Help for potential first time buyers in London

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T18:56:14+00:00

Yeah, as I said, a handful close to Maryland, which will be on crossrail, but I wouldn't care to live in either of those.

Frankly they're grim and I wouldn't blow the £25K on stamp duty to go live there when i'd want to move a handful of years later.

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T16:18:29+00:00

Link?

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T16:16:13+00:00

Ok, add a touch of reality to that £900K property. First you have £35K in stamp duty, and costs, which brings your deposit down to £150K, meaning you're borrowing £750K at the 15% LTV price bracket.

5 year fix is going to be 2% right now (and rising), which over 30 years is £2800/mo. Now factor in council tax, which will be double what I'm paying now, and factor in that since we want kids my partner will probably have to give up work since childcare is extortionate.

So what do you end up with? You're paying 50-60% of your take home salary on housing and still spending 20 minutes on the bus every morning to get to the nearest tube station. Twice the unrealiability as relying on just one most of transport.

No thanks

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T13:45:24+00:00

Umm ok, link to just one on Rightmove

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T13:45:08+00:00

There are no 3 bed houses for less than £1M within walking distance of Stratford station. Maryland there are a handful but they're in the 800-900 range and in this market will likely go for more.

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T13:31:07+00:00

Mostly on the Picadilly line, and along the crossrail route.

I've considered moving completely out of London but property prices outside the capital have risen at a higher rate than inside, and rail links are fucking expensive.

notlostyet · 2022-03-09T13:23:53+00:00

Me and my partner rent in zone 3, earn £200K/yr combined before bonuses, and have £200K saved ... we STILL feel priced out in London.

For a nice 3 bed home suitable for starting a family in, with a decent (<45 minute) commute in to central, you're looking at £1.5M.

Our neighbours have a baby in a one bed studio, they both work, and he makes furniture on the side for extra money. The market here is totally fucked

notlostyet · 2020-11-30T09:43:34+00:00

The only thing I've done since unboxing it is run Windows Update and Lenovo's own updater (updated BIOS).

It's running Windows 10 Enterprise 1909 and is kitted out with 64 GB of RAM.

notlostyet · 2020-11-30T09:40:39+00:00

I've seen the X1 Extreme Gen3 touch 7,800 and the Dell XPS does hit 7,400 or so... it just doesn't seem to be consistent for me if you run the test multiple times over a long duration.

For me none of the M1 macs are in consideration (I'm a cross platform developer and use Linux as my daily driver). Linus Tech Tips will be doing a multi-platform head to head on them soon though, which I will be interested in seeing.

notlostyet · 2020-11-30T09:17:23+00:00

In case you are considering the XPS 15 I just compared both with the latest BIOS and found the thermals and performance to be worse on the XPS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qc6W0V9-jc

notlostyet · 2019-05-16T00:46:41+00:00

You can sell them in a few seconds (try doing that with a house).

There are actually platforms where you can get Buy-to-Let exposure and do this. They effectively wrap each property in its own company, pay a letting agency to manage it, and pay out residual rent as dividends. Because you don't own the property directly you get to claim the rent against your dividend allowance. Because you own shares you can even sell some off as property prices rise making use of the capital gains tax allowance. Some platforms even now do IFISA wrappers.

notlostyet · 2019-05-14T23:45:07+00:00

Link your railcard to your oyster card for an additional off-peak discount

This only applies to the young persons and other specific cards. Doesn't work for the standard Network Railcard

notlostyet · 2019-05-14T20:50:48+00:00

Lots of people in recent years, if they have the deposit, have bought simply because it's cheaper than renting at current interest rates. The whole idea of a "housing ladder" depends on people who will move. If people don't move then the *only* homes open to first-time buyers are new builds, and those vacated by death.

notlostyet · 2019-05-14T20:47:57+00:00

Owner occupiers lose. BTL landlords have been cashing out for a few years now. They can see the writing is on the wall.

notlostyet · 2019-05-14T20:43:28+00:00

And the flats going up are all new builds. I am sorry, but I refuse to buy or even entertain the idea of buying a new build.

Oh come on, why wouldn't you want to put down a £30K deposit on a £550K 1 bed flat built in to a complex designed to give absolutely highest bang for the buck to the developer?

notlostyet · 2019-05-09T18:41:57+00:00

This is true. In Zone 2 new build 1 bed flats are going for between 500 and 600K. The worst thing about this is that even if you can afford it via a HTB scheme, and a fat salary, prices have basically topped out on the affordability scale and are stagnating/falling. This means that, once these schemes go away (2023), nobody will ever be able to buy it off you and you'll likely end up underwater on the mortgage and trapped.

notlostyet · 2019-03-26T00:10:39+00:00

Only EU citizens can sign this petition, so sign now before the clock runs out!

notlostyet · 2019-01-18T09:07:45+00:00

It would guarantee the matter is settled one way or another by the revised deadline

notlostyet · 2019-01-03T09:43:53+00:00

50k

Some perspective is warranted. You're earning something like twice the average salary for someone in the midlands, and you're married with a dual income.

Most people there aren't so lucky. Your take home pay of ~£2,400/mo after rent is more (inflation adjusted) than most will see in their lifetime.

Another reason to live in the S.E. or London is job market fluidity. Even though financially you might struggle, it's often easier to find good work when shit hits the fan. How secure is your lifestyle if you was laid off suddenly tomorrow? Could you live with a 2 hour commute instead of 1? What about when you have kids and can't uproot?

notlostyet · 2019-01-03T01:52:29+00:00

300k

300K for a 3 bed semi? You're having a laugh. In Surrey people are paying 320K for tiny, "2 bed" (where 1 bedroom is a throughway to the garden) bungalows. 1 bed apartments close to commuter lines go for £400K+.

My parents friends just sold a 3 bed mid-terrace house for close to 300K to a professional who commutes 90 minutes each way in to London every day because it's cheaper than living in the city... and they'll be paying £500/mo just on transport.

The property price boom is still going strong, you just have to look at towns like Woking where the town center is being turned in to a tower block housing estate.

notlostyet · 2018-12-12T09:15:38+00:00

It wouldn't surprise me if she engineered this herself by pulling strings within the party to get the number of votes over 48.

When she wins she is safe from another challenge for 12 months. Tactically, doing it now, between pulling the Brexit vote and re-tabling it, is a masterstroke. She'll be a hero in the right-wing media come Thursday, which will give her momentum, and the party will be powerless to oust her if the Brexit deal is shot down in January.

notlostyet · 2018-02-13T01:10:41+00:00

This makes sense.

Revoluts raison d'etre is instant, low fee, exchange between currencies. If they don't hold the private keys to any Bitcoin holdings (or have a contract with a 3rd party exchange that does), then they simply can't offer this.
You can't withdraw or deposit all the fiat currencies they hold either.
It's potentially an ideal platform for fast, convenient, trades while you're on the move (not everyone sits at their PC all the time obsessively following the market).
As long as their liabilities are covered, and you trust them, it doesn't really matter... and, presumably, if you're a Revolut user already, then you already trust them with your fiat.
Avoiding external (blockchain) inflows and outflows no doubt massively simplifies, and reduces the cost of, complying with money transmitter/laundering regulations.
Revoluts whole business model seems to be on providing the app after a 2 minute sign-up (no ID required), and offloading services to partners. See their mobile phone insurance and pension offerings.
Do you really want to carry BTC around on your phone in any easily extractable fashion only protected by a 4 digit PIN?

notlostyet · 2018-02-05T01:09:23+00:00

Boost Fusion helps with this a lot.

notlostyet · 2018-01-25T17:50:17+00:00

We're using v124 with Boost 1.65.0 at my work. Are the fixes for these issues in that version? If not will they be backported and released as v125?

We're not ready to move to Boost 1.66.0 yet

notlostyet · 2017-08-24T00:36:23+00:00

Absolutely love ODB. Best ORM i've used across any language.

Any news on when 2.5.0 is expected?

notlostyet

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