Do you want to discuss boring politics? (22 Viewers)

[shmmeee]

Anti house builders always end up proposing the most ridiculous shite.

 

---

[shmmeee]

Given your good points on this, this is a rubbish take.

Give him credit. He avoided mentioning either Netflix big TVs or avocados.

 

[shmmeee]

FFS. Housing is so expensive because noone has built housing to get even close to the national needs over the last 30-40 years.

No no. It’s those damn millennials and their demands for mansions at 21.

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

Give him credit. He avoided mentioning either Netflix big TVs or avocados.

Oh do fuck off!

 

[shmmeee]

Oh do fuck off!

Come on mate. “Kids just expect too much”. What a load of reactionary bollocks.

Yeah the numbers living with parents and homeless has gone through the roof cos they’re all waiting for a 4 bed detached at £100k to come on the market.

 

[clint van damme]

How? And who said anything about first time buyers?

Neither of you have addressed the very basic economics of supply and demand here. More houses of any type reduce the prices of all types.

Some of those will be apartments, some will be two bed small homes and yes, shock horror, some of them will be big enough for families to live in.

I said I don't know how but I'm sure it can done.
We can stop owners of listed buildings making certain alterations.
We can allow rare builds in forests that the owners can't sell so I'm sure there's a way.

And even if you reduce the price of a 3 bed semi to 250k you stillness a 25k deposit and a joint income well over the national average.
Hence the need for more affordable properties.

 

[SBAndy]

I said I don't know how but I'm sure it can done.
We can stop owners of listed buildings making certain alterations.
We can allow rare builds in forests that the owners can't sell so I'm sure there's a way.

And even if you reduce the price of a 3 bed semi to 250k you stillness a 25k deposit and a joint income well over the national average.
Hence the need for more affordable properties.

2 options:

1. Make it prohibitively expensive to rent out properties. This was what the removal of mortgage interest relief was part-designed to tackle. However, a lot of what happened is owners ‘sold’ to a Ltd Co to bypass that implementation, or indeed were ahead of the curve and had property already in Ltd Co structures.

2. Introduce title covenants on all new-build properties that prevent private rental arrangements. However, not sure these could be applied retrospectively to existing properties, and you may see a slowdown from house builders as their market has been limited.

Ain’t an easy solution by my reckoning.

 

[shmmeee]

I said I don't know how but I'm sure it can done.
We can stop owners of listed buildings making certain alterations.
We can allow rare builds in forests that the owners can't sell so I'm sure there's a way.

And even if you reduce the price of a 3 bed semi to 250k you stillness a 25k deposit and a joint income well over the national average.
Hence the need for more affordable properties.

It’s all one market! You can’t “reduce the price of a 3 bed semi” without also reducing the price of everything below that. Otherwise everyone would just buy three bed semis because their price per square foot is significantly lower. Then people selling two bed houses would have to drop their prices to sell. This is Economics 101

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

Anyone know what the latest data are regarding number of empty properties in England? I think it was about 600,000 but that was a while back. I don't know whether they include "under-used" in that figure. I think it might be a partial solution to the problem crisis, but would it have to be through compulsory purchase orders, etc?

 

[fernandopartridge]

But why is it unlikely to happen? Because any government who did it would be voted out by the over 65s. And before we even got to the lower prices the local NIMBY pensioner group would have blocked any building.

I agree though, the best we could hope for is to raise wages and keep house prices where they are.

I strongly believe you can have decent care and pensions, and also not give pensioners veto on all development in the entire country.

Perhaps if we had decent care and pensions we wouldn't have such a spiteful boomer bloc. That said, then again, they were all beneficiaries of something more akin to cradle to grave socialism and have decided that the young deserve nothing like that.
I'm pretty sympathetic to your view, the parties competing for the votes of pensioners is just disastrous and makes you wonder why you bother.

 

[shmmeee]

Anyone know what the latest data are regarding number of empty properties in England? I think it was about 600,000 but that was a while back. I don't know whether they include "under-used" in that figure. I think it might be a partial solution to the problem crisis, but would it have to be through compulsory purchase orders, etc?

We have the lowest percentage of unoccupied housing in Europe.

And even then you’re taking a country wide number. What does an empty house in Grimsby do for a family in Cambridge?

 

[shmmeee]

Really don’t get why “just build more houses” gets this response.

“Oh what if instead we force everyone under 30 to bunk up in a big dorm?”

“What if we introduce draconian rules on property ownership?”

“What if we forced everyone to move to Hull?”

“What if it’s really young people today expecting far too much?”

Just fucking build more houses guys.

 

[shmmeee]

For balance. This is shit from Starmer. Obviously raising taxes isn’t something you can’t afford any more.

 

[clint van damme]

It’s all one market! You can’t “reduce the price of a 3 bed semi” without also reducing the price of everything below that. Otherwise everyone would just buy three bed semis because their price per square foot is significantly lower. Then people selling two bed houses would have to drop their prices to sell. This is Economics 101

But if there's not enough affordable starter homes it won't solve the problem.
If young couples in their 20s are in a position to start buying 3 bed semis as their first homes I a few years time I'd ve delighted but it's not happening, unfortunately.

 

[skybluetony176]

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

Perhaps if we had decent care and pensions we wouldn't have such a spiteful boomer bloc. That said, then again, they were all beneficiaries of something more akin to cradle to grave socialism and have decided that the young deserve nothing like that.
I'm pretty sympathetic to your view, the parties competing for the votes of pensioners is just disastrous and makes you wonder why you bother.

Aren't we always being told it's an ageing population? Wouldn't they be mad to ignore the views of almost one-third of the electorate (those over 65)? Don't they have a right to be included, no matter what benefits they might have had in their lives?

 

[clint van damme]

Really don’t get why “just build more houses” gets this response.

“Oh what if instead we force everyone under 30 to bunk up in a big dorm?”

“What if we introduce draconian rules on property ownership?”

“What if we forced everyone to move to Hull?”

“What if it’s really young people today expecting far too much?”

Just fucking build more houses guys.

Building more houses is great, I'm all for it.
But the average wage in this country is 36k, so a couple both on average wage, based on 2.5 x their salary get a mortgage for 200k.
There's not a lot out their for that. And what about people on less, or those on minimum wage?
I've no problem with building more house but I'm not sure it's the magic bullet you think it is.

 

[wingy]

There's some unfortunate post's getting into the old here , let's have another pandemic let them know what we truly think,we all get old sometime!.
Re housing it probably the way offenham describes things,the myriad show's sharing vacuous celebration of wealth, BBC guilty as charged there along with C4.
Anyway it doesn't matter now the starter price is circa 300k and 40 year's to pay off,out of reach !! I could go on!!

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

Well there’s a bit more meat on the bone regarding the National Service idea.

Spoiler alert: the meat is rotten.

View attachment 35857

Makes it all the more laughable
Much of that is just not going to happen

 

[Ian1779]

It's not guesswork, Ian. It is taken from opinions expressed during a debate on the housing market on BBC 5Live with an invited audience of young people trying to get on the housing ladder. It was perhaps a small, unrepresentative sample, but isn't that what the BBC is meant to try and avoid?

The housing ‘ladder’ as you describe it is virtually inaccessible for a lot of young people. Given the cost to just get a house, never mind the associated costs to ‘trade up’ I think young people can be forgiven for holding out to get what they need in their one chance to get a house, should they god forbid want to start a family for instance.

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

Really don’t get why “just build more houses” gets this response.

“Oh what if instead we force everyone under 30 to bunk up in a big dorm?”

“What if we introduce draconian rules on property ownership?”

“What if we forced everyone to move to Hull?”

“What if it’s really young people today expecting far too much?”

Just fucking build more houses guys.

I don't know the economics of supply and demand in the UK housing market, but my genuine question is "Will building more houses inevitably mean that the overall housing market reduces in value?"
You HAVE to start with building things that will sit at the bottom of the property ladder. Don't you?? But of course, there has to be somewhere for the people occupying those to move to, so it needs to be overall. I think what could happen is that landowners and property developers will build a shitload of houses that just makes them richer.

 

[Ian1779]

I don't know the economics of supply and demand in the UK housing market, but my genuine question is "Will building more houses inevitably mean that the overall housing market reduces in value?"
You HAVE to start with building things that will sit at the bottom of the property ladder. Don't you?? But of course, there has to be somewhere for the people occupying those to move to, so it needs to be overall. I think what could happen is that landowners and property developers will build a shitload of houses that just makes them richer.

So what your saying is we need a huge national house building programme fronted up by the state?

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

The housing ‘ladder’ as you describe it is virtually inaccessible for a lot of young people. Given the cost to just get a house, never mind the associated costs to ‘trade up’ I think young people can be forgiven for holding out to get what they need in their one chance to get a house, should they god forbid want to start a family for instance.

True - that is why low-cost homes need to be built nationwide to skew the available properties and their prices.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

Nothing. But if we want to get people on the property ladder then they're not the way to do it.
Pretty much what Offenham says, build starter homes, I'd also put something in place to stop them ever being sold as buy to let's.

Many have them

 

[fernandopartridge]

Aren't we always being told it's an ageing population? Wouldn't they be mad to ignore the views of almost one-third of the electorate (those over 65)? Don't they have a right to be included, no matter what benefits they might have had in their lives?

I'm not saying remove their vote, I'm saying that targeting their vote is a problem. Today's decisions often have consequences far beyond their lives.

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

So what your saying is we need a huge national house building programme fronted up by the state?

Well that would be a solution, but probably not an affordable one, unless you could recoup some massive amount of money spent on a pointless vanity project. Any thoughts?

 

[wingy]

Zealot territory here!!!

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

Many have them

I think they try to put those sort of restrictive covenants in with new developments. Do i trust that they will work all the time? Not 100%

 

[wingy]

Home's are not a roof over your head they are an asset with very little science around their valuation!!

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

I think they try to put those sort of restrictive covenants in with new developments. Do i trust that they will work all the time? Not 100%

They don’t
Many solicitors ignore them and local authorities have no resource to restrict or enact them

 

[OffenhamSkyBlue]

So what your saying is we need a huge national house building programme fronted up by the state?

Another development in my village is a financial partnership between the district council and their "arms length" housing association to build a selection of smaller houses, for social rent, free-market rent and shared ownership sale. Proper council houses, at least in a proportion.

 

[CCFCSteve]

The percentage of properties available for private rent has been decreasing in recent years, which in conjunction with interest rate rises and increased demand, has surprise, surprise, driven up the costs for renters.

People just keep ignoring the glaringly obvious and coming up with suggestions that play around the edges, some of which whilst intended to help free up housing stock, have actually made things worse for many renters, many of whom now can’t even save for a deposit

As OSB and shmmee have already said, the fact is there hasn’t been enough houses built in recent years/decades, especially when our population has increased by 5m+ (8%) since 2010. Any additional housing stock, especially in the right locations, is better than none.

edit - from memory, think social rentals reduced from 4m to 3.8m in the last 10 years…hardly helpful in an increasing population !

 

[shmmeee]

But if there's not enough affordable starter homes it won't solve the problem.
If young couples in their 20s are in a position to start buying 3 bed semis as their first homes I a few years time I'd ve delighted but it's not happening, unfortunately.

Aaarrtggghhhhh!

The UK is not short of tiny houses!

The problem is the tiny houses cost fucking loads. To reduce this we need to build more houses.

 

[wingy]

The percentage of properties available for private rent has been decreasing in recent years, which in conjunction with interest rate rises and increased demand, has surprise, surprise, driven up the costs for renters.

People just keep ignoring the glaringly obvious and coming up with suggestions that play around the edges, some of which whilst intended to help free up housing stock, have actually made things worse for many renters, many of whom now can’t even save for a deposit

As OSB and shmmee have already said, the fact is there hasn’t been enough houses built in recent years/decades, especially when our population has increased by 5m+ (8%) since 2010. Any additional housing stock, especially in the right locations, is better than none.

edit - from memory, think social rentals reduced from 4m to 3.8m in the last 10 years…hardly helpful in an increasing population !

How many levers has the Gov't pulled to help them?
And who says that it should produce a living for them and then get the the asset growth out of it,god get a grip!!

 

[shmmeee]

How many levers has the Gov't pulled to help them?
And who says that it should produce a living for them and then get the the asset growth out of it,god get a grip!!

By far the biggest help to landlords and property investors is the restriction of supply artificially inflating the value of their investments.