NewBrit

The private sector is not stupid.

And at £65k, that is almost a deposit on a house in the UK. You could go to America with your house deposit and buy a whole house cash or buy half a house (semi-detached) in the UK (with a jumbo mortgage) and slave away for the next 25 years to pay it off. Meanwhile back at the ranch (in the USA) you can take it easy for the next 25 years, because you don't have a mortgage payment and a jumbo mortgage hanging over your head.

Even 25 years is insane. It is just a house people. Four walls, a roof and an incredibly small piece of land. Building a house is pretty straight forward. There is no advanced technology or anything difficult about it. Why should it take more than 15 years to pay off.

True. Not sure about the incomes part though. No it is not clear. What do you mean by wealthy? Where does wealthy start? The truly wealthy people that I know are not big spenders, they mostly invest their money which in turn creates more jobs. The idea that rich people live these luxurious lifestyles is a myth. There is a limit to what you can spend money on to make yourself happier. Most wealthy people know this and this is why they invest their surplus cash and also give money to charities. It is not obvious. What does more equitably mean? Who decides what is equitable? What someone earns is between them and their employer. Would you like it if your money was redistributed to poor people in the Sudan? Which market? Constant interference by the governement and the central bank has caused markets to become inefficient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_failure). It is a bit strange that you moan about market failure, but then advocate for more government which is causing the market failure.

If you drop the price low enough, it will always sell...

What are your unit trusts invested in? Different things have different risk. By the way, it is impossible to predict the market.

They are probably hoping their kids will help with the mortgage payment.

Well, they can just keep on increasing council tax because people cannot change councils and they are forced to pay it.

If you spend more than 25% of your take home pay on the mortgage you are not going to be able to afford having a life. Anybody who disagrees probably works for a bank or is a RE agent.

The UK ranks 20th out of 178 countries for the highest tax to GDP ratio at 39%. Yikes!

There are many people in worse situations (they don't own a property) that also need help. People without a property they can sell should be given priority.

Clearly a higher end property. So let say someone on a higher end salary want to buy it. A higher end household income in the area is probably 70-80k. So if we take four times salary multiple. Price should be somewhere in the £280k to £320k range.

Most people don't realise this, but the product that banks sell is DEBT. What astonishes me is when people walk into a bank to apply for a loan, they ask what is the MAXIMUM they can borrow. Nobody does this in other shops. Imagine you went to your local grocer and ask, what is the maximum I can spend in your shop. Banks have such good marketing that they have fooled us into wanting the maximum of their product, instead of the minimum.

Indeed, this is the biggest problem with housing in this country. For example there is only one building plot for sale in my county.

Indeed, this is why I moved out of London 6 years ago. Best decision I ever made. I am saving more money every month and have a higher standard of living.

I think people tend to forget how much £800k really is. The gross annual wage in London is 34k, so the asking price for this house is 23.5 times the local wage.

It is a massive snowball and it is picking up speed.

Osborne's only motivation is to get the maximum number of votes for his party and to advance his own career. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nice one, thanks.

Economics.

Ah, restrictive building regulations...

You are making a lot of assumptions and completely misunderstanding and twisting what I am saying. This is no doubt due to unresolved past trauma that you have experienced that you are now projecting onto me. If you actually read what I am saying, you will see that I am not against helping people in genuine need, but instead I am against people that are irresponsible (buying an iPhone and then showing up at the food bank). These irresponsible people then take resources that should have gone to help people that are in genuine need.

Nothing that some editing can't fix,: Instead of Character, call it Personality. Instead of Self-help, call it Benefits. Instead of Thrift, call it Mastercard. Instead of Duty, call it Deserve.

Are you saying: 1. I enjoy it when other people suffer due to their irresponsibility or 2. Are you saying that irresponsible people enjoy it when I have to bail them out? My answer to one is that it is actually the opposite, I try and tell people they should not waste their money on luxuries. This is to prevent them from getting themselves in trouble. My answer to two is that the occasional bail out that I do makes me feel good, because I am helping someone in need. I am however careful not to enable them in their bad behavior.

It was alive and kicking two thousand years ago: "The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down" - Proverbs 21:20.