Alternative ways of housing / living

Carlos said

K-arl said

Kevin Connery For many it is a fool’s paradise. Thatcher promoted house ownership through the sale of council houses to lock people into a golden cage and keep their noses pressed to the grindstone. You aren’t going to cause trouble and strike if you could lose your home. It worked, it created a very conservative passive workforce. For someone like me who liked to travel, house ownership is a nightmare. I don’t see a reasonable rent as dead money, most people are old before they actually own their home and they can only release the money if they downsize, something people do in their later years. Yes, they might have comfortable later years, that’s fine and why not but I think that is overrated. I’m glad I could always walk out of the door on a job or a life style and not look back.

That said, I think the young have it tough now. A shortage of houses to buy or rent, a shortage of decent work, worsening pay, a rising cost of living and working and living in an other country being difficult to almost impossible. But that is a consequence of people choosing to possess things and having a conservative lifestyle, rather than having a life rich in experience. Yes, if you are rich enoughbyou can have both but if you are rich enough you can have everything, privilege snd things but that is very much a minority.

Edited by K-arl

Thatcher was able to sell the council houses to working class renters not to convert them to Conservatism but because they already were conservative in outlook….and voting patterns.
Also enjoy your rich experience of life but try living off it when you are old and experience rich but cash poor …..because you didn’t invest in your future and are unable to downsize.   And try living abroad with no money or family support when you are older.

As to the young not being able to live and work abroad that is complete none sense.  Believe me there was travel, work overseas etc before the EU.  I was taught by and worked with guys and gals who had worked and lived in all the countries inEurope plus many in South America and the States.  More paperwork: yes: more planning: yes; but eminently doable if you have the drive.

As I’ve said elsewhere in this thread ‘life is what you make it’.

I come from a working class background and Labour voters were buying homes, it was a bribe and they took it hook line and sinker. I take your point in places like East London and Essex working class tended to be Tory but then, they always had been. Certain working class areas have always been Tory, while others areas like mine and steel areas, people would rather burn themselves alive than vote Tory back in the day. 

I'm experience rich and doing alright asset wise because you don't need a house to build up assets, as compound interest paid means a house costs you around three to four times more than the headline price. 

I didn't say working abroad was impossible, I said it was very difficult and before the EEC, working in Europe was very difficult, it was also very difficult in the EEC before it became the EU. How do I know this? Because I was doing it and I had a double degree and a masters. I've heard it quite a lot from people saying working in Europe before the EEC was easy and I know for a fact they are talking bollocks. In fact in the Netherlands you could see immigrants queuing round the block at the vreemdelingenpolitie at 8am in the morning and there were highly educated workers amongst them. You could be there all day and still be turned away at 5pm without a permit and told to come back the next day. In Germany was similar, the French made such things even more difficult. And there weren't many Brits at all, though there were some that could do specific jobs with specific companies in the Netherlands and to a lesser extent in Germany that advertised in countries like Britain because of worker shortages. You are being fanciful and today, the economies don't need so many workers as back in the day so they aren't going to get permits so easily. You also required a residence permit to get a work permit and to get a work permit you required a residence permit. Yep, sounds crazy but it was a way for police to arbitrarily deny people residence. I've seen a lot of British workers and even college lecturers leave the country after contracts have run out and there are less opportunities for Brits in such things international science projects. You'll always find the odd person that proves the rule but in my last place of work, there has been a significant drop in number of British lecturers. That is also because German appears to becoming more prominent and depending who you believe, is expected to compete with English as the main second language in the not too distant future. 

Edited by K-arl

Simon Cole said

This is a bit of a Wild Card and would depend on how adventurous you are, but several regions in Italy, particularly Sicily, are so keen to regenerate villages that they are selling empty properties for 1 Euro - the only snag being that buyers must commit to actually living there.

That is not the only snag....... everybody else had the same idea, however, trades people in short supply, and building materials in short supply, material prices sky rocketing if you can get them at all. Sadly after paying for renovations, if you can't do them yourself, or can't get certs for works you complete yourself, it would take you 2 -3yrs to do works that should take only a couple of months due to lack of local labour......it's now a bigger problem than the crumbling houses they originally set out to restore, Covid hasn't helped either and now (Brexit) you can't get British trades people over to do the work. It is a disaster with many overseas buyers tied into a project that they now have no chance of completing or selling on, some facing financial ruin. That's a fact.

Edited by indemnity

RMF I think I'd just end up feeling the narrowboat was the place, and I was stuck in it

Search George Dunnett on youtube.  His video dated 28th Jan 2022 "I bought an Abandon Tiny House" .  Also his video 3 weeks ago which says how much it cost.  This might give you some ideas.

indemnity said

Simon Cole said

This is a bit of a Wild Card and would depend on how adventurous you are, but several regions in Italy, particularly Sicily, are so keen to regenerate villages that they are selling empty properties for 1 Euro - the only snag being that buyers must commit to actually living there.

That is not the only snag....... everybody else had the same idea, however, trades people in short supply, and building materials in short supply, material prices sky rocketing if you can get them at all. Sadly after paying for renovations, if you can't do them yourself, or can't get certs for works you complete yourself, it would take you 2 -3yrs to do works that should take only a couple of months due to lack of local labour......it's now a bigger problem than the crumbling houses they originally set out to restore, Covid hasn't helped either and now (Brexit) you can't get British trades people over to do the work. It is a disaster with many overseas buyers tied into a project that they now have no chance of completing or selling on, some facing financial ruin. That's a fact.

Edited by indemnity

I bought a house for €4,000 and renovated it, though it was more a rebuild, an old farmhouse and barn and two fields in rural France in a 5 year part time project. I put in about a further €30,000 over that time. I sold it a further 5 years later for €98,000. I did a lot of work myself but where necessary I employed local labour. Local labour makes sense, they know the planning rules and how things should be done. My younger brother renovated a house in Umbria using local labour, my brother can't even use a hammer. This was at the beginning in the early 00s, not long after I sold my place in France. This was not expensive, around €40,000 but far more luxurious than my French house (he never had a large barn but a couple of small out buildings). He found the local craftsmen skilled and knowledgable about the renovation and where to get the best priced materials, which they should be being local. The other benefit of using local craftsmen was that interaction and getting to know the locals, using local shops etc. They were happy with anyone bringing money into the area. He still has the place though whether he could sell it at a profit, I'm not sure, Italy isn't France but then, he doesn't need a profit, he doesn't even have to get his money back though I am sure he would like to if he ever decided to sell.

This is also an important point, you should never see any renovation project as an investment, there aren't queues of people waiting to escape to the Italian countryside or the French countryside for that matter. Without genuine commitment people soon see their rural fantasy turn into a rural nightmare. I remember meeting a retired policeman from Cornwall (why leave Cornwall?) in rural France, he invited my wife at the time and myself back to his house so his depressed wife could have some English contact (my wife was Dutch but her English fluent and impeccable). The man's wife was clearly depressed and complained there was no English TV and local French people didn't speak English. She was so depressed she couldn't get herself to think rationally. She was the worst state of any expat we met but a few others we bumped into regretted their move and realised they had been looking through rose tinted specs. If you are looking to live in such a rural area, you need a project and to be active in the local economy so you meet people and build a sense of belonging in the locality. It is you that has to compromise, locals won't, which is logical.

Edited by K-arl