I could end up losing 25% of it or having to leave my savings there until after I retire
Q I’m single, earn around £20,000 a year at age 34 I have a pension pot which is currently worth £15,000. I want to save for my retirement and eventually buy a house.
I recently opened a lifetime Isa, as I know they can help me to buy a house although so far I’ve only put in £100.
Continue reading...Campaigners say houses now among UK’s least affordable owing to rise of holiday rentals
Campaigners on the Isle of Arran have called for help to cope with a housing crisis that has left hundreds of people without permanent homes.
The Arran Economic Group (AEG) hopes to be the first community organisation in Scotland to use government funds to build dozens of affordable homes aimed at local workers, which will be given out based on economic rather than social need.
Continue reading...Young couples and older workers alike face housing insecurity on island where tourism is booming
Jennifer and Andrew Earle’s new home arrived on the ferry to Arran last Tuesday, a static caravan just about large enough for the couple and their four daughters, the youngest six months old.
It was towed by tractor to Andrew’s parents’ house near the southern tip of Arran, where Andrew and his father will pack its walls and roof with extra insulation against the island’s bitter winters, and build a playroom extension for the four girls.
Continue reading...Are you looking for your next home to rent? Are you short of time but need to move fast? OnTheMarket.com offers top tips on what to think about. It’s important to ask your estate or letting agent the right questions when you search for a property to rent. “Competition can be fierce and time tight […]
The post Key questions to ask an agent when looking for a home to rent appeared first on OnTheMarket.com blog.
The revelation that half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population (Report, 18 April) is a stark example of how broken our archaic system of land ownership is. This inequality is a sign of the wider inequalities in British society, but also has a more immediate impact: seriously exacerbating the housing crisis. The high cost of land for new homes, and lack of transparency around ownership, are some of the key causes of this national emergency. An acre of land becomes up to 275 times more expensive when it is granted planning permission for new houses. This means developers are incentivised to build high-cost luxury housing to recoup their costs and often try to minimise their affordable housing contributions.
The government should change the law to rectify this, allowing land to be sold more quickly and for what it is actually worth, rather than the vastly inflated sums it can command. This would allow public bodies and not-for-profit housing associations, which build the majority of affordable housing in the UK, to afford land to build genuinely affordable homes. If we want to solve the housing crisis, we must take aim at our broken land market.
James Prestwich
Head of policy, National Housing Federation
Sidelined in recent years, decorative shrubs are ideal for shady urban plots
If you are a regular reader, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am fascinated by horticultural trends. While these can often be dismissed as faddish, I believe they are essential for driving innovation forward, allowing us to flex our creative muscles instead of sticking to a narrow range of tried and tested ideas. However, I am the first to admit that a love of the new and unusual can come with a hefty downside. It can cause us to overlook perfectly valid options because their horticultural star is not in ascendance.
With style barometers, such as the Chelsea flower show and glossy gardening magazines, still dominated by schemes of multi-stemmed small trees dotted in a sea of prairie-like perennials, perhaps the biggest victims of this process are shrubs. While they were a keystone of most planting plans in the 1970s, today this whole group has, sadly, been sidelined. Given the ever decreasing size of our plots, however, I find this a travesty. So here are a few of my favourite quirky and novel shrubs that will provide year-round structure and character in spaces too small for even the smallest tree to squeeze into. Why they aren’t more popular, I will never know…
Continue reading...Sidelined in recent years, decorative shrubs are ideal for shady urban plots
If you are a regular reader, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am fascinated by horticultural trends. While these can often be dismissed as faddish, I believe they are essential for driving innovation forward, allowing us to flex our creative muscles instead of sticking to a narrow range of tried and tested ideas. However, I am the first to admit that a love of the new and unusual can come with a hefty downside. It can cause us to overlook perfectly valid options because their horticultural star is not in ascendance.
With style barometers, such as the Chelsea flower show and glossy gardening magazines, still dominated by schemes of multi-stemmed small trees dotted in a sea of prairie-like perennials, perhaps the biggest victims of this process are shrubs. While they were a keystone of most planting plans in the 1970s, today this whole group has, sadly, been sidelined. Given the ever decreasing size of our plots, however, I find this a travesty. So here are a few of my favourite quirky and novel shrubs that will provide year-round structure and character in spaces too small for even the smallest tree to squeeze into. Why they aren’t more popular, I will never know…
Continue reading...