Bank of England warns on house price 'correction'

CLAPTON

Cornucopia wrote: »

Carney lost me when he said something along the lines of the UK is not building enough houses because Canada is X times bigger and builds X times more.

It's nonsense.

The need for new housing comes from the demand created by new households. The overall size of the housing market is irrelevant.

doesn't change your argument but he actually said the population of canada is about half the UK but they build twice the number of houses

Cornucopia

CLAPTON wrote: »

doesn't change your argument but he actually said the population of canada is about half the UK but they build twice the number of houses

I also wonder whether some of those will be log cabins or US-style timber framed, in which case they won't last as long as ours.

ed110220

Cornucopia wrote: »

I also wonder whether some of those will be log cabins or US-style timber framed, in which case they won't last as long as ours.

But surely long enough? There seem plenty of timber houses in North America there are 100, 200 years old, not to mention the Elizabethan timber framed houses here.

In any case, for practical purposes I don't think it matters if a house lasts 150 years or 500 years. Once it's lasted a sufficient length of time, then you could say it's already fulfilled its purpose and could reasonably be rebuilt as something more suitable for the era if necessary. People get too hung-up on thinking buildings have to last much longer than a person's lifetime, even if they become outdated in layout, energy use etc... one wouldn't want to be driving round a hundred year old car except as a hobby after all.

Ed

Cornucopia

I was thinking of even lighter-weight buildings (trailers, even) where the expected life-span is 30-50 years.

ed110220

Cornucopia wrote: »

I was thinking of even lighter-weight buildings (trailers, even) where the expected life-span is 30-50 years.

Are these counted as houses though? Even if they are, it's not inconceivable that the economics of them still stack up if they're inexpensive enough. Ie it probably makes more sense to spend less now on construction, use the money for something else and rebuild in 2045-65 than have the money tied up in something longer-lasting.

One should also remember that expected life-span is usually very conservative and with sufficient maintenance in practice is often a lot longer.

Our house had a design life of 65 years. It's now about 65 years old and the roof covering needs replacing, but from inspecting the structure I'd say it's got quite a few more decades left in it... certainly the mortgage lender expects it to be more than 100 years old by the time it could be paid off.

Ed

Cornucopia

I'm sure you're right about the economics. I've looked at pre-fabricated housing and it makes a lot of sense (in a location where land is cheap).

I'm just interested in the effect on Carney's already defective logic. ie. if trailer-park houses make up a proportion of the housing stock, then they will be replaced more frequently than traditionally built houses.

(Though it remains to be seen how long our present timber-framed homes will last).

ed110220

Cornucopia wrote: »

I'm sure you're right about the economics. I've looked at pre-fabricated housing and it makes a lot of sense (in a location where land is cheap).

I'm just interested in the effect on Carney's already defective logic. ie. if trailer-park houses make up a proportion of the housing stock, then they will be replaced more frequently than traditionally built houses.

(Though it remains to be seen how long our present timber-framed homes will last).

It would be a bit cheeky in my opinion to count homes being rebuilt as 'new' houses as there's no net gain ie one house demolished, one built.

It will probably depend a lot on how well they're maintained. Well maintained they could last pretty much indefinitely, neglected and I imagine they could fail fairly quickly. In the long run it probably depends more on whether people decide it would be better to have something new. I think most houses that have ever existed were replaced not because they failed but because their owners eventually wanted something different/better.

Batchy

When you buy a house, your buying land... when your house crumbles, you build a new house on your land.

"they stopped building land quite a while back..."

House prices are on the increase again, as stocks are low, there is very little supply. populations are rising, and they are knocking all the flats down, as they are troublesome. Hello supply/ demand market driven increases.

Dan:_4

How's brit1234 these days?

Roundabouts

Dan: wrote: »

How's brit1234 these days?

How's chucky these days?