Houses Are 12X Salary In Rural Areas

[exiges]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10876900

Campaign group The National Housing Federation claims the average rural house price in England is now more than 12 times the average salary of people living in rural areas.

They say the problems are very similar across the rest of the UK.

The figures show that in order to secure a typical mortgage, a person living and working in the countryside would now need to earn at least £66,000 a year.

At the moment the average income of people in rural areas is just over £20,000.

It means that young people are being forced to leave the villages where they grew up against their will because in many cases they cannot afford to rent, let alone buy.

Clare Dixon, 29, and her boyfriend Matt, grew up in the seaside village of Brancaster on the Norfolk coast. They want to stay there to be close to family and friends but say they've been priced out.

[xux42]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10876900

Campaign group The National Housing Federation claims the average rural house price in England is now more than 12 times the average salary of people living in rural areas.

They say the problems are very similar across the rest of the UK.

The figures show that in order to secure a typical mortgage, a person living and working in the countryside would now need to earn at least £66,000 a year.

At the moment the average income of people in rural areas is just over £20,000.

It means that young people are being forced to leave the villages where they grew up against their will because in many cases they cannot afford to rent, let alone buy.

Clare Dixon, 29, and her boyfriend Matt, grew up in the seaside village of Brancaster on the Norfolk coast. They want to stay there to be close to family and friends but say they've been priced out.

Is that exchange prices or asking? Still leaves them priced out though. The prices will eventually be slashed by £3/litre petrol - coming sooner than you think.

[silver surfer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10876900

It means that young people are being forced to leave the villages where they grew up against their will because in many cases they cannot afford to rent, let alone buy.

Clare Dixon, 29, and her boyfriend Matt, grew up in the seaside village of Brancaster on the Norfolk coast. They want to stay there to be close to family and friends but say they've been priced out.

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but do people really have a right to live where they were born? Do people raised in Chelsea or Mayfair have a right to continue living there if prices are beyond their means?

[Traktion]

They just need to bring in a land value tax and make gaining rural planning permission easier.

It's not difficult to do either, but those who have gained from HPI will not give up the fight easily.

[Scunnered]

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but do people really have a right to live where they were born?

Good point. Let's ship them all off to Australia.

[PopGun]

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but do people really have a right to live where they were born? Do people raised in Chelsea or Mayfair have a right to continue living there if prices are beyond their means?

Yeah, because kids born in these areas often suffer sleepless nights worrying about money don't they?

I don't think it's too much to ask to live in the modest surroundings you grew up in, and occupy otherwise empty holiday homes 12 months of the year and contributing to the localised economy.

[leicestersq]

I always thought it would be a good idea to have a national register of UK citizens.

Then every adult UK citizen could claim a big reduction on their council tax for one property. But only one. For second properties, you would have to pay 3 or 4 times the 'discounted' level.

This would help quite a bit, as the cost of holiday homes would soar for second home owners, bringing in more revenue for local councils, and making it more difficult for people to own second homes for long periods of time. It would also cause a lot more tax to be raised off of foreigners. This seems right too, it is hardly right to allow people to come here and live in our houses, when there are not enough properties for the nationals that live here.

Oh, and one more thing. Council tax should be levied against those who own the home and the land, not those living there. It would make the tax far more easy to collect.

I am sure that this would bring the price down in rural areas, but perhaps not so much as to make homes affordable. Policies elsewhere would need to make up the difference.

[silver surfer]

Yeah, because kids born in these areas often suffer sleepless nights worrying about money don't they?

I don't think it's too much to ask to live in the modest surroundings you grew up in, and occupy otherwise empty holiday homes 12 months of the year and contributing to the localised economy.

Why should an accident of birth entitle Clare and Matt to a subsidised life in beautiful Brancaster, but not someone born in say Moss Side?

[AvidFan]

I always thought it would be a good idea to have a national register of UK citizens.

Then every adult UK citizen could claim a big reduction on their council tax for one property. But only one. For second properties, you would have to pay 3 or 4 times the 'discounted' level.

This would help quite a bit, as the cost of holiday homes would soar for second home owners, bringing in more revenue for local councils, and making it more difficult for people to own second homes for long periods of time. It would also cause a lot more tax to be raised off of foreigners. This seems right too, it is hardly right to allow people to come here and live in our houses, when there are not enough properties for the nationals that live here.

Oh, and one more thing. Council tax should be levied against those who own the home and the land, not those living there. It would make the tax far more easy to collect.

I am sure that this would bring the price down in rural areas, but perhaps not so much as to make homes affordable. Policies elsewhere would need to make up the difference.

Perhaps we could have some medium of exchange that has a certain purchasing power when used to buy houses but one which foreigners get a lousy conversion rate on. A bit like the Peso and dollar in Cuba - tourists pay dollar rates - Cubans pay peso rates.

[Scunnered]

Why should an accident of birth entitle Clare and Matt to a subsidised life in beautiful Brancaster, but not someone born in say Moss Side?

Why should an accident of birth entitle people like us to a luxurious life in the UK, but not someone born in Yemen?

[guitarman001]

Is that exchange prices or asking? Still leaves them priced out though. The prices will eventually be slashed by £3/litre petrol - coming sooner than you think.

Doesn't mean those with more money wont stop pricing out those of us on less (or should I say those of us who don't want to take on huge debt).

I think the person should be allowed to live where she was born and that the housing costs illustrated here are ridiculous - 12x local wages!?

EXCELLENT example of what HPC is going on about.

[guitarman001]

We can really see the difference between the sleaze that use housing as a cash machine and those who just want to get on with their lives - housing is completely ruining towns and business through unrealistic costs.

[silver surfer]

Why should an accident of birth entitle people like us to a luxurious life in the UK, but not someone born in Yemen?

Because our parents and their parents before them created the conditions that made the "luxurious life" possible, where as god made Brancaster!

[PopGun]

Why should an accident of birth entitle people like us to a luxurious life in the UK, but not someone born in Yemen?

<beat me to it> Exactly, it's a childish and silly argument. Gosh why can't the surplus priced out population just sod off and die somewhere more in keeping with their enforced standing?!?

[silver surfer]

Because some continuity of community is a good thing.

However, the person from Moss Side would be equally entitled to the subsidised life in Brancaster if he could find decent work in the area on an average wage. Brancaster isn't Beverley Hills.

So what would you say to all the Brancaster locals when they complain that "their" beautiful town is being spoilt by all these Moss Side immigrants who are flooding in to enjoy subsidised housing?

[lurker07]

We can really see the difference between the sleaze that use housing as a cash machine and those who just want to get on with their lives - housing is completely ruining towns and business through unrealistic costs.

Indeed. The root cause of most troubles seems to be our inherent greed and the policies we allow to be adopted on our behalf which perpetuate greed. This inherent greed may have allowed us to get "out of the trees", but being sentient beings I would think we would have learned to grow out of it. Alas we haven't - take a look at the in-fighting seen around the world and we don't seem to have learned very much at all.

[erat_forte]

Why should an accident of birth entitle people like us to a luxurious life in the UK, but not someone born in Yemen?

You are 100% correct there. However, as always, it is the artificially inflated cost of living (mostly housing costs) that makes Brancaster so much more expensive than Moss Side, and makes anywhere in the UK so much more expensive than Yemen.

And exchange rates. I mean, what is going on there? Sure there is supply and demand of real things which produces imported tat from China and outsourcing, but what is stopping the currencies settling so that Chinese wages rise and ours sink to parity - or at least to a sensible market relationship with each other.

[erranta]

Why should an accident of birth entitle Clare and Matt to a subsidised life in beautiful Brancaster, but not someone born in say Moss Side?

Bran _ Caster

Maybe they should start a shanty village on the village green/common/mud flats with others similarly dispossessed!

Or they might Burnham.

[PopGun]

Doesn't mean those with more money wont stop pricing out those of us on less (or should I say those of us who don't want to take on huge debt).

I think the person should be allowed to live where she was born and that the housing costs illustrated here are ridiculous - 12x local wages!?

EXCELLENT example of what HPC is going on about.

Exactly, banging on with false arguments about 'entitlement' completely misses the bigger picture here, and apologises for one of the most fundamental problems facing this country for over a generation.

It's a bit like the globalists insisting you have no 'right' to hide behind borders in a globalised market place. They may have a point (for now). However these also tend to be the ones who laugh off notions such as 85%+ falls in housing costs.

Well we can't have one without the other.

Edited August 5, 2010 by PopGun

[erat_forte]

A thing that has been getting me thinking recently is the size of political units. Nowadays there is a pretty clear consensus that the UK is the size of organised society we want to live in - that the EU is too big, and that independent Wales or Scotland is too small.

But why is this? What is so magical about 62,000,000 people, that we decide to muck in with the other 61,999,999 and share our money with them like a big happy family (through taxes, and benefits and other subsidies)?

If you look back in history groups were much smaller. In early medieval times you have loads of different totally independent kingdoms in this part of the world. King Offa ruled Mercia, and that was that. Alfred in Wessex. Some other egbert or something was King of Northumbria, rasied taxes on the Northumbrian population, spent the tax money on public works and handouts within Northumbria, and on a standing army to guard the borders with Mercia and make sure no Mercian benefit chavs tried the old illegal immigrant trick by sneaking in to a Northumbrian monastery and abusing the soft touch there. And further north you have the Kingdom of Scots which itself was not that long before formed from 3 completely independent countries in the East (th Picts), Strathclyde, and the West (the Gaels).

Factor in as well that the population was so much smaller and it is probably more like each English county being a seperate sovereign nation.

Why do we think that is a silly idea? Imagine Kent as a sovereign nation; there would be a parliament in Canterbury, which would raise taxes on the People of Kent; the taxes would be spent on road building, social security, and subsidies to the parliamentarian's business contacts.

[PopGun]

So what would you say to all the Brancaster locals when they complain that "their" beautiful town is being spoilt by all these Moss Side immigrants who are flooding in to enjoy subsidised housing?

To enjoy local subsidised housing, doesn't one have to be say er local? If the moss sider was able to gain employment in the area and eventually be deemed 'local' than what's the probem? You're presenting yourself as a NIMBY snob, where as your response below completely contradicts your point:

Because our parents and their parents before them created the conditions that made the "luxurious life" possible, where as god made Brancaster!

Edited August 5, 2010 by PopGun

[skomer]

<beat me to it> Exactly, it's a childish and silly argument. Gosh why can't the surplus priced out population just sod off and die somewhere more in keeping with their enforced standing?!?

I think that argument is the one that Westminster City Council uses too

[lets get it right]

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but do people really have a right to live where they were born near where they were born - close to family members - so they can live in loosely extended families providing support and help to each other? YES

Do people raised in Chelsea or Mayfair have a right to continue living there if prices are beyond their means? Just because the property market is insane, it doesn't mean the age old need of people to live in family groups can be discounted or ignored. I want my kids to live near me - so I can help them out with their lives and their kids and be part of their lives. I like to think my kids will feel the same way. Chelsea or Moss Side, it's all the same to me. The problem is the price of housing, not the principle.

[Papa Serf]

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but do people really have a right to live where they were born? Do people raised in Chelsea or Mayfair have a right to continue living there if prices are beyond their means?

Local houses for local people, local house prices should reflect local wages, someone on an average local wage should inspire to own an average local home. We live in a society that these average wage earners pay into, so yes within reason we do have a right to live where we are born. In fact nothing is more natural.

Edited August 5, 2010 by Papa Serf

[barrabus]

I would suggest that more good quality houses were built to accommodate them. In reality, people from Moss Side aren't all going to migrate down to Brancaster because firstly they won't have any ties to the area, and secondly, there wouldn't be enough jobs for them all.

The basic idea is that people should be able to find reasonably accommodation in most parts of the country, relative to average incomes isn't unreasonable.

i do not think that that many people work from Moss Side and the ones that do soon leave the place as soon as they make a few quid,for some being from a bad area gives some the work ethic to get away from the place I was born in the next deprived area next to Moss Side, Wythenshawe and my contemporaries and myself all worked hard to get away.