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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: the successful life
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Earlier in fact: the first known society, Richard Ketley's, was formed at the Golden Cross Inn, Birmingham in 1775.
[ 26. November 2017, 08:51: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Historically in the UK it has not always be normative for people to own their own home. In 1914 89% rented from private landlords source.
I can't find this statistic in that link - but I'd be interested to know if it is 89% of households or 89% of people.
It is homes, try the info graphic on page 4.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
In response to this OP -
In my 55th year, I found myself in a niche in life where I finally felt that life and I could get along. I’d cut a number of ties, including church, which had made me more and more unhappy as the years went on. I wasn’t rich, and never will be, but I owned my flat and was debt-free. As I entered what will likely be the fourth quarter of my life (we’re not a long lived family) I also entered into a relationship that feels like what I’ve been waiting for all my life.
Having got here, I find that I make very few demands on life. Sometimes my modern western conditioning rebels against that and I find myself wanting stuff, or being ambitious, or suchlike, but then I tell my bloody modern western conditioning to shut up and get back in its box, and all is more or less well.
Obviously, I still have my anxieties. My financial plans were made such that only the biggest financial crash in history could disrupt them, and we do seem to be heading for that - but hey ho, we’ll see when we get there.
Success? In a sense, no. I spent too long - decades - in the wrong life, getting too many things wrong, stacking up too many regrets, accumulating too big a pile of things to repent of. But in a sense, yes, because at last my life feels the right shape. And on balance, I doubt I could have got here by any other route.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
[Warning: Looong post]
Having effectively started a tangent about home ownership, I'd better comment. I am, of course, speaking from the perspective of a New Zealander born and bred. Here, home ownership has been normative for quite some time. I don't mean that there are no renters, or even that there are no long-term renters, I mean that for the majority of people, being a tenant is (or has been) a short-term thing. Several things flow from this that are unlikely to hold true in other countries. One: the quality of rental stock is poor, and there is little incentive to improve it* - tenants are less likely to truly care for a property when they either view themselves as 'just passing through' or are not offered security of tenure, and lately, landlords would be stupid to bother unless it's a health and safety issue, because it's the land that's appreciating out of sight, not the damp hovel squatting on it.
So there's that. Renting is, by and large, a shitty experience with a great deal of insecurity attached to it, and in any of the main centres, it's really expensive as well. As in: I remember conversing with a single mum (classic renter) at my kids' last school, who told me what her weekly rent was, and it was a hundred and twenty dollars a week MORE than my mortgage payments. For a total dump. I don't know how the hell she bought food for her kids. No-one can get ahead in a situation like that, not even by subletting** and cramming in several to a room, and making the home more insanitary and unsafe, so they're stuck, permanently, in some strata below those with mortgages, who will, at some point, have something to show for all the cash they threw at the problem.
There's also the fact that the housing market has been allowed to escalate out of all proportion to anything else here, fuelled partly by an immigration policy that's lead to demand outstripping supply, and there are all these stupid self-satisfied homeowners sitting on their couches being very pleased with the situation, because they're worth a million dollars, according to the latest valuations, or whatever, but it really makes no odds to those who're already in. You buy and sell in the same market, as they say.
The ones it really hits are the ones who aren't in yet. And how - how - is anyone supposed to be able to save up a deposit when rent may well cost MORE than weekly mortgage payments? Well, you can move back in with your parents, if they're very understanding, and actually able to accommodate you in this way, and if your older siblings haven't already beaten you to the punch there, but - for the last several years, in NZ main centres, house prices have been rising at such a rate that, unless you could save the whole amount required to reach the deposit threshold inside of a single year***, you'll struggle to get there. By the next year, prices will have likely risen enough push back down your deposit amount to below the threshold - again.
And if you have to rent, long-term, here's what it's likely to be like. You'll have to sign on for a fixed period of time - you can't terminate at will, it's up to you to pay rent until a new tenant is found if you need to vacate in that period. Your landlord, on the other hand, can terminate early, if they want to sell the property, or move into it themselves. You'll be expected to maintain the place to the standard it was when you moved in, including the grounds, if any. You'll have to submit to someone coming around quarterly, at a time suitable to them, not you, and looking through the place to ensure you're doing this satisfactorily. In your home, this is. Because of course, it's not your home, is it? Just where you live, at the moment. You may not be allowed to hang your pictures on the walls. To wear shoes inside. You almost certainly won't be able to get a dog.
I mean, you can call these first-world problems if you like. I guess they are, in some ways. But it makes me angry, because they're all completely fixable, there's just no political will to do it.
*It's worth noting here that it's also very unusual for tenants to be allowed to take anything into their own hands in terms of improvements, even if they're prepared to pay for it. Not on. Not allowed. No sir.
** This is also not allowed.
***Based on this article, the required deposit for a median-priced house in Auckland this year would be $166,000. Let me tell you, that is a shedload of money to be expected to front up with.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
anoesis--
When you speak of the perils of renting in NZ, does that include apartments/flats? Or just houses?
Thx.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
It’s not just NZ. Generation rent are getting screwed all over the developed world, especially in big cities, which at the same time are the only places many can find employment. I consider myself extremely fortunate in that my husband and I own a second home in the provinces. It means we’re doing better than many of our peers. However, it should be noted that we don’t own our “first” home – we are (slightly) above average earners, but there’s no way we’ll ever be able to afford property in Paris, and apart from a few high earners and someone who inherited young, I literally don’t know anyone under the age of forty who could afford it either. On our budget, we’d be able to get a bedsit at best. A three room Parisian apartment like the one I live in goes for about €600K these days. Property is cheap where we have our house, but that’s because it’s a region with crushing employment. Renting is traditionally not uncommon in France, but prices have skyrocketed in recent years, especially in the big cities. Much of the rental market is overpriced and in bad condition because people have to live somewhere and landlords know they’ll always find some poor sod who’s prepared to pay.
It all started going horribly wrong when residential real estate became primarily a financial investment rather than a place to live. Add insecure Uberised jobs and crappy interest rates which mean any talk of saving for our retirement is likely to be met with hollow laughter* and you have a generation living in considerably more precarious conditions than their parents.
*I not infrequently get a banner ad on the page of certain newspaper asking me if I have €350 000 to invest in my retirement. Why no, no I don’t.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Tangent alert: So the vicar refused to christen {Exclamation Mark} because you were of working class stock?
I can't quit thinking about this. Even before the Reformation all children were baptized so they didn't end up in Limbo. Did this Vicar think Christianity was just for the upper class? How could he possibly justify this with the words of Jesus?
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Tangent alert: So the vicar refused to christen {Exclamation Mark} because you were of working class stock?
I can't quit thinking about this. Even before the Reformation all children were baptized so they didn't end up in Limbo. Did this Vicar think Christianity was just for the upper class? How could he possibly justify this with the words of Jesus?
How indeed. I haven't a clue.
There is previous though: in the 1830's the Vicar refused to bury a child because he hadn't been baptised at the church but by the local Congregational Chapel. This despite the existing law, an order from an ecclesiastical court and the advice of the Bishop. The Vicar only lasted another 24 years in the parish.
Incidentally the child's body was taken to and from the church 5 times before he was finally buried. It was several years during which the coffin was kept in the chimney corner in a local cottage.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Much of the rental market is overpriced and in bad condition because people have to live somewhere and landlords know they’ll always find some poor sod who’s prepared to pay.
It all started going horribly wrong when residential real estate became primarily a financial investment rather than a place to live.
I was struck, when we were bucketing around France this fall, by how very many properties seem to have nobody living in them. Even in quite rural villages. They're clearly owned by someone (shuttered, painted, tidy) but nobody is resident there at this moment. They are summer homes or vacation residences or investment properties, for somebody, somewhere. In other words, there's plenty of places to live, but the places aren't accessible to people who are ISO housing.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Tangent alert: So the vicar refused to christen {Exclamation Mark} because you were of working class stock?
I can't quit thinking about this. Even before the Reformation all children were baptized so they didn't end up in Limbo. Did this Vicar think Christianity was just for the upper class? How could he possibly justify this with the words of Jesus?
How indeed. I haven't a clue.
There is previous though: in the 1830's the Vicar refused to bury a child because he hadn't been baptised at the church but by the local Congregational Chapel. This despite the existing law, an order from an ecclesiastical court and the advice of the Bishop. The Vicar only lasted another 24 years in the parish.
Incidentally the child's body was taken to and from the church 5 times before he was finally buried. It was several years during which the coffin was kept in the chimney corner in a local cottage.
Crassly, I could quip that I wonder how the vicar managed such longevity as to be the incumbent in the 1830s and still around when EM's father was a lad ...
But no, seriously, it does seem that this particular parish had 'form', bad form.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
............and speaking about Vicars and successful lives, what about the Vicar of Bray?
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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