Brown to build 3 million homes - Impact?

Gorgeous_George

alisnood wrote: »

Mmm so it is 3m homes by 2020 and the general feeling is that an increase in housing will depreciate prices but this effect will be slighlty reduced by more people coming to the UK?

So net result reduced house prices?

Definitely, unless they go up or stay the same.



GG

Snow_Dog

And when did politicians begin to follow through with what they said they were going to do?

Wake me up when that one happens, yeah right. This guy has been promising moves on increasing the build rate for most of the last 10 years and he's done booger all, because thats all he can do, its not like hes got £20B to go chucking around on anything other than useless quangos/meetings/spin doctors/big reports/feasability studies/conceptual studies/media relations.

See this promise, it aint gonna happen. (in the best Catherine Tate imitation).

Melissa177

By the way, this isn't a new promise. This 3M homes by 2020 is actually only 250K incrementally.

2.75 million homes had been promised previously.

The current target is around 200k per year, and Brown wants to raise the target to 240K per year by 2016.

We do need lots more new homes. The problem is, there are plenty of homes in the UK - just in places where people don't want to live (ie, the North).

Melissa177

epz wrote: »

6.25%+ interest rates in the near to medium term will cause the market to implode long before any houses get built.

fact is unless the south east doesnt want any public workers like nurses, fire fighters and police i suspect a big wad will be given to them in lue of wages that would allow them to live in such a high cost location.

Rather than subsidise this that and the other through various housing schemes for "key workers", and the Working Families Tax Credit system, which swallows so much cash just in administration that could be better used elsewhere, we should a) reduce taxes for lower paid earners (by raising the lower threshold and b) give public workers a living wage to start with.

That said, I do wonder why people work for the government in our public services if they don't think the pay is that great. People make an economic decision when they take a job, and there are big benefits (ie, fewer working hours, decent pensions) to being a public sector worker. I refuse to believe that public sector workers are that hard up if the gov isn't having a problem recruiting.

ajaxgeezer

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

I agree with you ajax but was too afraid to say for fear of being labelled a racist.

GG

....I know George, I had to read it and re-read it before I posted it - there's a brigade out there determined to make racist issues out of anything where race is discussed. If only they'd stick to the facts, they'd do their cause much more good

Anyway, back to housing and filling them. Someone said that Asian couples (2nd, 3rd generation etc) mirrored western population habits? I don't know, I'm just repeating an article I read in the Times this year that there was a 4x population growth differential.

ajaxgeezer

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

Definitely, unless they go up or stay the same.



GG

... sorry to speak for GG, but I really wanted to affirm that he isn't taking the pee with this answer. He's saying that it's a bit of a wishbone topic at the moment and no-one really knows for sure which way it will break. Not even the experts can agree.

ajaxgeezer

Gorgeous_George wrote: »

or was it three houses. The following link supports the 3,000,000 figure (clicky)

You may wish to check you golf handicap!



GG

....... not gonna read it, you must be right, and what I heard yesterday must have been a different topic, or I may have only heard the plans for phase 1 of the rollout

Apologies to the OP.

By the way OP, with it being your first house, will it be a long term (10 years+) house? If yes, I'd buy now anyway - you can't spend your young days hoping and waiting, and these things are cyclical.

Guy_Montag

1) If we actually see it I'll be surprised
2) It's going to culminate in 2020, we're not looking at 2 million new houses next year.

I think we need to encourage business out of london - so we should cut business rates to zero in the north east, & other depressed areas.

londonchap

Alisnood -

You haven't said where you are going to be buying. I think this is a pretty crucial factor. Housing fundamentals in the SE, and especially London, are solid imo, but oversupply/deteriorating affordability is becoming an issue throughout the rest of the UK (bar a few remaing hotspots). Add increased housebuilding and some areas may have too many newbuilds.

Also, how long do you plan to stay in this property? Is it affordable (have you budgeted for +2% interest rates)?

LC

Guy_Montag

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

The public sector being rewarded with a generous pension and holiday entitlements in lieu of lower pay is a bygone era, Melissa. There are numerous resources and reviews that show public sector pay overtook the private sector around 2004-2005.

The most recent public v private salary review is from the OME http://www.ome.uk.com/

The review is entitled 'The public-private sector wage differential for Full-time male employees in Britain'. However, this is for male employees only. And I quote...

Public sector graduate pay overtook private sector in 2006. From http://www.consultant-news.com

So in comparison to the private sector, you now have higher pay, a far more generous pension scheme that requires much lower employee contributions, retirement age up to 7 years earlier, higher annual leave entitlement, paid overtime and time-in-lieu, and little threat of the sack.

One issue with this, which must have made a difference in th last seven years (since I started working).

When I started in the public sector all cleaners, janitors, security staff & almost all tradesmen were employed directly by the public sector organisation for which I worked - all these jobs have now been privatised.

Moving the lowest paid out of the public sector won't be the only reason for the change but it will have had a substantial effect.