Priced out generation fights back

carolt

Remember, you heard it first here, guys!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/apr/03/property-market-priced-out-generation

Maintenant, to the barricades...

dopester

Linky fix: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/apr/03/property-market-priced-out-generation

They are not angry enough.

morag1202

Link doesn't work

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

morag1202 wrote: »

Link doesn't work

Neither will the campaign!!!!

:rotfl:

1984ReturnsForReal_2

morag1202 wrote: »

Link doesn't work

It does if you remove the eyes from the smiley face at the end of it... : )

1984ReturnsForReal_2

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Neither will the campaign!!!!

:rotfl:

What are you doing here?

I just read you were banned.... :rotfl::eek:



(edit... ahhhhhhhhh you were banned from another site...)

LydiaJ

I think this article, in conjunction with Hamish's thread about the people in the village near where he grew up, raises a question for me.

I understand that HP have got so high because of increased demand and lack of supply. Increased demand is easy to understand - there are more households than there used to be (increasing population, decreasing average number of people per household) and increased ability to pay because of historically minuscule IRs. But what about lack of supply?

Hamish puts lack of supply almost entirely down to failure to build enough houses (both social and private housing). That's real and relevant, and the "Priced Out" people agree on that. But they also put a big emphasis on the way in which the system makes it too easy for BTL investors compared with FTBs trying to buy a home. So just how big a part of the jigsaw do people think that is?

My background is as follows:
I've been a tenant in private rented houses for most of my adult life, apart from 5 years in a tied house that came with my then husband's job. 6 month ASTs that become rolling after the 6 months are all I know. I've always been lucky and had good LLs and good LAs and it's been fine, really. I've never questioned whether the current AST rules were reasonable until fairly recently.

My family own a house that was split into flats decades ago and has been let out for as long as I can remember. I've no idea who originally bought it or why, or whether they ever lived in it, but it's been in the family since before the war, and is owned outright. The ownership is complicated, being shared between two people in different branches of the family, one of whom doesn't live in this country any more, and the other of whom is old and ill and doesn't want the hassle of being a LL any more. We've been trying to sell it for a long time now, but it's almost impossible because one flat has a protected tenant from before the rent act of whenever it was.

It's only as I've been getting my head round this that I've learnt what tenants' rights used to be. At first I was incredulous - how could anyone think it was fair to give LLs so little right to decide what to do with a property they owned? But obviously there was a time when those ideas seemed reasonable to lots of people, or it wouldn't have made it onto the statute book.

I'm not recommending a return to those rules - I still think they are ridiculous, actually. But they have made me question whether the acceptability of the current AST system is as self-evident as I had assumed it was. Also, I think it is clear that any significant swing in the balance of advantages towards the tenant and away from the landlord would probably bring HP down and open up the possibility of owning a house to a lot more people - which would be a good thing, IMO.

I have no personal axe to grind here. I'm buying (as most of you know) under rather unusual circumstances that aren't like most FTBs, and my part of the family seem to be finally selling our share the flats to someone on the other side of the family. In a few months, it probably won't make any difference to me what HP do, or rents, or LLs' responsibilities, or tenants' rights, or any of the rest of it. But it intrigues me.

What do people think?

1984ReturnsForReal_2

LydiaJ wrote: »

What do people think?

I just feel sorry for those who will never get to settle.

DaddyBear

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

:rotfl:

Care to share with us why you think future generations being priced out is funny.

Davesnave

LydiaJ wrote: »

What do people think?

I think if we'd had a real Labour Party in power since 1997, some of the worst aspects of impermanence in the AST system would have been addressed.

OTOH, if that had come about, the pendulum would likely have gone too far the other way, making it more difficult for LLs to rid themselves of bad tenants.

We are sometimes not very good at balancing rights and responsibilities in this country, so some consequences are bad landlords who break the law, tenants who also care little for the law, run-down areas and sink estates.

I've only rented once in recent years, and found that the agent and the landlord were both unconcerned about breaking the contract and the law. Yes, there were laws there to protect me, and ultimately I had to use them, after I'd moved out, but while I was in residence I had no doubt about how the balance of power was distributed.

It is a wonder really that many, like you, have positive experiences. Old fashioned British 'niceness' maybe, but one shouldn't rely on it.

roddydogs

Would anyone in their 20s now really want to "Swap" back to the 1970s? even if you could afford a house then? No computers, Flat screen, No Mobiles, colour tellys were about £3,000 in "Real" Terms, (4 Channelsonly )everything else is "Cheap" in comparison to then, ie Cars, Foriegn Holidays, consumer Electronics. Would you really want to go back to that?