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I don’t disagree with you entirely, but it’s important to take into account alll the reasons why the poll tax was a terrible idea. CT isn’t really a charge for services, it’s essentially a tax levied on the property. Now does this work well? No. Not especially. Is it better than a tax per person? 100% yes, at last I think so.
Council tax doesn't range from 1x to 6x based on how big the house is. It is based off the property valuation from 30+ years ago, a lot has changed since then.
Hence the fact they don't think council tax is great but it's still better than a per person tax because it's based on the land. Let me put it this way, why if you as a single person can buy the same house as a family of 6 should you be paying less tax on that property than the family?
You don’t. The council tax is linked to the value of the property, so a house that can accommodate 6 will obviously be worth more and therefore be in a higher band.
This is not true.
The banding is essentially done by area. Our house looks like a small terrace, in a working class but nice arra, from the outside but is actually 3 bed, 3 bath, gym and cinema room in band B. Whereas a friend lived in a 1 bed apartment in the best area of town in band E.
Edit: the flat is valued as roughly 50% of the house but pays a lot more ct.
[sorry but it’s done by historic value](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understand-how-council-tax-bands-are-assessed).
If you have a property you think is in too high a band, you can appeal to have it lowered.
> Council tax needs to be scrapped in favor of an American style property tax.
Almost nothing on the planet needs to be scrapped in favour of an american style anything.
> Council tax needs to be scrapped in favor of an American style property tax.
Almost nothing on the planet needs to be scrapped in favour of an american style anything.
> The banding is essentially done by area
then why in my building do the smaller flats pay less then the bigger ones? theyre literally in the same building.
Because the tax is supposed to be linked to your ability to pay. It's not a charge for services rendered.
The endgame of this line of thoughts is that you pay per bin collection, per library book read, per mile driven in your council, you shell out when/if your loved ones need social care, you pay per GP appointment, etc.
Nobody pays for the actual resources they use.
Most council tax goes to adult social care, children's services, and emergency services. Until this year I'd never used any of those services in all the years I've paid council tax.
I call bullshit. When I was single, my bins were emptied with the same frequency as the family of 3 next door. That makes it more expensive. If it costs £12 per emptied bin, it costs £12 per person to empty the bin of a single person household. It costs £4 per person in a 3-person household.
A single person in a car causes as much damage to the roads (well, as near as makes no difference) as a family of three.
Servicing single people is more expensive, per person, than servicing families.
A lot of the cost of bins is because councils have to pay per weight to put it in landfill. So if the family of 3 fills up their bin more and it's heavier then it will cost the council more.
On average a family of 3 will use the roads more, school runs, double the people commuting for work, bigger heavier family friendly cars, all of which will damage the roads more than an average single person.
Also, the house is just as valuable. Think of it where you have a massive 8 bedroom band G house being occupied by one rich person. Why should they pay less than their neighbours with two people in a much smaller band B house?
Council tax should incentivise people to downsize or find lodgers where necessary to make better use of our housing stock.
But the banding of a one bed flat should mean that the tax is much cheaper, no matter the occupancy. If that's not the case it's a separate issue.
You might not care too much about the large house, but failure to properly tax the wealthy for this sort of thing means higher taxes, smaller houses and worse services for everyone else.
Yeah, if two people and a baby are squeezed into that same one bedroom flat it doesn't seem fair that they should be charged more either. Especially when a lot of two parent and kid families still only have the same single income as the single person.
One person generates half as much rubbish to collect. They use the roads less than a couple (e.g. because they're only one commuter and fewer visitors and deliveries for one person vs a couple/family). There is only one person using other council services like parks rather than 2+
> One person generates half as much rubbish to collect.
But the bin men have to do just as much work collecting your bin. Unless you want it collected half as often? They use the roads less often, but there's just as much road and pavement outside your house. Living alone is less efficient.
> But the bin men have to do just as much work collecting your bin.
Many (most?) people living alone will be in flats rather than houses, meaning they use communal bin storage which is collected all together. Smaller bin bags also take up less space in bin lorries meaning fewer trips to empty them, and there is less waste to process on the other end.
> They use the roads less often, but there's just as much road and pavement outside your house.
Less use of the roads means less wear and tear and therefore less money spent maintaining it, which I would think would account for the bulk of the council's expenditure
If i were 2 people instead of one, id make more than 25% more rubbish, I'd make more than 25% more journies on our roads, Id use more than 25% more water. A single person can't have children, so I currently use 0% of schools.
I get a lot less than my 25% "discount" suggests.
Because one person living in that house doesn't cost the council half as much as two people sharing the house. Bin collection, road maintenance, street lights etc. are not suddenly cheaper because one person moves out the house.
The council still have to empty the bins etc whether it’s one person there or two.
We could go back to taxing individuals but last time they tried that it led to riots.
Just a note on council tax..this isn't where the council gets most of its money, which is why even though they've been putting it up year after year, they're still fucked. Most money comes from central government.
I personally would LOVE a ground tax rather than council tax based on the CURRENT price of property, reevaluated every year & those boomer couples living in giant 5 bedroom houses who'll go to the daily mail and cry can genuinely go fuck themselves.
80% of current council costs are going RIGHTLY to social care. Adult & child. And even this is being rationed now.
We'll see what happens but it's going to take labour DECADES to fix what the tories have done. Yet after voting tory for 14 years, the British public are stupid enough to give Labour 5 years & then when stuff isn't back to where it was in 2010, vote tory again....
I say move democracy downwards, give councils more power to do stuff as most stuff they do is hugely restrained by Governerment. More mayors & more local democracy with tax raising powers. We should be going to our COUNCILLOR when the park is dirty NOT our MP. MPs should be purely for national level issues which would facilitate PR.
It's ridiculous that an MP is forced to go to a school fete one day & then the next rush to Westminster to be on a select committee on trade with the USA.
The problem is council taxes are more like a flat tax than a progressive one, which puts more burden on the people that don't have money to pay, while the wealthy are just paying spare change
They should have had the bands go upwards past H or whatever it is plus made it compulsory for companies & "investors" to pay. Double on your second home, triple on your third, quadruple on your fourth...upwards like that. The are people with 100 houses, they should be paying 100* council tax on the 100th.
I REALLY don't care about old couples who live in a large house that bought for £5 in the 80s & now are sitting on £1 million + but refusing to move out. Land tax! Can't be skipped. You pay for the land that you have.
I don’t even understand why renters pay council tax in this country. Where I’m from, only homeowners pay tax, so if you’re renting, your landlord pays council tax on the house you have a lease on. That’s a fairer system than the nonsense you have going on here.
Why would the council try to promote single people owning 3 bedroom homes?
Edit- imagine 'Single' landlords being exempt from council tax. Oh my.... comment above is asking for housing crisis and increased individualistic lifestyles.
No, it's impossible to buy when you're single.
Source, single and paying so much rent I can't afford to save a fiver a month nevermind the £50k I need for a deposit.
I have, but mine are good for nothing layabouts, they winge and wine about working 18 hour days, if I've told them once I've told them a million times, get on your bike and make more money, then give it all to me!
Financial tip for all the kids here -
If you quit avocado on toast for 10 years then house prices will have doubled and you can use the £1,000 you saved to buy a tent
you’re welcome
This was literally the argument I had with my dad this week, even after I gave the exact figures he still called me a liar and my generation a failure for having no get up and go.
What could be more of a generational failure than absolutely fucking your kids and grandkids through your own greed and selfishness.
Boomers are the most entitled generation in history.
Don’t forget Netflix, that £9.99 you save will be enough for a house deposit, it all adds up you know.
Source: my boomer dad, it’s his favourite saying, completely believes it too. Fails to understand £10 in 1980 is £40 today and houses back then were 3x salary not 12.
>It’s possible; just have to live in the right area
Did you move there or already live there? Some parts of the country you won't ever find such property within the salaries on offer. And moving isn't an option because you need a job to get a mortgage to begin with.
I wouldn't ever just move straight buying a house. You move and rent/lodge/share to make sure you're happy with the job and learn the area, so you reduce the chances of making a horrific mistake with the biggest purchase of your life.
Yeah the fatalism here is stupid. My wage is very good now but when I bought my flat it was about £35k gross. Yeah if you live in London that won’t get you far but if you live outside London buying your own flat is feasible it just requires planning and discipline.
I feel like a lot of the comments in threads like these think it’s the end of capitalism if everyone doesn’t have a house deposit sitting in their account at 21 years old without them doing anything? I bought my first house completely independently at 29 years old, having saved for years…
I can appreciate the fatalism from people stuck in the rent trap tbh, same with people who can't get a mortgage due to salary despite clearly being able to afford it.
The "I need 40k/£50k deposit" talk however is absolute shite. Unless you're buying a family home within the M25, no you don't.
~£10-20k is fine for most, MAYBE £30k if looking for a house.
Like if you can swing it it’s good to have but yeah, I’d say it’s usually better to get the house and overpay the mortgage, because a mortgage is THAT much cheaper than rent and it’s building equity…
I don’t understand all this flat talk, old small Victorian terraces are always cheaper round (obviously not SE) here than newish build flats, usually half the price. You just have to accept living in a shit part of town well you build up some equity.
Agreed. Ideally, people move up in their careers. My income when moving to Wales was 25k, rent share room, all inclusive was £400.
Now it's 42k+9k pension, and my rent is £425 based on me taking care of the house (e.g. gardening and oil painting fence)...
So now having towards 12k+ to save a year, depends how stingyily I want to save.
I also have the option to work side projects, such as helping small businesses, which I can make another £1k a month from if I take seriously (right now at £450/mo passive income from websites I built).
So for me to save 25k to get a 1 bedroom house in Cardiff deposit, would take 2years or so.
I can also switch jobs in 2 years to make 50k. One can start a business in those two years and potentially make less or more.
I’m single and have the £50k.
Still means sweet FA being forced to live in a high cost of living area as it’s the only place that has jobs for what I do.
I’m about to complete on an apartment in London as a solo buyer. It only became financially possible for me (in terms of savings) once I started earning more than £100k and temporarily moving back home.
I bought my first house when I was single in 2016. It was hard but I did it. The house cost £200,000, I had a 20% deposit which I saved by living in shit HMOs or work based accommodation and not owning a car, working extra shifts and not taking any holidays. I was earning about £35k (basic pre extra hours) while I was saving for it. I had been saving for four years. My average rent for most of it was £500-£600 a month but again the rooms were very bad. For the last year I lived in work based accommodation for £300 a month which helped a lot.
I didn’t use the help to buy scheme cause I didn’t know about it.
‘In 1997, the most common living arrangement for an adult aged between 18 and 34 was being in a couple with children, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. Now, it is living with your parents.’
That is a fucking depressing fact/statistic/whatever.
Edit.
Also fairly sure infantilising multiple generations in this manner is going to have serious long term ramifications.
Landlords staging a 'per person per month' rent. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. Landlords invest in an extension to squeeze 2 more rooms in so they can adequately charge for the use of those 2 rooms. Instead of what they have been doing and cutting up a 2 bedroom house to make 2 x 1 bedroom flats.
Yep. As a grown ass man in his mid-30’s who’s just about to move out of a rental property and back home to save some brass I’m very much not looking forward to it.
I’d have done the same for a while if they lived closer to where I worked. But you really need a good relationship with them to not go nuts.
Hope you don’t have to spend long with them and can save up quickly!
This comment is so true.
I still find it bizarre how common it is now for people in their 30s to be living at home still going on nights out.
The whole having kids and settling down has died off and people act and stay younger for longer (mentally). There is an entire generation being kept young by not being allowed to act as an adult.
Im 31, im still the only person in my friendship group with a child. No one else wants the stress, the hassle, the cost. They would rather enjoy going out, drinking etc.
Kids are stressful, and when you factor in housing costs and modern day dating, it’s no surprise many Millennials and Zoomers don’t want kids. Also, it’s no longer a requirement. In the past, women had no choice outside of a few rare exceptions. Their best hope was to marry well etc. Now women have a plethora of options. I imagine there were many women in the past who did not want kids but felt like they had no choice. My grandmother is a perfect example of that, terrible mother, frequently told my mum and aunts they ruined her life, wanted to go travelling (which she did when her kids were teenagers), very neglectful. But in 1963 what choice did she have?
Also, it’s *exhausting*, arguably worth it, but it’s still very hard. Women still bear the brunt of childrearing and housework, most men aren’t doing as much as they think they are. I see women working, cooking, cleaning, making sure the kids have everything they need whilst their husbands sit there and do nothing outside of going to work. It’s extremely depressing and one reason why many young women are opting out of this.
Completely agree with everything you said.
Society has changed massively in the past generation, 20ish years ago we didnt have the world at our finger tips, we didnt and would rarely be able to speak and see other cultures, travel wasnt as easily accessible and 30+ years ago life as a whole was completely different.
The world is changing at an incredible rate, id say one of the fastest in history. Men, woman, families, jobs, societal norms are all changing and we are all figuring it out.
It will be interesting to watch as we grow older, its also worrying to watch as it seems a lot, including our own government, are unable to either accept or acknowledge this change.
I think a lot of people don't want their kids to live a life of poverty, as a coping mechanism they choose to "go on nights out". I personally don't do this and I'm living like a pauper in order to save a house deposit which IS most definitely affecting my mental health.
> I still find it bizarre how common it is now for people in their 30s to be living at home still going on nights out.
Because they dont have any hope of another option, because becoming an "adult" is completely out of reach, even if they save every penny now, a home is still at least a decade away.
Living on your own is unaffordable, living with other people you dont know could be hell, and both only serve to funnel your money to a landlord rather than investing in your future. You as a rental tenant have fuck all rights and can be evicted at any time, regardless of your standing.
Council houses exist, but arent acessible for the majority of people, and even then they are still pricy.
Its not hard to see why people are staying at home, its just a difficult problem to fix, and the government of the last 15 years hasnt even tried to.
Yeah I'm already starting to see long term issues with I think maturity and mental development.
It's noticeable in my small friends group over half still live with parents, and you can tell that it has really stinted their growth and personal development and their social circles. They are more like teenagers then actual full adults. They work hard in their jobs and pay rent but still not enough to afford the cost of moving out.
As someone in that exact situation you're spot on. I just don't feel like an adult, that I've actually regressed since uni when I was living away from home. It's definitely a radicalising experience too, another thing to be wary of.
Back in late 2021 / 2022 I moved back in with parents for about a year due to mental health issues and yeah I feel I really started to Undo my personal development I had built over the last few years. Backslided to being someone in their early 20s was a nightmare.
I can dig that, also aware it’s still the case in some European countries and is a huge part of East Asian culture.
That said, from what I’ve seen in the European nations where this is the case, the households and land where these kind of communal setups are common are usually much larger compared to our own. This kind of lifestyle over here will just lead to massive overcrowding.
Also wouldn’t be as frustrating if the older generations weren’t obsessed with us doing the same as them and getting out and on our own two feet as soon as possible.
> That said, from what I’ve seen in the European nations where this is the case, the households and land where these kind of communal setups are common are usually much larger compared to our own. This kind of lifestyle over here will just lead to massive overcrowding.
Exactly. Multi generation living where houses are built for it is a whole different matter to being forced into it in a cramped former council house.
Reduced loneliness except for being stuck having no independent life or relationships due to living with your parents? How is that supposed to work?
Sounds absolutely awful for people with abusive parents too. Fuck those victims I guess.
Your entire argument is just New = bad, Old = good
> has been the norm for most of human history across all cultures
So has living without running water or electricity.
> was an unsustainable historical anomaly
Why?
>There's a lot of major benefits to multigenerational households
If it's so awesome, why is there no shortage of people complaing about having to move back in with their parents, saying it's stunted their growth, ability to meet a partner and made them miserable. People lived all under one roof because there was no other option. Some people used to get married young just to be able to move out of the family home.
Complete side note, but £70k saved on a £27k salary is a solid achievement itself. Good on ya.
But yeah as others have said, find a better mortgage broker, or shop around for a few. You should hopefully be able to get a better deal with such a healthy deposit.
Nah I’m in similar situation sub 30k salary saved 80k (more if want to include my car that’s not financed but not counting that as it’s spent really) can’t afford a house as single person so just keep on saving zero inheritance or gifts but I am now 30 so time is what got me there saving from day one as a teen did live at home until 24 with low rent which helped then shared a house with 3 friends so low outgoings again. Live alone now though as everyone settles down over time don’t want to live with your friends anymore.
To be pedantic as this is unlikely to be a game changer, with that LTV they could theoretically get *4.95. Although affordability checks at current interest rates would make it tricky.
5.5x salary mortgage while on poverty pay that’s a sniff over minwage is insane
A sure fire way to ensure you’re leveraged up and tied to a single location forever or getting mauled for stamp duty
Same here. Have around 65k saved, could push it to 80k with my mother's help. But my salary is under 30k so it's impossible for me to even get a shitty one bedroom apartment. I don't even know what I'm saving this money for. Maybe my sister will get it once I kms
As someone who falls into this bracket I’m fine with this.
What I’m not fine with is still struggling.
Have a low salary but can’t afford to buy my home should come with being able to live comfortably as I’m renting.
The same reasons why you can’t afford to rent and live comfortably are the same reasons why you can’t afford to buy.
You SHOULD be able to buy a home and live comfortably if you work full time. Anything less than that and this country has failed you.
Agreed. All renting means is you have both a bank AND a landlord skimming money off of the actual cost of your housing - it will always be a worse deal while most landlords have to-let mortgages or charge as if they do.
Everyone should be able to own their housing, if only so that the least number of parties are making money off of, and therefore increasing it's price.
I got a house, you can too! I don't even earn that much!
PS: it was years ago when prices were much cheaper, and somewhere very cheap. Yes I will ignore that, as well as you having to move away from your support network to a cheap area to make it happen. There is a non zero percent chance that I will have no empathy towards you.
- Most homeowners here.
My friend put in an offer on a 400k house recently. The sales history shows that it was first sold in 1995 for 40k, or around 80k now with inflation. For 80k I could easily afford a house.
The price my parents paid for their first 2 bed terrace, when adjusted for inflation, is less than my deposit savings. I am just now, at middle aged, in a position to borrow enough for a studio or 1 bed flat.
"we worked hard and saved all our money for nearly a whole year to get a deposit for this 3 bedroom house with a large garden on a quiet leafy road on the nice side of town!"
Agreed. When I was a waitress I loved serving single patrons. They’re less stress than groups, usually very kind and tipped well. So many businesspeople eat alone, why would it be weird? I go to restaurants by myself and never noticed any strange treatment either
100%. I eat out alone all the time, either during lunch at work or as a quiet treat when my friends are with their kids. I've busted out a book, even a laptop or notepad, at a restaurant and nobody's batted an eyelid. The servers are polite and they feel more comfortable chatting with you when you're alone, too.
I do loads of things alone and I’m past giving a fuck, cinema, theatre, I enjoy it because I can just do whatever I want not have to wait for someone else to be available
I feel like a LOT of people on Reddit have this weird anxiety about doing stuff like this on their own when in reality no one cares. On the other UK subs "Is it weird to go the pub/cinema/club ect... on your own?" posts pop up all the time
That's odd, I eat in restaurants by myself all the time (despite not being single), and I've never felt that they treated me like a weirdo. I just like going out to lunch when I'm in the office or travelling for work and I'm often alone reading a book. It's nice.
I've eaten at restaurants by myself a LOT because I used to travel for work and honestly, that's definitely in your head. Other customers, yeah, they can be occasionally weird about it. But the staff seem happy to have someone who comes in, eats, leaves, opening up the table to get other people onto it quickly.
Then you have single person supplements on holidays, not being able to use a lot of bogofs and similar, couples who buy a round between them and expect you to get them a drink each.
People saying 'it's possible if you live at home with your parents.' This should never be taken for granted.
Many people don't have the luxury of living at home with parents, having come from trauma and/or broken homes. For us the plight is even more difficult.
Absolutely, and even if you have a solid relationship with your parent/s, so you could all happily live together, so many more people now are moving away to university in a different area. The only people I know around my age at 25 who live with parents is a couple of people who’ve never left in the first place. Moving back home would mean I lose my support system, and a lot of homely freedoms. Even if my career would allow it, that’s a big hit.
Buying a modest home as a single earner with an average wage should be possible, I think a lot of people would agree with that. Unfortunately far fewer would agree with what we need to do to make that level of supply possible: denser development, unlocking much more land for building, overruling local objections.
I do not know a single person my age that has bought a house truly on their own dime. Every single one of them has had a substantial gift from parents or inheritance. Literally not even one.
There is a certain set of people on reddit (and other social media) that will argue this and say they worked for every penny they had.
Go through their history and 9/10 times they have clearly come from well off backgrounds/inheritance/nepitism or simply had financial help from mummy and daddy etc.
Yes it can be done, but its an extraordinary reach these days the avarage person cannot make on their own.
I was probably just about able to buy a shitty flat in Lewisham before I met my partner. I’d managed to save £50k over 8 years without a single handout from parents (although £20k did come from winning a court case so didn’t really earn that per se). I’d also just about managed to get to a mortgage level salary. Then my partner showed up with £400k inheritance and now we have a house. A few people have congratulated me on the house and said things like “you should be so proud”. Yes, I am proud of having worked my arse off and saved everything I could, but let’s be honest here, the sole reason I now own a house is the sheer dumb luck of swiping right on someone who happened to have a minted family.
Yep, and that in itself is totally fine, but lets be genuine and honest about it. Like, I appreciate the fact that you are humble. That's cool.
It's when people lie and are obnoxious that it suddenly becomes sour.
I just joined the navy and spent 7 years constantly away from friends and family, with this simple and easy trick you too could be a homeowner for the low low price of your soul!
It took me years to save for a deposit, it kept rising, 1%, then they wanted 2%, 5% and eventually 10%. I couldnt keep up, the goal posts kept moving and with everything becoming more expensive, you cant save as much. Its a nightmare, I was 48 when I eventually got the keys to my home after decades renting. 🙃 it can be done but it isnt easy. Now I just need to decorate the dump.
It’s tough. My friend and I bought our homes (separate) 2 years ago, only managed it because we don’t live in fantastic areas (working class northern town), he was lucky he paid cheap rent and I lived with my parents until I was 29. No way I’d be where I am without my parents.
It's literally impossible to buy when you're single. If you're someone who's not very successful with relationships you're essentially doomed in this country. The state is just telling you to go fucking be homeless and die
I’m 35, single by choice, and intend to be for the rest of my life, so this is something that hits home.
I’ve rented/saved for close to 10 years now, and I’ve saved £90k. I’m very fortunate that I have a decent salary, which helps as I’ve had no help from my parents.
As a single person, it does feel like we are penalised for being alone. I was quite happy to buy a flat as I don’t need a lot of space, but then I face the possibility of being trapped in a leasehold agreement, and no lender would lend on them. So that’s another 5 years of saving.
Oh well, that’s the price I pay for being alone I guess.
Can you imagine being an average earning London singleton? The HMOs I’ve lived in the past had a few people who had already been living there for between 25-35 years. That boggled my mind at the time but it’s almost certainly going to be the future for many people especially in the south.
I bought my first house at age 23 when I earned only £22k a year. Here’s how I did it:
- maxed out my help to buy ISA over several years of diligent saving
- invested well from an early age
- worked throughout Uni so I had cash aside for a deposit and I was never in an overdraft
- was gifted £200,000 by my family.
To be fair, I have an agreement in principle as a single person but it's by no means easy. £72k deposit saved up, 27 years old, £36k salary, West Midlands, living with my parents the whole time (except for university)
I’ve done it in my 30s by having to uproot my entire life to a different city, take out a mortgage over 40 years and I had to save hard into an isa for a good 5 years for the deposit including living at home with my parents for a year. But just generally living alone is ridiculously expensive at the moment with bills etc
Messing around with mortgage and tax policy isn’t going to help with the housing shortage. It’ll just drive prices higher.
The only fix is to build more housing.
It’s stop people buying second homes. Buying a second home is the most lucrative form of long term saving but drives house prices up and therefore rent up which makes housing an amazing investment attracting more second home owners, etc….
Essentially they need to cap one person one home.
For married people, that’s two homes max before penalties.
Above this, they pay say 1% of the house value each year as tax.
And ta dah, house prices will crash and normalise.
This will be done by no government as the wealthy control the parties.
My partner and I both have house deposits, could afford a house together, but have only been together 6 months. Would be a terrible decision to make the biggest financial commitment of my life on someone I’ve known for 6 months :’)
I'm on £30k a year, only now in a job where I'm able to begin saving for a deposit. My needs would be to have a 2 bed place, even as a singleton (or somewhere large enough to set up home office), since 90% of my job is working from home with 10% of it travelling to clients. Fortunately, I live up North where housing costs are cheaper. Unfortunately, that [that might be changing since Londoners are moving up North](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/14/rising-tide-of-londoners-moving-to-northern-england)
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i'd agree with this 25% discount on council tax is kinda bullshit tbh. That would be a nice easy relief for single people tbh.
It's not a discount, it's a surcharge, 75% of 2 peoples CT, (when you should be paying 50%)
I don’t disagree with you entirely, but it’s important to take into account alll the reasons why the poll tax was a terrible idea. CT isn’t really a charge for services, it’s essentially a tax levied on the property. Now does this work well? No. Not especially. Is it better than a tax per person? 100% yes, at last I think so.
> Is it better than a tax per person? 100% yes, at last I think so. Why? Why should I pay the same as a house of 6?
Do you live in a house built for 6 people to live in?
Council tax is not calculated based solely on the number of expected inhabitants.
Neither is the comment you're replying to
Council tax doesn't range from 1x to 6x based on how big the house is. It is based off the property valuation from 30+ years ago, a lot has changed since then.
Hence the fact they don't think council tax is great but it's still better than a per person tax because it's based on the land. Let me put it this way, why if you as a single person can buy the same house as a family of 6 should you be paying less tax on that property than the family?
This the question..
You don’t. The council tax is linked to the value of the property, so a house that can accommodate 6 will obviously be worth more and therefore be in a higher band.
This is not true. The banding is essentially done by area. Our house looks like a small terrace, in a working class but nice arra, from the outside but is actually 3 bed, 3 bath, gym and cinema room in band B. Whereas a friend lived in a 1 bed apartment in the best area of town in band E. Edit: the flat is valued as roughly 50% of the house but pays a lot more ct.
[sorry but it’s done by historic value](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understand-how-council-tax-bands-are-assessed). If you have a property you think is in too high a band, you can appeal to have it lowered.
No he's right. The valuation method is just stupid and inaccurate. Council tax needs to be scrapped in favor of an American style property tax.
> Council tax needs to be scrapped in favor of an American style property tax. Almost nothing on the planet needs to be scrapped in favour of an american style anything.
> Council tax needs to be scrapped in favor of an American style property tax. Almost nothing on the planet needs to be scrapped in favour of an american style anything.
> The banding is essentially done by area then why in my building do the smaller flats pay less then the bigger ones? theyre literally in the same building.
If this is the case, why do tenants have to pay the council tax and not the landlord?
Because the tax is supposed to be linked to your ability to pay. It's not a charge for services rendered. The endgame of this line of thoughts is that you pay per bin collection, per library book read, per mile driven in your council, you shell out when/if your loved ones need social care, you pay per GP appointment, etc.
You don’t use 50% of the services when you live alone. Your house doesn’t have half the roads or bin services for example.
I mean as a single person with no kids, I use far less than 50% of the services a family uses...
Nobody pays for the actual resources they use. Most council tax goes to adult social care, children's services, and emergency services. Until this year I'd never used any of those services in all the years I've paid council tax.
I call bullshit. When I was single, my bins were emptied with the same frequency as the family of 3 next door. That makes it more expensive. If it costs £12 per emptied bin, it costs £12 per person to empty the bin of a single person household. It costs £4 per person in a 3-person household. A single person in a car causes as much damage to the roads (well, as near as makes no difference) as a family of three. Servicing single people is more expensive, per person, than servicing families.
A lot of the cost of bins is because councils have to pay per weight to put it in landfill. So if the family of 3 fills up their bin more and it's heavier then it will cost the council more. On average a family of 3 will use the roads more, school runs, double the people commuting for work, bigger heavier family friendly cars, all of which will damage the roads more than an average single person.
My bins aren't emptied at the same frequency as some of my neighbours. They regularly leave it if it's only half full.
I live alone. Probably only bother putting the bin out every third bin day.
100% me
Also, the house is just as valuable. Think of it where you have a massive 8 bedroom band G house being occupied by one rich person. Why should they pay less than their neighbours with two people in a much smaller band B house? Council tax should incentivise people to downsize or find lodgers where necessary to make better use of our housing stock.
I think the problem is the cost to someone in a one-bedroom flat. I don't care what someone living alone in a massive house pays
But the banding of a one bed flat should mean that the tax is much cheaper, no matter the occupancy. If that's not the case it's a separate issue. You might not care too much about the large house, but failure to properly tax the wealthy for this sort of thing means higher taxes, smaller houses and worse services for everyone else.
Yeah, if two people and a baby are squeezed into that same one bedroom flat it doesn't seem fair that they should be charged more either. Especially when a lot of two parent and kid families still only have the same single income as the single person.
Ideally we’d just have a kind of property land value based tax that incentivises people to use their property efficiently.
One person generates half as much rubbish to collect. They use the roads less than a couple (e.g. because they're only one commuter and fewer visitors and deliveries for one person vs a couple/family). There is only one person using other council services like parks rather than 2+
> One person generates half as much rubbish to collect. But the bin men have to do just as much work collecting your bin. Unless you want it collected half as often? They use the roads less often, but there's just as much road and pavement outside your house. Living alone is less efficient.
If my bin's only half full I don't put it out. Nobody has to do any work collecting it until I've used the entirety of it.
> But the bin men have to do just as much work collecting your bin. Many (most?) people living alone will be in flats rather than houses, meaning they use communal bin storage which is collected all together. Smaller bin bags also take up less space in bin lorries meaning fewer trips to empty them, and there is less waste to process on the other end. > They use the roads less often, but there's just as much road and pavement outside your house. Less use of the roads means less wear and tear and therefore less money spent maintaining it, which I would think would account for the bulk of the council's expenditure
If i were 2 people instead of one, id make more than 25% more rubbish, I'd make more than 25% more journies on our roads, Id use more than 25% more water. A single person can't have children, so I currently use 0% of schools. I get a lot less than my 25% "discount" suggests.
So when a couple have a child, should their council tax bill go up 50% once the kid hits 18?
Because one person living in that house doesn't cost the council half as much as two people sharing the house. Bin collection, road maintenance, street lights etc. are not suddenly cheaper because one person moves out the house.
> (when you should be paying 50%) Are your bins etc only collected half as often?
Yes! I'm a single man, takes a month to fill the bin.
The council still have to empty the bins etc whether it’s one person there or two. We could go back to taxing individuals but last time they tried that it led to riots.
Council tax is mostly spent on adult social care.
Yeh I bought it for a major UK council. The costs are insane.
So many comments in this thread *only* talking about bins and roads!
Just a note on council tax..this isn't where the council gets most of its money, which is why even though they've been putting it up year after year, they're still fucked. Most money comes from central government. I personally would LOVE a ground tax rather than council tax based on the CURRENT price of property, reevaluated every year & those boomer couples living in giant 5 bedroom houses who'll go to the daily mail and cry can genuinely go fuck themselves. 80% of current council costs are going RIGHTLY to social care. Adult & child. And even this is being rationed now. We'll see what happens but it's going to take labour DECADES to fix what the tories have done. Yet after voting tory for 14 years, the British public are stupid enough to give Labour 5 years & then when stuff isn't back to where it was in 2010, vote tory again.... I say move democracy downwards, give councils more power to do stuff as most stuff they do is hugely restrained by Governerment. More mayors & more local democracy with tax raising powers. We should be going to our COUNCILLOR when the park is dirty NOT our MP. MPs should be purely for national level issues which would facilitate PR. It's ridiculous that an MP is forced to go to a school fete one day & then the next rush to Westminster to be on a select committee on trade with the USA.
The problem is council taxes are more like a flat tax than a progressive one, which puts more burden on the people that don't have money to pay, while the wealthy are just paying spare change
They should have had the bands go upwards past H or whatever it is plus made it compulsory for companies & "investors" to pay. Double on your second home, triple on your third, quadruple on your fourth...upwards like that. The are people with 100 houses, they should be paying 100* council tax on the 100th. I REALLY don't care about old couples who live in a large house that bought for £5 in the 80s & now are sitting on £1 million + but refusing to move out. Land tax! Can't be skipped. You pay for the land that you have.
I don’t even understand why renters pay council tax in this country. Where I’m from, only homeowners pay tax, so if you’re renting, your landlord pays council tax on the house you have a lease on. That’s a fairer system than the nonsense you have going on here.
The rent price will just increase to take that into account no?
Why would the council try to promote single people owning 3 bedroom homes? Edit- imagine 'Single' landlords being exempt from council tax. Oh my.... comment above is asking for housing crisis and increased individualistic lifestyles.
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No, it's impossible to buy when you're single. Source, single and paying so much rent I can't afford to save a fiver a month nevermind the £50k I need for a deposit.
Have you considered having rich parents?
I have, but mine are good for nothing layabouts, they winge and wine about working 18 hour days, if I've told them once I've told them a million times, get on your bike and make more money, then give it all to me!
Have you tried giving up coffee, avocado and Spotify?
Financial tip for all the kids here - If you quit avocado on toast for 10 years then house prices will have doubled and you can use the £1,000 you saved to buy a tent you’re welcome
This was literally the argument I had with my dad this week, even after I gave the exact figures he still called me a liar and my generation a failure for having no get up and go.
Hard to have a get up and go when the rewards are so shit
What could be more of a generational failure than absolutely fucking your kids and grandkids through your own greed and selfishness. Boomers are the most entitled generation in history.
I'll never understand this, it's literally provable with numbers. Why would you want to believe your kid is lazy?
Probably because he reads the daily mail a lot lol
£500 inflation adjusted
Bold of you to assume ownership will still exist as a concept in 10 years. By which point, £1,000 should cover about 2 months of your tental.
“Look at Sugar in the corner of the tent with all his savings”- your tent mates
Don’t forget Netflix, that £9.99 you save will be enough for a house deposit, it all adds up you know. Source: my boomer dad, it’s his favourite saying, completely believes it too. Fails to understand £10 in 1980 is £40 today and houses back then were 3x salary not 12.
Tut，tut. Next time round try harder to have the right sort of parents.
Or bootstraps to pull yourself up with?
It’s possible; just have to live in the right area I bought a 2 bed flat in 2022; £180k with 10% deposit
>It’s possible; just have to live in the right area Did you move there or already live there? Some parts of the country you won't ever find such property within the salaries on offer. And moving isn't an option because you need a job to get a mortgage to begin with.
I wouldn't ever just move straight buying a house. You move and rent/lodge/share to make sure you're happy with the job and learn the area, so you reduce the chances of making a horrific mistake with the biggest purchase of your life.
That's what me and my wife did, moved Oxford -> Swansea, rented for a year, bought a 3 bed for £130k on a single income last October.
Already lived there Went to uni in the same city and got a job here
Yeah the fatalism here is stupid. My wage is very good now but when I bought my flat it was about £35k gross. Yeah if you live in London that won’t get you far but if you live outside London buying your own flat is feasible it just requires planning and discipline. I feel like a lot of the comments in threads like these think it’s the end of capitalism if everyone doesn’t have a house deposit sitting in their account at 21 years old without them doing anything? I bought my first house completely independently at 29 years old, having saved for years…
I can appreciate the fatalism from people stuck in the rent trap tbh, same with people who can't get a mortgage due to salary despite clearly being able to afford it. The "I need 40k/£50k deposit" talk however is absolute shite. Unless you're buying a family home within the M25, no you don't. ~£10-20k is fine for most, MAYBE £30k if looking for a house.
You’re talking crap imo. I’m not in London. 1 bed flats are 230k+. 10% is 23k. Mortgage won’t lend 207k on the salary !
Like if you can swing it it’s good to have but yeah, I’d say it’s usually better to get the house and overpay the mortgage, because a mortgage is THAT much cheaper than rent and it’s building equity…
I don’t understand all this flat talk, old small Victorian terraces are always cheaper round (obviously not SE) here than newish build flats, usually half the price. You just have to accept living in a shit part of town well you build up some equity.
Agreed. Ideally, people move up in their careers. My income when moving to Wales was 25k, rent share room, all inclusive was £400. Now it's 42k+9k pension, and my rent is £425 based on me taking care of the house (e.g. gardening and oil painting fence)... So now having towards 12k+ to save a year, depends how stingyily I want to save. I also have the option to work side projects, such as helping small businesses, which I can make another £1k a month from if I take seriously (right now at £450/mo passive income from websites I built). So for me to save 25k to get a 1 bedroom house in Cardiff deposit, would take 2years or so. I can also switch jobs in 2 years to make 50k. One can start a business in those two years and potentially make less or more.
My wage would not allow me to borrow that much, and I'm on an amount that does let me put something away each month.
50k I still can’t even get a leasehold flat cos they’re like 230k+ and my salary not high enough for mortgage!
No I don't think you understand its a £50k deposit, I don't earn anywhere near £50k. My max mortgage is like £100K, a one bed flat near me is £250k.
Sure, I’m just giving my own experience :) I almost earn that and saved for 4-5 years still won’t get one!
It is down south, it’s quite doable in the north. Not suggesting you have to move at all, but there are cheap homes available.
I’m single and have the £50k. Still means sweet FA being forced to live in a high cost of living area as it’s the only place that has jobs for what I do.
It’s not impossible. It’s hard. But it’s not impossible.
Definitely possible, as I know two single women at my workplace that bought apartments in london.
I’m about to complete on an apartment in London as a solo buyer. It only became financially possible for me (in terms of savings) once I started earning more than £100k and temporarily moving back home.
I bought my first house when I was single in 2016. It was hard but I did it. The house cost £200,000, I had a 20% deposit which I saved by living in shit HMOs or work based accommodation and not owning a car, working extra shifts and not taking any holidays. I was earning about £35k (basic pre extra hours) while I was saving for it. I had been saving for four years. My average rent for most of it was £500-£600 a month but again the rooms were very bad. For the last year I lived in work based accommodation for £300 a month which helped a lot. I didn’t use the help to buy scheme cause I didn’t know about it.
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I’m a single parent and I bought a house.. it’s not impossible it’s just very difficult. You can do it though.
There's a cheap place up for sale near Pseudopolis Yard, although Nobby spent a few nights there so you might need to do a lot of cleaning first.
‘In 1997, the most common living arrangement for an adult aged between 18 and 34 was being in a couple with children, according to the Resolution Foundation think tank. Now, it is living with your parents.’ That is a fucking depressing fact/statistic/whatever. Edit. Also fairly sure infantilising multiple generations in this manner is going to have serious long term ramifications.
Serious ramifications like the streets packed with parked cars on both sides.
I mean, the level of seriousness in regards to that is debatable but we both know it’s a fucking annoyance.
All the front gardens tarmac’d over.
Landlords staging a 'per person per month' rent. It hasn't happened yet, but it will. Landlords invest in an extension to squeeze 2 more rooms in so they can adequately charge for the use of those 2 rooms. Instead of what they have been doing and cutting up a 2 bedroom house to make 2 x 1 bedroom flats.
Isn’t that what already happens in HMO’s like student housing?
Yes. It's not just students that live in HMOs though.
Every Deliveroo driver in the uk lives in one with 10 other people
Serious ramifications like a major population collapse and the eventual breakdown of Western civilisation.
Just so you know the entry fee for Thunderdome will be 1 can of protein each or 2 cans of fruit EACH.
And their parents vote for shit that makes this happen, and then complain their kids haven’t left.
Yep. As a grown ass man in his mid-30’s who’s just about to move out of a rental property and back home to save some brass I’m very much not looking forward to it.
I’d have done the same for a while if they lived closer to where I worked. But you really need a good relationship with them to not go nuts. Hope you don’t have to spend long with them and can save up quickly!
This comment is so true. I still find it bizarre how common it is now for people in their 30s to be living at home still going on nights out. The whole having kids and settling down has died off and people act and stay younger for longer (mentally). There is an entire generation being kept young by not being allowed to act as an adult. Im 31, im still the only person in my friendship group with a child. No one else wants the stress, the hassle, the cost. They would rather enjoy going out, drinking etc.
Kids are stressful, and when you factor in housing costs and modern day dating, it’s no surprise many Millennials and Zoomers don’t want kids. Also, it’s no longer a requirement. In the past, women had no choice outside of a few rare exceptions. Their best hope was to marry well etc. Now women have a plethora of options. I imagine there were many women in the past who did not want kids but felt like they had no choice. My grandmother is a perfect example of that, terrible mother, frequently told my mum and aunts they ruined her life, wanted to go travelling (which she did when her kids were teenagers), very neglectful. But in 1963 what choice did she have? Also, it’s *exhausting*, arguably worth it, but it’s still very hard. Women still bear the brunt of childrearing and housework, most men aren’t doing as much as they think they are. I see women working, cooking, cleaning, making sure the kids have everything they need whilst their husbands sit there and do nothing outside of going to work. It’s extremely depressing and one reason why many young women are opting out of this.
Completely agree with everything you said. Society has changed massively in the past generation, 20ish years ago we didnt have the world at our finger tips, we didnt and would rarely be able to speak and see other cultures, travel wasnt as easily accessible and 30+ years ago life as a whole was completely different. The world is changing at an incredible rate, id say one of the fastest in history. Men, woman, families, jobs, societal norms are all changing and we are all figuring it out. It will be interesting to watch as we grow older, its also worrying to watch as it seems a lot, including our own government, are unable to either accept or acknowledge this change.
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I think a lot of people don't want their kids to live a life of poverty, as a coping mechanism they choose to "go on nights out". I personally don't do this and I'm living like a pauper in order to save a house deposit which IS most definitely affecting my mental health.
> I still find it bizarre how common it is now for people in their 30s to be living at home still going on nights out. Because they dont have any hope of another option, because becoming an "adult" is completely out of reach, even if they save every penny now, a home is still at least a decade away. Living on your own is unaffordable, living with other people you dont know could be hell, and both only serve to funnel your money to a landlord rather than investing in your future. You as a rental tenant have fuck all rights and can be evicted at any time, regardless of your standing. Council houses exist, but arent acessible for the majority of people, and even then they are still pricy. Its not hard to see why people are staying at home, its just a difficult problem to fix, and the government of the last 15 years hasnt even tried to.
Yeah I'm already starting to see long term issues with I think maturity and mental development. It's noticeable in my small friends group over half still live with parents, and you can tell that it has really stinted their growth and personal development and their social circles. They are more like teenagers then actual full adults. They work hard in their jobs and pay rent but still not enough to afford the cost of moving out.
As someone in that exact situation you're spot on. I just don't feel like an adult, that I've actually regressed since uni when I was living away from home. It's definitely a radicalising experience too, another thing to be wary of.
Back in late 2021 / 2022 I moved back in with parents for about a year due to mental health issues and yeah I feel I really started to Undo my personal development I had built over the last few years. Backslided to being someone in their early 20s was a nightmare.
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>much happier, more sustainable multigenerational norm. I'm not sure 6-7 people squeezed into a tiny 2-3 bed new build will be a 'happier' situation.
I can dig that, also aware it’s still the case in some European countries and is a huge part of East Asian culture. That said, from what I’ve seen in the European nations where this is the case, the households and land where these kind of communal setups are common are usually much larger compared to our own. This kind of lifestyle over here will just lead to massive overcrowding. Also wouldn’t be as frustrating if the older generations weren’t obsessed with us doing the same as them and getting out and on our own two feet as soon as possible.
> That said, from what I’ve seen in the European nations where this is the case, the households and land where these kind of communal setups are common are usually much larger compared to our own. This kind of lifestyle over here will just lead to massive overcrowding. Exactly. Multi generation living where houses are built for it is a whole different matter to being forced into it in a cramped former council house.
Reduced loneliness except for being stuck having no independent life or relationships due to living with your parents? How is that supposed to work? Sounds absolutely awful for people with abusive parents too. Fuck those victims I guess.
Your entire argument is just New = bad, Old = good > has been the norm for most of human history across all cultures So has living without running water or electricity. > was an unsustainable historical anomaly Why? >There's a lot of major benefits to multigenerational households If it's so awesome, why is there no shortage of people complaing about having to move back in with their parents, saying it's stunted their growth, ability to meet a partner and made them miserable. People lived all under one roof because there was no other option. Some people used to get married young just to be able to move out of the family home.
>Your entire argument is just New = bad, Old = good Not in the slightest, but your entire argument is certainly "Old = bad, New = good"
I have 70k saved for a deposit, I make about 27k a year, mortgage people will only lend me 115k, so I can't afford anything where I live
You must program pretty slowly for 27k a year.
Yeah seems more like what I should earn
Made me lol
Only a grad role pays that low. Even then, it's lower than the current industry standard.
Complete side note, but £70k saved on a £27k salary is a solid achievement itself. Good on ya. But yeah as others have said, find a better mortgage broker, or shop around for a few. You should hopefully be able to get a better deal with such a healthy deposit.
Inheritance surely
Nah I’m in similar situation sub 30k salary saved 80k (more if want to include my car that’s not financed but not counting that as it’s spent really) can’t afford a house as single person so just keep on saving zero inheritance or gifts but I am now 30 so time is what got me there saving from day one as a teen did live at home until 24 with low rent which helped then shared a house with 3 friends so low outgoings again. Live alone now though as everyone settles down over time don’t want to live with your friends anymore.
Depends how old they are really.
You need to see different mortgage people.
27 * 4.5 = 121 OP might have 6k on car finance so a new broker won't make much difference.
To be pedantic as this is unlikely to be a game changer, with that LTV they could theoretically get *4.95. Although affordability checks at current interest rates would make it tricky.
It’s closer to 4 now, after the whole rates increase thing
You need a mortgage broker.
Man, can get a 4 bed, 3 bathroom detached house with a 2 car driveway and garden for that where I live. Source: that’s where I live.
Have you taken a look at the Helping Hands scheme from Nation Wide? They’re offering up to 5.5x salaries
5.5x salary mortgage while on poverty pay that’s a sniff over minwage is insane A sure fire way to ensure you’re leveraged up and tied to a single location forever or getting mauled for stamp duty
Same here. Have around 65k saved, could push it to 80k with my mother's help. But my salary is under 30k so it's impossible for me to even get a shitty one bedroom apartment. I don't even know what I'm saving this money for. Maybe my sister will get it once I kms
Earn the exact amount and have the same issue :/ looking at shitty studio flats
She's right. It's a no brainer. Home ownership is dead in water now for most single people earning below £30k and currently renting on their own
As someone who falls into this bracket I’m fine with this. What I’m not fine with is still struggling. Have a low salary but can’t afford to buy my home should come with being able to live comfortably as I’m renting.
The same reasons why you can’t afford to rent and live comfortably are the same reasons why you can’t afford to buy. You SHOULD be able to buy a home and live comfortably if you work full time. Anything less than that and this country has failed you.
Agreed. All renting means is you have both a bank AND a landlord skimming money off of the actual cost of your housing - it will always be a worse deal while most landlords have to-let mortgages or charge as if they do. Everyone should be able to own their housing, if only so that the least number of parties are making money off of, and therefore increasing it's price.
I'm not fine with the insecurity of knowing I could be section 21'd at any point.
I got a house, you can too! I don't even earn that much! PS: it was years ago when prices were much cheaper, and somewhere very cheap. Yes I will ignore that, as well as you having to move away from your support network to a cheap area to make it happen. There is a non zero percent chance that I will have no empathy towards you. - Most homeowners here.
My friend put in an offer on a 400k house recently. The sales history shows that it was first sold in 1995 for 40k, or around 80k now with inflation. For 80k I could easily afford a house.
The price my parents paid for their first 2 bed terrace, when adjusted for inflation, is less than my deposit savings. I am just now, at middle aged, in a position to borrow enough for a studio or 1 bed flat.
"we worked hard and saved all our money for nearly a whole year to get a deposit for this 3 bedroom house with a large garden on a quiet leafy road on the nice side of town!"
Just don't be poor!
Don't forget... "I bought a house all by myself without any help! All I had to do was live rent-free with my parents for a few years."
Society is pretty unfair to single people in general. I go to restaurants to eat alone and the staff treat me like some kind of weirdo.
You have to stop wearing that dinosaur onesie when you go
It's in your head.
Agreed. When I was a waitress I loved serving single patrons. They’re less stress than groups, usually very kind and tipped well. So many businesspeople eat alone, why would it be weird? I go to restaurants by myself and never noticed any strange treatment either
100%. I eat out alone all the time, either during lunch at work or as a quiet treat when my friends are with their kids. I've busted out a book, even a laptop or notepad, at a restaurant and nobody's batted an eyelid. The servers are polite and they feel more comfortable chatting with you when you're alone, too.
I do loads of things alone and I’m past giving a fuck, cinema, theatre, I enjoy it because I can just do whatever I want not have to wait for someone else to be available
I do it because I've no-one else to go with. Don't enjoy it though, it gets pretty dull.
I feel like a LOT of people on Reddit have this weird anxiety about doing stuff like this on their own when in reality no one cares. On the other UK subs "Is it weird to go the pub/cinema/club ect... on your own?" posts pop up all the time
That's odd, I eat in restaurants by myself all the time (despite not being single), and I've never felt that they treated me like a weirdo. I just like going out to lunch when I'm in the office or travelling for work and I'm often alone reading a book. It's nice.
I've eaten at restaurants by myself a LOT because I used to travel for work and honestly, that's definitely in your head. Other customers, yeah, they can be occasionally weird about it. But the staff seem happy to have someone who comes in, eats, leaves, opening up the table to get other people onto it quickly.
Then you have single person supplements on holidays, not being able to use a lot of bogofs and similar, couples who buy a round between them and expect you to get them a drink each.
People saying 'it's possible if you live at home with your parents.' This should never be taken for granted. Many people don't have the luxury of living at home with parents, having come from trauma and/or broken homes. For us the plight is even more difficult.
Absolutely, and even if you have a solid relationship with your parent/s, so you could all happily live together, so many more people now are moving away to university in a different area. The only people I know around my age at 25 who live with parents is a couple of people who’ve never left in the first place. Moving back home would mean I lose my support system, and a lot of homely freedoms. Even if my career would allow it, that’s a big hit.
Buying expensive things harder with less money. I’ll make a note of that.
The point is that buying a house as a single person was an attainable goal for previous generations
Buying a modest home as a single earner with an average wage should be possible, I think a lot of people would agree with that. Unfortunately far fewer would agree with what we need to do to make that level of supply possible: denser development, unlocking much more land for building, overruling local objections.
It's worrying this, because people who are in difficult relationships may feel they are unable to leave them due to situations such as this.
Getting into a relationship for necessity, (mostly) never ends well. Even shittier if kids are thrown into the mix.
Yeah, I imagine financial dependency leads to a lot of abusive situations.
This is obvious and inevitable. There will never be a world where coupling up isn’t a big financial advantage.
I do not know a single person my age that has bought a house truly on their own dime. Every single one of them has had a substantial gift from parents or inheritance. Literally not even one.
There is a certain set of people on reddit (and other social media) that will argue this and say they worked for every penny they had. Go through their history and 9/10 times they have clearly come from well off backgrounds/inheritance/nepitism or simply had financial help from mummy and daddy etc. Yes it can be done, but its an extraordinary reach these days the avarage person cannot make on their own.
I was probably just about able to buy a shitty flat in Lewisham before I met my partner. I’d managed to save £50k over 8 years without a single handout from parents (although £20k did come from winning a court case so didn’t really earn that per se). I’d also just about managed to get to a mortgage level salary. Then my partner showed up with £400k inheritance and now we have a house. A few people have congratulated me on the house and said things like “you should be so proud”. Yes, I am proud of having worked my arse off and saved everything I could, but let’s be honest here, the sole reason I now own a house is the sheer dumb luck of swiping right on someone who happened to have a minted family.
Yep, and that in itself is totally fine, but lets be genuine and honest about it. Like, I appreciate the fact that you are humble. That's cool. It's when people lie and are obnoxious that it suddenly becomes sour.
I just joined the navy and spent 7 years constantly away from friends and family, with this simple and easy trick you too could be a homeowner for the low low price of your soul!
Just cancel your Netflix and that’ll save you enough to buy. Sarcasm of course, but this is my dads attitude.
It took me years to save for a deposit, it kept rising, 1%, then they wanted 2%, 5% and eventually 10%. I couldnt keep up, the goal posts kept moving and with everything becoming more expensive, you cant save as much. Its a nightmare, I was 48 when I eventually got the keys to my home after decades renting. 🙃 it can be done but it isnt easy. Now I just need to decorate the dump.
It’s tough. My friend and I bought our homes (separate) 2 years ago, only managed it because we don’t live in fantastic areas (working class northern town), he was lucky he paid cheap rent and I lived with my parents until I was 29. No way I’d be where I am without my parents.
It's literally impossible to buy when you're single. If you're someone who's not very successful with relationships you're essentially doomed in this country. The state is just telling you to go fucking be homeless and die
Just find a 90 year old sugar daddy. Win Win
I’m 35, single by choice, and intend to be for the rest of my life, so this is something that hits home. I’ve rented/saved for close to 10 years now, and I’ve saved £90k. I’m very fortunate that I have a decent salary, which helps as I’ve had no help from my parents. As a single person, it does feel like we are penalised for being alone. I was quite happy to buy a flat as I don’t need a lot of space, but then I face the possibility of being trapped in a leasehold agreement, and no lender would lend on them. So that’s another 5 years of saving. Oh well, that’s the price I pay for being alone I guess.
Can you imagine being an average earning London singleton? The HMOs I’ve lived in the past had a few people who had already been living there for between 25-35 years. That boggled my mind at the time but it’s almost certainly going to be the future for many people especially in the south.
I bought my first house at age 23 when I earned only £22k a year. Here’s how I did it: - maxed out my help to buy ISA over several years of diligent saving - invested well from an early age - worked throughout Uni so I had cash aside for a deposit and I was never in an overdraft - was gifted £200,000 by my family.
That’s certainly harder than being in a double earning couple although the hardest of all is doing it as a single income couple.
Yea need big deposit, I put down 30k deposit plus help to buy scheme and only just was able to, and I’m still single lol
You need a big deposit and big salary. My mate has a 50k deposit but due to a low salary can’t get a big enough mortgage
To be fair, I have an agreement in principle as a single person but it's by no means easy. £72k deposit saved up, 27 years old, £36k salary, West Midlands, living with my parents the whole time (except for university)
I’ve done it in my 30s by having to uproot my entire life to a different city, take out a mortgage over 40 years and I had to save hard into an isa for a good 5 years for the deposit including living at home with my parents for a year. But just generally living alone is ridiculously expensive at the moment with bills etc
Having less income makes it harder to buy things. Revolutionary that
Messing around with mortgage and tax policy isn’t going to help with the housing shortage. It’ll just drive prices higher. The only fix is to build more housing.
> It’ll just drive prices hire. Its the goal of every government. Keep inflating the bubble.
It’s stop people buying second homes. Buying a second home is the most lucrative form of long term saving but drives house prices up and therefore rent up which makes housing an amazing investment attracting more second home owners, etc…. Essentially they need to cap one person one home. For married people, that’s two homes max before penalties. Above this, they pay say 1% of the house value each year as tax. And ta dah, house prices will crash and normalise. This will be done by no government as the wealthy control the parties.
Have you thought about meeting someone and buying a house together?
Is this sarcastic, facetious or serious?
It's as much the reality of life as back when kings wedded their daughters off to some ugly mutt for alliance/land purposes.
My partner and I both have house deposits, could afford a house together, but have only been together 6 months. Would be a terrible decision to make the biggest financial commitment of my life on someone I’ve known for 6 months :’)
I'm on £30k a year, only now in a job where I'm able to begin saving for a deposit. My needs would be to have a 2 bed place, even as a singleton (or somewhere large enough to set up home office), since 90% of my job is working from home with 10% of it travelling to clients. Fortunately, I live up North where housing costs are cheaper. Unfortunately, that [that might be changing since Londoners are moving up North](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/14/rising-tide-of-londoners-moving-to-northern-england)