Owning your own home

The idea that there is an equivalence between the maintenance required for a paved front garden and one with plants is rubbish - i’ve had both and there is no comparison.

I don’t like paved front gardens either but all pretending that the reasons why people have them are wrong doesn’t really help.

Great, you can come and do the regular gardening in my front garden then

what is peoples current thinking about mortgages, are people renewing for 2-3 years in the hope that rates will be cheaper then?

Ours is up at the end of June. Not sure yet but leaning towards 2-year variable and ride the (hopefully coming!) base rate decrease?! might end in tears if timing is wrong. Really don't know...

IMO your starting point should always be your personal circumstances.

My gut says rates won't come down for a while and may still rise a bit more, so if you find an acceptable rate then you should lock it in.

It’s your responsibility, tbh!

No idea of your personal circumstances, but variable would be a significant risk still I think.

I’d find a rate that you can manage (do it now - you can do it 6months in advance - we locked in 3.5% for our remortgage that happened in January) and limit it to 2years if it’s evidently still higher than what you might expect to find after that time. Ride it out.

FWIW, I think rates will steadily fall but there’s still a risk something else will happen which means they stagnate or rise again.

I mean the FED is definitely* going to raise rates, so it doesn't seem particularly left field to imagine BoE also raising rates.

Plus now we've had rate rises every subsequent rise becomes less** of a jump.

*in the loosest sense of the word

**assuming they don't go nuts and increasing the incriments as well.

FWIW, I think rates will steadily fall but there’s still a risk something else will happen which means they stagnate or rise again.

I agree.

So long as we avoid similar turmoils to 2008, 2016, 2020, 2022 it’ll all be fine now.

Nah, it’s a choice. No one has much responsibility to do gardening, and being told you have no sympathy for people who don’t have the time, money or knowledge to do it can >>>>>>

2008, 2016, 2020, 2022

Looking at this number sequence, turmoil in 2023 is incoming. Then the end of the year and so on until they're a weekly occurrence which seems about right.

We remortgaged yesterday, going from 1.5% to 4.8 was rough but not as rough as the 7.5 on the standard rate if we hadn't renewed. Spoke to an adviser this morning, rates are going up tomorrow.

going from 1.5% to 4.8

Bloody hell.

The next global catastrophe will be China invading Taiwan later this year, so things can always get worse...

yeah the monthly payment has basically doubled. Luckily because we ported and topped up with a second, smaller mortgage it's not the whole whack and we've still got ~3 years before worrying about what the rates have changed to.

Looking at this number sequence, turmoil in 2023 is incoming

Trust the data.

People have certainly pulled there belts in with giving out credit so its a stick on i recon.

I dont think its the knowledge, but you've gotta be interested in doing it or wanting to do it.

I think a lot of folk who just tarmac it all just aren't interested and dont care too much about it.

I guess the counter argument is that its not about whether you're interested or not, its about our collective responsibility not to tarmac over every natural habitat we can find

This. No excuse to remove nature.

I meant more SVB, CS, and the now real risk of midsized regional US banks collapsing.

So long as we avoid similar turmoils to 2008, 2016, 2020, 2022 it’ll all be fine now.

Gordon Brown was almost right when he said it was the end of boom and bust. Now we just have bust.

OK, so you own a house but have f all time to do gardening and don’t know what you’re doing anyway, and can’t afford to pay a gardener (which is not cheap, plus when you try and find one they’re all booked up and won’t take you on, stupidly expensive or come round and then don’t do half of it anyway).

What’s your prescription - move to a flat?

I don’t like or want to tarmac over stuff either but refusing to have any empathy for the fact it isn’t easy to look after a garden doesn’t exactly help, it just shows you have no empathy

Get wildflower meadow turf instead of tarmac - very 'weed' resistant and minimal maintenance, some don't even need trimming. They also provide great habitat for microfauna. Cheaper than asphalt and less prone to damage from tree roots etc too.

What’s your prescription - move to a flat?

In general I think the UK could benefit from more higher density housing like you might find in Barcelona or Paris and this is just one of the ways, yes.

Didn't this start as a reaction to the person who had taken a double fronted probably 4 bed detached house and extended it while paving the front garden and parking 3 cars on it? I'm not convinced they can't afford to pay a gardener, especially if they diverted some of the glazing budget.