Government must do more on affordable housing

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

What, like with the EU referendum.... And immigration.... And whatever else you've been supporting lately.;)

I don't even get what you are trying to say or convey here.

Wheres the comparison between an EU referendum and the case were talking about?

If were gonna go down the road of utterly extreme examples, then I guess the arguments won.

Harry_Boyle

N1AK wrote: »

There is a vast difference between having your property made unusable and having one less field somewhere outside your village to gaze over.

My view ius that there are plenty of brownfield and derelict industrial sites that could be reused for housing, rather than building on arable land. As the global population increases we will need more cultivated farmland, not less, in order to feed our population.

Importing more food will have the same impact as importing more fuel/energy - prices will spiral out of control and we will have little or no control over them.

N1AK

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

My view ius that there are plenty of brownfield and derelict industrial sites that could be reused for housing, rather than building on arable land. As the global population increases we will need more cultivated farmland, not less, in order to feed our population.

Importing more food will have the same impact as importing more fuel/energy - prices will spiral out of control and we will have little or no control over them.

I have no issue with that opinion, in fact it makes plenty of sense. If there are viable brownfield sites near a location in need of additional housing then that should be accounted for when considering applications to build nearby on greenfield sites.

I'm not however persuaded that this is the case in most, or even a significant minority, of campaigns to stop development. I know 2-3 such campaigns via people involved in local areas and without exception if is motivated either by concern about the effect on property value, not wanting to live in a more developed environment or in a couple of more forgiveable cases due to infrastructure concerns.

I have no issue with people not wanting to live in a developed environment but the fact you own a home does not entitle you to dictate what can be done with any land remotely nearby. If a village wants to keep itself surrounded by farmers fields then they should pay the farmers to keep using land for farming (and quit whining that their kids can't afford to buy a house there as well) or buy the land and allow its use by farmers.

Wookster

wotsthat wrote: »

I said lack of lending and lack of building were related. Disagree if you like but don't pretend that I said lending is the only thing holding back the market.

Not to mention the price of land, planning restrictions or the price of houses.

See what I mean by myopic?

Harry_Boyle

They found enough brownfield land in the centre of London to build an Olympic Park. I dare say that if they could find a site like that in one of the most (if not the most) densely populated parts of the UK, then other areas should be able to do so.

Graham_Devon

Harry_Boyle wrote: »

They found enough brownfield land in the centre of London to build an Olympic Park. I dare say that if they could find a site like that in one of the most (if not the most) densely populated parts of the UK, then other areas should be able to do so.

Because they wanted to.

As stated, there is enough land to build houses. It's already there, planning permission granted. Nothing has to be found.

It's just they don't want to build, 1 because it will reduce the prices of existing stock and 2 because they will be working to tighter margins / a loss due to the ir previous land gambling.

Unlike the olympics venue where they wanted to.

That's nothing to do with how much lenders will lend.

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

You on the other hand have said it's all lack of lending. However, lending HAS been looked at. We have QE. We have funding for lending. We have newbuy. We have lend a hand. We have products whereby the government AND your parents can now join to become guarantors. We have councils willing to become guarantors.

And guess what, people just keep saying the same thing.... "lending is the problem".

Well what more do you want? Where do you stop blaming the lending and look at what's been done on the lending front....while peepin at the results all that expense has bought.

You're going to be able to start a petting zoo if you dismantle all these strawmen.

Lending is a major factor but I've never said it's the only factor.

People keep saying lending is a problem because all of the measures you list seem to have had little impact. It's not possible to say therefore that lending increased and nothing got better only that there's been an attempt to increase lending.

To be honest me arguing that lending is a problem and you arguing that land hoarding is a problem is a bit like arguing that the food was worse than the beds on the Titanic.

grizzly1911

N1AK wrote: »

That's a pretty desperate attempt to shoehorn in a straw-man especially given that you just accused Graham of using a completely excessive example :rotfl:

.

Interesting that PP and their mate H_B usually berate Devon for Strawmen :rotfl::rotfl:Shame because they have made some valid points on this thread.

ILW

N1AK wrote: »

Pretty accurately sums up the issue many builders are having at the moment. It doesn't help that as the government and population generally want to see rising prices the builders have an incentive to hold on before developing or selling.

If the government put some money into building new housing itself and forced building companies to accept that they won't make a killing by sitting on land for a few years then we'd see more building. The issue at the moment is that as long as building firms believe a property boom will happen soon they'll hold off until then.

The government could even offer a small incentive to complete building faster by effectively providing funding to people who use land in the next year or two. If the government offered to pay 10% of the land cost for any property started, completed and sold in the next 18 months then it would encourage builders to start now rather than wait for for prices to increase.

A tax on undeveloped land would solve the problem very quickly and discourage speculation.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

You're going to be able to start a petting zoo if you dismantle all these strawmen.

Lending is a major factor but I've never said it's the only factor.

People keep saying lending is a problem because all of the measures you list seem to have had little impact. It's not possible to say therefore that lending increased and nothing got better only that there's been an attempt to increase lending.

To be honest me arguing that lending is a problem and you arguing that land hoarding is a problem is a bit like arguing that the food was worse than the beds on the Titanic.

Unsurprisingly, I don't agree.

I see lending as what it is. It's had boosts, and I'm not sure what people want to boost it further.

I see the other side of the coin, land, as having absolutely nothing done to it. It's one of (if not the) biggest problem. Yet theres been no action on this.

Land tax it, builders will build or sell it. You therefore have a situation where:

A) much needed houses are built
land prices come down
C) the combination of both of those reduces the initial cost of buying a house and then the lending boosts can kick in and help more people.

Just boosting lending as we've been doing for the past 4-5 years hasn't done anything to solve any problems so far.

I believe the land thing would solve things in a year or two. Solve things for buyers anyway. Maybe not for the housing companies.

It's a bit like Hovis hoarding all the flour needed to make bread, reducing the amount of bread, whacking the prices up and then looking towards the government for more to be given to people to buy bread. Tackle the problem with Hovis storing up all the ingredients neccesary to make the bread (and strangling the market) and you'll tackle the problem of the price of bread. Hovis, however, would likely go to the wall.

Bread will still be made though. Just by new companies.

Write it off as another strawman if you like. I prefer to call them examples, but hey ho, whatever floats the boat!