Do people own or rent property where you come from?

[Chimpy]

Renting is normal. Do you consider a condo 'owned' property? In bigger cities, people gravitate towards condos because they get to rent, but the prices are enormous, upwards of 500 000 and even $1 000 000. Many people rent, and no one bats an eye.

I'm not sure what a condo is- high-rise apartments i'm guessing? We don't use that term in the UK.

[Wolfpack]

I'm not sure what a condo is- high-rise apartments i'm guessing? We don't use that term in the UK.

I think a condo in the UK is just a flat that you own ( as averse to renting )

[sillyboy86]

I think one problem in the UK is that some landlords own so many houses and apartments that it is squeezing out buyers who want a home for themselves. A friend I had from university owns 50 - FIFTY!- houses he rents. I'd like to see a law where a person can only own 2 or 3 houses to rent.

I remember that when I moved to London I heard someone complaining about this landlords and I talked with a Londoner about that. Wow some people became rich with this method. It happens also in Italy but in general when an big Architect or Engineer build a big palace house, but in general they sell the most of the flats in the property.

[southbiochem]

Oh in these lands no one is going to look down on you if you rent. I have never seen any type or argument over renting vs buying being bad or good.

Housing is expensiiiiive.

Buying a house takes MONEY. And time. You will be probably paying for it for 20 years or so.

Renting is the obvious short term choice and far more feasible than having your own house unless you have a solid job. Soooo...

If you have the money, yes you, f*cking oligarch, you buy it at once (f*cking oligarchs being the 5 wealthiest families here, who also get most of the country's income :mad

For average Joe's middle class mofos (which is about almost everyone) renting or getting on a 20 year payment plan to buy.

For the lower income families, government programs to opt for a small household. Otherwise..

well, they make it work....illegally most of the time, but those illegal housings built out of whatever you can find and in whatever unoccupied piece of land they can get, usually end up as parts of the city after a while after the government has charged a small fee for the land.

This is mostly in the peripheral areas of the urban centers.

[Woollyhats]

I'm not sure what a condo is- high-rise apartments i'm guessing? We don't use that term in the UK.

A condo is essentially an apartment you own. If you live in a big city, a plot of land can easily cost in the millions...so these are preferred by many as they're a bit cheaper.

So what happens, is individual 'apartments' are sold, and people buy these. This is very very common, but I think it's silly. If the land lord sells the building or goes bankrupt you potentially lose everything, and condos aren't cheap. I've read enough horror stories that I'm a little afraid of them, but then, I'm not from a big city myself, and maybe they're much better a investment than I think they are.

[Evan88]

Here, it is better to own than rent..

And there are some condominiums & apartments here which are rent to own.

Pretty much, housings here are cheap as compared to other countries.

You can already have a 2 story house with your, US $40,000, and that is brandnew, in a gated village probably.

Philippines is considered as one of the best countries to retire because of the cheap housings, foods, transportation and basic commodities.

[Chimpy]

Where I live, a small apartment costs around £150k, a small house around £200k and a medium sized house around £300-400k. People can get mortgages for 5 times their salary usually, plus any deposit they have saved. The UK median salary for a 30 year old man is about £22k. So do the maths :-)

[southbiochem]

Where I live, a small apartment costs around £150k, a small house around £200k and a medium sized house around £300-400k. People can get mortgages for 5 times their salary usually, plus any deposit they have saved. The UK median salary for a 30 year old man is about £22k. So do the maths :-)

That is just awesome mile:

Here only the tycoons, oligarchs, politicians and what not could afford a house right away.

And furthermore, housing is deliberately bulit and priced to maintain the social divide, making sure middle class and lower income people can never affoard a house like those wealthy people can.

You can see it in Santiago, allegedly our wealthiest city, there is a huge and almost Berlin Wall-like East-West divide and you can clearly see the East is the wealthy part and pretty much all the good public services would be there too :/

So, hey I better crank up the saving thing :frown:

[Chimpy]

That is just awesome mile:

Well, no. Because take for example that £22k salary. If the bank gives 5x that in mortgage, that's £110k. Just to buy the smallest apartment a person would need to save around £40k. That's a heck of a lot of money.

[Tulloni]

It's a lousy situation. I do think it's made worse by the fact that greedy landlords, like the guy chimpy mentioned who bought up 50 properties, are allowed to buy as many flats as they like without any restrictions and then rent them for a massive profit. This should be totally illegal with very hefty penalties due to the social and economic damage it causes. Quite frankly unless this is legislated against and clamped down harshly I wouldn't blame anyone who calls for some sort of violent revolution to remedy the problem that way. sorry I know that's crazy but anyone can see it's not sustainable and contributes to the housing boom. Rather than building new housing I think these landlords should be forced to sell these excess properties off to families looking for a home and then be left with say a maximum of 2 or 3 left to rent to others.

There is also a link with illegal immigration here as some of these landlords profit from exploiting migrants by renting absolutely run-down properties to them for extortionate rates and this trade just further encourages illegal migration and its exploitation. It's really not acceptable.