British could easily do the same and there is absolutely nothing stopping them. They just need to get their 'thinking caps' on.
£15 -20k will buy you a livable property in Bulgaria....£35 - 50k will get you a ready to move into luxury home with all mod cons, plus the majority of properties there also come with large plots of land.
Anyone in regular employment...bang in a few months of overtime and you could own one of these cash outright.
I'm not sure that'd be entirely wise.
Surely the whole idea of buying property as an investment involves being fairly sure that nothing unexpected is likely to ruin that investment.
There's a reason why all these Chinese people are buying property here rather than in Bulgaria, themselves.
Those who contribute to making property investment here attractive are being told to go away.
You actually raise an interesting point about the part a society plays in protecting a property investment.
You can imagine some Chinese financial advisor telling his clients "Yeah, those Brit's; the politicians are too stubborn to ever let the economy go totally to shit like other bits of Europe have, the people are too dull to ever have a revolution or anything like that and the environmental and building regulations are so strict that properties will never be ruined by chemicals or devalued by other construction work so go nuts".
And those are the reasons why Chinese people are buying properties here rather than in Eastern Europe, where it's like the f**king Wild West.
I'm surprised there are people who can't grasp that.
Surely the whole idea of buying property as an investment involves being fairly sure that nothing unexpected is likely to ruin that investment.
There's a reason why all these Chinese people are buying property here rather than in Bulgaria, themselves.
Anyone buying property purely as investment is speculating....in just the same way as someone playing around on the Stock Market. What goes up can also come down.
Remember those who got caught out in 'negative equity'?
When the Property bubble burst i saw my own property decrease in value by almost 40%. That's a massive drop. Fortunately i've owned it for 20 years so haven't actually lost out financially, but had i bought just before, then i'd be in deep mire with a whacking mortgage and a property in 'negative equity'.
Everyone would love to be 'fairly sure' of nothing ruining their investment. But life isn't quite like that.
I find it odd that folk are suddenly kicking up quite a fuss over 'all these Chinese' buying property here. For years wealthy Arabs, Greeks, Indians, Russians, Ukrainians have been snapping up property......yet nobody ever batted an eyelid.
Ah.....maybe the Daily Wail ran a header which is pretty much the same as whats whipped all this nonsense about the Chinese invasion too. The Wails hystrionics of the predicted 'invasion' of East Europeans turned out to be something of a damp squib so now they've had to look for something else to feed the lemmings.
And those are the reasons why Chinese people are buying properties here rather than in Eastern Europe, where it's like the f**king Wild West.
I'm surprised there are people who can't grasp that.
Which countries have you been to in Eastern Europe and where?
Its all a matter of relative costs and earnings. I was earning £8.50 take home , as a tradesman. Bought my first house for £500 late 1958. Then an old farmhouse with 3.1/2 Acres for £3000 in 1963. Mortgage was £16 a month , my take home pay was £18 a week, overtime made it around £20 a week clear. This place ,23yrs ago £68000 a bungalow by the sea. Now valued at £250,000.
It's a pretty recent thing that people moved out of their parents' place and bought their own.
Dates back to the mid- 60's onwards,before that young people stayed at the parents' pace and had their own room,even if they were married,the British obsession with home ownership became the norm,mortgages were strictly controlled at a multiple of income, 3-4 times annual income, and councils and building companies, built houses. So the market was fairly stable, although interest rates shot up to 15% at one point.
The lack of house building, private and social is the main reason people cannot buy so easily now.
Wages not rising in line with prices is another.
The financial constraints now placed on mortgage providers,after the free for all that caused the crash, is another factor.
So Chinese people buying places,is a drop in the ocean.
May be a bit off topic but why are adults in this country frowned on if they still live with their parents ? It's not a sin to be living with your parents as say, aged 30 etc....not in my eyes anyway,and I've had my own place.
May be a bit off topic but why are adults in this country frowned on if they still live with their parents ? It's not a sin to be living with your parents as say, aged 30 etc....not in my eyes anyway,and I've had my own place.
Some simply can't afford to move out.
I don't think it's that frowned upon in general. It's pretty common.
The main thing which drives prices of anything is supply and demand. I can see this demand being caused by several things more prominent than foreigners buying up our housing stocks.
The first is the large numbers of buy to letters.
The second is the large numbers of single occupancy households - either first time buyers or older people who have separated. Over 50% of the people in our office at work are single occupancy householders.
The main thing which drives prices of anything is supply and demand. I can see this demand being caused by several things more prominent than foreigners buying up our housing stocks.
The first is the large numbers of buy to letters.
The second is the large numbers of single occupancy households - either first time buyers or older people who have separated. Over 50% of the people in our office at work are single occupancy householders.
I guess some people on this thread are determined to bash foreigners rather than look at the facts.
I guess some people on this thread are determined to bash foreigners rather than look at the facts.
Attacking the buyers is futile, regardless of nationality. There is no shame in trying to maximise your finances but there remains a serious shortage of affordable housing in this country which I think needs addressing.
You not think our drinking culture and levels of consumerism have increased over the past 20/30 years?
Driving, drinking, and consumer spending amongst the young (under 30's) has fallen over the past 15 years. Most rises are largely driven by the over 50's.
Driving, drinking, and consumer spending amongst the young (under 30's) has fallen over the pastb12 15 years. Most rises are largely driven by the over 50's.
The main thing which drives prices of anything is supply and demand. I can see this demand being caused by several things more prominent than foreigners buying up our housing stocks.
The first is the large numbers of buy to letters.
The second is the large numbers of single occupancy households - either first time buyers or older people who have separated. Over 50% of the people in our office at work are single occupancy householders.
No it's not.
You said it yourself, it's supply and demand.
There has been no building policy of any note for the last 3 decades, add to that the reluctance by builders to build affordable housing and the complete lack of any large scale social housing construction, and you come close to the major reason for people not being able to buy.
Such are the joys of being in the oil and gas industry.
By way of example, one of my colleagues recently built a house in Warsaw and it's a lovely place but, even so, he's still dug up the street outside his house and connected his house to the electricity supply for the street lights cos, y'know, that's just the done thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some lovely, cosmopolitan areas in Eastern European countries but the veneer of civilisation is pretty thin and bribery, corruption and lawlessness are never far from the surface.
Which, as I said, is why speculators choose to buy property here rather than there.
How is it any different to the UK people with holiday homes in the south of france, spain, etc? Or even second homes within the UK?
The Spanish went out of there way to build Holiday Villas and Apartments to attract buyers from this Country and Northern Europe. They have the land and the space. i.e. Spain enjoys more rain than England taking account of its land mass and actually people living there and needing water.
France has a relative static population with land and homes being handed down through families. Whilst immigration is probably changing this balance, they have a much larger land mass and less need to build.
This Country does have the space if you want to continually concrete over it. Its about getting a balance. You can't stop people with money buying up property here. Whether they are overseas investors tucking away money somewhere "safe" or effectively hedging against currency fluctuations. Or home grown, looking to enjoy a second home in the Countryside, or these days more likely looking to use as a form of pension because of low interest rates for savings. Many will be investing to get a return on their money (and off the borrowing) by way of Buy to Let, plus to achieve a capital appreciation, sometimes faster monthly than they can earn.
If you want to put a stop to all this. Get the Government to stop paying out subsidising benefits to cover Rent (this is paid not just to the unemployed, but to families in work and pensioners etc.). BTL Market would collapse causing prices to fall and also rents. One hell of a lot of misery for awhile, but so much of the price rises and the circumstances around are fuelled by the deep pockets of the Government / Tax Payers. If people were paying less for their rent or mortgages, more spare money for a genuine economy boost would be available in peoples pockets, plus the Government would have more spare money to actually build affordable housing!
Such are the joys of being in the oil and gas industry.
By way of example, one of my colleagues recently built a house in Warsaw and it's a lovely place but, even so, he's still dug up the street outside his house and connected his house to the electricity supply for the street lights cos, y'know, that's just the done thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some lovely, cosmopolitan areas in Eastern European countries but the veneer of civilisation is pretty thin and bribery, corruption and lawlessness are never far from the surface.
Which, as I said, is why speculators choose to buy property here rather than there.
Exactly. Buy a Holiday Flat brand new in Turkey for £40k several years ago, now try and find a buyer for a "second hand" property several years later at £30k.
Never under estimate the Stability we enjoy here as a very important reason why someone in China will pay £500k for a 1 Bed Flat being built in Central London.
Exactly. Buy a Holiday Flat brand new in Turkey for £40k several years ago, now try and find a buyer for a "second hand" property several years later at £30k.
Never under estimate the Stability we enjoy here as a very important reason why someone in China will pay £500k for a 1 Bed Flat being built in Central London.
Several years ago my neighbours house sold for £200k. The same house was on the market a couple of years ago and sold......for just £120k.
What goes up in the property market, can and does, come down.....irrespective of which country it's in.
Several years ago my neighbours house sold for £200k. The same house was on the market a couple of years ago and sold......for just £120k.
What goes up in the property market, can and does, come down.....irrespective of which country it's in.
Which does nothing to refute the assertion that some countries are intrinsically more stable than others.
Hang onto your £200k house in the UK for another 10 years and it'll be worth £200k again, or maybe £250k or more.
Take a similar house in, say, Ukraine, and there's a good chance that, in that period, it might've been demolished by an RPG, riddled with bullets, burned to the ground, taken over by a local militia, demolished by a tank or, at the very least, it'll have been compulsorily purchased by some oligarch intent on building a mall or will be surrounded by tower-blocks or there'll be a power station or sewage plant next to it.
The whole "Eastern Europe is just as good as the UK for property investment" thing is just plain silly.
If you want to put a stop to all this. Get the Government to stop paying out subsidising benefits to cover Rent (this is paid not just to the unemployed, but to families in work and pensioners etc.). BTL Market would collapse causing prices to fall and also rents. One hell of a lot of misery for awhile, but so much of the price rises and the circumstances around are fuelled by the deep pockets of the Government / Tax Payers. If people were paying less for their rent or mortgages, more spare money for a genuine economy boost would be available in peoples pockets, plus the Government would have more spare money to actually build affordable housing!
But the same money is there still circulating in the economy whichever way you look at it.
The amount of HB benefit is being controlled, and also capped (a measure which caused a furore when recently applied to social housing).
Also, not everywhere has impossible property prices that need something done about. In my area, it's easy to buy a house for anything from £100K (and below) to a very nice one for £200K. A 100% mortgage at 4%, interest only (so comparable to paying rent except the amount will not be affected by future property values) would cost £350 to £700 a month, or 1/6 to 1/3 average income.
That seems perfectly reasonable to me (I know you would prefer that all property values were £0, that all rents were £0pw, and that the proportion of one's income to be spent on accommodation, one of the most essential necessities, shouldn't be more than 0%. If not, then please tell me what you think the figures should be.)
But the same money is there still circulating in the economy whichever way you look at it.
The amount of HB benefit is being controlled, and also capped (a measure which caused a furore when recently applied to social housing).
Also, not everywhere has impossible property prices that need something done about. In my area, it's easy to buy a house for anything from £100K (and below) to a very nice one for £200K. A 100% mortgage at 4%, interest only (so comparable to paying rent except the amount will not be affected by future property values) would cost £350 to £700 a month, or 1/6 to 1/3 average income.
That seems perfectly reasonable to me (I know you would prefer that all property values were £0, that all rents were £0pw, and that the proportion of one's income to be spent on accommodation, one of the most essential necessities, shouldn't be more than 0%. If not, then please tell me what you think the figures should be.)
You are lucky to live somewhere with low House Prices where I am £100k buys you nothing for miles and miles around. As to money circulating, too much of Government money indirectly, is tied up (log jammed) in property and not enough used for job creation and having money spare to improve our housing stock / infrastructure.
As to zero rent costs ... £0 that sounds silly, but why stop there? How about paying people to live in a property?. .... But hang on, that was one of the points I was making. That a large number of people and families are paid by the Government with rent support, to live in a rented property for £0. If rent relief was cut back, yes it would be painful. But if it could be managed, then money currently used to prop up Landlords rent demands (which contributes to inflated property values), could then be used to build affordable social housing by the Government, which many people being subsidised would likely prefer to live in. Building stimulates the economy. All people renting will have less demand on their pockets and more freedom of choice as to how to spend their money rather than be trapped in a slavish cycle that keeps the poor poorer and even the achievers getting nowhere.
Comments
I'm not sure that'd be entirely wise.
Surely the whole idea of buying property as an investment involves being fairly sure that nothing unexpected is likely to ruin that investment.
There's a reason why all these Chinese people are buying property here rather than in Bulgaria, themselves.
Thank you, it's the point I was making.:)
Those who contribute to making property investment here attractive are being told to go away.
You actually raise an interesting point about the part a society plays in protecting a property investment.
You can imagine some Chinese financial advisor telling his clients "Yeah, those Brit's; the politicians are too stubborn to ever let the economy go totally to shit like other bits of Europe have, the people are too dull to ever have a revolution or anything like that and the environmental and building regulations are so strict that properties will never be ruined by chemicals or devalued by other construction work so go nuts".
And those are the reasons why Chinese people are buying properties here rather than in Eastern Europe, where it's like the f**king Wild West.
I'm surprised there are people who can't grasp that.
Remember those who got caught out in 'negative equity'?
When the Property bubble burst i saw my own property decrease in value by almost 40%. That's a massive drop. Fortunately i've owned it for 20 years so haven't actually lost out financially, but had i bought just before, then i'd be in deep mire with a whacking mortgage and a property in 'negative equity'.
Everyone would love to be 'fairly sure' of nothing ruining their investment. But life isn't quite like that.
I find it odd that folk are suddenly kicking up quite a fuss over 'all these Chinese' buying property here. For years wealthy Arabs, Greeks, Indians, Russians, Ukrainians have been snapping up property......yet nobody ever batted an eyelid.
Ah.....maybe the Daily Wail ran a header which is pretty much the same as whats whipped all this nonsense about the Chinese invasion too. The Wails hystrionics of the predicted 'invasion' of East Europeans turned out to be something of a damp squib so now they've had to look for something else to feed the lemmings.
Dates back to the mid- 60's onwards,before that young people stayed at the parents' pace and had their own room,even if they were married,the British obsession with home ownership became the norm,mortgages were strictly controlled at a multiple of income, 3-4 times annual income, and councils and building companies, built houses. So the market was fairly stable, although interest rates shot up to 15% at one point.
The lack of house building, private and social is the main reason people cannot buy so easily now.
Wages not rising in line with prices is another.
The financial constraints now placed on mortgage providers,after the free for all that caused the crash, is another factor.
So Chinese people buying places,is a drop in the ocean.
Some simply can't afford to move out.
I don't think it's that frowned upon in general. It's pretty common.
The first is the large numbers of buy to letters.
The second is the large numbers of single occupancy households - either first time buyers or older people who have separated. Over 50% of the people in our office at work are single occupancy householders.
Attacking the buyers is futile, regardless of nationality. There is no shame in trying to maximise your finances but there remains a serious shortage of affordable housing in this country which I think needs addressing.
And when exactly did young people not do this?
You not think our drinking culture and levels of consumerism have increased over the past 20/30 years?
Driving, drinking, and consumer spending amongst the young (under 30's) has fallen over the past 15 years. Most rises are largely driven by the over 50's.
http://www.if.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Spending-Power-Across-the-Generations-Report.pdf
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10202902/Smoking-drinking-and-drug-use-fall-dramatically-among-children.html
Kinda f*cks up the shallow argument you've been putting forward on this thread,
Yes because 11-15 year olds are the usual first time buyers.
You're rather touchy aren't you. Sorry if I hit nerve.
All I said is SOME young folk rather spend their wages on going out, leisure, gadgets and expensive clothes, rather than save. Not ALL.
You said it yourself, it's supply and demand.
There has been no building policy of any note for the last 3 decades, add to that the reluctance by builders to build affordable housing and the complete lack of any large scale social housing construction, and you come close to the major reason for people not being able to buy.
Well, off the top of my head...
Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, Romania, Albania, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Estonia, Latvia and not forgetting Russia.
Such are the joys of being in the oil and gas industry.
By way of example, one of my colleagues recently built a house in Warsaw and it's a lovely place but, even so, he's still dug up the street outside his house and connected his house to the electricity supply for the street lights cos, y'know, that's just the done thing.
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly some lovely, cosmopolitan areas in Eastern European countries but the veneer of civilisation is pretty thin and bribery, corruption and lawlessness are never far from the surface.
Which, as I said, is why speculators choose to buy property here rather than there.
The Spanish went out of there way to build Holiday Villas and Apartments to attract buyers from this Country and Northern Europe. They have the land and the space. i.e. Spain enjoys more rain than England taking account of its land mass and actually people living there and needing water.
France has a relative static population with land and homes being handed down through families. Whilst immigration is probably changing this balance, they have a much larger land mass and less need to build.
This Country does have the space if you want to continually concrete over it. Its about getting a balance. You can't stop people with money buying up property here. Whether they are overseas investors tucking away money somewhere "safe" or effectively hedging against currency fluctuations. Or home grown, looking to enjoy a second home in the Countryside, or these days more likely looking to use as a form of pension because of low interest rates for savings. Many will be investing to get a return on their money (and off the borrowing) by way of Buy to Let, plus to achieve a capital appreciation, sometimes faster monthly than they can earn.
If you want to put a stop to all this. Get the Government to stop paying out subsidising benefits to cover Rent (this is paid not just to the unemployed, but to families in work and pensioners etc.). BTL Market would collapse causing prices to fall and also rents. One hell of a lot of misery for awhile, but so much of the price rises and the circumstances around are fuelled by the deep pockets of the Government / Tax Payers. If people were paying less for their rent or mortgages, more spare money for a genuine economy boost would be available in peoples pockets, plus the Government would have more spare money to actually build affordable housing!
Exactly. Buy a Holiday Flat brand new in Turkey for £40k several years ago, now try and find a buyer for a "second hand" property several years later at £30k.
Never under estimate the Stability we enjoy here as a very important reason why someone in China will pay £500k for a 1 Bed Flat being built in Central London.
What goes up in the property market, can and does, come down.....irrespective of which country it's in.
Which does nothing to refute the assertion that some countries are intrinsically more stable than others.
Hang onto your £200k house in the UK for another 10 years and it'll be worth £200k again, or maybe £250k or more.
Take a similar house in, say, Ukraine, and there's a good chance that, in that period, it might've been demolished by an RPG, riddled with bullets, burned to the ground, taken over by a local militia, demolished by a tank or, at the very least, it'll have been compulsorily purchased by some oligarch intent on building a mall or will be surrounded by tower-blocks or there'll be a power station or sewage plant next to it.
The whole "Eastern Europe is just as good as the UK for property investment" thing is just plain silly.
But the same money is there still circulating in the economy whichever way you look at it.
The amount of HB benefit is being controlled, and also capped (a measure which caused a furore when recently applied to social housing).
Also, not everywhere has impossible property prices that need something done about. In my area, it's easy to buy a house for anything from £100K (and below) to a very nice one for £200K. A 100% mortgage at 4%, interest only (so comparable to paying rent except the amount will not be affected by future property values) would cost £350 to £700 a month, or 1/6 to 1/3 average income.
That seems perfectly reasonable to me (I know you would prefer that all property values were £0, that all rents were £0pw, and that the proportion of one's income to be spent on accommodation, one of the most essential necessities, shouldn't be more than 0%. If not, then please tell me what you think the figures should be.)
You are lucky to live somewhere with low House Prices where I am £100k buys you nothing for miles and miles around. As to money circulating, too much of Government money indirectly, is tied up (log jammed) in property and not enough used for job creation and having money spare to improve our housing stock / infrastructure.
As to zero rent costs ... £0 that sounds silly, but why stop there? How about paying people to live in a property?. .... But hang on, that was one of the points I was making. That a large number of people and families are paid by the Government with rent support, to live in a rented property for £0. If rent relief was cut back, yes it would be painful. But if it could be managed, then money currently used to prop up Landlords rent demands (which contributes to inflated property values), could then be used to build affordable social housing by the Government, which many people being subsidised would likely prefer to live in. Building stimulates the economy. All people renting will have less demand on their pockets and more freedom of choice as to how to spend their money rather than be trapped in a slavish cycle that keeps the poor poorer and even the achievers getting nowhere.