House prices fell 1.20% in June

BobProperty

realwildone wrote:

Typical landlords response. No doubt you wrote all your notes in a rent book

Typical (tries to think of suitable word that isn't too derogatory) response - unable to answer any of my points.

tkane

nelly wrote:

Prices dropped cos of the world cup....my !!!!!!.

It's cos of Wimbledon really :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

:rotfl: :T

dougk_2

realwildone wrote:

House prices will bring this government down. You do have a right to own your house, people do not have a right to own two. I think we will see in the next few years many new laws against people that own two houses including BTL. By the time the laws come out it will be too late to sell.

I beg to differ here but we live in a (partially) free country - I have the right to have several houses if I want (not that I do). The same as you have the right to have more than one car (do you REALLY need more than one?) or to have 3 TV's or to have a boat and a house etc etc.

The thing is with "I have the right" is under law you can , whether you want to , or can afford to have is another matter. No-one should expect to have everything they want unless they work hard for it. People who WANT something should be prepared to give something to get it - just because you are born doesn't give you the right to auitomatically expect things.

PS - I know two people who have suspended viewing houses while the world cup is on as they didn't want to miss the matches! The World Cup (and the sunny hot weather) probably does have a small effect on house sales.

F_T_Buyer

dougk wrote:

I beg to differ here but we live in a (partially) free country - I have the right to have several houses if I want (not that I do). The same as you have the right to have more than one car (do you REALLY need more than one?) or to have 3 TV's or to have a boat and a house etc etc.

The thing is with "I have the right" is under law you can , whether you want to , or can afford to have is another matter. No-one should expect to have everything they want unless they work hard for it. People who WANT something should be prepared to give something to get it - just because you are born doesn't give you the right to auitomatically expect things.

I agree that the housing should be a free market, but it is not. If someone wanted more than one car, that's fine. But if the government restricted the number of cars allowed in this country, it would not be a free market, and hence would be unfair.

In a free market, when the cost of housing went up, people would just build their own home, as it would be cheaper. But land in this country is restricted by planning permission, hence pushing up the cost of building your own house.

You can read more about this by following the link in my signature.

dougk_2

My view is that planning restrictions are not strong enough. We are killing the UK with poor planning rules at it is, destroying the environment and generally ruining the quality of life for everyone.
True we may need more houses if we have a bigger population (legal migrant workers being the biggest pressure so do something about it!), but it has to be looked at where and how these are built. Its not just housing competing for land its these huge retail parks and industrial areas which are badly planned. For instance I believe the government should legislate on single story units. It housing or offices were built above retlail units then this would be more cost effective and better to the environment. Sim,ilarly all new buildings hould be installed with solar heating and standard light bulbs banned. But hey thats off track.
I think we reajlly need to know why we need the thousands of extra houses - I guess its mainly because "family units" do not exist anymore?

F_T_Buyer

dougk wrote:

My view is that planning restrictions are not strong enough. We are killing the UK with poor planning rules at it is, destroying the environment and generally ruining the quality of life for everyone.

Not strong enough? What exactly do you mean?

We only live on 8% of the land in this country. So how is building the smallest homes in Europe killing the environment? If you are so concerned with the environment attack transport in this country, which needs a lot of improvement.

Ruining the quality of life for everyone? What exactly do you mean?

I agree, the lack of building land being made available, the high cost of housing, and the tend to build the smallest homes possible does ruin the quality of life, especially for the young. Therefore, if this country does not change away from property speculation, and inherent NIMBYism, I say build more to cope with current and future demand!

dougk_2

F_T_Buyer wrote:

Not strong enough? What exactly do you mean?
Ruining the quality of life for everyone? What exactly do you mean?

Basically designs for houses are very much up to the architech and don't always fit with the area. Local communities have very little say as to what and where things are built and it is there community so they should have more of the decision power.

The quality of life is affected when houses are crammed in, roads are congested, water shortgages appear, basically when the number of residents outweighs the infrastructure that is there.

The cost of housing maybe high in the UK, but then so are the living standards and in general the pay. We are also have a large % of house ownership - many europeans rent not buy.

An 8% coverage is high in comparission to say 50 or 100 years ago. The problem is a rising UK population so again as I said before this needs to be dealt with or it will be an endless cycle.

BobProperty

I've italicised dougk's bit and added my comments:
Basically designs for houses are very much up to the architech and don't always fit with the area. Local communities have very little say as to what and where things are built and it is there community so they should have more of the decision power.
More likely the Architect is restricted by planning and cost and has to fit in x dwellings in a space of y m2.

The quality of life is affected when houses are crammed in, roads are congested, water shortgages appear, basically when the number of residents outweighs the infrastructure that is there.
So why not allow some more building and basis infractructure in places other than brownfield sites - sorry NIMBY

The cost of housing maybe high in the UK, but then so are the living standards and in general the pay. We are also have a large % of house ownership - many europeans rent not buy.
What has renting or owning got to do with the quality of life? I was just reading an article that said the happiest people live in Scandanavia, cost of living there is higher than here (it used to be about twice but that's going back a bit), taxation is higher but I bet housing quality is higher too.

An 8% coverage is high in comparison to say 50 or 100 years ago. The problem is a rising UK population so again as I said before this needs to be dealt with or it will be an endless cycle.
I doubt it has grown in proportion to housing need. One of the biggest unaddressed problems in housing is separation and divorce, has been for 20-30 years. Other problem is that we are living longer. I'd love to know what the figures were in the 1840s. If you want to go back 150-160 years you can find some real housing problems. (the population didn't take up too much room in those days) This temporary Manchester resident wrote about it and it helped inspire his mate to write some book or other too - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Condition_of_the_Working_Class_in_England_in_1844
(I blame the library system :rolleyes: )

mystic_trev

BobProperty wrote:

I doubt it has grown in proportion to housing need. One of the biggest unaddressed problems in housing is separation and divorce, has been for 20-30 years.

Bob - Although I agree with most of what you've said I've got to disagree with this part! Most seperations end up with one party getting back with another i.e. divorce re marrying or re partnering?! So it cancels out the equation of more Housing.

BobProperty

mystic_trev wrote:

Bob - Although I agree with most of what you've said I've got to disagree with this part! Most seperations end up with one party getting back with another i.e. divorce re marrying or re partnering?! So it cancels out the equation of more Housing.

The problem is the time lag of that happening, at any point in time there are a number of recently separated couples, usually one stays in the marital home and the other needs smaller accommodation but big enough for their children to visit. So one family home becomes one family home plus one smaller home. I agree that in the end most people "re-combine" with someone else (or move back) but the timescale involved and the numbers of separations and divorces mean it is a problem.