So what's the solution?

nickmason

chucky wrote: »

incidently, when would you like to go back - is there any point in history that you think that housing was affordable and anyone could buy a property?

it looks like the last 20 years have been the best time for the majority of people.

1961 had 40% who owned their own home
1971 had 50% who owned their own home
1981 had 60% who owned their own home
1991 had 68% who owned their own home
2005 had 71% who owned their own home

when would you like to go back to Nick - which would suit what you'd like to see?

I never said I wanted to go back to something. It just struck me that the conversations on here were a case of two warring sides. I was wondering whether there was a solution, rather than just petty sniping. Oh well, a few people engaged before it went off topic!

chucky

nickmason wrote: »

I never said I wanted to go back to something. It just struck me that the conversations on here were a case of two warring sides. I was wondering whether there was a solution, rather than just petty sniping. Oh well, a few people engaged before it went off topic!

when you ask for a solution, there is an issue and want to get to an end state.

so when you ask what's the solution i ask you - when was a better time in recent history to compare to

forget the warring sides, that has very little relevance to my post - there was a question put to you that you've skilfully avoided. well done on that.

Originally Posted by chucky
incidently, when would you like to go back - is there any point in history that you think that housing was affordable and anyone could buy a property?
it looks like the last 20 years have been the best time for the majority of people.
1961 had 40% who owned their own home
1971 had 50% who owned their own home
1981 had 60% who owned their own home
1991 had 68% who owned their own home
2005 had 71% who owned their own home
when would you like to go back to Nick - which would suit what you'd like to see?

if that's a bit of political hot potatoe for you Mr Mason and it would mean that it would go against the Tory party whom you work for - it's fine if you don't want to answer

nickmason

chucky wrote: »

when you ask for a solution, there is an issue and want to get to an end state.

so when you ask what's the solution i ask you - when was a better time in recent history to compare to

forgive me for being interested in progress and wanting a world that is different from the past.

forget the warring sides, that has very little relevance to my post - there was a question put to you that you've skilfully avoided. well done on that.

In answering the question(s) you asked -

is there any point in history that you think that housing was affordable and anyone could buy a property?

I'd suggest that mid-90s was a pretty reasonable time. Affordability was good, and a high proportion of people could buy a property. Not everyone will be able to, but I don't think that is an achievable aspiration - mainly because as most have pointed out, there will always be people who don't want to own (at least in that point in time).

when would you like to go back to Nick - which would suit what you'd like to see?

It's not really a very sensible question, and is nicely loaded. By the way proportion of ownership, as a snapshot, is an absurdly poor measure. The reason the "ladder" metaphor works is because the driving factor is movement of people between house-ownership and non-house-ownership. No first time buyers? Owner-dwelling will plummet.

if that's a bit of political hot potatoe for you Mr Mason and it would mean that it would go against the Tory party whom you work for - it's fine if you don't want to answer

When will you get over yourself? I thought that your continual sniping during the election was just because tempers were high. Once again, I don't work for the Conservative party. I work full time for the RNIB. I am a district councillor (full disclosure: for which I am paid £4k) and a member of the Conservative group. Ask my ward residents and they will tell you that our activity is not particularly political. Typical casework involves solving problems when people are failed by the housing schemes, helping with permission and funding for local amenities, etc.

I come on here to hear sensible people, and points of view. That might be foolish, but it's interesting, and inasmuch as it gives me more perspective it helps me as a councillor. It's why I stopped posting for the main part. I asked this question not to get drawn in an ad-hominem slanging match, but to try and understand which of the "problems" are non-negotiable.

chucky

nickmason wrote: »

I'd suggest that mid-90s was a pretty reasonable time.

i agree house prices started rising and mortgage rates fell which was an excellent opportunity for people wanting to buy a house.

2009 was a similar time

nickmason wrote: »

When will you get over yourself?

what a strange question...

ILW

shellieholly wrote: »

While I agree, more places to live are required, lets not forget there's an issue of only having so much land in areas where people want to live.
The solution to house prices, ownership, building, investing, saving... is all very closely tied together and no one thing would change it. It is ingrained into our populace, "Landownership/property ownership" = wealth. We have hundreds of years history the "little" people being lorded over by land owners.
No one wishes to live in an area with a lack of jobs, or terrible schools, crime, so -on. So builders build on greenfield sites.
Remember the field you as a kid used to play on, climb the trees in? is it still there?
America doesn't have land shortage issues - hence the houses are larger, nor does it have the historican issues imprinted on its populace, you can do what you pretty much like on your land so long as you own it.
There was plenty of riots and protests - just not large enough to make our screens here.
Address the social morals, the desire to own everything - and replace it the minute it's no longer pretty - that is sold to us by manufacturers and marketing experts, the need to have more and more of a thing, and to live beyond our means requiring two day jobs.
As a nation we don't export a great deal of stuff any more cause we want it cheaper at the expense of quality, thus less jobs.
In fairness... who the heck is going to tell a nation to stop doing what it knows how to do, what it wants to do, to hide from ugly reality, tell them that it's wrong to want more and they should face up to problems?
Who would do that and hope to stay in power? Who would adopt this as a business model and hope to sell?
Greed powers the world, money makes it turn.

There are many parts of London with crap schools, high crime and high unemployment, but a 4 bedder will still cost you the best part of a million.

StevieJ

I repeat what others have said, build more houses, the garden thing was not in the right direction for the new govt.

Architects have criticised the government’s much-vaunted changes to planning law, dubbing them a “charter for nimbyism” that will scupper many housing projects.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/architects-slam-garden-grabbing-law-as-naive/5000773.article

In my view stagnation and a gentle inflation adjusted decline in house prices would be the golden scenario.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

I repeat what others have said, build more houses, the garden thing was not in the right direction for the new govt.



http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/architects-slam-garden-grabbing-law-as-naive/5000773.article

In my view stagnation and a gentle inflation adjusted decline in house prices would be the golden scenario.

My opinion is the biggest wrong turn the UK took in the post-WW2 era was to prevent people building homes to live in. Labour did it because they wanted the state to provide housing for all, the Tories did it to prop up land values (presumably, not too sure really).

Why has it become a good idea for the political party that is most likely to form the Government (Tories) to stand on a platform that includes actively preventing people living in a house where they want to live!? It beggars belief.

nickmason

Planning used to (it's either been repealed or is about to be) require adherence to minimum "dwelling per acre" - which is why you see these tight new developments, typically with insufficient car parking etc (another bizarre ruling that new estates should have, iirc, only 1.5 cars per house, to encourage people to take public transport. Possibly okay if the public transport is there, total nonsense if it isn't).

Looking to other countries, the "vernacular" seems preserved by spreading out building - abandoning the "green belt" shibboleth and having houses dotted around the countryside. Which ties in with Generali's point. Rather flippantly, I have wondered in the past whether we should have certain zones where there's a maximum instead. I would have thought that would:
1) be less offensive to local residents
2) be less lucrative for land-owners and developers, thus avoiding so much of the heat/anger that this debate generates
3) probably push down the prices of the houses that were built to very high densities
4) most importantly, encourage building of suitable homes.

nickmason

chucky wrote: »

i agree house prices started rising and mortgage rates fell which was an excellent opportunity for people wanting to buy a house.

:eek: we agreed on something. But for different reasons. I was answering your question about affordability - not about whether it's a good time from an investment perspective. This fixation with investment (remember all those people talking about making more from their house price increases than their salary) is much of the problem.

2009 was a similar time

Only for those with a sufficient equity/deposit. It didn't satisfy the second part of your question "when anyone could buy a property" - moreover it didn't even get close to satisfying it.

When will you get over yourself? I thought that your continual sniping during the election was just because tempers were high. Once again, I don't work for the Conservative party. I work full time for the RNIB. I am a district councillor (full disclosure: for which I am paid £4k) and a member of the Conservative group. Ask my ward residents and they will tell you that our activity is not particularly political. Typical casework involves solving problems when people are failed by the housing schemes, helping with permission and funding for local amenities, etc.

I come on here to hear sensible people, and points of view. That might be foolish, but it's interesting, and inasmuch as it gives me more perspective it helps me as a councillor. It's why I stopped posting for the main part. I asked this question not to get drawn in an ad-hominem slanging match, but to try and understand which of the "problems" are non-negotiable.

what a strange question...

It was rhetorical - a plea for you to engage in the conversation rather than continue with misleading sniping.

leitmotif

chucky wrote: »

it looks like the last 20 years have been the best time for the majority of people.

1961 had 40% who owned their own home
1971 had 50% who owned their own home
1981 had 60% who owned their own home
1991 had 68% who owned their own home
2005 had 71% who owned their own home

This is far too black-and-white an interpretation of the statistics. It assumes that all buyers were equally indebted, which is simply not the case. Firstly, it can only be said that 71% owned their own home in 2005 if we stretch the definition of 'owned' to include those who haven't yet paid off their mortgage. This goes for all the other years mentioned, is the logical response, but what we'd have to look at in order to ascertain whether the last 20 years have been the 'best time' is how indebted 'owners' were on average versus average salary, etc.

In other words, it's all well and good to say 71% is higher than 40%, but if that higher proportion comprises a large number of people who have stretched themselves to near breaking point in order to get on the property ladder, then that's hardly an indicator of 'good times'.