Altered reality

macaque_2

julieq wrote: »

High counts of people per household, such as might occur for example when a dominant religion tends to be against birth control and divorce will reduce demand, not increase it - this is not the same as multiple occupation via for example flatshares where presumably occupants would like to buy.

If you also build more houses than population on the supply side, then you have massive oversupply. If you oversupply then prices fall. If you oversupply when people are losing jobs you'll see very big falls. In Eire the oversupply was about 17% in 2009.

In the UK where there is a very high rate of discrete household formation, there aren't enough houses being built, so there is upwards pressure on housing. We haven't seen significant rises in unemployment rates during or since the recession, and it's unlikely we will from this point.

It's really very simple. And my cause is best served by the headline statistics, which show big falls in Eire, where there is oversupply which is being tackled using bulldozers, and resilient prices starting to edge upwards in the UK where there is undersupply. I don't need to create illusory causal links based on Irish demographics.

No offence Julie but you are talking through your hat. The UK has a much lower utilisation of property than Ireland (and we also have plenty of dominant religions). Whilst there is a prospect of prices rising, people have no reason to sell and they will sit on empty properties for investment reasons. Once a bear market kicks in however, upto a million empty properties will appear for sale.

Councils should sell or let properties at a discounted rate to help reclaim the one million empty homes in the UK for families in need, a charity says.

"These range from entirely empty council estates in London, and whole streets of empty housing in cities in the north of England, to individual redundant school caretakers' and park keepers' houses."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16021539

julieq

No, Macaque, you're confused.

There are a few headline figures chucked around about unused housing in the UK, with the "1,000,000" number coming up a lot. When you push at that number it turns out that only about a third have been unused for more than 6 months. Others are unoccupied for periods for a variety of reasons, but it's transitory.

So we're down to 300K or so, which would cope with the entire undersupply only for a couple of years. There are 4.5M people on waiting lists for housing too. And why are these houses empty? Because by and large they're slums in places people have deserted and owned not by the private sector but by councils. If you follow the standard line of the "housing scandal" pieces, you find a lot of talk about councils and slum clearance, and then a couple of photos of a nice house where someone died and the estate hasn't been traced yet. Actually you can see that in your quote. Lots of empty housing in cities, one or two park keeper's houses. Follows a script.

So let's have a look at the difference between here and Eire. In Eire, the properties standing empty are nice houses in nice areas, often new builds. There are just far too many houses for people.

You'll figure it out eventually.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

macaque wrote: »

The UK has a much lower utilisation of property than Ireland /]

Nobody ever claimed the Uk has a shortage of bedrooms.

But as they already belong to someone else it doesn't help those in need of housing.

Graham_Devon

Love how all the emtpy homes in Eire are all nice little homes, and they are all uninhabitable dives here.

Bravo Julie! From this from Ireland.... And many many others like it. You do talk some guff.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Love how all the emtpy homes in Eire are all nice little homes, and they are all uninhabitable dives here.

Bravo Julie! From this from Ireland.... And many many others like it. You do talk some guff.

Oh dear. Who said all empty houses in Ireland had roses around the door? By adding the word 'all' and providing a single photo the argument, as usual, has been taken to an extreme all for the sake of an internet point.

Here's another taken in 2011 from an estate built in 2008 - clearly I've proved every empty home in Ireland (and the US probably) is exactly like this.

http://karlburke.photoshelter.com/image/I0000oAeumoJaaPI