Number of Houses for Sale falls to all time low.....

brit1234

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Housing shortage so great, and consequently rents so high, that 'renting it out instead' becomes a more attractive option.

:beer:

I would say that funding for lending, qe and 0.5% interest rates allowed accidental landlords to afford to keep multiple properties. As well as struggling Estate agents encouraging people who can't sell onto the rental arm for revenue.

As mortgage rates go up supply should increase.

chewmylegoff

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

A typical act of cowardice if I may say so, coming home from a campaign 201 years prior to the battle!

In 1415, Henry V had Rightmove closed down since he feared a price bubble, fuelled by half the population of France looking to flea here to escape the treachery of Charles VI of France.

A good move, since it forced the French to build more houses themselves, anxious to 'boast' that they always build at least twice as many homes as England - whether they need them or not. A law enshrining this remains in force to this day in France.

Shakespeare would have documented all of this, except that he shunned technology and prefered to write with feather quill and ink. Ann Hathaway kept reminding him to put in the bits about bubbles and Rightmove and forcing it offline, but he misconstrued it as some rather sordid suggestions on her part aimed at keeping the marriage exciting. Besides, he wanted to get "Part 1" out pretty sharpish because he was in negative equity and needed the royalties quickly.

Your facts are not welcome here. Anyway I just edited Wikipedia and now it agrees with me.

wymondham

maybe people just don't want to sell? If I was thinking of selling I'd hold fire until a new Government scheme helped me - something like the tax payer pay my stamp duty and moving costs, that would be good!

Jason74

I'm not sure about the issue being that "prices not being high enough to attract new homes onto the market yet", but where i live at least (edge of South London), it's certainly true that there is both a lack of supply (of houses at least, flats are a different story), and rising prices largely as a result.

I think the pertinent point you make about the reason for the lack of supply is how easy it has become to rent out existing property, rather than sell it. An inevitable consequence of that is that houses don't change hands as their owners move on, meaning that the historically natural flow of supply is disrupted.

If this is a big factor (and we seem to agree that it is), then imho there is a need to address this by making holding on to property that you are no longer using as a home an unattractive option. If it's broadly agreed both that home ownership is a good thing, and that lack of supply is hindering people becoming homeowners (and it's fair to say we agree on both counts here), then people in effect "hoarding" property for investment purposes is a problem. You can't blame people for doing it of course, if it is in their economic interests to do so. But if that is making a supply shortage worse, then I'm firmly of the view that the need to avoid supply being strangled justifies government intervening through the tax system to make renting a property out rather than selling it (and indeed btl more generally) economically unattractive.

Thrugelmir

Not sure the lack of houses for sale suggests anything. At a point, most people will be happy with the property they reside in.

shop-to-drop

They need to do something about stamp duty to get more people interested in moving up the housing ladder.

Fella

Abolishing it would be a good start. Dreadful unjustifiable nonsensical tax on mobility. And implemented in a dumb way to boot.

cells

What were those three D's that force you to sell?

Divorce...
Death...
Some help with the third D....

How has the death rate faired over the last decade or so?

cells

Fella wrote: »

Abolishing it would be a good start. Dreadful unjustifiable nonsensical tax on mobility. And implemented in a dumb way to boot.

Its a good tax easy to collect and it falls hugely on the rich.

Eg just one borough in London, Kensington & Chelsea, pays more stamp duty tax than the whole of Scotland

If anything the 0% and the 1% band should be scraped and the 3% band should apply to all homes from £0 to £500k.

wymondham

cells wrote: »

Its a good tax easy to collect and it falls hugely on the rich.

Eg just one borough in London, Kensington & Chelsea, pays more stamp duty tax than the whole of Scotland

If anything the 0% and the 1% band should be scraped and the 3% band should apply to all homes from £0 to £500k.

Are you really saying if you have a £200,000 house (about average now?) you should pay £6,000 for the privilege of moving? I think i'd rather stay put and buy a new car!