Affordable Housing - Can it be done?

Guy_Montag

christabell wrote: »

Child Tax Credits: this is Gordon's way of paying Benefits without admitting they are benefits.......Why do our policitians not have the guts to re calculate the tax system? This is 2007, make the calculations a % of wage/salary so that everybody pays equal?
Affordable Housing? Absolutely, surely it is a Human Right not to live in a slum with a landlord getting megabucks from rent?

As for the comment above about the people not working....there are economic black-spots, what do you propose for these people Guy?

Work houses?

Edited: taken too far off topic.

Suffice to say - people shouldn't have kids if they can't afford them & we need to bring the population of this fair isle down to something sustainable.

epz_2

Guy_Montag wrote: »

The point was it's a long term solution to reduce the country's population to something more reasonable (30m according to the OPT) - not that it's going to improve affordability in the short term.

unless you have some plans for mass genocide that aint going to happen, in scotland we have seen house prices triple but the population decline or at best remain the same in the past 5 years. up here the cause has been slack lending policies and the council demolishing the traditional scum holes they used to own.

they could easily build more but developers dont have as much incentive(well they still build the expensive 50% profit places) and the council regulations etc are way to much hassle to get a place built yourself (i looked).


i never trully bought the argument that too many people exist, with enough nuclear power and hydroponics we could have massive populations its just wouldnt be as much fun as now where we have an abundance of cheap natural resources and space.

Guy_Montag

Soylent green again, mother?

dannyboycey

Shared ownership schemes are not the answer. People want to buy a house that THEY own, not share a house with the housing association or council.

Gordon has the balls to create the catastrophic mess we are in and then proclaim that he is the mesiah and take the credit for sorting it out!

lynzpower

RHemmings wrote: »

You've mostly concentrated on the price of the buildings themselves. The big problem is the price of land with planning consent for houses.

To reduce the land price problem, the government could state that the sale prices of houses to be built must form part of applications to have land re-zoned for residential use. Local councils would be given targets for new houses of certain prices.

Builders could buy cheaper land and then build cheaper houses, while still making a profit. Given that the sale prices of the houses would be limited, that would limit the value of the land to the builders, and prevent the value of land for new building inflating too much, as if it became too expensive, builders wouldn't want to buy it.

This would put a cap on the price of new houses while not making the building of new houses unprofitable for builders. Effectively the huge profits to be made when land is rezoned would be what disappears.

Or, even more radically, the government employ builders themselves, without the added thousands upon thousands of pounds of taxpayers money being siphoned off into the abyss to do it. then NO ONE makes a profit. and its cheper all round.

Radical eh?

lynzpower

Guy_Montag wrote: »

Work houses?

Edited: taken too far off topic.

Suffice to say - people shouldn't have kids if they can't afford them & we need to bring the population of this fair isle down to something sustainable.

If anyone waited to afford it till they had kids, this country would have died by now. I can guarantee I wouldnt be here, and on current projections it loks like I will be 36 by the time we can "afford" kids. I dont think i will be able to get pregnant then due to my health needs.

Family and love is more important than how much is in the bank, that is a universal truth as far as im concerned .

lynzpower

What abour rent controls- even america land of the economic free has these- this would revolutionise the british property market for the better :money:

RHemmings

dannyboycey wrote: »

Shared ownership schemes are not the answer. People want to buy a house that THEY own, not share a house with the housing association or council.

Gordon has the balls to create the catastrophic mess we are in and then proclaim that he is the mesiah and take the credit for sorting it out!

I'm sure that this is exactly what Gordon wants to do.

Guy_Montag

lynzpower wrote: »

If anyone waited to afford it till they had kids, this country would have died by now. I can guarantee I wouldnt be here, and on current projections it loks like I will be 36 by the time we can "afford" kids. I dont think i will be able to get pregnant then due to my health needs.

Family and love is more important than how much is in the bank, that is a universal truth as far as im concerned .

There's a difference between what you can afford while maintaining your standard of living & what you can afford.

Generali

lynzpower wrote: »

Or, even more radically, the government employ builders themselves, without the added thousands upon thousands of pounds of taxpayers money being siphoned off into the abyss to do it. then NO ONE makes a profit. and its cheper all round.

Radical eh?

That's a terrible idea (thanked you by mistake).

This government can't even employ cleaners capable of keeping a hospital clean. What makes you think they can put up houses. I cite Ronan Point.