A: Hello, everyone and welcome to Britain Under the Microscope advanced.
L: Hello!
A: Today we're gonna be doing Britain Under the Microscope, but we're gonna be doing a little bit differently as we normally do it. There have been Some requests about natural speed in English and how do English speakers actually sound like? How do they speak when they are talking with their friends or family? So in terms of the speed in which we are speaking at, and also the type of language that we're using. So today we're gonna to be having the conversation based on our episode on housing in the UK. Some of the words we're gonna be using are going to be in that show, if you find this episode a little bit too difficult, it's a good idea just to go back and review the original Britain Under the Microscope episode.
L: Ok, So are you ready?
A: I'm ready!
L: Here we go! So, Anlan, you were talking about you had, originally you had plans to get your foot on the property ladder? Possibly buy a place in London?
A: Yeah, it's still my dream, at the moment I'm working on looking at to get a mortgage. A lot of my friends, they can't afford to buy a place, but now I'm reaching that stage that I can start thinking about getting a mortgage, I can start thinking about having a house or a flat in the area in which I was born.
L: Oh, that's nice. So that's in London, right?
A: Yeah.
L: That's quite expensive.
A: Yeah.
L: What's the down payment that you need to put down? In China, we have to put down quite a large sum of money, a lot sum of money.
A: Yeah. In Britain it depends, the governments are trying to encourage first-time buyers to put down a small of down payment, so you can still buy a place with only 5% down payment.
L: A 5% down payment? So, well, that will mean years of mortgage payment.
A: Pretty much, Yeah.
L: So how many years are you thinking about taking up?
A: I'm thinking about, having a… maybe 25-year mortgage?
L: 25 years is not too bad.
A: No.
L: So is there a limit or a maximum of years that you can take it?
A: Not too much, it really depends on the bank. So for example, it depends on your age as Well. I'm in my early 30's, So it's not too difficult to get a mortgage.
L: You are still pretty young.
A: Well, I hope So.
L: By the UK standards.
A: By UK standards.
L: But by Chinese standards, you're kind of older.
A: Well, absolutely. That's because in the UK, many young people or people of my age, I don't know, am I still a young person? I'm not sure.
L: Yeah, you're Ok.
A: I'm Ok. That's the main thing.
L: So what about people at your age or your mates, are they home-owners or are they renting or are they living with their parents, what's the situation?
A: A bit of mixed bag. Some of them are renting and they all live in London, so they have to pay really high rents, and it's very common to pay maybe 800-1000 pounds a month in rent.
L: Yeah, but that's just not worth it. If you think about, it's not really that expensive compared with that rent, it's not that difficult to buy, it's not that expensive to buy in London.
A: Well, it's still difficult. It's because even getting a down payment is quite expensive, because in London, the cost of living is so high.
L: Oh, you are saying that people don't really have that amount of savings?
A: No, not really.
L: Actually, I watched the show earlier, watched the "Straight Into You", I believe that English people on average, our age, probably only save about 5%-10% of their annual, their monthly earnings.
A: Well, yeah, pretty much. That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, because in the UK, as I said, the cost of living is so high, young people, they do take holidays, they do wanna enjoy life, especially now that many young people, just they feel that they'll never going to get on the property ladder, they are never gonna actually own a house, so they must all enjoy the money.
L: So they sort of giving up.
A: Pretty much, Yeah.
L: Can they not get anything from the bank mommy and daddy?
A: A lot of people do. If you think about the previous generation, when the housing price was quite low and it's easy to get a mortgage, many older people in the UK, so the ages of 40-60, they owned their own homes.
L: They had a lot of incentives, didn't they?
A: Well, they did with the right to buy. In the 1980s, the right-to-buy scheme was that council housing, if you lived in the council house for a very long time and you paid rent to the government then you could actually buy a house at a much lower rate, and many people took advantage of that.
L: And also in China, there's a huge difference between different regions. The housing price can be extremely different. What about in the UK?
A: Oh, absolutely. If you look at the Southeast of England, that's very expensive to buy a house, especially in London, London's just ridiculously expensive.
L: I guess that's where all the money, all the rich people go.
A: Well, that's also where all the jobs are. The problem with London and the problem with the UK is that there's only one center of finance, of government, it's all in central London.
L: I had a friend, a schoolmate who bought a place in central London near Bloomsbury, I think, it's a new built, it's a flat, a 2-bedroom flat, probably about 80-90 m2 and he paid about over one million pounds.
A: Yeah, that I can believe, but if you go to other parts of the UK, maybe for example, Wales or Northern England, a million pounds you can get a 5/ 6- bedroom house.

L: A manor house, So….
A: Well, pretty much. Yeah, you can get a country house, or something similar to that.
L: So I heard it's about doubling, almost doubling the price.
A: Yeah it depends on the location. Generally the South of England is very expensive and also Some areas of Scotland are quite expensive as Well.
L: Yeah. Any of your friends are lucky enough to inherit their parents' or grandparents' houses?
A: Well, we were talking about that before, weren't we? And Some of them have, but the problem is that, the inheritance tax.
L: It's too high.
A: It's too high now, and for example, in the UK, for 600,000 pounds' house, you will have to pay the inheritance tax, now if you consider that in London, the property price has gone up so high.
L: Most of the houses are probably over that.
A: Yeah, they're over that. So very ordinary people, they're being put into the same category as millionaires.
L: Yeah, that doesn't Sound really fair, does it?
A: Well, no. people have been talking about changing the law, I think they'll have to because very ordinary people, they'll have to probably pay 20%.
L: And then that would just push them out of the house and they wouldn't be able to stay in it.
A: They wouldn't be able to stay in it and they'll have to sell it just to pay the tax.
L: I mean even renters have their own share of problems, renting can be extremely expensive based on personal experience.
A: Well, Yeah. Because it's not only rent, you have to think about bills as Well, gas, electricity, water are quite expensive in the UK.
L: Wifi.
A: Wifi, internet.
L: Oh you also have to pay council tax.
A: Council tax as Well, that's about, roughly, 100 pounds a month.
L: I was finding that really interesting that council tax is different in different councils.
A: Oh Yeah, it depends on how rich the area is, so for example, when I was living in the UK, I lived in a very small flat but in a very nice area, and the flat was about one bedroom.
L: So how much council tax you needed to pay?
A: I think I paid about 120 pounds a month.
L: 120 pounds just for council tax. I think roughly I paid the same.
A: But you have to factor in as well that it was a particularly good area and also close to the central London, so that keeps the transport cost down, transport, you have to remember, in the UK, is really expensive.
L: Yeah, for those of you who don't really know about London, London is divided into different zones, it's kind of like the ring rolls in Beijing, so you have the inner zone, you have the zone 1, zone 2, zone 3… within zone 3, it's all pretty expensive.
A: Oh Yeah, because it's just so convenient and the transport is so easy.
L: So what would you say is the difference between people in the UK and people in China when it comes to housing?
A: It depends. Do you mean the terms of buying a house? Or the…
L: Just the general attitude.
A: I would say there are quite a few similarities, Chinese people tend to wanna have their own house, the same as the UK, you know British people , we also want to own our own house. But there is a lesser of social pressure in the UK about buying a place, because so many people rent, if you're in your late 20s or early 30s and you don't own a house, it's quite natural, people don't look down on you, people don't judge you for it, and there's no stipulation, there's no requirement you need to own a house before you get married.
L: Many people do get married in rented housing.
A: Exactly.
L: That's also because, you have a probably better regulated renting market.
A: Yes and no. We talked about in the previous episode about rogue landlords, but the system is better protected, I would say, in the UK than is in China.
L: Yeah, but you also have higher requirements. When I moved out of my flat in the UK, I had to clean it so hard that it would look exactly as the day I rented it.
A: The contracts in the UK, they are quite strict. But in terms of other things about housing, I would say, there are more similarities than differences between China and UK. The only main difference, I would say, is that in China, there's a social pressure to buy a house, which in the UK we don't have. But the underlying desire, the underlying dream of most people is to own their own homes.
L: It's quite universal.
A: I would say it's very universal.
L: Actually, if you dig deeper, you go behind all the superficial cultural differences, you do find some similarities among different cultures.
A: Yeah.
L: Ok.
A: So that's just a few ideas about what it is like. So if you have any questions or if you have anything to add, maybe you lived in the UK, or maybe you're thinking about buying a house in China as well, please let us know in the comment section.
L: And also let us know what you think of this normal speed version.
A: Thank you very much.
L: We'll see you next time.
A: Bye!
L: Bye!

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