Anatole Kaletsky - Osborne's house price boom likely to work

grizzly1911

gazter wrote: »

Great demand for something that has its capital entirely paid for by taxpayers and requires a rent subsidy in perpetuity. Plenty of "loss" there.

There is great demand whether or not council housing is built/provided.

The government provides HB to assist people wholly or partly to fund a supply of property to meet that demand.

Plenty of loss there too.

Question is it the direct provision of property, by the government, more costly than paying somebody else to provide it and make a profit from it, after paying commercially higher rates of interest than the government can. Effectively the government is using taxpayers money to buy assets for someone else.

The private sector has never risen to the challenge of meeting that demand in the volumes required hence we have a problem.

wotsthat

grizzly1911 wrote: »

The private sector has never risen to the challenge of meeting that demand in the volumes required hence we have a problem.

The cause of the problem lies squarely with government(s).

Population growth and lack of housing didn't just happen yesterday.

Government managed to make some drastic pension changes based on changing demographics. They managed to grasp the fact that future workers may struggle to pay for future pensioners but seem to have given little thought to where they might live.