pickle

Normandy and Cornwall are hardly comparable. Desirable part of France - 1 bed flat http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-40941287.html Less desirable part of UK - big house in large grounds. http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-40351817.html So what?

We are the 6th largest manufacturing nation in the world, just behind Italy, but ahead of France. True dat.

hahah you moron. I suppose those bankers on 1m+ a year who you no doubt hate skipped uni eh? 25k is peanuts.

Just got back from new year break in istanbul. Expensive, well, at least as expensive as london (where i live). Not unusual to pay 10 lira for a beer, bout 5 quid.

How could a search for yield end in gold, when the yield on gold is zero?

Anyone with a pulse. What does it matter?

How true. This site is full of sit on their **** losers who wouldnt know where to start trying to get out there and make a few quid. It seems they just expect somebody to come along and give them a job paying enough to afford that nice house with a garden. Get real, the world DOES NOT owe you a living. Well done to the lad for trying I say. It might not be the wisest move, market timing wise, but at least hes geiving SOMETHING a go.

This drives me mad. I t doesnt matter than someones ancient ancestors used to live there. That doesnt give a group of people the right to kick the LEGAL OWNERS AND OCCUIPIERS off said land 2000 years later. If we want to go back 2000 years Im sure each and every one of us is desended from someone who used to be jewish. Or African. Or Italian. It doesnt mean I can whizz into a nice suburb of Rome and kick someone out of there house. Of course the "return of the jews" wasnt accepted. Imagine the UK, population of what, 50m, having the "return" of 50m muslims into the country forced upon us and the muslim immmigrants then declaring half the UK a Muslim state due to some obscure religous text and ownership rights that ceased obver 2000 years ago. Imagine said Muslims then kicking most of the UK nationals out at gunpoint after defeating us in the war that would follow. Can you imagine? Can you? Would there be further wars? Would we fight back? Would we keep fighting for ever? Of course we would. As do the Arabs. It pains me that the Jewish people, in the blindness perhaps caused by the evil inflicted upon them by the nazi's, cannot see the fact they are morally wrong in their actions. Their burning desire for nationhood has led them to seek something that can never be theres. Not if they have taken it by force. Why can't they see that? Why can they not accept that they have stolen something, and they must give it back. Until the Arabs feel that Israel's past wrongs have been righted, this will never end.

You make it sound like they booked a removal van and moved to a bigger hosue accross town cause they were having kids Dont get me wrong, I think fundemental Islam is just as bad, if not worse, than fundemental Zionism. My point is that we cant fight the Islamists on the basis of us being on the moral high ground when we support the exsistance of a Jewish state on Arab lands. This is fundementaly wrong, and if this great mistake was corrected, the Jewish people could live in the peace that they deserve and the Islamist wouldnt have the valid greivense they currently sue to beat the west over the head with. If they were to start attacking jews even when the jewish people no longer occuied arab land, then they would exposed as the evil, anti-semites that many claim. This Bible business is part of the problem. To the majority of the non church going peoples of the world, the bible is a load of old tosh. Same goes for the Koran, and any other of these ancient texts. They certainly cant form the basis for rules of law governing Statehood in the modern world. Agreed.

These two-sided rages are all over the net right now. However, I cant help thinking its not a question of who is right and who is wrong. Both sides are clearly "wrong" in that they both comit evil, murder and generaly cause greif for their neighbours. So is it just a question of who is "least wrong" and how the issue can be resolved permanently. Its pretty clear that the Arabs will never allow Israel to exsist on Arab land. And why should they? The Jewish people didnt Buy the land from them leagly, its was taken by force and rules of law from colonial masters. If Britain cant accept loosing a few square miles in the far flung Falklands without resorting to war, how can we expect the Arab people to do anything different. So, if the Jewish people really want a homeland, and I dont think anyone can blame them for that - its something any people would want, why dont they just buy one? All the billions and billions and billions that are spent propping up Israel and its firepower could surley be spent on buying a suitable peice of land someplace? Israel isnt that big a land mass. It could be easily accomodated elsewhere in the world. And if they paid for the land after a plebersite of the owning population, then YES, they would have my support if someone then tried to kick them off it. But to suggest that someone has a right to live on Arab land just because their grandmother was Jewish is just stupid. People have a right to own something if they buy it off the current owners. Not if they just decide to take it. Thats theft. And ultimatley this is the root of the problem. The Jewish people did not get permission from the Arab nations to form israel where they did, neither did they compensate them for their loss. So will Israel ever be allowed to live in peace?. No, never. Which is a shame, because they surely deserve that as much as anyone, but they went about it the wrong way. Its time for them to go back to square one in their dreams for nationhood, I would support them in the goal, and even be prepared to help fund such a move through aid via my taxes.

Some intresting points here, but I would like to see some numbers to back some of these points up. Anyone know a source for a graph of how the percentage of the housing stock that is non "private owner/occupier" has changed. ie the number of properties on the market that are rented out by council/housing asscociation / private landlord. With all the council houses being purchased by the occupiers, perhaps the BTL crowd are just picking up the slack, with the acctual percentage of the housing stock that is "off the market" relativley unchanged? Maybe the poorer parts of society that cannot afford to buy, who would in previous generation lived in a council house, now rent instead from the private sector. Either way, these people have never been able to afford to own, so what difference does it make who they rent from? Disclaimer: Im a renter myself.

This whole argument is nonsesne. If anything, the class structure is flattening - we are all becoming middle class! Just because house prices are currently above trend hardly means we are turning into a polarized society! As for the "I cant afford to have kids" crap. Where do you think all those "chavs" come from? Poor people have more kids than the rich!

Isnt that the problem with a lot posters on here, that they are just dreamers. If you want to move to the country and grow veg, then do it. But sure as sh1t whinging on here all day about house prices isnt going to make it happen. Why is the answer to "I cant afford a house" never "go out and get a better job". This country has ALWAYS been full of people who cant afford a house. Look around at the vast swathes of social housing. The difference is that now, with a more socialy mobile society, that people born into a council house dont have to stay there. They can work their way up. Which means of course those who were perhaps born into a nice suburban semi, but dont really make much cash, will have to move down to replace them. This is what is happening. The fact that people cant afford to buy houses is nothing new. I think its just the fact that its now happening to new sections of society is comming as a bit of a shock to them. You dont hear many imigrants raised 3 to a bedroom in a council flat in hackney moaning about HPI!

But they do, dont they? Ultimatley. Just like all assets. Sure, in the short term they may drop a bit, but if you take any kind of long term view they keep going up, its called price inflation. us HPCers are really just trying to "time the market", ie buy on a dip of what is an never ending and relentless rising market.

Im not sure, but isnt this affordability as a factor of the average wage a bit misguided? Shouldnt it be as a factor of average household income? And as women now work more, and get paid better, then Im guessing there is more cash around for them to buy houses with, so prices go up. 2 * 28k = 56k. So at 3.5 times household income, the average couple can afford a 196k mortgage. Which is about the average house. So arent prices about right, on the "affordability scale"? Id like to see a household income to house price ratio graph, to see how much it has really changed in the last 30 years. Anyone have such figures?