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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Dude. I'm a Socialist.

I don't complain about the control Government has. It's their inaction I find galling.

It's not market manipulation. It's market management. Banks are regulated. Building is regulated. Rental Market needs to be regulated as well.

And when MPs (of any party), vote down a bill to ensure all rental properties are fit for human habitation, you know the rot is in deep.

Agreed.

Disagree, at this stage any interference is going to be manipulation. Regulation going forward, in principle agreed. The rental market, ignoring London, regulates itself quite well. London gives the rest the bad name.

That is an absolute disgrace. However I believe that with the landlords registration mandatory here in Scotland there is no such issue.

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
£2600 is less than the average monthly household take home pay. It’s naff all in the grand scheme of things. The big increase in debt has come from rising house prices and student debt. Two things that the government can control, but chooses not to, and not things that can generally be called irresponsible borrowing.

Student debt I get, but how do you figure that rising house prices can be controlled by the government.

To take a simplistic view of things, if I build, or own, something, why can I not sell it at the value I deem it to be worth?

Cheers

Andrew

If there were 300,000 social dwellings built a year rather than 3,000, the supply side of the housng market would quickly drive down prices.

Again, I feel that this is a simplistic view.

One, the creation of such a project would drive down the price so rapidly you would create an entire generation shackled by negative equity.

Two, where do you actually build these houses? It's not as if high rises are popular. And do we really want to build extensively across green belt and flood plain lands?

Three, even if we do build such a swath of houses, can you actually guarantee that those homes would reach those in need of them?

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
Again, I feel that this is a simplistic view.

One, the creation of such a project would drive down the price so rapidly you would create an entire generation shackled by negative equity.

Two, where do you actually build these houses? It's not as if high rises are popular. And do we really want to build extensively across green belt and flood plain lands?

Three, even if we do build such a swath of houses, can you actually guarantee that those homes would reach those in need of them?

Cheers

Andrew

So whats your solution then? Not build houses, and let the housing crisis persist?

We. need. houses.

It should easily be possible to build them at a rate which allows existing house prices to drop gradually or remain largely constant; it's also worth noting that it's only those that bought relatively recently (say, within 10 years) that risk negative equity or issues with house prices. If they bought earlier then it's likely that even with a modest drop they'd still be worth more than they paid.

There's plenty of brownfield sites, villages to be expanded or low density sites that could be upgraded. I'd hope they'd be building lots of 1 or 2 bedroom apartments*, so you could easily replace a derelict house with a decent garden with, say, 5 or 6 apartments and a parking space each.

Getting them where needed is a different matter, but some research can go into it before starting to build.

Personally, I'd be all for the government running a webuyanyhouse type deal, where they'll buy houses in reasonable condition for, say, 75% of market rate to people that need to get rid (reposessions, quick sales), and turn them into social housing. Either directly by redecorating and renting it out, or by converting into smaller units.


*All the new building near me, with the exception of some council houses have been 3-5 bedroom 'luxury' housing at quite a high price premium. Not bad for a couple with some equity behind them and a small family, but totally useless for anyone starting out or own their own.

 AndrewC wrote:
Again, I feel that this is a simplistic view.

One, the creation of such a project would drive down the price so rapidly you would create an entire generation shackled by negative equity.

Two, where do you actually build these houses? It's not as if high rises are popular. And do we really want to build extensively across green belt and flood plain lands?

Three, even if we do build such a swath of houses, can you actually guarantee that those homes would reach those in need of them?

Cheers

Andrew

I agree your points have merit, however they do not refute the basic facts of my argument.

The UK currently has high housing prices because supply is much less than demand. If supply is increased the supply/demand curve will change. This is basic economics.

To address your points:

1. Negative equity is a matter of the current value of your property compared with the amount you owe. If your outstanding mortgage is more than the market price, you are in negative equity. The building of 300,000 new homes a year wouldn't ncessarily lead to this situation.

2. There are lots of brownfield sites in many areas. 300,000 homes is actually a fairly small percentage compared to the housing stock of the UK as a whole.

3. This could be guaranteed through the same system as council and social housing is currently allocated.

jouso wrote:
So is May really asking EU citizens in UK to stay, pretty please?

After telling them you're not welcome, there's too many of you here, we want you to register, you're exploiting the system, etc.?

This takes double faced to another level.

May hasn't really said anything new though. There has always been a 'settled' status on the table but the details have never been fleshed out as to what that means. This is more recognition that the UK is unlikely to find every EU citizen in the UK anyway. This is a nice convenient way to exploit people's generosity to tell them where they are. She hasn't clarified anything about families (marry someone from the EU what can you do). If you don't register do you have the same rights. If you go back to your home EU country to look after a sick relative for 6 months can you still come back to the UK (or do you have to choose between family or location). In the end the message is if you are deemed useful to us you us we want you otherwise we don't. It's a type of colonial exploitation except and the resources are humans. In the end May wants to barcode every EU citizen, once we are out the EU and she knows where everyone lives that makes the governments job that much easier if they change their mind later (and given that the Tory party is full of right wing bigots if the they stay in for very long then almost certainly it will change).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Herzlos wrote:
It should easily be possible to build them at a rate which allows existing house prices to drop gradually or remain largely constant; it's also worth noting that it's only those that bought relatively recently (say, within 10 years) that risk negative equity or issues with house prices. If they bought earlier then it's likely that even with a modest drop they'd still be worth more than they paid.

There's plenty of brownfield sites, villages to be expanded or low density sites that could be upgraded. I'd hope they'd be building lots of 1 or 2 bedroom apartments*, so you could easily replace a derelict house with a decent garden with, say, 5 or 6 apartments and a parking space each.

Getting them where needed is a different matter, but some research can go into it before starting to build.

Personally, I'd be all for the government running a webuyanyhouse type deal, where they'll buy houses in reasonable condition for, say, 75% of market rate to people that need to get rid (reposessions, quick sales), and turn them into social housing. Either directly by redecorating and renting it out, or by converting into smaller units.


*All the new building near me, with the exception of some council houses have been 3-5 bedroom 'luxury' housing at quite a high price premium. Not bad for a couple with some equity behind them and a small family, but totally useless for anyone starting out or own their own.

The housing crisis requires a lot of fixes and needs some radical overhaul to try and bring it back to a system where it is working for everyone. Builders will only build properties that maximise their profit. They know that first time buyers are increasingly struggling so there is less money there so its best to focus on those people that do have money. Not that I'd buy a new house after all the issues my brother has had with his. Older buildings seem stable by comparison. In the end I think regardless of how big the properties are they are built as cheap as possible and I wonder just how decent they will be in 10-20 years.

Still if you want to shake things up I would propose things like this:-

Builders can't charge more per square metre of on the ground space for the same type of house regardless of where the house is built. The same two bedroom semi-detached property should cost the same in the north of the UK as it does the south. The same £150000 house in Yorkshire should not cost £300000 in Kent as it is just blatant profiteering.

Properties of certain types all have to have a minimum ground floor space (to prevent social housing being rammed into a tiny corner).

Councils as part of their local plans are required to determine the ratio of the types of houses that are needed in the area (not just numbers). Planning Applications for housing developments that do not meet this are automatically refused. This allows the Councils to set the housing needs for the area and less risk of builders only developing 3 bed detached properties when you need starter homes.

Planning permission to be extended by a year. If developers have not brought forward a development in 2 years (excluding any entrance shenanigans) then a) either the Council can forcibly purchase the land for development (funded by a UK government backed mortgage type scheme) to build the houses and then sell on (for social or to help support the Council) or b) the developer has to sell off individual plots to householders. This tries to ensure that developers can't land bank.

The Government will provide a mortgage back scheme for self builders on the basis that only approved builders/architects are used. Getting funding for a self build can be difficult but could actually be more cost effective. It also provides an opportunity for local builders and architects that might not otherwise get a chance because of the clout large builders have. This should help local businesses. Additionally new developments might have a return of some character rather than being the crammed in red brick monstrosities they currently are (which is why I think a lot of people oppose developments).

So net result is, we need houses but not all built at the one time.

We can't really decide where they should be built, how many and how quickly due to collateral effects on the economy and personal finances.

And we should perhaps leave this and get back to the original thread?

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
So net result is, we need houses but not all built at the one time.

We can't really decide where they should be built, how many and how quickly due to collateral effects on the economy and personal finances.

And we should perhaps leave this and get back to the original thread?

Andrew

The original thread is about UK Politics...the housing market is very much a political hot potato at the moment. So I don't really see the issue.

On the other hand here is an article on what has been left out of the Brexit Bill. The current fundamental concept of current environmental legislation in the EU is that the 'polluter pays' rather than placing the burden on other authorities.

The UK in the Wrexit Bill has completely left this element out of the legislation. This will mean that there will be a fundamental shift towards businesses not having to consider the environment. Of course this was predicted as part of Wrexit in that the UK would have to lower standards to compete...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/17/uk-withdrawal-bill-rips-the-heart-out-of-environmental-law-say-campaigners

 Whirlwind wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:
So net result is, we need houses but not all built at the one time.

We can't really decide where they should be built, how many and how quickly due to collateral effects on the economy and personal finances.

And we should perhaps leave this and get back to the original thread?

Andrew

The original thread is about UK Politics...the housing market is very much a political hot potato at the moment. So I don't really see the issue.

We also have a max build rate. There's only so many builders, so many workers, and a max on how many bricks and such can be churned out.

Yeah great, we cannot even build right now fast ernough to match demand yet alone exceed it.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:

 AndrewC wrote:
So net result is, we need houses but not all built at the one time.

We can't really decide where they should be built, how many and how quickly due to collateral effects on the economy and personal finances.

And we should perhaps leave this and get back to the original thread?

Andrew

The original thread is about UK Politics...the housing market is very much a political hot potato at the moment. So I don't really see the issue.

We also have a max build rate. There's only so many builders, so many workers, and a max on how many bricks and such can be churned out.

Yeah great, we cannot even build right now fast ernough to match demand yet alone exceed it.

That's not particularly true though. The demand is for lower cost affordable homes. The money is in expensive homes, which do you think are being built?

 Whirlwind wrote:
The original thread is about UK Politics...the housing market is very much a political hot potato at the moment. So I don't really see the issue.

Fair enough, I had thought that the thread had settled on how badly negotiations were going and discounted everthing else.

On the other hand here is an article on what has been left out of the Brexit Bill. The current fundamental concept of current environmental legislation in the EU is that the 'polluter pays' rather than placing the burden on other authorities.

The UK in the Wrexit Bill has completely left this element out of the legislation. This will mean that there will be a fundamental shift towards businesses not having to consider the environment. Of course this was predicted as part of Wrexit in that the UK would have to lower standards to compete...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/17/uk-withdrawal-bill-rips-the-heart-out-of-environmental-law-say-campaigners

On the other hand it could just be simple incompetence rather than a concerted effort to wreck the environment.

There was a quote I once heard, and I could be mangling it here but it went

"Never attribute to malice what could easily be explained as simple incompetence."

Right back to houses.

As to older buildings, as my ceiling just fell in this morning, there appears to be a happy medium for buildings. Mine is now too old.

Whirlwind, I really want to embrace your ideals here, but simple reality dictates that they will never happen. Do you honestly think that a house should cost the same regardless of where it is located? A 2 bedroom cottage facing the lake district costs the same as a 2 bedroom house looking over a rubbish tip? Governmental oversight of builders forcing them to only develop to the needs of the council and not their profits? That's like saying that GW can only produce starter sets and not individual sets as that's what you need to start playing.

I agree that there is a housing crisis and that there are not enough properties going around. Especially as most of the ones to get you on the ladder are held as portfolios to individuals looking for an income. I like the idea of the push for development, but that runs the risk of stagnation. Land will not sell if the developer cant move the completion forward quick enough to meet the deadlines, and it also simply runs the risk of the developer of simply selling the land as parcels at inflated prices. And that doesn't include the risk of leasehold sales or pavement access costs, which the developer could quite easily hold back as additional income.

Government mortgage. Nice idea, where do we get the money? Approved architects, guess where those contracts will go. You've complained about the nepotism of the Government before. I don't think any of these changes will do other than push the bottleneck up and down the line, but the poor first time buyer will still not be able to afford a home.

Cheers

Andrew

Also, I'd be worried about the impact of new housing on the insect population. They're already declining at an unbelievable rate, and once they're gone we are fethed. There's probably lots of reasons for this but the loss of land to housing (and farmland) is probably a contributing factor.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Also, I'd be worried about the impact of new housing on the insect population. They're already declining at an unbelievable rate, and once they're gone we are fethed. There's probably lots of reasons for this but the loss of land to housing (and farmland) is probably a contributing factor.

There was a German study on BBC the other day (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41670472) that seemed to suggest insect decline was happening in conservation areas too (i.e. not related to land use). Officially the scientists don't know why, but I'd bet good money that it related to air and water quality. There's a lot of crap still circulating in the environment.

Nicotinamide insecticides are know to affect bees. Why wouldn't they affect other kinds of insects, there's a clue in the name, of course...

Intensive farming, monoculture, pollution from cars, plastic micro-particles, it's all adding up.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Brexit trade talks can begin in December, according to The Times.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/brexit-trade-talks-can-begin-in-december-flpqfc3g2

Good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Piece in The Guardian by George Monbiot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/20/insectageddon-farming-catastrophe-climate-breakdown-insect-populations

Having read this and looked at the long history of declining wild flowers, birds, climate change, misuse of anti-biotics, and so on, makes me feel very gloomy for my daughter's future.

 AndrewC wrote:


Whirlwind, I really want to embrace your ideals here, but simple reality dictates that they will never happen. Do you honestly think that a house should cost the same regardless of where it is located? A 2 bedroom cottage facing the lake district costs the same as a 2 bedroom house looking over a rubbish tip? Governmental oversight of builders forcing them to only develop to the needs of the council and not their profits? That's like saying that GW can only produce starter sets and not individual sets as that's what you need to start playing.

But there is a an idea here. Why should wealth be dictate whether you can afford to live in an area. If you are a young adult that has always worked in the lake district, has family there that you need to care for is it reasonable that this person simply cannot afford to live there because although it caters for the wealthy the employees that work there earn nowhere enough to be able to live there. It also discourages practices of putting the least wealthy in less attractive areas which hinders social mobility. The analogy with GW isn't really apt - a better comparison would be whether GW sold a box of Sigmarines for £15 in Yorkshire but £45 in London. There is no real difference in the manufacturing costs, the uplift is simply because they can get away with it.

I agree that there is a housing crisis and that there are not enough properties going around. Especially as most of the ones to get you on the ladder are held as portfolios to individuals looking for an income. I like the idea of the push for development, but that runs the risk of stagnation. Land will not sell if the developer cant move the completion forward quick enough to meet the deadlines, and it also simply runs the risk of the developer of simply selling the land as parcels at inflated prices. And that doesn't include the risk of leasehold sales or pavement access costs, which the developer could quite easily hold back as additional income.

You'd have a cap on the land value so they couldn't just sell it at inflated prices. I'm of the view that the housing market needs a much heavier hand from government to control price growth. I agree that this is not likely to happen especially with the Tories around; and even Labour would need a strong stomach because the builder confederations are powerful lobby groups.

Government mortgage. Nice idea, where do we get the money? Approved architects, guess where those contracts will go. You've complained about the nepotism of the Government before. I don't think any of these changes will do other than push the bottleneck up and down the line, but the poor first time buyer will still not be able to afford a home.

Actually government approved mortgages do work. One of my local councils invested in a similar idea. It does pay back over a 25 period (and the reality is if it didn't there wouldn't be mortgages at all). We aren't talking about no payback, we are talking about a controlled one where the individuals aren't profiteered from.

http://www.loughboroughecho.net/news/local-news/leicestershire-county-council-continues-mortage-6443183

As to where the contracts go that depends on how you set things up. I'm not talking about government contracts but rather individual companies becoming registered having to meet certain conditions (think gas safe register) and then let member of public decide who they choose (so lets say they might prefer an architect that specialises in the energy efficiency etc).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Nicotinamide insecticides are know to affect bees. Why wouldn't they affect other kinds of insects, there's a clue in the name, of course...

Intensive farming, monoculture, pollution from cars, plastic micro-particles, it's all adding up.

The odd thing with the report though is that regardless of where the traps were located there was a decline. In areas where insecticides were more intensively used you would expect a larger decline and in large nature reserves you would expect less. But that isn't what has happened and hence would imply a wider issue at play. It's a bit of a mystery really and needs further study. Insecticides could be building up in insect populations but it's difficult to see how because unlike mercury in fish an individual bug isn't around for long enough to accumulate poisons like this. On the other hand if there is a slow aggregation of, for example neonicotinoids in soil then that might be making life for insects increasingly unpalatable. Alternatively perhaps it could be due to climate change. If weather patterns are becoming more extreme then hotter drier summers and colder winters might be causing less bugs to survive the winter and less able to breed in the summer (less water, more competition).

You are right to be worried about your children though. There is a train of thought that it won't be the obvious extinctions that kill the human race it will be the one we aren't monitoring because we think there are lots of them that knocks over our food chain. As the alpha predator of the world we are actually the most vulnerable to changes.

The thing about houses is that they don't move. GW and anyone else absolutely would charge treble in London if it weren't for the fact people would buy from the cheap north and move it.

Why shouldn't the more desirable place be more expensive or do you think we should have fixed house prices and a lottery system to see who gets it? Any way to ensure consistent property prices is open to abuse.

Say you insist that a house has to cost the same in London and Leeds. You'd assume the London price will go down but more likely is that the Leeds price goes up and doesn't sell. So they'll either not build there or have to drop the price until it sells.
Any other system will result in corruption. That house only costs £100k but you'll need to pay £400k for the carpets.

Herzlos wrote:
The thing about houses is that they don't move. GW and anyone else absolutely would charge treble in London if it weren't for the fact people would buy from the cheap north and move it.

Why shouldn't the more desirable place be more expensive or do you think we should have fixed house prices and a lottery system to see who gets it? Any way to ensure consistent property prices is open to abuse.

But the principle is that this is part of a package of measures that also build enough where they are needed. There is no lottery system because there should be enough to meet demand. Also remember that it is not that it is not fixed across companies only within the company itself. So competitor X must put a 2 bed semi with the same ground space on the market for the same price but competitor Y does not have to put it on at that price.

Builders do not want to build sufficient houses to meet demand, why would they?
It's better for the industry to have a constant low level stream of expensive, but very saleable assets than to have a huge glut of cheap, affordable homes.
Leaving it to the markets guarantees low house building progress. Only a government enforced, and financed initiative to mass build homes will change the market and that is just not going to happen.

In reality what needs to change is people's perception of the need to own property. Until the 80s, everyone lived and was brought up in council housing, and renting was widespread and affordable with guarantees for tenancy. The only people who owned a hone were the professional classes.
However, Thatcher wanted to create a Tory supporting working class, and knew that home ownership was the way to do that, hence, right to buy.

She succeed, just look at the amount of working class tories kicking about, that's due primarily, to the cultural shift in perception she wrought. It needs to be undone if people are once again going to be able to have a place to call home, whether rented or bought.

Private rentals are not homes, merely temporary accommodation, no matter how long you've lived there.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is an interesting article about cross party friendships. Having watched some political documentaries, it seems obvious that a politician that wants to actually achieve something must cultivate support, so why is partisanship apparently now so fierce?
I get that the Tories have implemented some pretty grotty things, and as a member of the Labour party, I'm not endorsing that, but I'm increasingly concerned about the tribalism that's emerging, and the abuse and language that is used to demonise Labour and Conservative MPS alike.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/15/fiercest-of-enemies-best-of-friends-cross-party-pals-parliament-mps

I know I've been guilty of some pretty gross generalisations in the past, but I intend to stop that myself in future. I think we need to be careful to not end up going the same way as they have done in the US.

....and for a different perspective...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/24/is-it-ok-to-be-friends-with-a-tory

She also makes a good point about supporting people who wittingly, or more likely un-wittingly support an ideology fundamentally opposed to your own ideas. I know that in my social media feeds, anti-tory sentiment is growing like wildfire, as is anti-corbynism.
However, at the moment, it's difficult to express an opinion at all without igniting some sort of shitstorm.

 r_squared wrote:

In reality what needs to change is people's perception of the need to own property. Until the 80s, everyone lived and was brought up in council housing, and renting was widespread and affordable with guarantees for tenancy. The only people who owned a hone were the professional classes.
However, Thatcher wanted to create a Tory supporting working class, and knew that home ownership was the way to do that, hence, right to buy.

She succeed, just look at the amount of working class tories kicking about, that's due primarily, to the cultural shift in perception she wrought. It needs to be undone if people are once again going to be able to have a place to call home, whether rented or bought.

Private rentals are not homes, merely temporary accommodation, no matter how long you've lived there.

I don’t think we need to build more council houses to fix the problem. I have no issue with building them, and I think it would be a good thing, but they are not the primary issue to me. The primary issue is small time, part time landlords who own a handful of properties, have no interest or ability to maintain them and rent out poorly converted houses. We need a change in the renting laws to encourage companies that are looking for long term stable tenants in purpose built flats or family homes, who have the means and employees to manage the property properly and give renters long term, good condition housing. Not people after a short term profits with little input.

 Steve steveson wrote:
[We need a change in the renting laws to encourage companies that are looking for long term stable tenants in purpose built flats or family homes, who have the means and employees to manage the property properly and give renters long term, good condition housing. Not people after a short term profits with little input.

Sounds a lot like how a council should run things to me

 Whirlwind wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
The thing about houses is that they don't move. GW and anyone else absolutely would charge treble in London if it weren't for the fact people would buy from the cheap north and move it.

Why shouldn't the more desirable place be more expensive or do you think we should have fixed house prices and a lottery system to see who gets it? Any way to ensure consistent property prices is open to abuse.

But the principle is that this is part of a package of measures that also build enough where they are needed. There is no lottery system because there should be enough to meet demand. Also remember that it is not that it is not fixed across companies only within the company itself. So competitor X must put a 2 bed semi with the same ground space on the market for the same price but competitor Y does not have to put it on at that price.

So a return to the old manufacturers pricing? That got binned a long time ago to encourage market forces. Also how do you actually enforce it? While in theory you could put a limit on a company to sell a house at a capped level how do you enforce a private individual to sell a house at a capped cost? Because unless it is a compulsory sale to the government you will never be able to regulate prices. It will still be a lottery for properties, simply because the people that want these properties will, in all probability, be in employment and in a specific location. High areas of employment would result in a higher demand in houses. If housing is delegated to councils I Would be very surprised if a council could meet that sort of demand. Money is finite, especially in councils and the only way one council could finance that level of building is if a second has their funding cut.

Cheers

Andrew

I don't like the man, but Americans elected him as their President,and that should be respected, however....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/20/trump-mistakenly-links-uk-rise-with-spread-of-islamic-terror

feth off.

Sort out your own gakky, gun filled back yard first.

Jonathan Pie eloquently sums up what I think of the man...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=z00T8sYqG8k

If this gakker turns up for any visit over here, I'll be there now telling him to feth off back where he came from.

GoatboyBeta wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
[We need a change in the renting laws to encourage companies that are looking for long term stable tenants in purpose built flats or family homes, who have the means and employees to manage the property properly and give renters long term, good condition housing. Not people after a short term profits with little input.

Sounds a lot like how a council should run things to me

It is, but it does not have to be the council. There is no reason it could not be a private company, as it is in much of Europe and many blocks of 1920s and 30s flats in London. I know with the council there are some issues, restrictions and risks, but they are one possible owner, but not the only one.

 AndrewC wrote:


So a return to the old manufacturers pricing? That got binned a long time ago to encourage market forces. Also how do you actually enforce it? While in theory you could put a limit on a company to sell a house at a capped level how do you enforce a private individual to sell a house at a capped cost? Because unless it is a compulsory sale to the government you will never be able to regulate prices. It will still be a lottery for properties, simply because the people that want these properties will, in all probability, be in employment and in a specific location. High areas of employment would result in a higher demand in houses. If housing is delegated to councils I Would be very surprised if a council could meet that sort of demand. Money is finite, especially in councils and the only way one council could finance that level of building is if a second has their funding cut.

Cheers

Andrew

Never mentioned anything about restrictions on what individuals can sell houses for...it's only within an individual business the price should be fixed. The businesses should be competing against each other, whereas at the moment you have businesses making individuals compete against each other. This raises prices and forcing the poorest out of all but the poorest areas which greatly constrains social mobility. On the other hand it will reduce house prices because it brings back market competition (rather than individual competition) and of course there will be resistance to this, but is necessary to bring back housing to more manageable cost envelopes for all. If a business can manage to build thousands of properties and make a profit then so can a council. It should be easier for a council in fact as it doesn't have to worry about making a 15% shareholder profit mark up on every site. It is a misconception that a Council can't do this, something that is enforced by certain governments as if you have an organisation that doesn't have to worry about share holders then it can easily out compete an organisation that does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 r_squared wrote:
I don't like the man, but Americans elected him as their President,and that should be respected, however....

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/20/trump-mistakenly-links-uk-rise-with-spread-of-islamic-terror

feth off.

You wait until the Tory party vote in Boris, then we'll have our own version. If the US votes in a clown as a president the world still sort of takes notice even if they roll their eyes when he does. If we vote in a blond clown then the rest of the world just laughs at us (even more so than they are doing now too!).

 Whirlwind wrote:
Never mentioned anything about restrictions on what individuals can sell houses for...it's only within an individual business the price should be fixed. The businesses should be competing against each other, whereas at the moment you have businesses making individuals compete against each other. This raises prices and forcing the poorest out of all but the poorest areas which greatly constrains social mobility. On the other hand it will reduce house prices because it brings back market competition (rather than individual competition) and of course there will be resistance to this, but is necessary to bring back housing to more manageable cost envelopes for all. If a business can manage to build thousands of properties and make a profit then so can a council. It should be easier for a council in fact as it doesn't have to worry about making a 15% shareholder profit mark up on every site. It is a misconception that a Council can't do this, something that is enforced by certain governments as if you have an organisation that doesn't have to worry about share holders then it can easily out compete an organisation that does.

Reading this it may be very possible that we are talking about two entirely different things. The problem as I interpret it is that first time buyers simply cant get onto the property ladder because of the cost of the house. At the end of the day a house price is dictated by location, desirability and quality. And unfortunately the second two are purely subjective to the prospective buyer. I don't see how you can say that businesses should be competing against other businesses for property costs. They aren't selling to other businesses, they sell to the public, and yes that results in individuals competing against each other as to how much they are prepared to spend. There is nothing that can be done to regulate this short of a compulsory Government purchase scheme. If you cant constrain prices then you will never force house prices down. And if you do force prices down then it will affect every other householder in the area, who mortgaged at the higher level and are now in a negative equity, can not move and now massively in debt. I like the idea of a council backed construction company for social housing and seems like and ideal way forward.

Are we talking past each other?

Cheers

Andrew

I believe that Whirlwinds original post was that builders should have to charge the same for the building (construction) of identical plans, rather then the package (land/house/what you'd see in the realtors). He mentioned something about the cost of building being different between Yorkshire and Kent.

 Farseer Anath'lan wrote:
I believe that Whirlwinds original post was that builders should have to charge the same for the building (construction) of identical plans, rather then the package (land/house/what you'd see in the realtors). He mentioned something about the cost of building being different between Yorkshire and Kent.

Yes that's correct along with a number of other measures.

The issue we have at the moment is that a relative few number of builders control both the supply and the cost of new homes. As such they can constrain the supply in any area to ensure they maximise the profit on each build. There isn't an increase of significance that justifies the price differential to build these houses in different areas. For example my brother purchased a £300k house. They wanted to move to that area, because of road access, job, school etc. The sales pitch was if you don't buy this house now you'll lose because in the future these same houses will go in price. Which they did; the same style of house cost £40k more 6 months later than they did at that time, they forced the sale through manipulation of fear that you'll lose out. The reason for this is there is no competition in the market. The only competition is between private individuals trying to buy those houses. In a true open market businesses would be competing directly against each other which would make profiteering like this more difficult (it is the same as the railways an individual company can put up its prices regardless within the government limits because there is no competition).

As such the principle is to ensure that you force competition into the market by rather than approaching the housing market at a very local level, it has to be from a nationwide level. A company for the same building plan would have to put the house on the market at the same rate whether in Yorkshire or Kent, but at the same time also within an estate. The company then has to make a decision how it competes overall against private sales which can be put on the market at any price, and other builders who can put their own 2 bed semi on the market at a different price (but which must be the same throughout the country). If the land was then not brought forward then at that point the Council's / self builds can take over.

What we have to get away from is builders being able to control the supply of houses to ensure continued profits year on year simply because of their own implementation of how many houses they bring forward. The market needs to be opened up to greater competition.

We need social housing.

When we've got sufficient stock, it takes people in social housing out of the 'think of a number' private rental market - that's a tab that we pick up as tax payers.

That makes the Buy To Let market far less attractive, meaning fewer one bedroom and starter homes snapped up by the already wealthy, leaving them more to those putting their feet on the first rung.

Yes, many will be trapped in negative equity - but then they were silly enough to buy at a massively overinflated price in the first place. And it only really becomes an issue when you want to move or remortgage.

Right now, negative equity is going to happen regardless, because sooner or later the market will crash anyway. It always does. It's a natural risk of the market. Every time you buy a house, you're gambling the market will keep going up. And we know that's far from guaranteed.

Thankfully, it's the Buy To Let cretins most at risk from this. They're the ones that can take out a mortgage, and then charge rent to cover it. When the bubble bursts and rents fall, they'll struggle to cover the mortgage. Repossessions will go up, and speculators will try to sell of their precious portfolios, likely at a loss.

And feth 'em. They rigged the market, and it's time they took their licks.

Sadly we've been waiting for a house price crash for many years and it hasn't happened yet. I started getting interested in the prospect back in 2008 just after the recession. I even started visiting a website called housepricecrash to keep up to date on the news and be ready for when it all fell down. It was always going to happen tomorrow, or next week.

Then the bail out happened. In the US smaller lending companies collapsed, first as people were unable to pay their mortgages then later as people refused to pay their mortgages until anybody could prove who owned the mortgage. As nobody could prove anything the whole market collapsed (walking through Las Vegas even 5 years after the crash was an eye opener into how bad some places were hit).

The UK refused to let that happen. After seeing what happened to Northern Rock it was decided that this could not be allowed to happen. And so the house price crash kept getting put off, and will keep being put off so long as it is in the interest of those that have the power to do something about it (plus most of those MPs have their own buy to let portfolios that they need to protect).

I don't see a crash happening. They won't let it happen.