Nationwide Feb:+9.4% YoY

cells

thequant wrote: »

is limit HPf we increase supply, we will decrease house prices. While homeowners still form the majority in this country we will not see turkeys voting for Christmas anytime soon.

Increasing supply to 400k units a year will not increase the stock massively so prices will not crash. In fact prices in France are rising and have been rising for the lat five years.

For instance the Uk has near 27.5m homes. Adding 400k a year adds only about 1.5% to the stock (also the population is growing at a figure nit far from 1% a year)

What 400k a year will do is limit house price inflation to a less absurd figure


Also with regards to turkeys not voting for Christmas imo it has nowt to do with it. Both labour and the conservatives have just been too slow or too ignorant to react to the new reality of faster population growth.

Just short of 2m homes were built in the decade 1991-2001when the population increased by 1.7m so supply was ok

But during 2001-2011 population increased by 3.6m or more than double the previous decade. You would imagine with twice the population increase they woild havr allowed twice as many homes to be built but instead closer to 1.6m homes were built and a huge shortage buolt up.


1991-2001 2m homes built while population went up 1.7m persons
2001-2011 1.6m homes built while population went up by 3.6m

Conrad

Building more homes will have only a limited and temporary effect. More resource simply attracts more migrants. If we continue down this road of ever increasing population I feel some aspects of life will deteriorate such as getting around on the roads or visiting now congested treasures such as The New Forest. Above all for me the need for ever more intensive farming methods to feed this population will place even more of an impact on the natural eco system.


Is an ever expanding population truly what we want, especially in the SE?
I understand the Hamish world view where GDP and pensions is the be all and end all but for me this is quite a shallow knee jerk view of the Human journey and what it really means to live a good life.


Those apposing my view will doubtless reach for the 'little Englander' moniker once more, yawn.

Bantex_2

I wonder if there will be a political tipping point where renters outnumber owners and a majority will vote for lower housing costs.

thequant

Bantex wrote: »

I wonder if there will be a political tipping point where renters outnumber owners and a majority will vote for lower housing costs.

There will be, I suspect it will be beyond 50% of people being renters. By their nature, renters are more likely to earn less, be less intelligent and hence less likely to vote.


If we do get close to that tipping point we could always revert back to the old rules that you need to own property to be entitled to vote.

TickersPlaysPop

Are there official figures published for building applications?

It would be good to see how many were applied for and how many were granted? I'm still not sure it is the councils that are the bottle neck. Surely credit availability for builders is part of it?

Allowing house prices to increase even more will stretch the gap between the rich and the poor... and maybe lead to a future where it will be only companies that can own property who then rent them out?

If our government were serious about meeting a house building target, they would do what they did with waste management/recycling.... They linked funding given from central government to local councils to how they performed with meeting tough targets to recycle waste to reduce landfill.

Generali

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

Are there official figures published for building applications?

It would be good to see how many were applied for and how many were granted? I'm still not sure it is the councils that are the bottle neck. Surely credit availability for builders is part of it?

Allowing house prices to increase even more will stretch the gap between the rich and the poor... and maybe lead to a future where it will be only companies that can own property who then rent them out?

If our government were serious about meeting a house building target, they would do what they did with waste management/recycling.... They linked funding given from central government to local councils to how they performed with meeting tough targets to recycle waste to reduce landfill.

To an extent I think they have done that.

CLAPTON

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

Are there official figures published for building applications?

It would be good to see how many were applied for and how many were granted? I'm still not sure it is the councils that are the bottle neck. Surely credit availability for builders is part of it?


.

what evidence have you that says builders can't get bank funding?
I've seen such no references from building firms, newspaper articles, trade federations etc etc

TickersPlaysPop

Hi Clapton

My evidence is from builders own comments, small to medium sized companies including my dads firm who have not been given credit since the property market took a nose dive.

They have been stuck with invested money in properties, commercial and residential that suffered from the market slump.... and also starved of further credit for new projects. Things are picking up now apparently, but I think most businesses suffered from the banks not lending over recent years?

mayonnaise

Bantex wrote: »

I wonder if there will be a political tipping point where renters outnumber owners and a majority will vote for lower housing costs.

That tipping point won't be reached, shortchanged.
Sure, we had a decrease in the % of owners the last couple of years due to mortgage rationing, but with credit flowing a bit more freely now - and HTB - I expect the owner percentage to creep up again. Time will tell.

N1AK

Conrad wrote: »

Is an ever expanding population truly what we want, especially in the SE?

I understand the Hamish world view where GDP and pensions is the be all and end all but for me this is quite a shallow knee jerk view of the Human journey and what it really means to live a good life.

You're no better than anyone labelling your position as being 'little Englander' when you try and misrepresent Hamish as being all about GDP and pensions.

I have no issue with the view that we should have lower immigration, though it isn't my own position, I take issue with people who push for lower immigration with no comprehension of what that actually means.

People talk about cutting immigration as though it is a single issue with no knock on effects. Yes it'll mean the Cotswolds aren't nearly as busy on weekends, but if the retirement age for everyone had to go up by 8 years to balance the books then is that really a swap we want to make?

What Hamish is forced to endlessly point out is that there will be notable economic costs to restricting immigration. He, and I, think those costs will outweigh the benefits; the people arguing to restrict immigration like to pretend that there won't be any costs.