Some advice please - HOUSING

[MARVELL]

If your male and don't have extreme circumstances just forget it. The council housing bands should tell you your importance on their scale

This is Southwarks.

Guide to housing bands

    Band One

• Underoccupiers - people exchanging bigger properties for smaller ones.
  
• Council tenants who need to move so that new homes can be built or old ones repaired.
  
• Council tenants affected by fire and flood.
  

    Band Two

• Urgent Medical Priority - people with a severe illness or disability that is made significantly worse by their current housing.
  
• People who need to move because of serious harassment.
  
• Multiple Need - people with more than one reason to move, for example, overcrowding and medical priority.
  

    Band Three

• Homeless families with children or vulnerable homeless people.
  
• People living in overcrowded housing.
  
• Medical Priority - people who need to move because of their illness.
  
• Council tenants whose relationship has broken down.
  
• People who have no inside toilet, kitchen or bathroom.
  
• People with no electricity or hot water.
  

    Band Four

• Everyone else.
  

They say if you're in Band Four forgot about ever being considered.

If you are in band four, you are very unlikely to be successful in bidding. It would be best for you to consider the private sector.

nah but it worked for marli vybez and only took him 3 weeks cos the housing officer was tired of standing in the rain

[Vertigo]

Interesting article on how the housing market is locked out for most people

I spend a lot of time looking around strangers' homes. I spend a lot of time peering at their bookshelves, at their colour-coded hardbacks, at their artfully organised fruit. I like to see how they illustrate their personalities through the placing of vintage lamps, how they communicate their successful relationships in the language of exposed brickwork and re-appropriation of pallets. I refresh wowhaus.co.uk andthemodernhouse.net's pages of architect-designed bungalows for sale daily, and later theselby.com, and @PropertyJazz on Twitter for its brilliantly, disgustingly covetable selections of fantasy houses in Los Angeles, Mexico, Camden – and it feels deliciously painful, like plucking ingrown hairs or leaping into an outdoor pool.

Because for most people I know, owning a house will no doubt remain a fantasy. It's something that's become clear over the past few years – that those of us who live in cities, whose jobs are not secure, who are flitting from call centre to job centre and back again throughout our 20s and 30s, whose parents don't have property portfolios, those of us who are single, or still trying to do art or music or something they dreamed of, are unlikely to be able to afford the deposit for a flat. Ever. Which would be fine – especially fine when the bath fills with soupy, rust-coloured water, or the smell from the downstairs chicken shop actually stops you in your tracks when you walk through the door even though they promise their filter system meets legal standards – if only renting wasn't significantly more expensive (on average 16%) than buying.

As the mayor of Newham attempts to move his tenants out to Stoke-on-Trent saying that, with a cap on housing benefits and increasing rents, the council can no longer afford to house them locally, I feel a little panic rising. Elsewhere in "prime" London – Chelsea, Mayfair, Knightsbridge – estate agents say they are seeing a buying "frenzy". One was recently quoted as having clients who are purchasing their sixth properties, or one for them and another for the kids. He recalled a buyer asking if he had any homes for sale for £30m. "I had one at £50m, so I said: 'Is there room for movement?', and they said no – the other children had £30m spent on their properties, so it wouldn't be fair."

In my borough, Tower Hamlets (one of the poorest areas in the UK), the charity Shelter calculates that the annual earnings a tenant needs to make renting a flat affordable are £67,669. It's a figure I find difficult to read out loud without lisping, let alone conceive of earning myself. It's not achievable – in fact, it makes me feel like I'm going a bit mad. And it highlights the ever-lurking threat of homelessness – that slow slide over a year from being made redundant, to being priced out of your shared flat, to carrying your rucksack between friends' futons, and then, after a clipped conversation in their little blue kitchen, sitting on a bench at dawn with nowhere to go.

So what happens now? What happens to a generation living with the quiet and dreadful realisation that we might only be capable of buying a flat if our parents or grandparents die? A generation holding its breath when they see their fathers slip on ice, sliding more fried toast on to their mothers' breakfast plate. The awful coming-to as they adjust their grandma's three-bar fire. Will we be here hunched over our computers in 20 years' time, addicted to the property porn that we'll never be able to afford? These sites, their picture galleries of rubber-poured and parquet floors, of lightboxes for coffee tables, breakfast bars and double-height windows, inspiring in us a bleak sort of creative envy, and the growing acceptance that a home of our own may always be just out of our reach.

http://www.guardian....rty-eva-wiseman

I can seriously see a lot of cash poor people being forced to move far out of London. A lot of london councils are considering the 'Newham idea' Move their tenants waiting for bigger council homes and others who have been on the books for ages as well as any new immigrants who register in their area up north, as it's much more cheaper for them. Lots of properties and rock bottom prices up north, Also not many jobs...

What happens to London in that sort of situation? a lot of the cultural mix that makes it will be lost no doubt. But the people who have little to no money have no choice to move or be made homeless. Seriously f*cked up for them.

I thank my lucky stars my wifey was adamant on us saving up and buying our own property. Put the research,time and discipline and had the luck to find someone selling their property a lot cheaper than it was worth. As he was getting harassed, Saved us a lot of money as well. That money is currently being saved towards our second place so we can rent this one out in the future.

[kurious]

housing associations are much better if ur lucky enough. I was on camden council homeless list since 2007, still no joy. Contacted Circle 33 regarding housing in Febuary, by the 5th I was on the waiting list for their New Generation scheme. I signed tenancy for a double 1 bedroom in finsbury by April. They move fast and I didnt have to do the hostel ting or anything.

[Kurtis]

yea im with a housing association, got my ting in 6 weeks

but truesay its up north, shit seems different up here

[JOHN DOE]

is that why u went up there in the first place??

[Supermalt]

i cant move out of london

it cant be done

[JOHN DOE]

i cant move out of london

it cant be done

telling you

but i would go to faux essex, surrey places like barking ,kingston

however im happy chilling at yard for the mo paying to borrow someones house/pay off thier debts seems like a mugs game to me

[Kurtis]

is that why u went up there in the first place??

nah, when i fell out with my fam i came to stay with a family friend in oldham, then after a while i went to the council n said i was homeless, bid on houses and bada boom bada bing i got one

got offered 4, saw 2, one was some crummy ting, the other 2 werent in great areas so i didnt bother

[Guest PROFIT MARGINS]

i cant move out of london

it cant be done

telling you

but i would go to faux essex, surrey places like barking ,kingston

however im happy chilling at yard for the mo paying to borrow someones house/pay off thier debts seems like a mugs game to me

Those places wouldn't be much cheaper than London tbh

[Marly Mar]

LOOL

truss Kingstons NOT cheap brah

[Vertigo]

For Kingston if your looking to just rent your looking at the bottom end of 500pcm and that's for a small student room in a shared house. A rented flat for yourself or house and you better hope your monthly money game is up.

[JOHN DOE]

i weren't taliking about price as i clearly said im happy to stay at home because i believe renting is a mugs game

i was referring to moving out of london (the inner city) i could never move away from here the furthest i would go is the places mentioned.

2nd year uni i lived in hatfield payed 420 per month bills not included

over 5 bags spent just to borrow someones house fuck that never again

[Vertigo]

Are you saving for your own place?

I got to live at my wifeys mothers house and we didn't have to pay any rent for a year and a half. Would never have been able to save if not for that.

[Guest PROFIT MARGINS]

Copping a council flat>>>>>>>>>

[JLovely]

With buying a council property youre living in would they still want a deposit?!

[Supermalt]

this generation is only gonna get more money hungry because of sh*t like this

funds priorty over everything

[Barney Stinson]

housing associations are much better if ur lucky enough. I was on camden council homeless list since 2007, still no joy. Contacted Circle 33 regarding housing in Febuary, by the 5th I was on the waiting list for their New Generation scheme. I signed tenancy for a double 1 bedroom in finsbury by April. They move fast and I didnt have to do the hostel ting or anything.

How did that work? Did you just basically cut out the middle man?

[Guest PROFIT MARGINS]

With buying a council property youre living in would they still want a deposit?!

Not too sure all I know is I'm in my third year of renting so I should be eligible to buy by next feb

Which I'm looking to do

[zoot]

i need some advise too, trying to rent a property but the landlords I've come across so far aren't having a bar of it because i haven't got a job although i do have the savings to afford it

haven't even bothered trying with agencies yet just private landlords

[Barney Stinson]

In the future just lie. As long as they get all their money on time they wont ask further questions.

[kurious]

my mum is a circle 33 tenant. I just hounded them at their base in highbury, provided them with a years worth of proof of address and they put me on the list. New Gen scheme is basically properties that are hard to let to families and elderly people

[Mic Man]

If you can't afford to buy outright, look at Shared Ownership schemes. Tends to be cheaper than renting and you will own a portion of the property.

[Em Dott]

That article Vertigo posted is depressing.

[time_bomb]

ive rented since i left home round 19/20 years old, no big deal i like to move about and i intent on leaving the country pretty soon. Doubt ill get a mortgage till its wife and kids time.

[Meticulous]

In the future just lie. As long as they get all their money on time they wont ask further questions.

Theyre gonna ask for proof though, bank statements with regular income, payslips & possibly more depending on what he looks like

i need some advise too, trying to rent a property but the landlords I've come across so far aren't having a bar of it because i haven't got a job although i do have the savings to afford it

haven't even bothered trying with agencies yet just private landlords

private landlords>agencies, but depends what you want the place for tbf

i already showed you about the documents