The property boom - who wins??? (Buyers Guide: Houses)

Member Name: ShoppingGirl

Product:	Buyers Guide: Houses
Date:	17/05/02 (269 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's a gorgeous town

Disadvantages: You have to be rich to own property here

Have you all seen that hilarious new tv programme? You know, the one where the posh bloke comes to your house, chucks out all your clutter, insults your taste, puts down laminate flooring and then sells it on to some middle aged Ken Barlow types for twenty grand more than you ever dared dream it could fetch??

Well, here in Edinburgh that programme is viewed as escapist comedy. Because Scotland's capital, which has never been cheap to live in, is now gripped with property boom fever. Selling a house goes like this:

You put your house on the market, and sit down for a cup of tea. First viewing is on Thursday, when your home is invaded by upwards of thirty desperate couples, all at the end of their tether, gasping with joy at your scabby decor and hideous sofa. You have to ask half of them to wait outside.

Second viewing is Sunday. They all come back again, this time with a maniacal glint in their eyes. This is the one! They are preparing their bids as they eye your damp walls and ripped wallpaper - hey, it's only superficial, isn't it?

Monday morning, you set a closing date for that Thursday - save you having to do a viewing again. The bids roll in, and by Thursday lunchtime you're offered bids up to seventy percent over your original asking price. Yipee! Edinburgh has made you rich.

For those of you who think Scotland is a cheap place to live in - think again. Outside of London, we have the worst, scariest and frankly most obscene property prices in the country right here in Edinburgh. Why? Well, for lots of reasons.

The city centre was never built to accommodate single professionals - it was meant for families. But now we all want to live on our own or with our partners, not our parents. So we take up more space, and put the squeeze on housing stock. Add to this the fact that due to greenbelt rules, Edinburgh is not allowed to expand outwards any further, limiting new builds.

In additi
on to this, the city is booming economically, with loads of companies relocating here, along with their staff, many of whom will have sold properties in London and have a huge wad to play with.

Who benefits from this 'boom'?

Not us, that's for damn sure. While the city's solicitors and surveyors are creaming it in, most ordinary people in Edinburgh (and a fair few extraordinary peeps too) simply cannot afford to buy here any more.

Ok so you've guessed I'm talking from experience here. I'm not squeamish about money, and I'm quite happy to tell you that both me and my boyfriend earn around £22 k each - lucky us. Or are we? Here in Edinburgh we are genuinely struggling to trade up from our poky, one bed flats in dodgy parts of town into a .... two bed flat in a dodgy part of town. Garden? Forget it. Double glazing? We'll have to take out a loan.

Fact is, even with the lump sum we have from the obscene profit my bf made by selling his own flat, the market is moving so quickly that prices are increasing literally week on week, and it's getting harder all the time to 'jump on'.

And with the Scottish system of blind bidding at 'overs over' some fairy tale price that the solicitor picks at random out of a hat - we don't even know what we can afford to buy. It's a bit like walking into a shop and asking the assistant how much a CD costs. The assistant says to you, well, I don't know but if you give me a quid I'll give you a rough idea. You pay your quid, they tell you it's going to cost at least twenty quid. Sod that! You say, forget it, I can't afford it. Thanks anyway, says the assistant, and pockets your quid.

This is because you have to have your dream home valued professionally before you know what to bid. Those valuations cost £130 a pop, and usually only tell you that you're kidding yourself and have no chance. Some buyers in Edinb
urgh have payed out literally thousands on survey fees, never to bid successfully.

In my opinion, the Edinburgh housing market is now in a state of true social emergency. It truly frightens to me to look even a few years into the future - will the only people able to live in this beautiful town be hugely wealthy? The only real winners from this dire situation are those lucky people who sell up here and then move elsewhere, to where prices are cheaper - ie the rest of the UK.

Those of us who work in the city are faced with a dilemma - live in town in a poky hovel thats costing us a fortune, or move out somewhere (where prices are suffering a knock on anyway) and try to drive in each day to a city where the council is doing all it humanly can to eliminate car use. Hell on earth, basically.

Either way, our teachers, nurses and service industry workers are simply not going to be able to afford decent accommodation.

And as for first time buyers!! Forgaddaboudit!! There is absolutely no point saving up here for a deposit, as property values are escalating far faster than any normal working person could possibly save. So your hard won ten grand is made valueless, as in the time it took you to save it, your ideal flat increased in value by twenty grand.

It's bizarre - I grew up in lovely part of town called Newington, in a three storey Georgian terrace with a back garden, double garage and two bathrooms. My parents bought it for £15 grand!!!!! Now, I know that I will never again in my life live in a house anything like the one my parents own. Ever. No matter how hard I work. Those houses are now only available to millionaires and their families.

Myself and my partner will either have to have a family in a flat, or move out of town. Simple as that. And when you think of how that situation must affect those on low incomes, it's frankly alarming.

So - who am I mad at?

Well, the government for a st
art. Get over these ludicrous and outdated planning laws, and let builders in Edinburgh go mad - we desperately need new housing stock.

And solicitors - for putting houses on the market at hilariously low prices, thus 'stimulating interest' ie attracting half of Edinburgh to each viewing, and thus pushing up bids to the absolute maximum.

It seems wrong to me that we are told that high prices are some kind of good economic sign. How the hell can it be good for the majority of a town's indigenous population to be unable to afford decent housing?

Well, I guess one day that Georgian terrace will be mine (and my 4 siblings!). By then, it'll be worth so much I'll be able to buy up half of rural Fife with my share.

Now, where did I put that arsenic...?

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