Why house prices are such an emotive issue....

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Forever wrote: »

Property prices effects everything.

Oh jeez, I just can't let that idiocy slip past unchallenged, much as I don't want to bite at such obvious trolling.

It effects how much money gets sucked into paying your mortgage or rent versus money being spent elsewhere in the economy.

Spend on mortgage and rent is spend in the economy.

It's just being spent by someone else, not you.

It effects the prices of factories and offices which are then relayed onto the customer.

Oh please....

It effects the amount of our tax money that needs to be spent on tax credits to house people on low wages who can no longer afford to keep a roof over their heads alone.

Low wages are the problem, not high house prices.

It effects how much of our tax money needs to be paid on housing benefit.

Why? Rent is subject to supply and demand, not house prices.

Less money on property will mean more money circulating around the economy

Nonsense.

The property market is part of the economy.

For every transaction there is a buyer and seller. One pays money, the other receives money.

The money doesn't cease to exist, or circulate, just because it's spent on property instead of cheap Chinese tat.

and it will make our goods and services cheaper.

Really?

Lets say I own a factory. If the value of the land underneath that factory reduces, why would I lower my prices?

Hence we will be economically more competitive.

Nonsense.

quantic

I skimmed over the majority of the post, but one bit stuck out for me:

As the largest generation of FTB age people in history crashes into the lowest house building figures for a century, you'll soon enough find out what a proper boom looks like.

And it'll make the last one look like a molehill by comparison.

I'm not saying I agree, but it does make me wonder what is eventually going to happen given the lack of housing being built.

LisbonLaura

ILW wrote: »

I think you are just making things up and stating as fact.

Oh what a shocking thing to say to Hamish!
How on earth could you think that? The great man has only posted 12,000+ times on here since 2009.
It could almost be seen that you Sir are implying that his vast output was purely attempting to justify a decision he made five years ago? Surely you don't think that?

Generali

TBH I'm not sure that house prices are an emotive issue. If they were this board and similar ones like PMT on the excellent fool.co.uk would have more visitors.

I think it's one of those things like fox hunting used to be: most people had an opinion but ultimately the vast majority didn't give a flying fox compared to other issues.

chewmylegoff

Generali wrote: »

TBH I'm not sure that house prices are an emotive issue. If they were this board and similar ones like PMT on the excellent fool.co.uk would have more visitors.

I think it's one of those things like fox hunting used to be: most people had an opinion but ultimately the vast majority didn't give a flying fox compared to other issues.

possibly, although if that were true then why would we have newspapers dominated by house price related headlines (see esp. the daily express which has at least one house prices headline a week), and very regular leading pieces in the news on all of the main channels about whatever the latest rise / fall in house prices is.

perhaps people just have better things to do than argue about it with idiots like me on the internet. with 70% of people owning a house and it representing by far the largest financial commitment for most of those people, it would be very surprising if they didn't really care about it.

diable

ILW wrote: »

Rents can be decreased by statute. It has been done before.

They tried that years ago, the rent reform act, gave more power to the tenants and the right to be a sitting tenant which just meant that a load of landlords sold up thereby creating a shortage of rental properties so rents went up and in came 6 month lets and tough one sided contracts.

diable

Also home ownership is the new slavery, have mortgage, bills to pay, family to provide for etc etc etc so when you get screwed over at work or by the Government (look at all the small ways they get money out of you you) just humbly put up with it and vote the next shysters in who may have a different name but are all in the same club together.

Rant Over

moneyinmypocket

What a load of nonsense renters pay bills too but have nothing at the end to show for it

System

diable wrote: »

Also home ownership is the new slavery, have mortgage, bills to pay, family to provide for etc etc etc so when you get screwed over at work or by the Government (look at all the small ways they get money out of you you) just humbly put up with it and vote the next shysters in who may have a different name but are all in the same club together.

Rant Over

Aside from the mortgage which would be substituted by (probably higher) rent, in what way is any of that different from non-home ownership?