No, I had a Singer Chamois. I’ve never owned a Roller. Cost too much to buy, run, and service.
When it comes to buying a property there are some people who will never be able to buy, well tough tittie. That’s life. However if a person wants to use a bit of SENSE then there’s no end of houses on the market at well under £45,000 admittedly not in the most employment friendly parts so what one does is buy one or more, tart it of them up a bit, and rent them out while living close to one’s work.
Indeed it was Annie, and I only earnt sixty quid a week…
Your monthly mortgage payment could not exceed a quarter of your monthly salary…Almost as hard then to buy a house as it is now.
My parents had one of those Todger. It was a sod to drive, it went better with a bag of sand in the boot (at the front) and did you ever manage to get that fourth spark plug out?..
That is definitely a car only the owner could love…
In terms of ownership, many people should not have been granted a mortgage. The commissions were so good the financial advisers were more than happy to ignore the impossibility of repayment. Much collusion existed at the time and there were no regulations after Thatcher “freed” the market. She wanted a quick fix but this move had permanent long term adverse consequences.
Houses on the cheap are usually structurally unsound or in bad areas with nightmare neighbours or crime ridden neighbourhoods. Yes you can do them up but it won’t add greatly to the value. Unless you buy for cash you face an interest only mortgage. No longer a good option given interest tax relief has now been withdrawn. Using the alternative option of setting up a company lands you with a hefty capital gains charge should the property appreciate. If it doesn’t appreciate how do you pay off the principal?
In theory there should now be a glut of properties on the market. Not sure whether that’s the case. Before Covid it was a buyers market.
A quarter of your salary is a very sensible arrangement. This must have been before the interest only and endowment fiascos. Property prices were kept low because of capital gains tax. It shouldn’t be so easy to buy a house. It’s an investment for life. But it should be affordable. Leaving it all to the free market was nuts.
We have just finished decades of stability and certainty in financial dealings. That has not been the case before and it’s not likely to be the case going forward. The “greed is good” culture is coming to an end. We can’t blame anyone but ourselves. Still, when the robots come money won’t matter.
