Second Home Ownership reaches Record Level

Generali

ILW wrote: »

I think such laws as only allowing British Citizens to own UK residential property may quiet things down a bit. I believe Australia has something like it.

No, Australia has no restrictions on land ownership based on nationality.

Qatar for example owns farmland in Australia supposedly with a greater land area than Qatar itself.

This farm that was bought earlier this year by Qatar is almost 12% of the total area of Qatar. It's a big farm but there are plenty bigger:

http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/270410/qatar____head_sheep_farm_in_australia_.aspx

There was a piece on a local current affairs show recently about how the Government is powerless to prevent foreign Governments buying up bankrupt farms.

I know plenty of non-Aussies that own houses and apartments in Australia too.

lewisa

StevieJ wrote: »

I don't actually agree, when you first buy a house you need as much spare cash as possible, so you may have £10k but you rather have it available for say, improvements to the property.

Idealogically that's a sound idea, using my heart Id agree, but using my head I cant agree with it.

The person should offer a modest deposit to share the risk with the lender, and then rebuild funds over time to deal with improvements.

The modern-day premise that someone can have everything plus a bit more and have it immediately is one of the main problems with developed economies, and also one of the main reasons things went sour.

PasturesNew

Wheezy wrote: »

Yeah, good idea. Let's disposses all non-british citizens right now and force them into renting. Or will there be another law only allowing british citizens to rent also? You silly man.
And I suppose the same rule applies to the 5.5M british citizens living abroad?




I doubt it.

Lots of places only allow residents to buy. e.g. only Jersey residents can buy in Jersey. It works elsewhere. Disspossessing is wrong, but limiting who can buy from some arbitrary date might work.

PasturesNew

StevieJ wrote: »

I don't actually agree, when you first buy a house you need as much spare cash as possible, so you may have £10k but you rather have it available for say, improvements to the property.

It's only this newer generation that see things that way.

In the old days you bought a house and lived with all its imperfections. My parents bought their dated house 15 years ago - and we still have the cr4ppy, inadequate, badly fitted 1970s kitchen... and the previous owners old/dated carpets and curtains (and some furniture).

I could probably charge an admission fee to see the old bathroom we have.... stick a sign up: Museum of Pink Bathrooms and 1970s Tiling.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

Lots of places only allow residents to buy. e.g. only Jersey residents can buy in Jersey. It works elsewhere. Disspossessing is wrong, but limiting who can buy from some arbitrary date might work.

Wouldn't it be simpler to build houses people want to live in in the places where people want to live?

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

Wouldn't it be simpler to build houses people want to live in in the places where people want to live?

Wouldn't it be simpler for people to stop the London obsession that places jobs in London... move employment out of London. There's some kind of snobbery about London firms that means they "have" to be there, or they simply aren't in the game.

There must be loads of companies who have London headquarters, that are only there so they can say they have a London address. That is what's caused it, that's where the solution lies .... teach Londoners that there are other places - and those other places are equally valid places to be based.

Base companies where housing is cheaper, providing employment for all. Then push those house prices up too

People just need to stop breeding and we need to stop importing workers. Get the UK population down to about 40 million productive people.

lewisa

Generali wrote: »

Wouldn't it be simpler to build houses people want to live in in the places where people want to live?

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on yer viewpoint) we have the 1947 NIMBY Act to contend with.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

Wouldn't it be simpler for people to stop the London obsession that places jobs in London... move employment out of London. There's some kind of snobbery about London firms that means they "have" to be there, or they simply aren't in the game.

There must be loads of companies who have London headquarters, that are only there so they can say they have a London address. That is what's caused it, that's where the solution lies .... teach Londoners that there are other places - and those other places are equally valid places to be based.

Base companies where housing is cheaper, providing employment for all. Then push those house prices up too

People just need to stop breeding and we need to stop importing workers. Get the UK population down to about 40 million productive people.

That's been a big trend in my bit of banking over the past 10 years or so. Deutsche Bank 'London' has a lot of employees based in Liverpool, JP Morgan have huge offices in Bournemouth, AMEX are based (I think) in Brighton.

IT also has a lot of offices along the M4 rather than in London, eg Microsoft in Reading, IBM in Portsmouth (IIRC).

The main advantage to being in London is that for many industries there is a ready pool of skilled staff. If I wanted to start a hedge fund in Cardiff for example I would struggle to get the staff with the skills and qualifications that the FSA require me to have in order to run a hedge fund.

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

The main advantage to being in London is that for many industries there is a ready pool of skilled staff. If I wanted to start a hedge fund in Cardiff for example I would struggle to get the staff with the skills and qualifications that the FSA require me to have in order to run a hedge fund.

Right now is the opportunity time. Generally, a lot of people think that if they went to XYZ they wouldn't get the staff... usually they're wrong and the staff are in those places, but they don't look.

Right now I bet if you tried to set up a hedge fund in Cardiff you'd be snowed under with people with the skills/experience. Loads of good people are all over the country looking for work.... a lot of those people who were working in the City probably lived all over the place and were doing a weekly commute, and not looking forward to doing it again now they've had a break from it and chance to realise what a pain it is.

BritRael

Originally Posted by Dan:
Fairness has nothing to do with it. If you have the money you can buy what you like.

DervProf wrote: »

Guns ?

Drugs ?

Fairness should have a lot to do with it, and other things.

Get real. You cannot equate the legal activity of buying a product with the illegal activity of buying guns and drugs.

To complain about people 'buying up properties' is like complaining about rich people buying up champagne and smoked salmon while the rest of us can only afford pepsi and burgers.

What's 'fairness' got to do with buying something? If you were to put your property up for sale would you refuse to sell it to somebody who owns another property?? No, I didn't think so.