Metropol

Will the last one to leave Britain turn out the lights?

In the International Housing Affordability Survey: 2006 Ratings for All Major Urban Markets, my home town has the 31st most expensive land in the world.

By taking the median house price and the median wage in 6 different countries, Tyne and Wear was the 31st most expensive/unaffordable place.

As much as I love my country and love my region, and despite the fact that I do alright for myself financially, I want to get out and live somewhere a little less expensive.

What do you make of Britain's house prices?

Where does Edinburgh rank? It's pretty damned expensive from where I'm standing.

Wales is relatively cheap.

Cardiff's probably the most expensive area in Wales, and the cheapest area is about 10-20 miles north of Cardiff in the valleys where you can still pick up a decent terraced house for around £45,000.

Ten years ago those houses were going for £5,000 each!

Gavin Scott wrote:Where does Edinburgh rank? It's pretty damned expensive from where I'm standing.

well that's what you get when you build your house out of solid gold

Don't forget "jewel encrusted".

Gavin Scott wrote:Where does Edinburgh rank? It's pretty damned expensive from where I'm standing.

It's an okay survey but as it uses "metropolitan areas over 500,000" to begin with, it misses out many large towns/smaller cities. Therefore Edinburgh isn't included. In actual fact only around 10 "cities" (actually regions) in the UK are included.

I still see no evidence to back up yesterday's Glasgow Evening Times headline "Glasgow ranked second most expensive UK city" which says it used this survey. A few friends of mine live over there and they pay lower rent, lower council tax for similar area/style of flat I'm in. Actually even the taxi fares are lower over there so I'd take this survey with a pinch of salt.

If you want to see it, it's here: http://www.demographia.com/dhi-ix2005q3.pdf

Gavin Scott wrote:Don't forget "jewel encrusted".

Although it's obvious to point out, I do hope you've not actually LESSENED the value of your home by using nasty Rubys and Emeralds. Red and Green dear!

Northern Ireland was reasonably cheap for property, but is very rapidly catching up with other parts of the UK. The house I sold one year ago has just sold again for over 30% more than I sold it for despite the new owner doing nothing to it at all.

It's very infuriating - the whole house prices thing.

Historically, a house would be valued at 3.3 times annual income. In the survey quoted, this is considered as affordable.

4 times is "unaffordable", 5 times is "very unaffordable" and 6 times is "severly unaffordable".

Tyne and Wear currently has a multiples ratio of 5.9 times annual median income to median house price.

It's not just there we're getting ripped off too. The survey looked at the average sizes of houses and came up with the following conclusion

1 US House = 1.5 Australian Houses = 6 UK & Ireland Houses.

So, if you were to consider it on a square footage basis, for example, Tyne and Wear costs 300%+ more for housing than Hollywood.

The brain drain is coming to Britain again if people are excluded from owning houses at sensible prices.

If I could afford it right now, I would very very happily live in one of those ultra-modern flat-pack houses. They look fabulous and are incredibly energy efficient.

Just found this.

Ideal for a single person or a couple sharing: http://www.loftcube.net


It does look a bit too Ikea-ish for my liking, but the concept is great and I would furnish it in my own style and not with Ikea junk.

I bought a wooden framed bed from Ikea in Cardiff last summer. It broke 4 weeks later after me and some girl jumped on it and it collapsed. Ikea stuff is shit, but that's another topic entirely.