bomberbrown

After reading all the blurb, this nothing more than ‘key money’.

Do you only pay 5% of the price of a new boiler should it need replacing? I think most likely not.

Noon

The split second I saw this article, this picture came to mind

A perfect example of the analogy of "failing to make hay whilst the sun shines"

Call me cynical, but there’s no mention where these ‘homes’ are, what they are (flats, houses, bedsits, shared ownership?), who they’ve been made available to and when. Absolute tosh article.

As much as it pains me to say it, I think the ‘powers that be’ have decided to go down the 1970’s path 😤

At the peak of the council house/flat building of the 60's, 70's and early 80's, they were building 300,000 places a year. Lewisham builds 11 flats and it's BBC news! 🤔

https://www.persimmonhomes.com/corporate/investors/investment-case/five-year-summary/ Yet profits remain stable/better still. Meaning they could sell the houses cheaper if they wanted to.

Tower Hamlets Council awarded a HMO licence to a 2 bed flat! FFS!!

Studio flat for rent in Sussex Street, London, SW1V (rightmove.co.uk) Thank god for the outside space else you'd go stir crazy (mind you, won't be able to enjoy it all year round). Can anyone find one smaller?

Au contraire 😉 https://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/member/product/savings/cash_isa/loyalty-fixed-isa-1-31-05-2024.html

It’s only 33 square metres! 😮

Actually, scrap that, it gets better. If I up my rent to £1,600 a month, I would qualify for almost £600 a week (including state pension) This is JUST the housing benefit portion Housing Benefit £ 369.23 per week How to claim Your claim for Guarantee Pension Credit will mean you get maximum help with your housing costs.

Nope. Definitely excluding state pension. It’s £359.22 a week including state pension. I used this calculator https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/

Quick fag packet calculation for pension credit is £10k a year for a single retiree (on top of weekly state pension) What would that cost as an annuity? if I was just starting out in work now, I would definitely be opting out of private pension. What’s the point?

Oh dear, where to start? The Brixton one (13 mins in) is barely Brixton, it’s Loughborough Junction. I live 15 minutes walk from it and I can’t think of a more depressing place to spunk half a million quid on, and then some more to make the house habitable. It’s basically like living in an industrial estate. This is a perfect example of where someone has done quite nicely out of Right To Buy.

Regarding the octogenarian mother OP, I read it that she was a high rate tax payer whilst working so that’s why her DB (final salary) pension is so high/comfortable. I could be wrong? For her to be a high rate tax paying pension, she would have had to have had a final salary of around £100k about thirty years ago.

Agreed, except for the bit early on where Bootle is blaming Covid for inflation. We had 12 years of ZIRP after the GFC (2008) before we even got to Covid (2020)

I don’t know and I’m not sure I follow either? I was simply illustrating the bizarre (il)logic in that statement and thought that a Ponzi scheme was a close comparison.

Two words. “Key Money” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_money

So, Vicky, how does that actually work? (In any other world than a Ponzi scheme)

….and she’s the Housing Correspondent! 🤣

Back in 1999 when my 1 bed private flat rent rose quite a bit because of a new landlord (they came in and immediately put the rent up), I voted with my feet by moving out and going into a flat share. I’m sure others will be doing the same.