Can’t afford a house? Move to Germany! Grand Designs star Kevin McCloud tells first time buyers to relocate because of country’s ‘healthy’ property market with average home costing £273K compared to £285K in UK (but you’ll need to earn £37K to live there!)
- Presenter said first-time buyers should abandon hopes of getting house in UK
- Have YOU moved to Germany? Email chris.matthews@mailonline.co.uk
Grand Designs star Kevin McCloud has told first time buyers if they can’t afford to buy a house ‘move to Germany‘.
The TV presenter advised young people looking to get on the property ladder to abandon their hopes of buying a house in the UK and instead ‘move to another country where the housing market is healthy’.
He told the news website JOE that almost every other North European country and Canada have got ‘really healthy markets, lots of diverse opportunities, lots of diverse offers and it isn’t hugely expensive’.
The 64-year-old said: ‘My advice is move to Germany, maybe that’s the way forward.’
McCloud also took aim at ‘immoral’ housing developers, who he claims now make on average £68,000 profit per house or per flat, compared to 2009, when the figure was ten times less.
Have YOU moved to Germany? Email chris.matthews@mailonline.co.uk
He claimed the average profit ‘big housing developers’ now make every time they sell a house or flat was ‘about £68,000’, ten times what it was in 2009.
McCloud added: ‘They’ve shifted their focus from volume and meeting government targets to the profit they deliver to their shareholders.
‘Persimmon, the year before last made £1.1 billion of profit for their shareholders, 25 per cent of their turnover.
‘I’ve only got one word for it and I think it’s immoral.’
Speaking about the state of the UK housing market, McCloud said: ‘I look at the UK market and I see nothing good here.
‘I look at what’s happening in Germany, Holland, Netherlands, Denmark, Scandinavia, I look at other, almost every other North European country and Canada – they’ve got really healthy markets, lots of diverse opportunities, lots of diverse offers and it isn’t hugely expensive.’
Foreigners can buy properties in Germany with relative ease.
Even since Brexit, people from non-EU countries can borrow up to 60 per cent mortgages.
Not all banks offer expats mortgages. DKB and Santander are two that do but having even a temporary residence may improve a person’s chances.
An extensive report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) concluded that Britain’s development sector is ‘warped by decades of housing market volatility, the departure of local authorities from the housebuilding sphere, and cuts to capital grant that collectively could have insulated the development market from significant shocks’.
The report claims that ‘the UK has both a pro-cyclical housing and development marke’.
It added: ‘By contrast, Germany is in a stronger position: its mortgage market has been more tightly regulated and consequently its market (and economy) is less vulnerable to economic downturns; and housing construction is undertaken by a far greater number of actors, including large housebuilders but also, crucially, many smaller, regionally based actors and a significant not-for-profit sector (both within and outside public ownership).
‘The two countries utilise the powers of government in quite different ways. In Germany, although private enterprise is crucial in housing finance, housing development and management of stock, the state, locally and nationally, plays a far more ‘interventionist’ role – in regulation (for instance, of rents and of the mortgage market), in land assembly, and in housing development itself (albeit often through locally owned companies).
‘However, in the UK, although the parameters of policy are set by government, the trend is towards stepping back the role of the state in housing provision, and then becoming active when markets cannot achieve satisfactory outcomes (for instance by providing mortgage guarantees, or through the provision of housing benefit to households unable to afford their rent).’
The latest Nationwide house price index showed house prices fell slightly in March, with a 0.2 per cent decline in the average property value.
The monthly decline was down to seasonal adjustment – which aims to smooth out months that are typically more and less active – whereas the non-adjusted average house price actually rose slightly from £260,420 in February to £261,14 in March.
It means the typical home, according to Nationwide’s data, has edged up 1.6 per cent annually, with headline figures dragged back by southern England’s stuttering property market.
On the same day, Halifax also reported property prices fell in March, reflecting the first monthly fall since September 2023.
The major mortgage lender revealed the average home price fell 1 per cent last month, following five consecutive months of rises.
Despite reports’ focus on headline house price figures, the UK housing market doesn’t just move as one.
It is made up of thousands of local markets that will all be performing differently from one another.
These differences can even be seen at a regional level where there is evidence of a North-South divide opening up. Prices are generally rising in the North and falling in the South.
The average house price during the first three months of 2024 in Northern Ireland, for example, is up 4.6 per cent year-on-year, according to Nationwide.
Prices in Scotland are 3.7 per cent higher over the past three months than they were during the same period in 2023.
And in the North of England the average home is up 4 per cent in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Prices in the South West are down 1.7 per cent compared to this time last year and prices in East Anglia are 1.3 per cent lower.
Housing experts have claimed that ‘predatory’ investment funds are taking advantage of the British housing market, keeping families paying rent for longer.
There was £1.3billion of private investment in British new builds last year and almost two fifths came from American funds.
Housing expert David Hall told MailOnline: ‘It’s no surprise at all that it’s a business model for a lot of the funds and pension funds and gives them some semblance of certainty and assurance.
‘It is going to price people out of the market. These are investment forums that are essentially vultures. They’re not social housing buddies. They’re not charities. They’re predators.
‘They’re doing nothing wrong. They’re allowed to do it. The market is wide open for predators to come in, wide open for the market to be manipulated.
Housing charity Acorn’s chief Nick Ballard told MailOnline: ‘Britain’s housing crisis should be a source of national shame.
‘Rising homelessness, 1.3 million families on council housing waiting lists and millions condemned to living in poor quality, insecure and expensive private rented accommodation are problems having a very real negative impact on people’s lives, health and on society as a whole.
‘House prices are out of reach for many and have been for years. Rising rents and the cost of living crisis mean people are finding it harder and harder to save to put down a deposit.
‘Policies of successive Governments have led to 1.5 million council houses sold or demolished and not replaced, so these are no longer a viable option for most.
‘House building alone, particularly build-to-rent properties which will siphon money to US investment companies, will not solve the housing crisis.
‘The Government must embark on a serious building programme for social homes, to address the shortage of housing, to bring down rental prices and to provide safe, secure and stable homes that can become the foundation of happy and healthy lives.’
As the average price of a London home nears the £1million mark, thousands of homeowners are ditching the capital.
Instead of buying in London, homeowners are flocking to more affordable towns that are often in the north of Britain, MailOnline previously revealed.
Schemes like the Help To Buy ISA may have worked a decade ago but since savers can only receive a government bonus if they buy under £450,001, resources such as this have also been priced out.
The average house in the capital costs £733,000 but the average London salary is only £44,000 and most mortgages are capped at 4.5 times that, amounting to just £198,000.
The cheapest place to buy a home is in Middlehaven (TS2), in North Yorkshire, where an average house costs just £49,833.
In fact, Yorkshire postcodes make up the top four cheapest places to buy, with Bradford (BD1), Middlesbrough (TS1) and Brambles Farm (TS3) all coming in with prices under £85,000.
Shildon (DL4), in County Durham is the fifth cheapest, with homes selling for an average of just £86,993.
Linz Darlington, the boss of leasehold extension experts Homehold, told MailOnline: ‘You can seek a better and more affordable quality of life elsewhere.
‘Greater flexibility around working from home has made making a cross-country move more accessible for many.’
Yet while many people are considering leaving the capital, not all postcodes outside of London are as affordable.
In fact, some are even approaching London property prices.
Cobham (KT11), in Surrey, was the most dear, with the average home selling for a shopping £1.4million.
Close behind was Beaconsfield (HP9), in Buckinghamshire, where homes go for £1.3million.
Mr Darlington added: ‘Increasingly buyers are looking for property outside of London and the South East — and so they should be.
‘While these areas may be the preference of many, as a proposition they are clearly overpriced.
‘Leasehold flats have historically been the ”first rung on the ladder” for many house-buyers in London and the South East, but constant woes from cladding issues, outrageous service charges and spiralling ground rents make these an ever less attractive proposition.
‘Issues with flat ownership are compounded by the fact the age of first time buyers has been increasing, which means people are needing for larger, family friendly properties for their first homes.’
