h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been really Muggy today

I think we really need to be watching weather presenters mocking the idea of a storm.

I lurk on the Storm Watch page on the Weather message boards, in winter its Snow Watch, and I lurk even more

Every week there are more and more houses over the £1 million mark, one is about half a mile away, brand new on the main road into Guildford within clear earshot of the A3. It was first on the market for £1.15million and has been reduced to £1.07mill but it still hasn't sold. So people do recognise an over inflated price and hoepfully more will do so.

I don't think prices will crash this time round, but steady out and perhaps allow first time buyers to catch up.

There was an article in my paper about 50 and 100 year mortgages that would get passed onto children, which is a pretty scary thought at first. But I suppose on the death of the parent, the property would be sold off and the mortgage terminated as now.

You wouldn't be able to get a life insurance policy to cover the debt like you can now though, as it is pretty certain that you would pop off before the debt is cleared! This would be a bit harsh of you died from accidental causes rather than old age. I suppose if the kids couldn't afford to service the debt then they would have to sell it off and just keep the equity.

Ah, but will you have to pay death duties on the money made from the sale before you get to pay off the mortgage? Just the sort of trick I would expect to see, being far too cynicle as I am.
Going to have to think about the idea of generational mortgages, my gut instinct is it is bad, but I'm not quite sure why.

I know what my reaction would be if my parents took one out - disinherit me please! There is no way I would want to pay for a house I didn't live in, when I'm busy paying for my own!

Hmmm wonder if you could take one out before you had kids?

What would happen then, if you didn't quite get round to it?

Presumably the house would revert to the mortgage lender, as it does now when old people cash in their equity for an annuity.

Just seen some appropriate news this last week, apparently the first 5 times income mortgage has been announced (can't remember who tho') and predicted collapse of housing market in 2004, although only by 10%, which given it's risen 20% isn;t really a what we wanted!

So what about these new planning regs to give housing associations more money to build brownfield developments in commutervilles round london? Good idea? Bad idea? Supposedly for public sector workers etc. My immediate thought was 'perhaps they don't want to live in a housing association property, perhaps they'd actually like to own their own house!'

I saw the news about the brown field thing as well. What's the difference between that and green belt?

Maybe they can't afford to buy their own house. I commute into London, and as I'm a single mum I can't afford (or don't want to change my lifestyle enough to afford) to buy a house. Particulary at the moment.

I do know that an independant pay review has just recommended that all public sector workers in the London area be given an immediate 30% pay rise to enable them to continue top live and work in the capital/south east.
That's ridiculous, because we'll get, at most, 5-8%, if that, and how does that help the government of the nation to run?

What I meant about owning houses is that this doesn;t solve the problem. Why should a person on salary X be excluded from owning a house just because of where they live? My brief encounters with housing association stuff is they tend to be not htat grand and you get to pay a mortgage AND a rent. Why not just build the houses and then cap the profit that can be made? Presumably a house in London costs roughly the same as a house in manchester to build. Or LiverPool or even Dumfries. The land would be more expensive but the Govt could use the money here and allow those on lesser incomes to own a house. Yeah I know, lots of problems here, but so are there with the proposed route.

Brownfields is land that has already been built on, usually industriel but not always (hence the gorunds full of cack, mmm!) whereas Greenfields, by definition, tends not to have been built on.

What needs to be reduced is the pressure to buy a house in the first place. Home ownership in France and Netherlands is lower but they seem to get alongh OK...why?

What about the latest whoopy wheeee plan from New Labour - levy Stamp Duty on the seller as well as the buyer and relate the level of sellers Stamp Duty to the length of time they have owned the property - the longer you have lived there the more yoou get charged when you sell.

This is supposed to encourage people to move rather than build an extension.....................

Can't see it myself - seems to me to be another disincentive to purchasing in the first place

What's wrong with building an extension? You are reducing housing demand by however many people you house in the extension in that case - no?

I don't think there is anything wrong with extending ones property provided planning regs are complied with.

The government think tank that proposed the change to Stamp Duty seem to think that by discouraging people from staying in a property for a long time (by financially penalising them) this will somehow improve the housing market, particularly at the bottom end.

Still dont see it ! ! !

I dunno about reduce the incentive to buy.....personally, as someone who bought their first house in Feb, I've wanted to buy for a while. Security, control of my environment and so forth. Also, it must be said, it is a pretty good bit of collateral, providing you don;t buy at the height of a boom, erm....ooops!

Fine if there are cultures where people happily go through life renting, but what are the rental laws like there? Is there more protection, are the rental agreements different? Is it necessarily a like for like comparison?

I think everyone should be able to own their own house should they so desire to provide a safe and secure environment for their family, or , like me, just themselves. And said house shouldn;t have to be a ramshackle dump in the dodgy end of town. They shouldn't be priced out of the market by the greed of those who already well off and don't actually need the premises, but are just buying it to make more money.

I do wonder if maybe there is a better way to do things. I do see something not quite right about a large families crowded into unsuitable accomodation purely due to their financial status, and yet you also get situations of one or two people rattling round in a large house they don't really need. Not found a solution yet tho'

The trouble with renting is that it's really difficult to find a secure tenancy *and* a decent landlord.

The trouble with owning is that if disaster strikes, and suddenly you have no income, you can't pay the mortage.

The idea of a tax for how long you have been in a property is ridiculous! My parents have been in their house since 1981. It's a 3 bedroom house that has 2 people in it. They are finally rid of all their kids, and are thinking of moving to a smaller house in Norfolk, so leaving a nice house for a larger family. If they have to pay a fortune in tax to move, they are just going to stay there.

What's the point in that??

I thought the idea was to reduce/remove the stamp duty on buying a place so that the cost is on the seller, not on the buyer, so removing the disincentive to buy.

This sounds like another blow to communities though - don't stay put too long, you might get to know your neighbours! Moving every five years or less is fine if you don't have a family, but what about mum and dad that want to settle while the family grows up, and then move to a smaller property when they retire. Isn't this tax going to hit them the hardest? Just as their state pension fails to look after them, so their investment in their home is grabbed by the govt when they need it most.

Don't like the sound of that at all

k

Exactly my thoughts on the stamp duty thing...

why is I always feel myself slipping into 'Master Cynic' mode when I see the words 'Government thinktank' approaching?

Quite apart, of course, from the cost of moving outside of the cost of the house. having to stump up x amount every few years to move for solicitor, surveyor, removals whathaveyou and we'll all rapidly be living in hovels.

Rental vs. Owning, it's a difficult one, I grant you. But if you loose your job you can sell the house and rent, perhaps on the social. If renting you don't even have that. I suppose it gets better the longer you;ve been paying the mortgage off as your going to get more back. The bit where you are paying interest is, I guess, the 'danger zone'.