Plans to free up 25 million unused bedrooms

Really2

vivatifosi wrote: »

I have to ask, if there are 25 million spare bedrooms in this country, why are peoples' garages so full of cr*p that they have to keep their cars on the street?

mmm, you have seen my garage.

vivatifosi wrote: »

I know plenty of older couples that sleep in separate rooms because of health conditions, for a better night's sleep.

My Folks.

They actually moved in to a smaller house due to this. Without a health condition they would never have been able to. So how we get them into smaller houses??

FTBFun

My parents upsized last year from a 3 bed detached on a housing estate in a small city to a 4 bed detached out in the country with lots of land. They actually sold their old house to a family with children.

I don't think the downsizing argument works particularly well here.

vivatifosi

Really2 wrote: »

So how we get them into smaller houses??

We can't compel people who own their own houses to do anything. They've bought their own houses and providing they live within the law should be able to continue to do so.

There's a shortage of housing in this country and sooner or later the answer will be to build more houses. It is the only answer, but getting any government to address this is more intractable even than getting the Eurozone nations to get their currency and debt problems sorted out.

IveSeenTheLight

vivatifosi wrote: »

There's a shortage of housing in this country and sooner or later the answer will be to build more houses. It is the only answer, but getting any government to address this is more intractable even than getting the Eurozone nations to get their currency and debt problems sorted out.

The answer has been iterated many times.

The longer the procrastination goes on, the greater the excacerbation of the problem and the greater the likelyhood that investors will capatilise on the gap in the market.

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I've not seen many reports from whinging sellers, or indeed buyers.
Whingers seem to be primarily those that do not fulfill the demand category (desire AND ability)


Property owners that fail to sell have a few basic options: -

1. Leave it on the market in the hope that the right offer will be made.
2. Resolve some of the issues that may be affecting the sale.
3. Take it off the market
4. Reduce the price

You missed the 5th option, which is to increase the price. I'm not joking either, there are several properties in my area that have been on the market for about 2 years. Once every six months or so the asking price goes up! Not quite sure what is going on there, although they have possibly been fooled by the fact that 6 bedroom detached houses on richmond hill are going up in value by 15/20% per year because very rich people are getting richer.

pqrdef

shortchanged wrote: »

Why? Because of the greed of human nature. The fact that house prices did reach what they did at the peak, people who already had a property at this stage now think 'well my house was worth this in 2007, so I'm not going to sell it for much less than that.' And some don't have a choice anyway if they bought during these times because they are probably mortgaged to the hilt.

It'll take more than that. Fact is though, when there's a surplus of labour, wages will tend to settle where people have enough to live on, but not enough to accumulate wealth. That means renting, not buying.

Transfer of wealth down the social ladder won't happen unless there is serious political drive for a more equal society. The democratization of home ownership was brought about by a generation of politicians and union leaders with fire in their bellies - even though it wasn't what they had in mind.

Nowadays people want to read the Mail, moan about immigrants and scroungers, vote Tory, and expect wealth to fall into their laps. Huh?

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

You missed the 5th option, which is to increase the price. I'm not joking either, there are several properties in my area that have been on the market for about 2 years. Once every six months or so the asking price goes up! Not quite sure what is going on there, although they have possibly been fooled by the fact that 6 bedroom detached houses on richmond hill are going up in value by 15/20% per year because very rich people are getting richer.

Well don't know about the local area you are referring to, but certainly on average house prices did rise in 2009.
Some parts are still rising so of course local markets may vary.

They could of course be trying a new tactic of increasing price to consider that they are giving a better discount when an offer is placed, however I do not buy that as ultimately you need to get people interested and through the door to generate a competative sell.

Realmoney_2

DaddyBear wrote: »

Totally agree. However, articles like this could encourage a U-Turn in government policy from one that is propping up house prices to one that allows the inevitable falls to happen sooner.

Absolutely, falls are inevitable, why not stop propping them up and let the big falls happen sooner rather than later.

Those few house price bulls left are going to be let down when at the end of this decade prices will be not much different to now in nominal terms, in real terms they will have crashed.

IveSeenTheLight

Realmoney wrote: »

Absolutely, falls are inevitable, why not stop propping them up and let the big falls happen sooner rather than later.

Those few house price bulls left are going to be let down when at the end of this decade prices will be not much different to now in nominal terms, in real terms they will have crashed.

You seem to be inferring a decade of nominal stagnation and then what?
Would that mean that society is drawing in a big deep breath to then start inflating the next bubble as as happened historically.

I've said before nominal stagnation is the best solution for all nterested parties and when property increases agains, ideally it should follow inflation.

Likelyhood of that happening though is slim to none.

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Well don't know about the local area you are referring to, but certainly on average house prices did rise in 2009.
Some parts are still rising so of course local markets may vary.

well yeah, but regardless of whether house prices are rising generally or not in your area, if you can't sell your house at a certain price, increasing the price doesn't seem to me to be a particularly clever tactic, and it obviously isn't working!