You don't want to live there, do you? A comment on sky-high house prices

I know, I know. You don't want to live on the edge of Woodside, a former council estate on the Bradford side of the Bradford-Halifax boundary. Location, location, location as the saying goes.

But stop and think for a minute. Just recently the resolution Foundation had this to say:

HOME ownership among young people across Bradford and West Yorkshire has halved in a generation.

The findings have been announced by think-tank The Resolution Foundation which said it counters “the popular perception that the struggle to get on the housing ladder is largely confined to London and the South East”.

So here we have three flats that will be sold at auction rather than through the regular market and which will end up in the private rental sector. Yet finding £5,000 for a 10% deposit and borrowing £45,000? Is this really unaffordable to working young couples in West Yorkshire?

Bradford's median full time working income is about £450 per week (was £447.1 in 2014) - let's call that two grand a month between friends. And let's further assume that twentysomethings earn two-thirds of median. A typical Bradford young couple (if such a thing exists) should be able to afford - with comfort - one of these flats.

But then, of course, you don't want to live there do you!

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