Gordon brown to become unpopular if house prices come down ...

Deals_2

maybe the conservatives will have a chance particularly if they are looking at encouraging the family structure ...what are people's thoughts...will Gordon Brown think about this if he wants to get elected???

blue_monkey_2

To become unpopular.....!!!!!

I don't give a monkeys who is in power but we can't afford anywhere around here unless we get 15 times a salary!! Families that do not have housing cannot afford housing now anyway, not unless they are eearning 70k+ in this area. An 'apartment' (flat) costs 250k in the village - who wants to bring their family up in a flat through choice??

Turnbull2000

Of course. Short-termism and self-gain is a politicians forte. This country and it's future comes second.

We wouldn't be in this mess if it were otherwise.

Fulham_Mark

I suspect these "announcements" months before the queens speech are the start of his snap election campaign.

The details will never get spelt out since these won't ever be full-scale bills debated in parliament and he'll be evaluated at an election without giving himself much time to make any mistakes or gaffs.

I'm amazed he's not unpopular for raking in billions in stamp duty and not doing anything about the housing shortage until a month before an election...

Jennifer_Jane

blue_monkey wrote: »

To become unpopular.....!!!!!

I don't give a monkeys who is in power but we can't afford anywhere around here unless we get 15 times a salary!! Families that do not have housing cannot afford housing now anyway, not unless they are eearning 70k+ in this area. An 'apartment' (flat) costs 250k in the village - who wants to bring their family up in a flat through choice??

Well you wouldn't necessarily be 'bringing up your family' which sounds pretty long-term. You get on the ladder and move up when your circumstances change and hopefully improve. But my family 'grew up' in flats and sharing bedrooms. Perhaps people have to lower their expectations a bit. I'm in South Cheshire rather than posh North Cheshire even though it means further to travel to work, because it was all I could afford.

Turnbull2000

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Well you wouldn't necessarily be 'bringing up your family' which sounds pretty long-term. You get on the ladder and move up when your circumstances change and hopefully improve. But my family 'grew up' in flats and sharing bedrooms. Perhaps people have to lower their expectations a bit. I'm in South Cheshire rather than posh North Cheshire even though it means further to travel to work, because it was all I could afford.

Ah yes, lower expectations and strive to earn more. If I had a pound for every time this patronising and predictable advice is spewed in the face of FTBs.

Only a wind-up merchant or a person seriously out of touch would speak such rubbish, surely? It's not even worth tearing your whole argument apart.

Gorgeous_George

The Prime Minister will be unpopular whatever happens to house prices. Tony Blair is such a hard act to follow



GG

Deals_2

there is such a housing shortage. i definitely think housing that is affordable is the issue. i have seen quite a few empty houses and the Poles i know seem to want to spend minimum on accommodation at present and all sharing houses. i definitely agree that policiticians are just looking at it for their own gain. how could we otherwise accept that Blair is now retiring and will be a pension starting from £130K plus all those benefits and phones paid for etc...etc. and he does NOT get taxed on his lovely ex PM pension like all us ordinary folk. something is definitely not right in this system....

benood

If prices fall it will be spun as great news for FTB's and all part of Gordon's master plan. Will we fall for it? who knows.

epz_2

cheap house prices are great for pretty much everyone except those who plan on down sizing and dont have/care about their kids improving their lifes.

think about it, if it cost substantially less to own a house then we as a country would be more competative, hence more/better jobs here it would also add social responsability to younger people. if you can buy a place at 18 in stead of 35 then most would and get the associated responsabilites in stead of going out and getting !!!!ed out there mind.

it would seriously screw new BTL landlords but who cares, if the PM didnt spring for champane on his wedding i cant imagine he has an estate of BTL's somewhere and frankly only his opinion matters.

blue_monkey_2

I have been in this village the majority of my life and my mum all her life - 1/4 of it council the rest is 'private' housing. Whenever they put houses up they are huge spanking 4 bedroom houses that cost minimum 500k or apartments that cost £250k+ and this has been the norm for the last 10 years and there have been nothing put up that cost less than this. The point I am making is that we can't afford to even lower our expectations around here. The only way we can 'lower our expectations' and get something we can afford is to move over 200 miles from our friends and family and come to the North - where houses are cheaper - and this in turn pushes prices up in the North. What happens with work? We can't move that.

The point I am making is that to buy a flat we have to borrow 15 times our salary and why should we borrow money to live somewhere we do not want to. Sure you can start out with a flat but starting out does not usually include having 2 children and with both my husband and I being left to fend for ourselves from a pretty early age the support from family has never been there and we did not get the start a lot of other people have done - unless you are lucky to do well and move yourelf upwards, it is hard without family support - and that is not just finanacially but emotionally as well as all of these things help with getting started out on the right foot. That is just the way it is if you are working class in my opinion and the majority of people left not being able to afford somewhere who are in rented accomodation (private or HA/Council) are wrking class people (around here anyway). Sure we could go to the council, get housing beneift and move into an expensive rented house - minimum £1000 a month rent around here (and that is the norm and cheap, if we move out it gets more expensive) but that is what pushes council tax bill up because they are funding all the people in private lettings because the BTL have bought all the houses and the developers buy the cheap houses that people like us used to be able to buy to get us started. Unfortunately being bought up as 'working class' we don't have parents or savings to fall back on. Everyone I know that has bought a house in the last 5 years has either had funding from parents or has been lucky enough to get on the ladder 10 years ago.

We realised we had a choice - have children or have a house - we chose children as that was not something we could do in 20 years time with mebeing nearly 30, and we live in my mums house - without us she could not afford it so it works well for us for now anyway. However, it would be nice to have our own house one day and not know that if anything ever happened to mum my brother and sister would want us out within a week (yes, because they are like that - this is THEIR investment apparently and we would rather see us on the street with the kids so they can offer my mum some patry amount for it knowing she can't afford it on her own), it would be nice to feel secure but while prices are like this then we can't even think about 'lowing our expectations' without changing our lives.

Sadly we are sitting waiting for the old people around here to die so we can get onto the council and get their house (we've been on the list for 8 years now and not been offered anything) with a lot of nagging. Of course, that would be those that are left because their kids have gven them money to buy them on the cheap as THEIR investment but then that is another story!!

We could also both go out and work 14 hours a day and dump our kids on whoever was available or dump them into nursery so we can afford somewhere but who gains out of that and that is why we have so many social problems these days (in my opinion) so no, I don't think i can 'lower my expectations' because I do nt have any other than having somewhere to live that is affordable.

However, back to the original OP - maybe a general election will show how 'popular' Gordon Brown is. Remember, we have not voted him in, he is there because someone else left and it was not popularity amongst the public that got him into his role so how do you know he is popular without the nation saying so.