United Kingdom

According to Company Checker, Sir Howard Davies is worth an estimated $5 Million USD in the last financial year, which included residuals made through his previous academic publications.

The Economic Research Institute has also claimed that Sir Howard Davies receive an annual salary of £763,000 in total compensation as Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with Natwest a subsidiary of the overall company structure

Yeah his opinion on normal people trying to first time buy a house is irrelevant. Entirely out of touch from the real world

I mean... He's right in the sense that you have to save and it's always been like that. But in all other senses he's a fucking moron.

"Just walk in with a big briefcase full of cash and sign some papers, what's so complicated?"

I guess, personally, I just feel like a lot of these incredibly rich and obviously out of touch old men are just totally irrelevant to normal daily life for most people. It's pointless to publish news like this, because it's just obviously meant to rile people up in some vague way and I guess somehow that generates money for the Guardian?

I just don't understand why we have to hear about what these irrelevant, hopefully soon-departed losers think. Who cares?

Well yes, but also no.

The homes on the market are all being sold, and the people that buy them can afford them. The price of houses is exactly what the market can bear.

There's just not enough homes for all the people that can't afford the current ones. And he can't see those because they're not his customers.

Of course it's not difficult. Just have money. Easy!

He's up for verbal kicking!

I don't understand how anyone is expected to be able to buy a home on the wages that are now commonplace.

I work in a highly skilled technical job and I don't earn enough money to buy a house, I can afford the mortgage repayments but I can't figure out a way that I would be expected to come up with the required deposit. The only reason I do have a house is because the deposit was paid for by my parents. But that's not an option for a lot of people.

So basically unless you're lucky or have rich family members I don't understand what you're expected to do. Everyone else on the street is like 80 and bought the houses decades ago.

I just don't understand what poor people are always complaining about.

-- Rich person

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The chair of NatWest has claimed it is not “that difficult” to get on the property ladder, despite the number of first-time buyers with a mortgage falling to the lowest level in a decade.

His comments to Radio 4’s Today programme follow a report published earlier this week by Yorkshire Building Society, which found that the number of first-time buyers who bought a home with a mortgage fell to the lowest level in a decade in 2023.

On Friday, the lender Halifax recorded the third monthly rise in house prices in a row in December, with the typical home costing £287,105.

“Telling first-time buyers it’s not that difficult to get on the ladder is quite simply a slap in the face to people struggling to make ends meet, never mind save for a deposit on a mortgage.”

“Interest rates have increased but house prices have yet to correct, meaning we still need to save for a huge deposit, but also would need a high income to afford monthly mortgage repayments.”

Last year, he weathered calls for his resignation after initially backing Alison Rose in the row over a media leak pertaining to the closure of the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s accounts with the NatWest subsidiary Coutts.

The original article contains 514 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 60%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Well, to be fair, the house price to income ratio today is the lowest since 2009. So buying today is much easier than any time before since the last 14 years.