Author Topic: How many pensioners took advantage of the Right to Buy back in the early 80's?  (Read 2776 times)

Goingtoseed

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It would be very interesting to find out how many have made their money out of the above?
Was it a good idea or not?
We bought our 3 bed semi council house in the early 80's and had a huge discount applied. It was in a lovely suburb of Manchester which over the past 15 years has become very fashionable for people to live in.
We bought it for £8000 and rented it out to two different tenants over a period of 33 years. The guaranteed 100% mortgage that the council had to give all applicants was paid off in 2008.
The rent paid the mortgage, insurance and maintenance costs leaving enough each year to have a good holiday on. We sold up in 2013 for £288,000.
 

mick607

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It would be very interesting to find out how many have made their money out of the above?
Was it a good idea or not?
We bought our 3 bed semi council house in the early 80's and had a huge discount applied. It was in a lovely suburb of Manchester which over the past 15 years has become very fashionable for people to live in.
We bought it for £8000 and rented it out to two different tenants over a period of 33 years. The guaranteed 100% mortgage that the council had to give all applicants was paid off in 2008.
The rent paid the mortgage, insurance and maintenance costs leaving enough each year to have a good holiday on. We sold up in 2013 for £288,000.


And you now claim pension credit  .???

zoony

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I bought my house to live in.
"Listen to the wind, it cleans the mind."

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Goingtoseed

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And you now claim pension credit  .???

Why not? The net proceeds no longer existed when we made the claim.

Goingtoseed

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I bought my house to live in.

We did the same not long after we started to rent out our ex council house. People do actually hold on to their first home to rent out and buy something else.

brian54

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Why not? The net proceeds no longer existed when we made the claim.

Pension credit should be abolished for all. I don't get any.

Jacqueline

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We could never get a council house. My parents were on the list all through my childhood we had three rooms, I shared their bedroom until I was 11, then they bought a sofa bed for the sitting room to give me the bedroom.


My parents privately rented all their lives paying far more rent than my in laws who could afford to eventually buy their council house for £14,000. 




I don't blame anyone who did buy their Council house for doing so, but I do not believe Councils (it was Maggie Thatchers policy) should sell social housing for knock down prices. Husband and I  struggled to buy a house at full market price on quite low wages. We had been renting for years but nobody gave us any  discounts to buy a house. Doesn't seem very fair to me.

zoony

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When was the system ever fair? All I will say is that my family have lived in this house since 1951 and must've paid for it's building several times over in rent. I, and those like me got lucky.
"Listen to the wind, it cleans the mind."

"Never use money to measure wealth, son"

                                           cowboy wisdom.

Cassandra

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Destroyed the social housing stock, whilst providing liquidity for consumption. Fine if you contain the population at the levels of 1980 at 56 million, not the present 66 million, and of course replace what is sold?
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zoony

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And therein lies the rub. I have no idea of the figures concerning how much of the revenue from Council house sales was reinvested but I seem to remember it coming up here, once upon a while ago, and it, in my memory, was mostly channeled back to the exchequer?
  It's not fun for an ordinary man or woman to live within a capitalist society unless one becomes part of it, and that's another rub. One or two more and we can start a fire. ;)
"Listen to the wind, it cleans the mind."

"Never use money to measure wealth, son"

                                           cowboy wisdom.

GrannyMac

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You're right zoony, most was channelled back to central government. 

For a very long time time there have been geographical differences in supply and demand.  Some northern local authorities were advertising houses to people in the south by the 1990s, and some people relocated in order to get housing.   Like many housing staff, I thought RTB would be withdrawn once Labour were in government in 1997, but no.  Its still too much of a vote catcher! With the social housing crisis we have now, it should be suspended.  Scotland and Wales have both taken that step, England should follow IMO. Of course the best houses on the most desirable estates have nearly all gone into private ownership, reducing options for anyone now in need of housing. I don't blame anyone for taking opportunities that are offered, but it was a very uneven playing field. 

The shortage of council housing is not only due to tenants buying their homes, but there was also a fair bit of demolition going on around the turn of this century.   Many highrises, houses of non standard construction, and other less popular properties were knocked down.

Because we moved away from our home town in 1970, when I went to the council in our new area I was told we had no chance, as newcomers to the area. Housing need had no relevance back then, but family and council connections did.    So we had no choice but to buy privately, which was a stretch for some years. However, that gave us the choice to live where we chose, and although we are no longer in the best house we owned we are at least mortgage free in retirement. 


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mick607

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And the influx of 10 million immigrants.

sparky

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A much fairer system would have been to provide a grant to any couple as a deposit for their first home, not just council houses,  with maybe zero or very low interest rates for X years
Far to many people including me, took an unfair advantage to make money, by buying their parents house for them,  knowing when their parents died  they would make a hefty profit.

Goingtoseed

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Pension credit should be abolished for all. I don't get any.

As do many others.
But when you are trying to make a meal with only tins of beans in the cupboard or not enough coal to put on the fire to cook the said meal what would you have them do?

Goingtoseed

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And therein lies the rub. I have no idea of the figures concerning how much of the revenue from Council house sales was reinvested but I seem to remember it coming up here, once upon a while ago, and it, in my memory, was mostly channeled back to the exchequer?
  It's not fun for an ordinary man or woman to live within a capitalist society unless one becomes part of it, and that's another rub. One or two more and we can start a fire. ;)

Yes you are right. The policy was to enable tenants to become home owners and in doing so the Exchequer could see a huge amount of money coming his way. Council's were not allowed to keep the money, well in fact very little actual money came in. Mortgages were given by the council who owned the properties. The Council then had to pay the Exchequer the equivalent of the net proceeds. So in effect the Council's made nothing out of the deal other than the monthly mortgage payments which had to be used to cover the loss of the money sent to the Exchequer.