the house price problem

spaceboy

This was all caused because of the following factors:

1) Not enough new houses being built (demand outstripped supply)

2) High immigration levels exacerbating factor 1

3) Failure of the government to do anything about it, leading to years of soaring house prices, and everyone thinking it was a good thing because their properties were going up in value really fast.

Short term greed. Also houses being built now are rubbish quality - plasterboard walls all round, dodgy build quality, and really small.

The UK has the smallest houses in Europe! I'm just waiting for a polituical party to actually say they recognise all these things. And I hope Labour get trashed by the Liberals and the Tories in May. They deserve it.

Really2

spaceboy wrote: »

The UK has the smallest houses in Europe!.

Is that not built between 2003-2006 within 1H commute of central London. So Basically flats.

I would take the cabe survey with a pinch of salt as newbuilds within 1h of London are hardly representative of the average size house. Especially considering the data is taken from when flat building was at it's peak.

spaceboy

Really2 wrote: »

Is that not built between 2003-2006 within 1H commute of central London. So Basically flats.

I would take the cabe survey with a pinch of salt as newbuilds within 1h of London are hardly representative of the average size house. Especially considering the data is taken from when flat building was at it's peak.

From what I've seen new UK houses do tend to be very small and all cheap plasterboard construction. And I live in Edinburgh not near London.

ninky_2

rubbish.

there are plenty of houses to go around the current population.

the problem is not supply but affordability. affordability of housing has not been governed by income but by availability of credit which has been too easy and at too high levels.

this has also been exacerbated by the btl market which has been allowed to run crazy due to easy lending and a lack of rent control / decent tenancy agreements.

i think the french model is far better where stricter lending combined with rent control measures have prevented a runaway housing market.

westv

spaceboy wrote: »

Short term greed. Also houses being built now are rubbish quality - plasterboard walls all round, dodgy build quality, and really small.

New houses are also far more energy efficent than those built in the past and property takes up less land than in the past so not so much needs to be used for an equal number of properties.

Really2

spaceboy wrote: »

From what I've seen new UK houses do tend to be very small and all cheap plasterboard construction. And I live in Edinburgh not near London.

The walls that are not load bearing do tend to be partition but I take it you have not lived in a 60's or 70's house then.:) (now thats thin partitions and poor quality of build and wood etc.)

I live in a new build that is plenty big enough, depends where you live though I suppose and how much a premium the land cost is.

Land is a fairly high cost, but if people think new builds are to small I would say don't buy one then.

chucky

ninky wrote: »

this has also been exacerbated by the btl market which has been allowed to run crazy due to easy lending and a lack of rent control / decent tenancy agreements.

the stats disagree with the impact of privately rented accommodation - it was only about 11% in 2005

dgl1001

spaceboy wrote: »

This was all caused because of the following factors:

1) Not enough new houses being built (demand outstripped supply)

2) High immigration levels exacerbating factor 1

3) Failure of the government to do anything about it, leading to years of soaring house prices, and everyone thinking it was a good thing because their properties were going up in value really fast.

Short term greed. Also houses being built now are rubbish quality - plasterboard walls all round, dodgy build quality, and really small.

The UK has the smallest houses in Europe! I'm just waiting for a polituical party to actually say they recognise all these things. And I hope Labour get trashed by the Liberals and the Tories in May. They deserve it.

I think the availability of credit may be in there somewhere TBH. Just on the policy front though - its the Labour Party who have been trying to increase housing numbers over the last 6 to 7 years. The Conservitives are proposing a new planning system which will likely slow housing delivery even further and add further pressure to the existing housing stock.

ninky_2

i agree that new builds are often shonky. but part of the reason is that at the same time households are becoming smaller. single person households have increased and people are having fewer children.

in terms of average house size we are still fairly average in europe. new builds are smaller but so are households.

for example, when it was built my victorian end terrace would have housed on average four and a half people. it is now two flats housing 3 people in total. so although it may seem we are living in smaller homes we actually have more space per capita.

http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAProfessionalServices/ResearchAndDevelopment/Symposium/2008/MikeRoys.pdf

Really2

ninky wrote: »

for example, when it was built my victorian end terrace would have housed on average four and a half people. it is now two flats housing 3 people in total. so although it may seem we are living in smaller homes we actually have more space per capita.

http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAProfessionalServices/ResearchAndDevelopment/Symposium/2008/MikeRoys.pdf

A stat all to often overlooked. Yes a 4 bed or 5 bed detached newbuild will be on less land and be smaller than a detached house with the same number of bedrooms built pre 1940.
But what % of the population lived in that kind of house pre 1940 (not many, detached houses were for the rich)

They are simply not built for the same kind of person any more. A 4 bed detached is now aimed a middle class family, it was for the upper classes 60+ years ago and the sizeable ones still standing are still for the rich few.
You could build a manor house now if you liked with the same land, dimensions of a old house but I bet it would not be far off the same cost as buying a old manor house anyway.

Blacklight

It's only really a 'problem' if you're not currently earning enough to fund the purchase. Plenty of people do earn sufficient to sustain the prices, which is why they remain at their current levels.

I really do not understand the thinking behind the '40-50% crash is just around the corner' brigade. Do you think if average prices suddenly fell to £80k that people wouldn't buy four with the knowledge that they would (and have) be worth double that in the future? Or is there some logic to thinking that they would remain at £80k forever and never go up in value again, thus preventing anyone from making a profit?

Or, just perhaps, you want to jump on the BTL bandwagon given half a chance (which I suspect is closer to the truth).