BBC blog - Politician says lowering prices is "politcal suicide"

chucky

Kohoutek wrote: »

Labour's deliberate open door immigration policies must have contributed massively to the shortages of affordable and social housing - from 1990 to 2000 the UK's population grew by 1.3 million, from 2000 to 2010 it grew by 4.5 million. I'm not sure what the figures on new house building are between those periods, but it seems likely they didn't catch up with the population increase.

i'm sure that Right to Buy did nothing to fuel the appetite for home ownership and reduce the number of available houses to rent.

all political parties are equally to blame but obviously Labour are to blame for that one too. right?

Kohoutek

chucky wrote: »

i'm sure that Right to Buy did nothing to fuel the appetite for home ownership and reduce the number of available houses to rent.

all political parties are equally to blame but obviously Labour are to blame for that one too. right?

What? Your posts get weirder and weirder. I wasn't denying that Right to Buy has had a huge negative effect on the amount of social housing available to rent, I just didn't mention it because it started 30 years ago....

The Tories have undoubtedly done more damage to social housing than Labour, not just by Right to Buy but the changes they made to security of tenure.

nollag2006

It is good to see that there is political consensus amongst the potential chancellors that the government should support house price growth

Kohoutek

Great article about how the US housing crash has destroyed the middle classes' wealth:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/199135-housing-and-the-end-of-upward-mobility-in-the-u-s

That means there is at best 6% equity in the other 51 million homes with mortgages... In effect, there is no inheritable wealth left in most mortgaged homes...That matters, because most U.S. households hold no appreciable wealth beyond their homes

The orgy of speculation, leverage and debt incentivized by the credit/housing bubble of 2000-2006 has, in the aftermath of the bubble's bursting, destroyed most of the nation's middle-class wealth

It shows why politicians in the UK will probably do anything (within reason) to support the housing market.

nollag2006

Very disturbing that bears take such pleasure in seeing others lose their life savings, just so they can hold onto the vain hope that they can buy a house cheaply in the next few years.

Let me let you in on a secret ... it aint going to happen

Kohoutek

nollag2006 wrote: »

Very disturbing that bears take such pleasure in seeing others lose their life savings, just so they can hold onto the vain hope that they can buy a house cheaply in the next few years.

That's just silly. In any situation if you're a buyer then you obviously want prices to go down, if you're a seller the converse. Why is that 'disturbing'?

If people can't understand that property is not a risk free investment, then don't feel sorry for them. If you want your life savings to be secure at all costs without taking any risk, then you should put it in National Savings.

Wookster

FATBALLZ wrote: »

Did he say that? I remember one girl asking about what are they going to do to ensure that when people like her graduate they can get jobs and buy houses. All 3 chancellors explained at length about the job situation and ignored the housing bit.

It may not have been the debate, but he just mentioned it again recently (saying that house prices had not corrected sufficiently and that was worrying).

I still just can't see where all the money is going to come from to sustain house prices. It has been shown that there aren't enough savings in the UK to support the UK mortgage market. At present, it seems that national & international money markets aren't functioning as liberally as they should. Add to that, governments borrowing records amounts of cash.

It seems there is not enough cash kicking around to support government borrowing, business requirements & the mortgage market. At present it seems that the mortgage market & government seem to be getting the lions share. The ongoing impact of this will affect buyer's ability to pay and thus flow through to house prices.

Graham_Devon

nollag2006 wrote: »

Very disturbing that bears take such pleasure in seeing others lose their life savings, just so they can hold onto the vain hope that they can buy a house cheaply in the next few years.

Let me let you in on a secret ... it aint going to happen

Very disturbing that you see life savings as HPI wealth.

chucky

Kohoutek wrote: »

The Tories have undoubtedly done more damage to social housing than Labour, not just by Right to Buy but the changes they made to security of tenure.

the penny has finally dropped - well done you :T

Kohoutek

chucky wrote: »

the penny has finally dropped - well done you :T

Well I knew that in the first place so the penny hasn't really 'finally dropped'.