Artful lodgers5/21/2023 For this hallowed property, he pays the measly sum of £75 per week, which includes all bills. He lives in a plush flat with a great view of London Bridge and the Thames and is firmly in zone 1, a major boon when transport costs are some of the highest of any city in the world. And it may explain why so many young Londoners are taking to sleeping on sofas to save money. However, if you're not one of these fortunate few, saving a deposit is even more critical. Generally speaking, 20 per cent isn't shocking, so you're talking £60,000-70,000.' So the deposits are getting bigger every year. 'Some parents have got houses that they've paid off and they're sitting on £400,000 and can lend their son or daughter £50,000, £100,000. The deposits Haysom is seeing are getting bigger. Without a fat deposit you don't stand a chance. 'There is a certain stigma if you're in your thirties and haven't bought a property.'īut here's the problem: to buy a £250,000 one-bed in London with a standard 90 per cent mortgage based on three-and-a-half times your annual income you'd need a 10 per cent deposit of at least £25,000 and an income of just over £64,000 before a lender would approve you. 'We're a nation of homeowners,' Haysom explains. Here's a selection of headlines from the past few weeks: 'Cost of average London house rises to £300,000' 'March of London's £1m homeowners' 'Homes in London only for those who inherit them' 'House prices soar by £1 a minute in hottest of hotspots', and so on. London's Evening Standard has become a good barometer of the frenzy. We're looking at selling in excess of 70 properties in a month, which is crazy. 'We're on target to have our busiest month since this office opened three years ago. 'Without question, the market's crazy,' says Daren Haysom, manager of the Shoreditch office of London estate agent Foxtons. The reason? The London property market is at boiling point. 'It's the opposite of buyer's remorse,' says one Chelsea estate agent.Īccording to Adam Sampson, director of Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity, 'we are seeing the slow demise of the housing ladder, which is now completely out of reach for the majority of young people.' Citing the fact that by 2026 only 35 per cent of 30- to 34-year-old couples will be able to afford their own homes, Sampson says that for first-time buyers a housing 'rockface' has emerged: 'It's virtually impossible to get on without years of saving or financial help from family or friends, and more precarious than ever once you are on it.' This is before seeing a survey and is non-refundable if the vendor has a change of heart. The latest manifestation of this property madness is the 'supergazumper', a buyer who 'wins' a property via the increasingly common sealed-bid process and then, in a final act designed to put pressure on the vendor not to back out, gazumps his or her own offer with an extra cash sweetener of an additional ten grand or so. It seems that everyone with a foot on the ladder is scheming a buy-to-let empire, often subsidised with interest-only mortgages and deposits scammed from credit cards. The traditional process of buying, selling and moving on to somewhere bigger after a few years appears archaic and financially ill-advised. Meanwhile, many people on the ladder don't sell their houses any more they rent them out, free some of the capital and buy somewhere new. The housing price bubble refuses to burst, despite regular pointed warnings. Awash with foreign buyers' cash, City boys' £1m bonuses, and with property speculators frothing over the Olympics, London property prices are careering out of control, without ever quite hitting the buffers. "Bringing a lodger in seems like the perfect way to earn a bit of extra cash if you've got a spare room, but as this research shows, it does need some careful thought and planning beforehand.While much of the UK is in the grip of a house-price frenzy, it's at its most intense in London. Maria Donald of Zurich said: "Property prices and the cost of living mean that many homeowners are feeling the pinch. Three out of four did not vet their lodgers before bringing them into their house, which Zurich described as "worrying." Most of those questioned said they believed their privacy was invaded by having a lodger under the same roof, with two out of five admitting to feeling uncomfortable. Insurance firm Zurich said its study revealed that for many people, the only way to get on the property ladder is to sublet a spare room. AN INCREASING number of home-owners take in lodgers to help pay the bills, but many damage property or are late with the rent, according to a report out today.Ī survey of 3,000 householders showed that almost one in five had suffered damage to their property, a similar number had endured late rent payments and one in four said they would never have a lodger again.
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