keeping up with the population increase in some areas. Most cities or towns in North America - except perhaps the oldest colonial areas - have increased their footprint more or less steadily. I live in a city that truly is completely constrained on three sides by water and on the fourth by another municipality, but that hasn't slowed the sprawl of the 'burbs in every other direction. The growth of residential use is both parallel and in competition with industrial, agricultural, commercial, etc. uses. Other important constraints on how much land base we use and what for are zoning, services, utilities, transportation ... So while we're talking about population driving demand for houses, we should remember that the people in those houses also demand places to work and shop and play and study, and the reverse is true: places to work or study or shop or play attract people who want housing near those places.
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on
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Our house price has gone daft, which benefits no-one but estate agents and those with investments in multiple properties (not me). I see it as a bad thing, and would be pleased if prices halved.
But I have also seen areas of the inner-city where confidence in the market collapsed utterly - and 3 bed terraces could be bought for £5k, about 10 years ago. Only those with knowledge and deep pockets held on - serious investors - and of course, 10 years later, large profits have been made. The likes of me, and younger versions of me looking for a first house, were largely scared off by the crime.
For the man or woman in the street, my guess is there is an optimum value which (to be a bit less arbitrary) may be around the rebuild cost. Much less than that, and people / landlords start to baulk at the cost of a coat of paint on the windows / a patch on the roof / repaired guttering, and things can fall apart quite fast.
But I was lucky to be able to buy a slightly shit house in a slightly shit area - to shop for value. That increasingly looks like something in the past, around here.
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