So the government has a new plan to "help" first-time buyers - by using public funds to underwrite part of their mortgages thus allowing them to borrow up to 95% of the value of a new house. I can't help questioning where the sense lies in encouraging an already financially-stretched generation living in the aftermath of the recent shattered credit bubble to borrow yet more money against what is arguably a vastly overvalued investment. Especially when many economists believe there is a significant likelihood of further, perhaps sharp, falls in house prices in the near future.
I'm 31 and in a slightly above average paid job, but with no capital behind me I am nowhere near able to afford to buy my own home. I always thought that the day would come when I could climb aboard the glistening property ladder but I am fast beginning to accept the fact that it might not.
At present my wages cover my rent, food and bills plus, with the price of beer as high as it is, an increasingly modest social life. I could live like a hermit for 5 years and still not really save enough for a useful deposit.
My parents do not have the money to lend me for a deposit, nor would I ever ask them to - I feel that as they get older they should be able to spend the small amount of spare cash they have in order to live their lives as best as they can. They've worked hard over the years so why shouldn't they?
So, I'm fast preparing to resign myself to a lifetime of renting. Not the end of the world by any means but it certainly has many disadvantages. For example, twice in the last seven years I've been essentially ejected from my own home when the landlords decided it was time to sell up and cash in on their 'investment'. This was stressful (not to mention expensive) enough as a young single bloke - I can't begin to imagine how this would affect a family or an elderly person.
Whilst on one hand it is reassuring to know that if the roof blew off in a storm it would be someone else's responsibility to fix it, on the other hand it is somewhat disconcerting that I have no control over the speed or quality of repairs. In the depths of last winter my housemates and I lived without heating or hot water for four days because it took our landlord so long to get someone round to fix our broken boiler. Yes, we probably could have hassled her continuously in an attempt to get someone round sooner but then that's more easily said than done when you work full time - plus no-one wants to get on the wrong side of their landlord.
I also have to resign myself to a lifetime of living with someone else's taste in bathrooms, kitchens, carpets and interior decoration - no home modifications or extensions for me. Carpets will be replaced and rooms repainted only when the landlord deems truly necessary - which, seeing as they don't have to live with it, will be somewhere in the region of every 10 years at best. Yes, some landlords will allow you to repaint if you wish - but then this could easily be money down the drain when they ask you to move out a couple of months later. If you are lucky enough to have a more accepting landlord then they are still likely to limit the colours you can choose and they certainly won't be happy about you ripping out the bathtub and installing a power shower instead.
I know this isn't exactly homelessness but it's a very different existence to the one my parents know. Now in their mid-fifties they are approaching being mortgage-free and are ready for a secure and comfortable retirement in a house that they have made truly their own and can continue to modify as they age. When they bought their house, by the way, it cost approximately 3 times my dad's modest salary. Their house today would cost me approximately 12 times my slightly above average salary.
I look around at my friends - all in their late twenties/early thirties and mostly in fairly well paid professional jobs. Of my group of 15-20 close friends, only four have managed to start to buy their own places.
Through work I have met several landlords who own properties similar to the ones that the rest of us rent. Some of them have portfolios of 10+ properties - many they bought at auction and have barely even set foot in (other than to give instructions to builders about how to renovate cheaply to minimum rental standards). Granted, a stock of private rental properties is required to house all of the people who can't afford to buy, but it cannot be denied that the buy-to-let gravy train is a significant cause of the prices being prohibitively expensive in the first place. Of course, once a landlord owns and has built up some capital in one property they can borrow against it to buy the next one - further increasing demand and raising the height of that first rung of the ladder so many are trying to reach.
I'm 31 and in a slightly above average paid job, but with no capital behind me I am nowhere near able to afford to buy my own home. I always thought that the day would come when I could climb aboard the glistening property ladder but I am fast beginning to accept the fact that it might not.
At present my wages cover my rent, food and bills plus, with the price of beer as high as it is, an increasingly modest social life. I could live like a hermit for 5 years and still not really save enough for a useful deposit.
My parents do not have the money to lend me for a deposit, nor would I ever ask them to - I feel that as they get older they should be able to spend the small amount of spare cash they have in order to live their lives as best as they can. They've worked hard over the years so why shouldn't they?
So, I'm fast preparing to resign myself to a lifetime of renting. Not the end of the world by any means but it certainly has many disadvantages. For example, twice in the last seven years I've been essentially ejected from my own home when the landlords decided it was time to sell up and cash in on their 'investment'. This was stressful (not to mention expensive) enough as a young single bloke - I can't begin to imagine how this would affect a family or an elderly person.
Whilst on one hand it is reassuring to know that if the roof blew off in a storm it would be someone else's responsibility to fix it, on the other hand it is somewhat disconcerting that I have no control over the speed or quality of repairs. In the depths of last winter my housemates and I lived without heating or hot water for four days because it took our landlord so long to get someone round to fix our broken boiler. Yes, we probably could have hassled her continuously in an attempt to get someone round sooner but then that's more easily said than done when you work full time - plus no-one wants to get on the wrong side of their landlord.
I also have to resign myself to a lifetime of living with someone else's taste in bathrooms, kitchens, carpets and interior decoration - no home modifications or extensions for me. Carpets will be replaced and rooms repainted only when the landlord deems truly necessary - which, seeing as they don't have to live with it, will be somewhere in the region of every 10 years at best. Yes, some landlords will allow you to repaint if you wish - but then this could easily be money down the drain when they ask you to move out a couple of months later. If you are lucky enough to have a more accepting landlord then they are still likely to limit the colours you can choose and they certainly won't be happy about you ripping out the bathtub and installing a power shower instead.
I know this isn't exactly homelessness but it's a very different existence to the one my parents know. Now in their mid-fifties they are approaching being mortgage-free and are ready for a secure and comfortable retirement in a house that they have made truly their own and can continue to modify as they age. When they bought their house, by the way, it cost approximately 3 times my dad's modest salary. Their house today would cost me approximately 12 times my slightly above average salary.
I look around at my friends - all in their late twenties/early thirties and mostly in fairly well paid professional jobs. Of my group of 15-20 close friends, only four have managed to start to buy their own places.
Through work I have met several landlords who own properties similar to the ones that the rest of us rent. Some of them have portfolios of 10+ properties - many they bought at auction and have barely even set foot in (other than to give instructions to builders about how to renovate cheaply to minimum rental standards). Granted, a stock of private rental properties is required to house all of the people who can't afford to buy, but it cannot be denied that the buy-to-let gravy train is a significant cause of the prices being prohibitively expensive in the first place. Of course, once a landlord owns and has built up some capital in one property they can borrow against it to buy the next one - further increasing demand and raising the height of that first rung of the ladder so many are trying to reach.
Still, at least those in a worse position than me have a sturdy social housing system to fall back on. Oh no, how absent minded of me - most of that was sold off years ago. And now it appears that someone's come up with a fantastic plan to sell off the rest of it. I can't help but wonder how many of these properties will end up in the hands of buy-to-let investors in a few years time earning someone a healthy profit. Surely at a time when unemployment is rising and affordable housing is somewhat conspicuous by its absence we should be rapidly increasing the availability of well-maintained and secure social housing not only through new building schemes undertaken with quality and living standards put before profit but also through urgently addressing the shocking fact that nearly half a million homes in Britain are lying empty - often because someone is waiting for the right time to cash in on them...
I can't help thinking it's a sorry state of affairs when as a society we have let one of the most basic requirements of human existence - a home - become a commodity which earns so much money for the few, but makes life so expensive and compromised for the many. There's no human requirement to own more than one home but our collective greedy nature and lack of regulation of this fundamentally important resource has made it impossible for so many of us to afford this basic asset.
I've never aspired to make money from property, nor do I think I would if I had the chance (although granted, this is easy to say when I don't have the financial means for one, let alone a portfolio of houses). All I hope to be able to afford one day is a modest sized home for me and, possibly, a family - which we can make our own and live out our days in relative security. As sad as it would be for existing mortgage holders, a sharp correction (i.e. a 90's style collapse) of the housing market would probably be my only hope of achieving this - other than marrying a filthy rich wife.
Sadly, it doesn't seem either is likely to happen...
