# My Aquarium Just Got 9 Grand Cheaper.



## Stickleback (7 Oct 2010)

Sorry I know this is well off topic and probably quite controversial.

But imagine we were all looking to buy our first aquarium but had been priced out of the market by older aquarists who once buying their aquariums had put restrictions on how many new aquariums could be built. They bought as much of the current stock as possible and rented them out to the next generation. The price of aquariums was pushed up over the next two decades and no mater the incremental pay rises you had received in your 20s and early 30's and how hard you saved, aquariums always seemed to rise in price beyond your means. 

I have saved so hard for my first aquarium. I am not looking to make a fortune on it, or even keep it as an investment. I just want my own aquarium rather than renting a crappy one from someone who bought it to make profit.

Well today the aquarium market had quite a shock.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=152347

And anyone looking to buy an aquarium soon might want to look at these graphs.

Aquarium prices 1985-2010







Asset Bubble Life Cycle






I am very sorry if this annoys or offends anyone and I totally understand why it would but IMHO today was a good day for aquarists.

Rufus


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## Graeme Edwards (7 Oct 2010)

Right with ya on that one.

I once owned my own 'aquarium', this happened and now I rent one. I was lucky when I did buy, because my ex was a graduate, so we qualified fora 100% mortgage on our aquarium. We have gone our separate ways.

No, with a much more fancy goldfish by my side, we would love to buy our first ( my second ) aquarium. In the past few years since then, well, your looking at 15-20 down before any fees for paper work. 

Sad times for our generation 20s-mid 30's. Thanks Thatcher! We have been given the short straw. My dad at my age had a an aquarium he bought and paid for by him self, including bills on an average wage. My mums money was extra,which they used to rase a family. I dont have the same luck. I would have to be on 50-60K to have what my dad had at my age if you look at equivalents. 

We have people moaning about not getting child benefits when they earn over 43K a year!!! Errrmm, get a grip.

Yep, the country is in tatters and our generation are feeling it the most. 

FUBAR!!!!


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## GreenNeedle (8 Oct 2010)

Lol. Well until a body with authority can heavily tax those who buy second 'aquariums' or more then there will still be a market.

Those that are only J Bloggs with enough to have 2 owned 'aquariums' will be the ones that lose their investment.  But I would suggest those who have huge amounts of aquariums and run it as a business will be buying them up quicker than you or I can get in there.

After all when the EU 'fish' migration laws meant open borders all of a sudden the number of fish that needed to rent rose substantially and that will only increase as time goes on.

Its hard to stop as we can suggest stopping 'aquarium' investors reducing the available number via taxing etc but that will not happen under any government.  therefore the only way to remove the problem is to reduce the quantity of fish that require aquariums and that will truly bring the prices down.

Remember the average aquarium these days even after the tiny drop we have just had is a much higher proportion of the average man's earnings than even 10 years ago.

In my area Aquarium prices are triple that of 2000 the average wage has gone up about 15%.  Lucky we get that rise as the local fish used to get 15-20% more than the national wage yet now the local fish cannot get these jobs and the wages are AT national minimum!!!  However this is rural Lincolnshire and the migrant fish are abundant and therefore so are the London based 'Aquarium' investors.

I intend to wait until I have had my Council owned 'aquarium' for 5 years at which point I get a 35% or Â£24,000 discount (whichever is less) so at current prices I get a Â£60,000 aquarium for Â£39,000   the price 2 years ago was near Â£75,000.  Hopefully it will go a lot lot further because in 2000 this aquarium would have been in the region of Â£20,000.

Graeme you have the wrong culprit here.  Thatcher was out when the last slump hit real hard.  Then many supported the red teame who thought, we'll have some of that but got it all wrong to the extreme.  All those booms that we are talking about now were in between 1997 and 2010.  However those of us at the very bottom rung of the social ladder are the ones that can now benefit from one of Thatcher's greatest changes.  Even if you don't agree with the change better that I can get that council owned aquarium cheap than a 'migrant' fish or even a 'supposedly on the banned list' fish don't you think?  After all I supported the blue team all the way through that  pre-predictable disaster.

I do however thank the red team for paying Â£150 a week into my new aquarium fund. Called child tax credit or something.  I think its to do with letting people spend more on luxuries or...I don't get it.  I know it's to get rid of the terrible 'live within your means' outdated statements which as you say got your father and my parents their own aquariums within their budget and now all paid for plus retired early.

Even if it meant they would have to suffice with borrowed furniture and bits and bobs until they could afford to buy replacements over time with cash.  What a horrible philosophy that is.  Can you imagine people not being able to get credit, they've never been able to get it except maybe a car loan or a mortgage.  If they are short of cash they eat liver and bacon or whatever else is cheap at the local grocers.  Oooh another horrible word.  can you imagine what local shops must have been like.  We are so lucky for the boom in super-chains these days.

Oh how terrible the world was in those days where they had small TVs, radios, small mid hifis and MFI was the peak of fashion.  How on earth could they live like that?

You know what I mean Graeme?  No use blaming Thatcher.   The Reds tried to copy her model but didn't understand it and made a complete hash of it.  

The real blame is with us the consumer because we have become so 'must have' materialistic people.  image is everything, weddings must be Â£10,000 occasions, No matter what size our aquarium is it must look superb and with all the latest gadgetry.  We must have more than we can afford to buy with our own money and therefore get credit.  We ignore our parents who say.  We never bought anything on credit.  If we wanted something we saved up for it.

Then on the flip side we want moor wages yet cheaper groceries etc.  We must have everything for zero money.

I am no different from this scenario.  Only difference with me is I predicted the recession.  I stopped spending credit in 2007 when I was Â£12,000 in debt.  Indeed nearly more than my wage.  However unlike those who spent until the crash I got that Â£12k down to half before the crash where I lost my job got all interest frozen negotiated lower payments and will be free of it all next year just as those aquarium prices hopefully reach rock bottom.  My migrant wife is the worker paying the remnant off.  And thanks to the red team I/we bank nearly 8k a year in our mortgage fund thanks to the red team trying to buy our vote with good hard cash as they always do.

The other culprits are those who lost control of the borders!!!! and also those who know nothing about real big business and capitalism yet thought they'd have a try and not worry too much about the consequences.  Remember the statements of there will never be another recession like former ones, that there will never be another house crash of the same proportion.  It wasn't just those 2 guys.  It was the red media too (Yes it was red back then) The gravy train was going to last forever but at least you could get a mortgage out to buy 25% of a new build 1 bed Barratt Fluval Edge.  Prescott is a genious

Long live the Iron Lady   She knew what she was doing until her head went   I'll give the kids milk from the fridge just so long as I can get a cheaper aquarium   Pity the Blair Witch and Broon Pants could not continue the stance against the EU and save us all from what has happened over the past decade or so.

Now can I ask if a certain word is not allowed? Or is it bad luck like saying pl*co on a catfish forum?

AC


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## Themuleous (8 Oct 2010)

Just please have a little symtathy for those who saved and saved and managed to scrape together enough for a deposit to by their first aquarium in...2007 and are now facing a lifetime of never being able to upgrade.

Sam


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## Brenmuk (8 Oct 2010)

A drop of -3.6% to my mind is not a crash although its not insignificant either - BBC Newsnight went on about this but said there are so few transactions going through that the data can't be trusted more like a drop of about 1-2% if more long term trends are to be looked at. 

We are looking to move 'aquarium' atm and there is a small chain of people moving up the 'aquarium' ladder, the thing I find ironic is that the ppl at the top of the chain buying a large opti white with built in cabinet so to speak, need the smallest loan while the people at the bottom of the chain just getting on the 'aquarium' ladder need an eye watering huge loan for a clapped out old clearseal aquarium. Just goes to show that for those already on the ladder things aren't quite so bad.


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## Anonymous (8 Oct 2010)

Look who's complaining .. and I earn 350Â£ / month.


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## zig (8 Oct 2010)

Come to Ireland, aquariums are down 50% since 2008 and still falling. We are on target for a 20% fall this year alone


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## Anonymous (8 Oct 2010)

Might do that, I'll keep my eyes on numbers looking for a good deal 

Cheers,
Mike


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## dw1305 (8 Oct 2010)

Hi all,
We bought our aquarium in 1993, (when we were 28 & 32) for a lot of money (it seemed it at the time), with both my wife and I working full-time in reasonably secure employment. We are still happy with our aquarium. When we had the fry (2) we looked at a bigger aquarium, but eventually we concluded that we couldn't afford it and instead built a bigger filter onto our aquarium to deal with the increased biological load, it was a much more cost effective option and fortunately we had just enough space to be able to do this. 

As it turned out we bought our aquarium at the "bottom of the market", and if we wanted to buy an equivalent aquarium now it would cost about  x5 times as much as we paid for our present one, and probably x4 for the equivalent, but without the filter up-grade.

You might imagine from this "paper profit" I'd be a great fan of aquarium price rises, but nothing could be further from the truth. I think aquariums are over valued by between 1/3 & 1/2, and that the government should be both building and owning houses, as well as controlling the supply of building land. 

My opinion is that Britain's economy has been totally skewed by the rise of the financial "industries", where people have been actively encouraged (by governments of both political hues) to participate in house-price speculation, multiple property and  share ownership and all the other aspects of our "casino" economy.

Aquariums are places to live, they are not investments, the financial industries don't create wealth, they just skim off the wealth created elsewhere, and if you look back through history the 1990's - 2007 house price boom is no different from "Tulipomania" in 17th Century Holland <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania>, the "South Sea Bubble" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Bubble>, "the Great Bull Market" before the 1929 crash <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929> or the "dot.com boom" of 1990's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_boom>. 

We need an economic system in the UK (and in Eire, Greece, Portugal, Spain etc.) which provides opportunities,  houses and real jobs for ordinary people, not the chance to be a winner or loser (and probably 90% of us will be losers) in an extremely biased lottery of life. As for Tories not being to blame, I'd certainly blame their Government from 1979 onwards for a lot of the trouble we are in, and the subsequent Labour administration for not having the guts to do something about it. As to the present administration,  they will accelerate the spiral of decline whilst using the "Budget deficit" as a smokescreen to remove the fundamental building blocks (NHS, Education, Pensions) of a civilised state for their own idealogical reasons and, as ever, for their own self-interest and  short term financial gain.

cheers Darrel


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## Garuf (8 Oct 2010)

I'm confused, whos spending 20k on an aquarium?! Are we talking about public aquariums or something? My tank was just shy of a grand, all done with my own money and savings. Since I went to uni I've been worse off financially than when I was working at alton towers on Â£4 an hour! 
A rented aquarium? This is a new concept to me, hows that work?


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## Garuf (8 Oct 2010)

Ignore that, I realised you mean people aquariums not fish aquariums.


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## GreenNeedle (8 Oct 2010)

Themuleous said:
			
		

> Just please have a little symtathy for those who saved and saved and managed to scrape together enough for a deposit to by their first aquarium in...2007 and are now facing a lifetime of never being able to upgrade.
> 
> Sam



Sam.  Forgive me, I have every sympathy for those who have lost out here.

What I can't stand are the people who complain about today's world, blame Thatcher, say My parents had to scrimp and scrape and then don't weigh up the rest of the facts 

Today's society is not the same as that of our parents.  Our parents only bought what they could afford, they prioritised,  They weighed up needs against luxuries and budgeted.

Totday's society doesn't They think Sky, 50" TVs, Designer Clothing etc are all needs these days.  when they complain that the cost of living is ridiculous they include what our Parents would see as luxuries and say the government needs to help them.

Reality check guys.

My families income (before the foolish red's implemented throwaways) is circa Â£800 in the hand.

We can easily live on that and have more percentage left over than my Parents ever had even though my Dad had a pretty good job.

Rent (Council Aquarium) is Â£220 per month - If you decide you don't want to live in a council area then that is your choice and therefore not to be moaned about.
Council Tax is $100
Gas/Electricity is Â£100
Water is Â£40
TV Licence is Â£12

That makes a leftover of Â£328 for groceries.  That is a lot unless you have to have all thr trimmings, luxuries etc.  Not necessaities.

I have included the TV licence but in reality TV is not a need.  Extra channels or service s is not a need.
Having a Car is not a need, having a relatively new car is most definately not a need.
Having broadband, telephone, mobile phones are not a need.

These are all luxuries. and that leftover is BEFORE Â£550 of tax credits and Â£140 of Child benefit!!!!

So anyone that ever moans and suggests things are hard for this generation need a reality check and re-assess exactly what we are spending 'our' money on and calling 'cost of living' in comparison to our Parent's generation.  Similar to our hobby you have to compare like for like.

Ask your parents what they did in times like these and they will look at your bank account and gasp with shock.  they will not believe how much credit this generation has.  They ask why, Tut, shake their head and go away in bewilderment

They will say they bought 5+ year old cars and kept them for many many years.  they didn't push the boat out and buy 2-3 year old cars every 2 or 3 years.

They didn't HAVE to have Â£30 mobile contracts with the latest all singing and dancing phones to do things that they could do on other items they already own (i.e. Internet on computers, music on a cheap Mp3, photos on a camera etc.  If mobiles were available back then they would not have done this.  My Mum and Dad have mobiles but they are on PAYG and they add Â£5-10 each year.  They are for emergency only.  they do not understand our need for mobiles and neither do I when thinking about it.

They would not have moved into their first aquarium (rented or bought) and had to have it filled up with furniture as quickly as possible.

My mum and Dad take great pride when they tell us that they used Orange crates for chairs for the first few months when they moved into their first home.  After those first few months guess what?  They got second hand furniture either bought for pennies or given to them.  This is incredibly common of our Parents generation.

They had little spare unlike us who splash out all the spares on non necessities and for years did not have money to go out for drinks nor restaurants nor anything else.  Couple this with the ethic of mother's staying at home and single income in those 'bad old days'.

I lost my job and my wife went full time, however it isn't through laziness nor lack of motivation that I will not work now.  I receive no benefit from not working.  It is because I insist to my wife that if I work she must stay at home and be house wife.  She won't so I do it instead and take the flak from a monetary and material obsessed member of the modern generation!!!

So if you want to compare our generation to our Parent generation compare them like for like.  Take on their mindset and when times are hard tighten the belt.  If we were our parents and times were getting tough we would have cancelled the mobile contract, given up the Sky, got a cheaper car and used it less etc but we don't so please stop moaning and/or blaming Thatcher.

You'll be blaming Cameron soon for the very same reason.  The present Goverment is having to sort out a bankrupt country after years of money given away to buy votes.

That Â£550 tax credits and Â£140 child benefit is unneeded in reality even at our low income of Â£800 a month.  It is our generations problem or not living within our own means and prioritising needs and waiting for things if we want them that makes these giveaways seem necessary.

Cameron is too soft IMO.  I would've wiped out all of the tax credits and told those who both lent too much recklessly and those who borrowed too much recklessly to make settlement and give up what they were foolish enough to both lend/borrow.  I would have this country get real and learn to deal with what our Parents just accepted without question.

If you want something and cannot afford it save and then buy.

Stop complaining guys.  We are the ones who made these choices and until we as a society return to the 'grounded' level of our Parents, remove this obsession of image and materialistic vanity then we have only ourselves to blame.

This isn't really the place for politics or discussion of this type.  I am heavily into politics.  I watch lots and lots of it.  Io read all sorts of articles.  I can read through half of the 'diplomacy' for what it is and not what the media try and suggest it is or whip up a frenzy on.  These subjects are unbreakably intertwined to the point that there are always different opinions from all around the loop.  More often than not that cannot see the whole loop and their opinion is based on a small part of the loop.

We don't want to be getting into this sort of depth on here, because it takes a lot to be able to see the whole of this loop and when you can you see that A is because off Bwhich causes C etc right through to Z causing A and so the loop continues along.  Think inflation, pay rises, strikes etc.

Thw whole loop is people want more money but want to spend less and this is basically is the driver of the loop.  It affects all aspects yet people only understand certain areas of it and then complain when their part of it affects another part of it which then alters their part and they are not happy.

Chill out guys.  Get rid of your luxuries, Ask your parents for advice on every aspect of life and then try and say you are worse off than they were!!!  Then weigh up how much the government gives you for no return against what they gave your Parents.  100:1 or more ratio after factoring inflation in I would suggest!!!

If you do want to get on the ladder then get on the council home list, get your home, live in it 5 years, get your whopper of a discount and wahey you're on the ladder.  You then have to live in it for 2 more years before oyu are aloowed to sell it for profit.

Are we all too posh?  I think it was the best decisions I ever made and I live in what I formerly knew as the worst stree on the worst estate in the city having been brought up in very respectable areas then followed that with the areas I private rented being very well respected areas.

Tom Bar would call this a trade off.

dw we don't need more houses,  we have plenty.  We need less people (demand) also less snobbishness so people don't HAVE to live in 'brand name' areas with the added problem of returning morality and ethics to areas that have in the past decade or so turned into areas of ASBO champions that are out of control.  When there are so many empty abodes then why do we need to build more.

One key would be to return the border area to the perimeter of our island rather than the tunnel being used to say the border is the Mediterranean and the Ural mountain range.  And this comes from someone who 'paired up' with a recent addition to this LFS!!!!  So I see both sides of the coin here.

Whilst our LFS is filling up from stock arriving from other LFS's those other LFS's are having to restock from their former colonies and that just adds more fish to spread around.  Our LFS is now part of a chain store of which we are one of the most opoular and therefore we will be having to look for larger premises if this restocking continues too much further.

AC


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## wearsbunnyslippers (8 Oct 2010)

what is the average salary like in the uk for a professional?

professional being a skilled trade with 5 or more years of experience...

what are house prices like in an average area where you would actually want to stay?

what are car, furniture, living expenses and most importantly aquarium expenses like?

how much tax, benefits etc, gets deducted from your salary, is it a sliding scale, meaning if you earn more, more gets deducted?

what is the current interest rate?


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## GreenNeedle (8 Oct 2010)

This is a can of worms over here:



> what is the average salary like in the uk for a professional?
> professional being a skilled trade with 5 or more years of experience...



The trades wage went sky high with the 'aquarium building' boom.  However many did not save, are now out of or short of work and earning a lot lot less.  Some went from Â£250-Â£300 a week up to Â£1000+ during this boom and now are struggling because they only have a smaller amount but still more than the Â£250-Â£300 prior to the boom.  However they are struggling because of their 'perceived' cost of living.

The problem was that whilst the 'trades' rose so high, the office wage didn't rise to match and the office worker got left behind.



> what are house prices like in an average area where you would actually want to stay?


Huge difference in different areas of the country.  National average is Â£165,000 however in my area that would be closer to Â£100,000 whilst London would be closer to Â£500,000 (estimate)  This is still double what it should be inline with inflation over the same period.



> what are car, furniture, living expenses and most importantly aquarium expenses like?


These are all choice related.  Exactly what I mean.  You would be surprised what people on the 'low end' of the pay scale actually go for in respect to these aspects.  Our parents would have not gone anywhere near to what we 'have to have' today.  It would probably have been what someone double their income would go for.



> how much tax, benefits etc, gets deducted from your salary, is it a sliding scale, meaning if you earn more, more gets deducted?



Get this, the low earners pay tax and NI at a rate of approx 30% total of income over the initial Â£6500 so roughly for someone earning Â£10,000 They would pay 30% of Â£3500 which makes roughly Â£1000.  Take in the admin costs of doing that   Then the government says we'll do some more admin and give you Â£7500 (maybe a little more on Â£10,000 if a 2 child family) back.

So not only did they spend money on the admin to take the Â£1000 tax and NI.  they then spend money on admin to give back Â£7500.  this is one of the strengths of the yellow's policy (albeit not the reason they are doing it for) of setting a Â£10000 minimum on paying tax.  It would wipe out the take and give back aspect here.  They would just give less extra on top and therefore remove 1 admin cost.  One of the few things I agree with on their list of policies.

Tax is almost outweighed by benefits for workers at the supposedly low end wage in our country.
The last government decided to base 'poverty' on a monetary figure and therefore decided that if you earnt less than Â£15,000 a year you were in poverty and supplemented your wage up to Â£15,000.  That of course doesn't take into account what the household then spent that extra on nor if they were struggling or in poverty in the first place.

Many it was meant to help i.e. children in poverty has not helped at all because those who get the money get hard cash into their banks and their priorities may not be food, clothing, bedding etc.  I would guess the Games Consoles manufacturers are over the moon with this decision.

Add to this that the then government started to sneak these 'poverty' supplements up to earners of Â£50,000 to buy votes and it is now ridiculous.  Those that were given the money got used to it and are now complaining.  the present government seems to think that earning under Â£30,000 a year is low.  Nothing is means tested. It is a base rate average or in my opinion an inflated guess.



> what is the current interest rate?


Lol It is zero or very close to it 

What should be done for benefits and all is to pay it targeted.  Cash into banks should not be in here at all.  Benefits via voucher sort of thing.  Maybe a 'charge card' with an amount of credit each week that has to be used for necesseties.  Those who pay tax should not be paying for those who *will not work* or '[b']are in poverty'[/b] to buy alcohol, tobacco, drugs, entry to nightclubs, games consoles and game or anything else.  It should limit to food, drink and other necessities. etc 

It is quite hard for the world to see but this country including government is very NIMBY based and hugely obsessed with the blame culture at all levels.  Not just the personal accident rubbish but if we spend too much on rubbish or non necessities we blame the cost of living for rising.  etc.

However many are living way up in the clouds, have become the posh they once criticised, and still do criticise because they do not see how they have become the same and are now moaning about those in a 'certain class' that they have now made themselves part of.  They basically live the dream and when it goes pear shaped start to blame everything else for the failure other than their own short sighted and narrow mindedness.

Myself included 

AC


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## wearsbunnyslippers (8 Oct 2010)

break it down like this to compare:

average salary for a skilled worker = R50k/m or R600k/y - decent salary
average house in an ok area = R1-1.5mil or about 2x gross yearly salary - average south african home loan period is 20yrs...

people like to keep up with the jones' so car usually as expensive as they can afford, usually 0.5 gross yearly salary, average repayment period, 3-4 years, then trade in to get the new car.

tax is a sliding scale up to a max of 43%, this gets hit relatively easily as the threshold is quite low , so tax on a decent salary is 43%, government doesnt give you any back... for this you get a failing education system that you still have to pay for, an absolutely shocking health care system, that no one that can afford otherwise uses, roads with potholes, that are soon to become toll roads and a corrupt policing system, that is breeding lawlessness... 

health insurance is at your own expense, depending on the amount of cover you want, up to 10% of your monthly salary, companies will sometimes cover half. 

so earning R50k, clearing just under R30k after tax deductions, R10-R15K on your house, R4-R5K on a car etc. health insurance, retirement annuities or provident fund, coz goverment pension is not enough to buy food, never mind live on. electricity, petrol - no public transport system, so a car is necessary, loads of mileage, hence the new cars every 3-4 years, then housing rates and taxes, the nicer the area, the more you pay. lights and water, rates and taxes subsidizing the townships that get theirs for free. 

current interest rate 9.5%... 

most south africans are one months salary away from bankruptcy, as most people cannot afford to save in the current economic environment, so if for any reason they lose their job and are without work for on month, they will default on car payments, house payments etc. 

every country has its problems...


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## Stickleback (8 Oct 2010)

Themuleous said:
			
		

> Just please have a little symtathy for those who saved and saved and managed to scrape together enough for a deposit to by their first aquarium in...2007 and are now facing a lifetime of never being able to upgrade.
> 
> Sam



Sam I absolutely 100% do. That category includes many of my friends including my brother and his girlfriend. When we look back in a few years time we will realise we all got screwed one way or another.

Rufus


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## GreenNeedle (8 Oct 2010)

> most south africans are one months salary away from bankruptcy, as most people cannot afford to save in the current economic environment, so if for any reason they lose their job and are without work for on month, they will default on car payments, house payments etc.



Exactly my point   This is how our parents were.  That is why they have what they have now i.e. property that they own 100% freehold on and no debts.

Those of our generation our in the same situation as your SA description except we have brought ourselves to that level of near bankruptcy by our own false sense of what we 'have to have'.

I like your 'keep up the Jones' comment.  I was just thinking about that whilst picking the kids up from school (house husband duties)  picture this:

30 years ago the jones' were your close neighbours or associates and some people obsessed with the keeping up bit.  Not many but a few.

Today the jones' aren't your neighbours or associates.  they are the superstars you see on telly.  Celebrity obsessions and they are the ones that are emulated by many many more people than the 30 years ago.  Everybody MUST emulate the opulent homes and trimmings etc as they see from the celebrities but on a smaller scale.  Looking posh has never been more popular   We're all becoming _Hyacinth Bucket _type figures.

As for what is a good salary?  You can see from my statements and my description which is not over exaggerated of people's assesment of what 'cost of living' comprises of that my opinion and the majority's opinion is very different.

I would suggest a very good salary in my area would be Â£20,000.  A 3 bed house with a garden away from the 'social housing' areas at present is circa Â£80,000.

Now when my Mum and Dad bought their large 3 bed semi in 1980 with an enormous garden in a very desirable area (more desirable than I am gauging my current price on) He was earning  Â£4200 and they bought the house for Â£18,000. Consider the year.  this was just coming out of the prior near bankruptcy.  Just after the reds were booted out. This was at the bottom of the market and is still a ratio of x4.25.  They had suffice in a 2 bed terraced with a yard for the previous 7 years.  This was their second home as they moved from a 2 bed terraced with just a yard (Corrie style) to their dream home.  They still live there.

Today his job would pay Â£30,000 and that same house would sell for circa Â£160,000.  We are still at the relatively high end of the market.  I would suggest to get to that 1980 level it needs to come down a lot lot further maybe 20% however the difference in wage to house ratio here is still only 5.33.

Now his job was a good job.  It wasn't your average joe wage and nor is it now especially for this area yet they pushed the boat to get a larger house and lived as we these days would be horrified to even consider so they could have their house.  sacrifices, tightening belts and prioritising.

The figures I quoted earlier of Â£20,000 would be your general blue chip company call centre worker.  somewhere like say BT where a call centre OP will earn about Â£18,000 salary.  The house is Â£80,0000 so the ratio is 4.44.

Even at the still inflated prices a basic call centre OP can get the same ratio.

Take now into account that this price inflation should already have dropped but is being fuelled by the rent demand of migrant workers and ever increasing university students and you can see why it is not coming down as previous.  The demand remains there and so the large corporate landlords sweep these smaller first time buyer houses up with straight cash purchase payments.

It is part of the loop.

AC


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## GreenNeedle (8 Oct 2010)

For those in doubt this is a pretty good study.  One stunning appropriate table in it too.

The study was written in 2003 and the consensus amongst all the major lenders was that the peak had already been reached (October2003.)

Guess what happened in the next year just a few months after they thought the peak had been reached?  I'm sure you can guess this one.

Anyway the great table I speak of is that the study predicts house price rise for the next years right up to co-incidentally 2010 and their prediction is..................  Well it isn't Â£165,000. ............Â£The answer is Â£116,569.

Does that sound a little more realistic?  The study obviously didn't know what would happen just a few months in the future nor what the consequences would be of the changes.  Those changes fuelled the major property companies to buy up anything at the low end of the market leaving all the first time buyers fighting for what was left which inevitably drove house prices up even further until we reach the nearly 40% increase on what was predicted prior to that moment.

Check it out:
http://129.3.20.41/eps/mac/papers/0501/0501004.pdf

AC


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## Themuleous (8 Oct 2010)

No worries, Andy, I didn't take it personal like 

Sam


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## Lisa_Perry75 (9 Oct 2010)

SuperColey1 said:
			
		

> If you do want to get on the ladder then get on the council home list, get your home, live in it 5 years, get your whopper of a discount and wahey you're on the ladder.  You then have to live in it for 2 more years before oyu are aloowed to sell it for profit.



You are assuming people don't want council aquariums and you can get one easy peasy! I know at least one couple currently who will be evicted in 27 days, woman is 7 months pregnant, and no sign of a council tank. 

Councils have to fork out tons of money to build new tanks with all bells and whistles. You actually have the situation where privately developed aquariums like the mentioned brand are the equivalent to a clearseal, and council tanks are the opti-white lily all-singing all-dancing. These are given to those 'most in need' so how likely is it that a council would 
decide I would be one of these people? We are not homeless and we have sufficient income to gain access to and maintain an aquarium in the private sector. I grew up in a council aquarium so it's not that I wouldn't live in one.

In 1983 my parents got refused a Â£500 mortgage to buy an aquarium (yes the aquarium was only Â£500). That same tank sold this year for about Â£200,000. The other half went to a mortgage consultant and the maximum we could borrow is Â£43k, brilliant and we can buy what with that exactly?
We are living in our first private rent and we have made do with second hand or free. I am paying off debts as fast as I can, and I cannot afford luxuries like clothes etc. In fact the only 'new' clothes I have are hand me downs from my sister. By new I mean don't have a stain and fit. Broadband is essential to my job if I work from home.

You also assume that a car is a luxury. Sometimes IF you do have access to public transport the costs are more than running a car and you are restricted to times. For my situation a car is just a necessity, unless you think it is a luxury not to have to walk as a lone woman through some of the roughest parts of southampton to a train station late at night?

edit - to replace some words lol
PS I love debating politics, I think good discussion helps people to understand opinions and ongoing problems.


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## GreenNeedle (9 Oct 2010)

> You are assuming people don't want council aquariums and you can get one easy peasy! I know at least one couple currently who will be evicted in 27 days, woman is 7 months pregnant, and no sign of a council tank.



YES I am assuming that.  It is easy peasy to get a Council House but you have to join the line.  Why should anyone be able to jump to the top when it suits them. If they really wanted one they would have been on the list before.

This is one problem with society where it is fact (and here *I do not* make the assumption the couple you are talking about has done this) on my street there are many many single mothers that have a few children.  We are talking young twenties that have 3,4,5 children.  This is done because as the rules were it gained them 'priority' status and therefore got them to the top of the list.  Is that fair?  Does that set a good example?  Does it encourage recklessness?  I'll not answer but that is why the rules changed.  Also changed so that non UK born resident must live in the UK for 5 years before they are allowed to even register on the list apart from in exceptional circumstance.

The point I make here is if someone wants a council house thats fine.  They can wait like the rest of us.  What I would ask is how long have they lived privately? Did they register on the list prior to the pregnancy being known?  Is it suddenly we want a council house where before they weren't interested?

This may advise a little though:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advic ... cy_checker




> Councils have to fork out tons of money to build new tanks with all bells and whistles. You actually have the situation where privately developed aquariums like the mentioned brand are the equivalent to a clearseal, and council tanks are the opti-white lily all-singing all-dancing. These are given to those 'most in need' so how likely is it that a council would
> decide I would be one of these people?



This is all wrong.  Council houses are given to those who want them.  It doesn't matter if you earn Â£50k a year you have a right to apply for a Council house.  Once applied for the applicant is assessed in terms of priority.  However there isn't an option for Sorry you are not in need.  It is a right of choice.  You are one of those people.  You live in the UK, are resident and have been for more than 5 years.  Therefore unless you've been a naughty girl then you have the right to join the list just as I was when I was earning Â£15k a year and my wife Â£10k a year. Joint Â£25k.  I have no idea why people seem to get this picture of council housing being only available to those below a certain level of income.  This is not a benefit it is a UK citizen's right.

Councils don't necessarily need to build.  The problem is the 'Opti Whites' are the ones like mine. Good Solid old houses.  Well Built, strong, large gardens.  The newly built (past 20 years) council homes are indeed Clearseals with thin plasterboard walls, boxy rooms, small gardens.  These are typically (from advice of people in the know) the worst areas in Council Estates.  These houses are absolute shells when people are evicted.  Walls smashed to pieces etc.

What the councils would be better doing is buying up what is derelict and empty.  Places with solid foundation and sturdy build already and then turning that into their 'needed' space.  This not only regenerates but also reduces the amount of green and brownfield sites we are building on.



> We are not homeless and we have sufficient income to gain access to and maintain an aquarium in the private sector. I grew up in a council aquarium so it's not that I wouldn't live in one.


*So join the list*


Lisa.  I am not suggesting people's personal choices are wrong, just that their argument is wrong.

I am suggesting that they complain about todays house prices in comparison to their parents generation whilst not comparing their cost of living like for like to their parents.

Yes you may need a car late at night in Southampton's roughest parts at night.  Yes you may need broadband for your work, Do not ever agree with the car cost vs public transport statements but then I do baulk at paying Â£3 to go into the city when I can walk or bike it.

However when comparing you can't factor these into the argument as they are society problems they are to do with the living environment we as a collective nation have created via ourselves or via letting governments get away with letting it happen.  The impatient.  Our time is too important 24/7 non stop merry go round.  Nothing to do with a like for like cost of living comparison.

What would our Parents generation say?  Well how many worked from home back then?  How many people used buses to get to work?  How many people always used cars at night?  Come to that how many people worked at night then compared to now?

So you see the cost of living cannot include these as they are created by the way we as a collective have let our nation become.



> PS I love debating politics, I think good discussion helps people to understand opinions and ongoing problems.


This isn't really politics, this is really economics with some social issues thrown in.

Real Politics is when the debater (politician) knows the whole loop, but then tries to persuade those who know a little part of the loop that they are helping them whilst upsetting as little of the rest of the loop as possible.

This is the problem. With so many factors in today's loop and so precious time etc people see less and less of the loop as time goes on.  Politicians try to more and more take the middle ground rather than actually change things and therefore ways of letting everybody do what they want whilst sounding like changes are being brought in have been the way of the last decade.

The shift from calling people dole dossers to hiding them from the figures with the 'invalid benefit' section which then tars the legitimate claimants.  Then the EU problem came in and the excuse blossomed into an unbelievable and often used _'They are mainly doing the jobs that the British people won't do'_  Aaargh

This sort of politics of show action yet please all, take middle ground, hide the problem makes me mad.  What would the 'hated' Thatcher have done if she were Prime minister now and one of her ministers had said this statement?  Not only would that minister be on the back benches within a week, Thatcher would be on a podium within a week and those that 'won't work would be shaking in their boots' because they would know they were in for a rough ride!!!

Action was taken in her day unlike now.  That is why many hate her.  Forget the middle ground, there is no point pleasing Joe Bloggs if he doesn't understand the whole loop, No point in taking chances with a country.  Just do what is right and ignore Joe whilst telling him, Trust me.  

Try to please Joe can mean doing things that are not going to help in the long run.  Often Joe doesn't understand how the things he thinks are bad are actually feeding down to him and helping him.  Yes there can be some mistakes etc but here we are being told it will take a generation to restore our country!!!

Took Thatcher a lot less and after only 5 years people were saying she was only looking after big business and the 'yuppies'.  Guess what.  It cleared up the near bankruptcy to making us pretty darn strong in the world again.  Even then we were back in an great position to come out of the 90/91 recession as a world leader.  A position of growth that ultimately led to a false sense of success for the 'prudent' Brown.

Weigh that up against 1978/79.  the Winter of discontent.  A 15 year period where red rule was only broken by a single blue term caused havoc.  Union power became uncontrollable.  Inflation reached 27% after the oil crisis and miners strikes in 1975.  Strikes over pay rises were common.  Labour governments sought to make 5% a maximum pay rise which only worked for a short while.  Yes 5%.  What a luxury, however the unions were powerful, car manufacturers and oil companies were having more and more good periods and pay rises of 20-40% were sought.  When they were eventually granted the public sector were left well behind in pay with high inflation.  This was a recession and we had to borrow billions from the IMF to bail us out and not become bankrupt.  Not close to, actually bankrupt.

And these days we hear the Thatcher haters complaining about high inflation and interest rates in the eighties.  Do they forget the decade prior or choose to ignore this to favour their argument and 'rose tinted' beliefs.

Its a dual edged coin.  You want more pay because 'the cost of living' is high.  You get more pay so great, you now have a little more to spend.  Guess what.  The manufacturer (or these days importer), and retailers (from drivers delivering to shelf stackers to till operators) give pay rises too and....................Yep Your Â£1 was worth more for all of a millisecond because the price of goods just went up to facilititate their pay rises in line with yours.  You gained nothing!!!  However overall because everybody got payrises inflation went up.

A very basic example - if everything was self sufficient on this island, no imports or exports, no seasonal variation or dependency on weather, no pay rises etc. a constant fluid supply of everything allied to need with no excess and no change in usage then costs would sstay the same and inflation would be zero.

However with supply and demand, other factors controlling good and bad years, dependency on imports and exports allied with the perceived 'need' for pay rises etc then inflation hits.  Think about it next time you ask for a pay rise.  If you get one, then others get one, then the country eventually all get one then everything rises in price too.  You gain nothing.  The shopping that cost you 25% of a weekly wage still costs 25% of your weekly wage.  Just that you got a payrise which now means the 25% was Â£50 and now 25% is Â£53.  What do we say.  'Price of foods' going up. lol  I wonder if those working in the food industry say the same????   I did whilst I was packing eggs whilst getting 3% a year rises.

Now look at a small example of my arguments of what has happened over the past 13 years.  Prior to 1997 How many Police Cars/Ambulances/Fire Engines etc were non British made?  By that I mean Ford, Vauxhall, bedford, Rover, Dennis etc.  I would suggest almost zero.  We could even add in here Nissan or Honda etc that have factories in the UK and employ UK workers.

The Police fleet seems now to be Skodas and Beemers, The Fire Engines seem to be Volvos, Ambulances all sorts of Mercedes and Renaults and so on.  Why?  These factories could have remained open,  Huge government fleet contracts would have secured that.  Goverment fleet contracts would get these vehicles at lower profit than we buy single vehicles at but a more attractive option to a manufacturer.  Less admin and effort to sell  1000 cars than 1 car.  Add to that more production to boot which brings down overheads.  It did need streamlining anyway as the old Leyland was about 100 different plants from the amalgamation of all th old british manufacturers.

Why over the past 13 years were these very public organisations allowed to funnel money out of the British economy to overseas manufacturers?  These manufacturers are now gone or much much smaller for no real reason.   It was right to de-nationalise Leyland etc.  The country cannot prop up failing business but it can support it through purchase of goods.

I am way way off the original topics now. l.ol

Just sends me mad to hear the usual 'Thatcher' moans whilst no mention of the decade prior with much worse consequence nor the acceptance of cultural or social issues altering the way we either feel or indeed in some cases have to spend our money.  People need to see the whole loop and understand how it all links rather than complaining that their part fo the loop is not how they want it to be.

Lisa on the subject if Council housing I am the reverse really.  I was brought up in a well to do area (from the age of 5 onward.)  Not by rich parents but in an area where others were reasonably well off.  Maybe this was good.  All children I grew up with were spoilt whilst I was not.

However I grew up with a general snobbishness toward council estates.  A general ignorance if you like.

I am a pretty grounded person and upon meeting my wife I was straight on the council housing register.  this was a dual thing really.  Firstly I knew it could take some time and if I wanted I could just refuse anything and remain at the bottom of the list.  Also I had lived with my Parents until the age of 29 and at this point in my first flat, height of the market I could not believe the Â£450 a month price for a 2 bed flat (top notch area though.) After all my Parents had just completed their mortgage which was Â£180 a month for a 3 bed house in the same area.

This is 2004.  I knew there would be another recession eventually  I figured it would be before 2010. I had time to wait the 5 years average waiting until I could get the best areas on the council list.  However in mid to late 2007, debts I had let grow coupled with the start of the 'credit crunch' meant I knew the recession was going to start a lot earlier than 2010.  So I revised the plan.  I had been on the list for 3Â½ years.

I decided to lower my target.  Advice from my Dad (A retired house call benefits agency Officer) and from a couple of Police friends suggested some of these areas suffered from old reputations and although they weren't areas of angelic voices, WI and wine tasting meets, they were far from riotous ASBO infested areas of danger and squallor as many who don't live there tend to believe (including me at that time.)  We drove up the street, saw the house saw no problems with the particular locality and bid for it.

Because I had been on that list 3Â½ years I got it.  There wasn't much competition from anyone who had waited longer.  I knew we couldn't wait the further 2 years to get the nicer area.

Now this is August 2007 and we are told it will take a couple of months before we can move in.  Collapsed floor/Ceiling , wrecked rooms etc.  Drugs and associated Paraphernalia to be cleaned out etc.  House gutting, rewiring etc.  This house was an absolute tip apparently.  We only got to view it in mid September and although it was a disgrace what the previous people had done to it.

For Â£55 a week It has a 75ft long garden, nice sized rooms, Bigger than new builds ( >1980) nice thick old walls, well built etc.  Comparison to the '80/90's new build' I had lived in for 7 months prior to this period was impossible.  I will never live in a new build ever in my life.  I can build things with cardboard myself.

So in between accepting and being allowed to move after work was completed in the last week of December 2007 (yes in Christmas week) I lost my job.  Top timing.  We would have been bankrupt on the former private house's rent coupled with the debts we had racked up foolishly.  However we renegotiated the debts and here we are now.

So I understand you can't just get a council house just like that.  why should you.  Its not an option for when times are hard.  I waited 3Â½ years.  I foresaw problems and planned for them. Thats life.  Next summer we will be debt free.  Still with income of Â£800.  We will have Â£100 of that left over each month plus the Â£700 of government handout.  Happy days eh 

We will have mortgage fund by the time we've been here for 5 years (been here now for nearly 3) of circa Â£10,000.  The mortgage we will need for this house with the right to buy discount(on where I expect market prices to be in late 2012) will be circa Â£30,000.  thats for a large 2 bedroomed, solid walled house, driveway and a massive garden.

My point is this.  It goes to prove that those tax credits are unnecessary.  They should not have been rolled out in the first place in the way they were.  They were bribes for votes.  Unneeded.  To tackle that problem should have been done by targeted means not by deciding on a monetary line where poverty is.

However for those that then complain to me that child tax credit should be for the children.  It is.  Just as my grandparents bought their homes and then left them to their children when they passed away my Parents will too.  More than likely I will pay this mortgage straight off with that and have some spare.  Then I continue the process by leaving my property (this one or other if we move up) to my children and so on.

Its not a case of anything morbid.  Thats just how it works.  I do not hope my parents time comes at X date at all.  If they live to be 110 I will be incredibly happy.  If they outlive me that inheritance would pass over to my children.  This is how it works.  My mother describes her house as my (and my sisters) pension.

AC


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