Ashamed to be British?

[retrogeezer]

Yeh, don't think for a minute we don't realise how lucky we are. We bought at the right time in 1993 when house prices were at their lowest for a while and sold at the peak (through luck, not judgement!)A couple of other factors have helped, prices of semi's since 2000 in Farnborough have risen by 88% and detached in Crewe have risen by 102% whereas a semi in Crewe has risen by 203% over the same period!Detached houses are cheap here in relation to semi's - hopefully that will change!Also, the percentage drop on semi-detached house sales in F/B over the last year has been -47%!! Here, it has only been -23% and even better, only -13% for detached.At the moment, it looks like we timed it perfectly, that could all change tomorrow of course!

[Cavcraft]

You see that's a lovely pad you have there but where are the kids on mini-motos, council estate wheel trim bedecked Mondeos with broken bumpers and shirtless tattoed men innocently going about their business of drinking cans of wife beater and swearing?

It's worse than that, retrogeezer's got Pringle-jersey wearers at the end of his garden!

OMG No wai! Do they drive sub 18 month old German cars and play golf too?

[MrRegieRitmo]

Bought the place because it was cheap for a quite large house, £20K less than we could have bought our rented place for which was half the size. So we get nice neighbours, a big garden and ample space to extend.

Nice one! But how??

[pogweasel]

Whaddya mean "but how"?

[MrRegieRitmo]

How did you get a big non council house for £20k less than a council house half as big?

[pogweasel]

No, the old house was a privately rented "Barratt box". One double bedroom about 10'x10', and a tiny second 'box room' which was about 6'x6'. The garden was miniscule too. When we moved out they were fetching £145,000, lord knows why. In it's merit it was in 'showhome' condition and had a garage & was close to the station. Neighbours were a bunch of to$$ers though. The house we bought was an ex-council two bedroom but the main bedroom was big enough to split in half to give 2 rooms of 9'x10' each. Plus the other bedroom is a large double too and the bathroom is big enough to have a party in. This house was £120,000. Though I have put alot of work into it (not that it shows LOL), new kitchen everywhere redecorated, lots of replastering, carpets, fixtures & fittings throughout, remodelling the layout, landscaping & whatnot. And not to mention the scrubbing we had to do in the early days as the whole place was disgustingly grimy. It's like painting the Forth bridge though, an unending 'to do' list so I do occassionaly envy those with a brand-new box. Later this summer may see a new kitchen / dining room extension. And some more outside stuff. I'm happy to report that aside from fitting the carpets I've doen everything myself. It shows in places as my early efforts were a bit, well, shit.

[r.welfare]

Feel yer pain, fella. We were quite lucky in that our place had been rented for 6 months before we bought it (seller was emigrating), so it had been "tidied up" - sales of Magnolia emulsion must have hit a record high. But it still needed a fair bit of modernising, and still needs more decor upstairs. Plus I'm turning my workshop into an office, so we can have a nursery in Bedroom 3. Why we can't use Bedroom 2 is beyond me - feminine logic - but there's a double bed in there so it has to stay as-is...Simple option for us, 4 years ago, would have been to sign up for a new place (e.g. Elvetham Heath, retrogeezer). Certainly the building societies were willing to lend us a ridiculous amount of money, up to 5 times combined salary.However, I have a sensible head (sometimes). So it came down to where we are now - 1971 ex-LA 3 bed semi - or a 1980's private "link detached" (WTF that means, they were all rammed in), smaller inside and out, £30k more. And even that was beginning to look shabby. We chose the former - we could have been snobby, Lord knows I sometimes can be - but it was just so much nicer. Idyllic village location, 40ft garage (but it tapers after 25ft, so you can only get one car in it), and there are 10 houses and 10 maisonettes in the street, surrounded by private stuff on all sides. And 99% of the places are now privately owned, anyway. Blackbird Leys, it ain't.Anyway, it already had a 3 car drive, but within a month I'd ripped up the front lawn (but not dug down enough to get enough hardcore in - just had another ton of gravel delivered this morning!), so 5 car off-street parking, plus one in the garage. Sorted. Respect due.To get around (in a rambling way) to the point I'm making, and RG has backed up - I just don't know how the hell people can afford to get on the housing ladder any more. My brother is in the process of doing one of these Keyworker deals on a new flat in Central Reading - 2 bed - valued at £210k You won't find anything around here for less than £130k, unless it's in Crack Central (i.e. certain districts of Basingstoke), or it's a Wheelie Bin. When my dad tells me he's never had a mortgage >£30k (and it's long since paid off), I just smack him in the mouth

council estate wheel trim bedecked Mondeos

I think you'll find RG has tasty alloys on his Mondeo now :wink:What kinda makes me chuckle is that Government rulings mean a certain proportion of any new estate over a certain size requires some houses to be council-owned. All looks great now, but I do wonder what the 5-bed Neo-Georgian dwelling company MD owner will think in 2030, when his next-door neighbour has turned into Onslow and has a Mk4 Mondeo on bricks outside, with a pitbull in it.** I do appreciate Cavette's comments that the vast majority of councilhouse dwellers are good honest folk. Hell, I went to school with a load of 'em, and my wife grew up in a council house after her folks got kicked out of Kenya in the mid-seventies when the regime changed and they came home with nowt. Mind you, they did have to put up with the neighbours banging out Jungle Music at 140dB for a number of years. But she's got the last laugh - her and her brother bought it on the Right To Buy scheme a few years ago, and that place will give her a hell of a pension...