ConservativeHome: We Need House Prices To Go Up

Cleaver

Percy1983 wrote: »

But to say it again, FTB's have been in competition with parasites forcing prices up, in forcing prices up it has priced people out to which then are forced to rent off said parasites.

In no particular order, here are the factors off the top of my head which I think led to massive rises in house prices over the past ten years:

• A government who generally encouraged high house prices as a good thing
• A nation of people, from FTBers, BTLers and everyone inbetween getting an obsession with property and making money from it
• An increased desire generally for people to own their own properties
• Houses were quite cheap after a previous crash
• A vouge and fashion as BTL as an investment
• Much more lenient lending - 125% mortgages, 6 x lending etc.
• More lenders out there generally
• A 'booming' economy generally with low unemployment
• A generation of 'I want it right now' youngsters coming through
• A rich baby boomer generation helping their kids to buy
• House owners feeling that it was a right to buy a house and see the value go up
• The start of a celebrity culture, which in turn led to people seeing owning a bling home as a type of fashion statement
• A new generation of people who have a much more casual atittute to taking on debt compared to previous generations
• Governments with no long term house building plans
• A rising population and immigration

Now, maybe it's just me, but this seems to be a complex and variable list of factors which spans every type of person in our society. Some of the issues are quite deep rooted and cultural and may take a generation to change.

So you can hold your view that JB and the other 'parasites' have caused this. My feeling is that people who are very unhappy renting and feel disgruntled about being priced out of owning a home can look at this whole list and probably find valid reasons why they are in the state they are in.

And were all the FTBers over the last ten years all really concerned about what was going on? No, they were loving it. All buying houses, painting them white and selling them on at a 30% profit. Aren't they to blame as much as the 'parasites'?

Percy1983 wrote: »

If there wasn't so many properties bought to rent then prices would be lower meaning less would need to rent, essentially you are creating you own market for your own selfish needs.

Well, true. But it's only one factor in a list of many that has caused rising prices.

Percy1983 wrote: »

As I say I can afford to buy at current prices and mostly probably will end up doing so (unless anything drastic happens in the next year), but I am happy about being ripped off along with the rest of us who were born too late, far from it.

Maybe if you buy a house and then see it rise in value you can do the morally right thing and sell it at well below market value to a good, hard-working FTBer?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Percy1983 wrote: »

But to say it again, FTB's have been in competition with parasites forcing prices up, in forcing prices up it has priced people out to which then are forced to rent off said parasites.

And where would you live whilst saving for your deposit if the "parasites" didn't provide you with a house to rent?

Yes there is people who rent through choice for one reason or another, but there is many more who ahve to rent as they can't afford to buy, but they can't afford to buy because there is some many up for rent.

If there wasn't so many properties bought to rent then prices would be lower meaning less would need to rent, essentially you are creating you own market for your own selfish needs.
.

!!!!!!????

The rise of BTL over the last couple of decades has removed around one million properties from owner occupied accomodation, and this has increased house prices by an average of 7% according to the studies available.

However that same increase of a million properties almost doubled the supply of properties to rent, and so has reduced rental costs by a massive amount.

If you now removed those properties from the already tight rental pool, rents would go through the roof. But house prices would only drop by around 7%.

How on earth would you save up the deposit then?

For the love of god, at least make an effort to display a minimal amount of critical thinking in your posts instead of blindly parroting all the discredited bear memes.

nembot

Let's be honest here, the tories don't give a flying f**k what your house is worth. They have one agenda and that's to stay in power, everything else is secondary - including the public's bricks and mortar wealth.

Upping the pension limit will do far more for their staying power, than keeping the handful of people who crave HPI happy.

Cleaver

nembot wrote: »

Let's be honest here, the tories don't give a flying f**k what your house is worth. They have one agenda and that's to stay in power, everything else is secondary - including the public's bricks and mortar wealth.

Upping the pension limit will do far more for their staying power, than keeping the handful of people who crave HPI happy.

I have a few issues with what you say here. I think more than a 'handful' of people, rightly or wrongly, care about the value of their house. I agree that the Tories have an agenda to stay in power, but on the basis that something like 70% of people are homeowners, I think the Tories do care about the value of houses.

To calrify this I think it's largely a good thing to not see huge HPI and to maybe see house prices fall in the short term but, like the last government, I don't see this lot being much different from the last in ensuring that we don't have 20%+ falls in house prices.

dopester

I've not read this thread yet (will read it in full in a moment)... just came in at the end to see what Cleaver was saying.

For some reason I don't like that "70% of people are homeowners" figure that is bandied about all the time.

Especially when many homeowners have chosen to take and are barely into the term of sentance of servicing a dock-off mortgage to fulfil the criteria of being a magnificient homeowner.

Nor do I like suggestions political and central authority interference should be trying to support or boost market values for owners above non-owning market non-participants.

A little dated (2008) but some figures to throw into the mix.

Record fall in number of homeowners in 2007
By Daniel Igra
Thursday, 14 February 2008

The figures, based on research from the Department for Communities and Local Government, also reveal a regional divide in owner-occupation: while numbers in the north rose by 345,000 (5.1 per cent) between 2001 and 2006, in the south they dropped by 92,000 (-1.2 per cent) during the same period, with London bringing up the rear at 111,000 (-6.3 per cent).

He drew particular attention to those in the 25 to 34 age band, who own and occupy 322,000 fewer households than in 2001.

However, Halifax pointed out that the decline in home ownership had fuelled the continued growth of the private rental sector. The number of homes owned by buy-to-let landlords rose by 4.3 per cent in 2007 to just under 2.6 million, with an overall increase of 22.9 per cent (483,000) over the past five years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/record-fall-in-number-of-homeowners-in-2007-782041.html

Cleaver

dopester wrote: »

I've not read this thread yet (will read it in full in a moment)... just came in at the end to see what Cleaver was saying.

For some reason I don't like that "70% of people are homeowners" figure that is bandied about all the time.

Especially when many homeowners have chosen to take and are barely into the term of sentance of servicing a dock-off mortgage to fulfil the criteria of being a magnificient homeowner.

I take on board your point dopester, but 70% of people are homeowners, in the traditional sense of the word. Yes, some of these people will only own a fraction of their house, some will technically own less than the owe, whilst some will own all of it with everyone else inbetween. But they are all still 'homeowners', in the purest sense of the word.

dopester wrote: »

Nor do I like suggestions political and central authority interference should be trying to support or boost market values for owners above non-owning market non-participants.

Not sure if this was related to my post, but I don't think governments should prop up markets either. But what I think they should do, and what I actually think they will do, are probably two very different things. And my post stated what I think they will do, it wasn't representitive of what I think they should do.

If the property market is destined to fall (which I think it probably is) then it should be left to fall. But the cynic in me thinks that if 70% of the population see a government just letting that happen then probably the majority will have an issue. Therefore, I think the Torys would do some small steps to stop it happening. I don't like this approach, but I still think it would happen.

nembot

Sort of agree Cleaver, but I do think their saying/doing is just a means to an end. Possibly more for their own good, than ourselves.