housing | Voice of London

Dec122017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

London student quits uni house for a boat

Being a student in London is tough. Sure there’s the nightlife, restaurants, galleries and more - but how are you supposed to enjoy any of it when you’ve got no money? Back in 2010, the NUS published figures indicating that the average annual cost of living for a student in London was £13,388. And with inflation, this number will only have gone up. So what did UCL student Claude De Rijke-Thomas do when the contract for his student house in Camden expired back in June? Naturally, he started renting a boat. “Everyone from the house had different ideas and different budgets so, and this sounds really strange and crazy, I kind of wanted to live either on a boat or up a tree.” De Rijke Thomas said, enthusiastically, “I do a lot of climbing so I thought it might be feasible living in

Nov272017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

When a house is not the aim but the means

Society

The lack of affordable houses in London left many looking for different kinds of accommodation. Living as a guardian seems to be the ideal solution for some noisy (and penniless) musicians. We, millennials, have been accused of not caring enough about the future, that we don’t save for a house, that we should stop eating sandwiches in coffee shops and start saving money now to buy a house in ten years’ time. But is it crossing anyone’s mind that we live a life that neither consists of saving nor of spending money because we just don’t earn enough? House prices seem to be going down, or at least that is what has been said by property agencies. But, when we talk about finances nothing is really so straightforward and a few words may change the whole story. House prices are not going do

Oct222017 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

Government to explore how to make home buying “less stressful”

Society

New rules could be put into place as the Government looks for ways to make house buying easier. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has launched an investigation that will collect evidence from estate agents, mortgage lenders and solicitors, in an attempt to make the process “cheaper, faster and less stressful.” Some issues that will be explored are: ways to tackle ‘gazumping’, a technique used by sellers to accept the highest offer to the detriment of the buyer building “trust and confidence” between buyer and seller, with schemes such as the ‘lock-in agreements’, where the two parties agree to ‘lock’ themselves into negotiations encouraging buyers and sellers to collect information in advance so homes are “sale ready” innovating the house buying process by making more i

Oct232015 by Voice of LondonNo Comments

Ben Costachunk: Getting under London’s rent crisis

Generation Rent

A stop motion exploring the woes of generation rent Words: Desta Wondirad, Ali Mulaga, Asma Qureshi and Lyubomira Ivanova This is the tale of Ben Costachunk. Ben’s family lived in China for 70 years, but the house his grandfather bought was then given back to the government thanks to their housing policy. Hoping to find a better situation in his motherland, he goes back to England. But, like many young, foreign and broke people, Ben finds himself smack dab in the middle of London’s rent crisis. His hardships are many, but familiar to all. While Costachunk’s story may be slightly exaggerated, the issues he faces are more fact that fiction. We won’t spoil the end, but housing is a vicious cycle of problems that doesn’t seem to have an end, and Costchunk is neither the first nor th