Is this one reason there is a permanent UK housing crisis...

[Delicatedave]

1 hour ago, Carrerahill said:

I wonder really just what is the "crisis". At a real life level, i.e. in the streets of cities and towns around us, what does it actually mean.

 

They say there is a housing shortage, but I wonder about that - I do not know enough about this topic so everything said here is just me thinking aloud and trying to get my head around it all.

 

There are towns with streets and streets of empty properties, I accept older stock that may need work, but last time I saw these for sale they were about £25,000 - so if people want cheap housing why don't they buy one of those, spend £25K on it and they have to my mind a cheap house - just how cheap do we need? 

 

The "shortage" must be mainly a wealth divide drawn in the sand - if your affordable stock is say £40K then you have a problem for sure as I assume there are not too many houses for £40K so is it really a shortage or is it an affordability crisis?? Let's just assume that the crisis was cancelled tomorrow, house builders continue to do their thing, self builders do their thing and LA and housing associations continue to build and renovate housing stock - nothing different to what is going on today, just there is no "crisis" label - now lets say they started an affordability crisis, this could be solved through other means...

 

 

I don't think that it's a case of the are not enough house or homes. We've just gone the wrong route and connected a home to status and wealth. It's said the are 63% of the UK who own their own home, that leaves a lot renting still but in other countries in Europe the figure would be more like 25%. And even then these stats are not reliable because they depend on mortgages issued to get there. In fact as a country our government is so dishonest & corrupt in it's attitude to what it tells the public it's astounding. Perhaps it's always been that way.

[Delicatedave]

1 hour ago, Carrerahill said:

So the first crisis isn't a housing one, that is an affordability, employment crisis essentially.

 

The 20-30 year olds I think mainly got/get their priorities wrong. Many of them left home at 18 to go the Uni and live with friends and drink, and they got a car lease or HP for a new Ka for £120.00 a month, they also have the latest iPhone or Galaxy tablet and can go away to the sun with friends and piss away £100's on festivals and booze - now they need a house and have pissed all their money away from day 1. Now possibly in their late 20's early 30's and they are stuffed as they now have an Audi A3 outside mum and dads, spend all their money every weekend and struggle to put away £100 a month. The crisis I see over and over again is stupidity and a lack of planning - perpetual students. 

 

I started saving while at uni, not very successfully right enough but I always had some money, I then paid off any debts and started saving in my first real job after uni, I did a degree that was going to almost certainly result in a real world job and probably several at that, I didn't do "French with Sports studies" then cry because, guess what, there are no follow on jobs from that degree. These young adults need to look at themselves I think. I continued to save hard while living with my parents and driving a 15 year old car I owned, I changed the oil on and repaired and kept in goof fettle and bought my first house when I was in my late 20's. I skipped the starter house right enough but I only bought my house because my wife, then girlfriend, and I decided we would move in together and I was happy to move onto the next chapter in my life. I was lucky though, I understand that, but I work hard, I save hard and I enjoy live but don't throw money away and have always had these values. 

 

Instil some of the post war values back into people and I think the country would be a better place, better work ethic, pride in their work and country, respect, care and realistic and sustainable plans for their futures. 

 

Not sure how unfair this will be viewed as, but this is something I see a lot of so it's accurate from my perception and also from what I hear, read about, see etc. It's even happening on the street I live in - young lad along the road 17-19, left school last year and I assume is at uni or college now, however, a brand new Golf turns up the summer he left school which appears to be his - young girl a few doors up, same situation, has a new Mini and around September after leaving school she moved out as I can only assume to go to uni - still has the Mini - don't think she needs it from what I can see...  I also hear about similar stories through colleagues and clients, neighbours talking about older kids who have moved out, my wife sees it in some of the younger admin girls at her work (all 1-2 year old HP/Lease cars), they call into the radio and moan, Jeremy Vine quickly ascertains where they do spend money and oh boy, do they get their priorities wrong!

 

 

 

This is an age old theory on every new generations by the past one. We were ok because we were smart sort of attitude.

In effect children grow up a product of their influences, so if society is telling them they have have things and need things to be like their peers who are we to tell them they are doing wrong. Yes some are idiots and make mistake but in general, the average one of us would make the same decisions as the average on of them.

[Delicatedave]

In term of population I think the world has enough room. However problems are exacerbated by the way the wealth is distributed.

[Jeremy Harris]

The UK housing problem is really a consequence of the shift from manufacturing industry to a service industry based economy.  That's resulted in a migration from the manufacturing centres of the country, that were mainly in the midlands and north, to the south, particularly the south east.  This then resulted in house prices rising in that part of the world, pushing up demand for more housing. 

 

Go to any former big industrial/mining area in the UK and there will be empty/cheap houses galore.  What's needed is to increase employment in those areas, and reverse migration to south east England.  For years various governments have been trying to make this happen, and for around 30 years now any new public sector departmental move has to be away from the area defined as the "greater south east".  This hasn't really helped a lot, but if anyone has wondered why departments looking after car registration, income tax, passports etc are in far flung bits of the UK, this is it.

 

It seems that the government is still trying to shift things north, with HS2.  Whether they will succeed remains to be seen.  I have my doubts, as I don't think this sort of change is something the government, any government, can actually bring about.  Governments, of whatever flavour, have been losing the authority to make big changes to society for the past few decades, with that role being increasingly dominated by large corporations and technology companies.  Arguably, the biggest influence on UK society are now US-owned social media and internet sales giants.  Facebook and Amazon probably have far more real control than any British government.

[ToughButterCup]

14 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

[...]

and oh boy, do they get their priorities wrong!

 

And we got ours (priorities)  right when we were their age  of course.  Hindsight, experience. Thats what BH is about innit?

[ProDave]

9 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

 

And we got ours (priorities)  right when we were their age  of course.  Hindsight, experience. Thats what BH is about innit?

I remember scrimping and saving and driving a knackered old banger etc, could not afford a telephone line until nearly a year after I bought the first house etc.  Never bought anything new and food was a basic necessity.  But folks don't want to do that these days. They must have the latest phone, drive a new car on a rental plan, and don't want to buy a tiny starter home, they want to go straight to a "family home"

[Ferdinand]

12 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Go to any former big industrial/mining area in the UK and there will be empty/cheap houses galore. 

 

Whilst I agree with your general argument Jeremy, I think you will find cheap homes in ex-industrial areas - but you will not find huge numbers of Empty Homes. The UK's addressing of Empty Homes has been very good in most respects, compared to any other major country in Europe. Currently in England we only have a little over 200k "long term empties" (meaning 6 months or more), which is about 0.7%. It's a bit of a triumph, though orgs talking up housing crises don't usually say so. The numbers - both long and short term, have been reduced by about a third over 10-15 years and kept down.

 

What it means is that we are relatively tight compared to elsewhere. I am not sure how far it can be taken below that.

 

This is a Guardian Graphic from a piece in 2014 about Empties across Europe, using EU stats (explains why Merkel could take a million refugees):

 

 

And here is a piece from Spring 2019, pointing out that there are 216k empties in the England. Another piece here from Sept.

 

(Obvs being the Guardian one of them is written by a person who's numerical qualification is a Fine Arts Degree ? ).

 

There is a category error over time as the first 700k number is all of them (UK), whilst the 216k is England and Long Term ie empty for 6 months. This was a million or so in 2005. Also Scotland is some way behind England on this issue - now doing it, but is overall not a huge number on the stats as England is 85%+ of the UK in pop.

 

(Certainly in our area of the Midlands the market has hardened quite a bit in the last 12-18 months. Talking to my friendly Estate Agents whilst out for a walking lunch yesterday they are getting closer to asking prices than they were, and asking prices are up by 5-7% in 12-24 months - big change here which has been nearly flat for about 15 years with a couple of blips. I trust these particular EAs more to be candid than typical since I have bought a couple of houses from each of them over the last few years, and they know I can and will check as it is all published.)

 

The fount of stats on this subject is Action on Empty Homes and the ONS Licve Tables, who monitor down to tenure stats for each LA area.

 

Personally I am optimistic on HS2 - I think for this area it will really help as times to London will go under 2 hours from about 3 (that might be door to door numbers), which crosses a threshold and makes it a less-than-a-day trip so eg bosses get a couple of hours at work the same day. We get integrated. One interesting stat is that even the current West Coast Main Line upgrade (the Blair 9bn one) achieved a 20% modal shift from air to rail on the Glasgow route - 500k passengers a year. That is why I think Green policy will make HS2 link to Scotland in time. 

 

I see HS2 / HS3 / Electric to South Wales etc as just basic plumbing for a 21C economy.

 

Got quite cross because my newly minted Tory ex-Lab MP seems to think it is either HS2 OR Rural Bus Services. Twat.

 

Ferdinand

Edited February 14, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

I ended up watching a programme about private landlords last night (this: https://www.my5.tv/britain-s-council-house-millionaires/season-1 ).  Interesting to see how some entrepreneurs were preferentially buying former local authority built houses, with comments that they were usually quite well built. 

 

Accepting that it was a very biased view of a small section of the private rented sector, it did show just how much money a few are making from buying up houses that were sold under the right-to-buy scheme.  I'm biased, though, as I remain convinced the right-to-buy was an exceptionally flawed concept.  Had local authorities been allowed to use the receipts from houses sold under the scheme to build more houses, then it may have helped limit some of the social housing problems we're seeing now.  By banning or restricting local authorities from building new houses this scheme seems to have worked to make a few people relatively wealthy, without meeting the growing need for social housing.

[Delicatedave]

51 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I remember scrimping and saving and driving a knackered old banger etc, could not afford a telephone line until nearly a year after I bought the first house etc.  Never bought anything new and food was a basic necessity.  But folks don't want to do that these days. They must have the latest phone, drive a new car on a rental plan, and don't want to buy a tiny starter home, they want to go straight to a "family home"

Again that not "folks" waking up one day and deciding they want those things, it's society telling them they need them and in things like clothes making them cheap enough to e seen as a throw away item. Think a bit deeper it's also a consequence of less direct taxation because people are allowed to keep more of their earnings. So if these people don't have to foot the bill themselves for things that we paid for in public services - things like trains, buses, health care even street cleaning - they compared to our generation are much richer.

[Bitpipe]

49 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I remember scrimping and saving and driving a knackered old banger etc, could not afford a telephone line until nearly a year after I bought the first house etc.  Never bought anything new and food was a basic necessity.  But folks don't want to do that these days. They must have the latest phone, drive a new car on a rental plan, and don't want to buy a tiny starter home, they want to go straight to a "family home"

 

Challenge for the younger generation is that no matter how much they scrimp and save, they have high rents, tuition expenses and are chasing an every increasing deposit (as a % of the property price). They also look at the generations ahead and see how they have benefited from free higher education, stable work environment. a boom in the property market and generous pension provision.

 

Politically, ask yourself what happens in 10+ years when the political centre of gravity swings down from the boomer generation to Gen X / millennials and they want a fairer deal - I think that you could see are some pretty interesting policies of wealth redistribution becoming mainstream.

[Jeremy Harris]

I lived in a bedsit in a terraced house Shepherd's Bush for a time in 1974.  The rent was £5 a week (~£21.50/month) for a small single room (roughly 3m x 2.5m), with a sink and two ring cooker in one corner, plus a gas fire.  The bathroom was shared with the tenants in three other rooms.  Electricity and gas were both via a coin meter.  There was no TV, 'phone etc.  Allowing for inflation, the rent for that single room would be about £157/month today, but I doubt very much that anyone would put up with it, or even that it would be lawful to rent it out.  Watching that TV programme last night, private landlords were charging around £250 to £300/month for the smallest rooms in a house, but all were far better than the bedsit I lived in.

 

I moved to a ground floor apartment in Harrow in 1975.  That had a single bed sitting room, small galley kitchen and a "bath cupboard" (literally, the bath completely filled the floor area and had to be stepped into through a curtain from the kitchen), but the apartment did have a telephone line.  The toilet was shared with two other ground floor apartments.  The rent was £12/week, (a bit under £52/month), equivalent to about £305/month today.  Gas and electricity were via a coin meter

 

It looks as if rents today might be a little bit higher than they were in the early 1970's, but not massively so. 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

Think a bit deeper it's also a consequence of less direct taxation because people are allowed to keep more of their earnings.

I agree.

Link that in with minimum wage with more part time/seasonal/minimum hours working and you have around 40% or the working population not paying any income tax at all, and many working families claiming benefits.

Minimum wage, which benefited many people 20 years ago, has now depressed wages for the middle classes.  I went for a technical graduate job a few years ago, when it got around to talking about money, I pointed out that it was the same as a MacDonald's shift supervisor.

1 hour ago, AnonymousBosch said:

15 hours ago, Carrerahill said:

[...]

and oh boy, do they get their priorities wrong!

And we got ours (priorities)  right when we were their age  of course.  Hindsight, experience. Thats what BH is about innit?

I was a complete twat when a teenager, still am.

13 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

What's needed is to increase employment in those areas, and reverse migration to south east England

Over my working life, there has always been schemes to increase employment in deprived areas.  Not many seem to work.

The few that do seem, on the face of it, successful, are the ones where large nationalised industries closed down and foreign firms were asked to move in i.e. Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Siemens, Sony.

 

On a more general note regarding price, is how the workplace has changed.  When I bought my first place in 1981, multiple of earnings was 3 times main income, ¹/₂ times second income.  This is now 4 or 5 times joint, or household, income.

So for no extra property, or better quality, you can borrow more to buy it.

Now I am not saying that women should be chained to the kitchen sink, quite the opposite, but when banks have those sorts of multiples, prices will rise.

 

[SteamyTea]

23 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

Politically, ask yourself what happens in 10+ years when the political centre of gravity swings down from the boomer generation to Gen X / millennials and they want a fairer deal - I think that you could see are some pretty interesting policies of wealth redistribution becoming mainstream.

I agree, but will point out that my Tax Free Allowance was £800/year and income tax was 33% on the rest when I started working.  And I seem to remember my sister having to put some cash aside for a retrospective emergency tax payment in about 1978.

And we had 10% new car tax on vehicles until 1990.

Fags and booze, in real terms, cost he same, except now supermarkets sell beer cheaper, and food is much cheaper now (why people eat out so often).

Free higher education was limited to about 10% of the general population, not because of ability, but just university/polytechnic/HE places.  And the grants were not that great, think I got £1200/year.

[jamiehamy]

I've never really bought into the whole 'housing crisis' thing. For as long as you can struggle to sell a perfectly good one bed flat, in a lovely fully modernised, 5mins walk from a 35min train ride to Glasgow, for peanuts then I don't buy it. 

 

It's a narrow view but I'm fairly confident it's a pattern across the country. As my estate agent explained, young people don't want to buy old flats and would prefer a 2 bed to save them up sizing later. 

 I sold my wee flat for 60k.60k! It cost 50quid a month in gas and electric. Was massive for a one bed. Own kitchen. That was two years ago, flat downstairs is in market for 62k. It will take ages to sell. 

 

What's my point? There is no barrier to getting a house. Not really. But so many people are so indulged, so spoilt, so molly coddled they create their own barriers because they want to live in a certain area in a certain house and won't be realistic. 

 

Look round any area of Scotland and there are plenty cheap houses and flats. You'd think Scotlands housing was unaffordable - it's not. 

 

 

[joth]

56 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I agree, but will point out that my Tax Free Allowance was £800/year and income tax was 33% on the rest when I started working.  And I seem to remember my sister having to put some cash aside for a retrospective emergency tax payment in about 1978.

 

 

So the personal allowance hasn't really changed in 30 years, correcting for inflation:

 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

 

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I ended up watching a programme about private landlords last night (this: https://www.my5.tv/britain-s-council-house-millionaires/season-1 ).  Interesting to see how some entrepreneurs were preferentially buying former local authority built houses, with comments that they were usually quite well built. 

 

Quite revealing as to the depth of research, or lack of it. 

 

The first chap (46, 25 year property career) seems quite reputable ... upgrading his houses, trading in property with HAs etc.

 

This statement in the commentary at 07:30 is a Black Lie or a sign of Olympic Quality stupidity. 

 

“40% of Council Built Properties are now owned by Private Landlords”

 

Council Homes built are in toto roughly 7 million. Of which 2 million have been sold under Right to Buy.

 

The 40% owned by Private LLs (no idea how many are the people who bought the house) is of the 2 million not the 7 million, and the soft voice commentary implies that there are 3 million of them not 800k. They are stoking up hatred and confusing the debate in that multiple.

 

Suspect they have limited their research to the Google snippet for that question, which for some reason points to a misleading Independent article here, which says things like this in an article about the PRS:

 

"There are now just 2 million council homes left in Britain – down from 6.5 million when Right to Buy was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in 1980, although a number of factors are behind the fall."

 

whilst forgetting to mention at all that millions have been moved to Registered Social Providers, hugely exaggerating the impact of the PRS.

 

Judging by what I have seen so far, it is a complete cesspit of a programme.

 

F

Edited February 14, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Jeremy Harris]

I suspected as much, which is why I added this caveat:

 

2 hours ago, Jeremy Harris said:

Accepting that it was a very biased view of a small section of the private rented sector,

 

Interesting to see how the young entrepreneur seemed to have made loads of money in ten years from buying up former council stock and renting them out, though.  Thought his Ferrari was a bit OTT, though, like his trainers. . .

 

[Ferdinand]

15 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said:

I suspected as much, which is why I added this caveat:

 

 

 

Very true.

 

I may comment more when I have seen the whole thing, and comment on whether the stuff they document is actually legal, or how borderline it is.

 

Current experience is that LLs walking the boundaries of legality or tax law are going down in droves. And there are plenty of get rich quick merchants selling get rich quick schemes. "Rent to rent" is one, where you rent a house to a middleman who turns it into a stack 'em and pack 'em HMO to get treble the income, and give you a wreck back later.

 

But Councils do not really enforce against illegal HMOs run by criminal landlords, at least in England. Some of the 250m-400m or so raised from tenants by LL Licensing Fees should go to that.

 

F 

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

2 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

Politically, ask yourself what happens in 10+ years when the political centre of gravity swings down from the boomer generation to Gen X / millennials and they want a fairer deal - I think that you could see are some pretty interesting policies of wealth redistribution becoming mainstream.

 

As a Gen-Xer (by one year ?) I think that will  be interesting, as that is the Generations that will really feel the pension pressure in terms of workers per pensioner to pay the State Pension.

 

If the Housing supply problem gets towards being sorted - especially in London - (and it could be sorted with appropriate policies), that could release some pressure.

 

To date the politicians are too timid. To my eye they have to either allow the brownfield parts of the greenbelt to be developed out to the M25, select an area (which means a big low density Council Estate) and develop it like Singapore (I mean 1000-2000 acres and densities of double the Barbican - perfectly normal elsewhere in teh world), or find space for another 5-10 Milton Keynes type garden cities.

 

The Oxford to Cambridge corridor *may* be significant.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Ferdinand

[newhome]

17 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

On the one hand there are rough sleepers eg on benches, doorways, subways etc as you highlight.

 

That is relatively easy to address with relatively few resources - eg the Tory Governments from about 1990 onwards ran the programme called the Rough Sleepers Initiative which reduced rough sleeping in London by around 70%, at a cost of around 30m a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Sleepers_Initiative

 

New Labour repeated the trick across the country in a very few years from 1997 on.

 

IMO the current series of Tory Govts are guilty of unforgiveable neglect of this issue - rough sleeping has gone up again very significantly - yet it is relatively inexpensive and well known how to deal with it.   

 

I don't think it's easy to address this issue, because in many cases it's not about homelessness, it's about mental health which is not easy to address at all. 

[Ferdinand]

12 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

I don't think it's easy to address this issue, because in many cases it's not about homelessness, it's about mental health which is not easy to address at all. 

 

I agree not "easy" - but we know what to do, as we have done it twice. But they now seem to be on it.

 

Rough Sleepers Initiative from 1990-1999 engaged many agencies, for example, including mental health services.

 

Personally I am particularly keen on things to help reintegrate people who we expect to do and face violence and trauma on our behalf - armed forces and perhaps uniformed services. Certainly ex-army are over-represented amongst homeless people. 

 

F

[Delicatedave]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

I agree.

Link that in with minimum wage with more part time/seasonal/minimum hours working and you have around 40% or the working population not paying any income tax at all, and many working families claiming benefits.

Minimum wage, which benefited many people 20 years ago, has now depressed wages for the middle classes.  I went for a technical graduate job a few years ago, when it got around to talking about money, I pointed out that it was the same as a MacDonald's shift supervisor.

I was a complete twat when a teenager, still am.

Over my working life, there has always been schemes to increase employment in deprived areas.  Not many seem to work.

The few that do seem, on the face of it, successful, are the ones where large nationalised industries closed down and foreign firms were asked to move in i.e. Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Siemens, Sony.

 

On a more general note regarding price, is how the workplace has changed.  When I bought my first place in 1981, multiple of earnings was 3 times main income, ¹/₂ times second income.  This is now 4 or 5 times joint, or household, income.

So for no extra property, or better quality, you can borrow more to buy it.

Now I am not saying that women should be chained to the kitchen sink, quite the opposite, but when banks have those sorts of multiples, prices will rise.

 

5m people in the UK claim submental benefits, 2m of those are in full time work. This means the state is supplementing business, take a high employer like Tesco it mean the tax payer is giving the £250k a week per branch on average to supplement their wage cost.

As for rents staying literally the same compared to income, well just in the short time of 2003 to 2014 that ratio went from 22% to 34% that's a squeeze
 

[Delicatedave]

34 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

I don't think it's easy to address this issue, because in many cases it's not about homelessness, it's about mental health which is not easy to address at all. 

Were does this mental health come from ? stress, pressure, all part of the harse environment created by the Tories & Labour but mostly the tory cuts. How would most people deal with 20% cuts in income and then not a wage rise for 4 years? and told you need to pa extra rent because you have a spare room. People really don't understand the world here now in the UK. You lose your job and don't find another quickly and it quicksand, you could lose everything - people have. Then when you have nothing you are told you have go for a job apointment. You get the job but it's zero hours contract and you don't get enough work. It does your head in. People turn to drink, drugs any thing for a break from the pressure.

[Jeremy Harris]

17 minutes ago, Delicatedave said:

Were does this mental health come from ? stress, pressure, all part of the harse environment created by the Tories & Labour but mostly the tory cuts. How would most people deal with 20% cuts in income and then not a wage rise for 4 years? and told you need to pa extra rent because you have a spare room. People really don't understand the world here now in the UK. You lose your job and don't find another quickly and it quicksand, you could lose everything - people have. Then when you have nothing you are told you have go for a job apointment. You get the job but it's zero hours contract and you don't get enough work. It does your head in. People turn to drink, drugs any thing for a break from the pressure.

 

A great deal of the mental health crisis stems from the shift from institutionalised mental health care, to a system that was supposed to provide "care in the community", but which in reality fell through the cracks to be dealt with by an inconsistent and poorly funded network of local authority, NHS and charity operated care.

 

The flavour of government doesn't matter, as "Care in the Community" arose from the growing feeling in the 1960's and 70's that our system of institutionalised mental health care was unfit for purpose and dehumanised those with mental health issues.  Much as I hated Margaret Thatcher, I cannot blame her for being the person in charge when it rolled out, as there was a 20 year plus head of steam behind abolishing mental health institutions, and it was driven by a Labour/Socialist idea from many years before.  

 

The major flaw in the policy was the assumption that local authorities would be able to provide an adequate level of care, when they were being subject to cuts in their spending and major changes to their income stream (like the Poll Tax).  Had the baton for providing de-institutionalised mental health care been passed to the NHS, together with the funding needed to make it work, then I doubt we'd be in the position we are in today.

[ToughButterCup]

2 hours ago, jamiehamy said:

[...]

It's a narrow view but I'm fairly confident it's a pattern across the country.

[...]

 

And there's the rub.    Evidence. Really hard to get hold of.

2 hours ago, jamiehamy said:

[...]

What's my point? There is no barrier to getting a house. Not really. But so many people are so indulged, so spoilt, so molly coddled they create their own barriers because they want to live in a certain area in a certain house and won't be realistic. 

[...]

 

You are right, there is no barrier. I have always tried  to go with the 'flow' realising long ago that flexible attitudes are a significant help. And that meant moving. But everywhere I have moved, there's a chunk of the local populace that call incomers like me  White Settlers.

 

Sometimes I've viewed locals wistfully thinking it must be really comforting to be deeply embedded in a locality : but I don't see such people as spoilt , unrealistic or indulged. Just local(s).