Landlords to blame for Britain's rising house prices

TickersPlaysPop

antrobus wrote: »

It is not a question of commonsense. It is a question of statistics.

And neither is it something that I would necessarily go all UKIP about. It's just that if you have something like 2.5m extra people coming to live in the UK over a decade, they have to live somewhere. And if you don't build the extra houses for them to live in then, well, you are going to have rising prices and a 'crisis'.

It's just demographics.

Great point and nicely explained.

So... who was and who is responsible for managing the cost of housing/living in this country?

Some might say it needs no management, it is the free market that reacts blah blah...

If the EU, politicians, banks and building companies were bothered about serving us we would not have a housing shortage and associated inflated prices and socially destructive consequences.

antrobus

TickersPlaysPop wrote: »

Great point and nicely explained.

So... who was and who is responsible for managing the cost of housing/living in this country?

It's quite straighforward really.

Back in 2000 the ONS produced (as it does) a forward projection of the UK population. It predicted that the UK population would grow by 2m in the years 2001-2001; about 1.4m net migration plus natural growth of 600k. Perfectly reasonable you might say; the population had grown by some 1.7m in the previous decade.

The government of the time therefore set a house building target of 200,000 homes a year. Not quite as ambitious perhaps as previous administrations, but 2m new homes for 2m extra people seems fair enough.

Unfortunately the ONS got its projection very wrong. Firstly because net migration turned out to be a a lot higher; around an extra 1m; and secondly because the birth rate shot up at an exponential rate. Largely, it seems, because all these migrants started sprogging, and that was another 1m extra. Thus the population grew by 4.14m over the years 2001-2011, over twice the projection.

Now, about 2007, the government realised that 200,000 homes a year wasn't enough, and upped the target to 260,000. Which probably still wasn't enough, but it didn't matter anyway, because the wheels then came off the bus, and it became a struggle to get anywhere near 200,000 let alone 260,000.

Anyway, this whole tale is an example of a classic planning failure.

CLAPTON

antrobus wrote: »

Now, about 2007, the government realised that 200,000 homes a year wasn't enough, and upped the target to 260,000. Which probably still wasn't enough, but it didn't matter anyway, because the wheels then came off the bus, and it became a struggle to get anywhere near 200,000 let alone 260,000.

Anyway, this whole tale is an example of a classic planning failure.

or maybe it raises the question of why the government has a housing target

did the government also have food target
or a petrol target
or a clothing target?

antrobus

CLAPTON wrote: »

or maybe it raises the question of why the government has a housing target

did the government also have food target
or a petrol target
or a clothing target?

The government had a housing target in order to communicate to RPAs and LPAs what level of planning permissions should be granted.

The whole purpose of the planning system is to stop people from building houses.:)

tkane

Cyberman60 wrote: »

Absolutely correct. The advantages are clearly less demand on all services especially the free NHS, welfare and schools.

Right and how are those paid for?

There is a misconception that immigrantion results in a strain on public services.

It might lead to a strain on school places IF there is a lack of planning by local authorities but everything else is media spin.

The segment of society which places the biggest burden on public funds is the over 65's - this group makes up 65% of all welfare spending and are also the NHS's biggest customer base.

Pensioners are expensive and if it was not for immigrants coming in and paying extra taxes the government would have gone bankrupt years ago having to fund all those expensive new treatments.

Still, let's not let facts get in the way of a juicy story about how the country is falling apart at the hands of immigrants :rotfl:

tkane

CLAPTON wrote: »

there is no significant economic benefit of increasing the population of the UK

Is that right?

Increased population leads to higher economic activity and therefore higher GDP.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Cyberman60 wrote: »

We've clearly had some benefits BUT we are now overcrowded with dross.

low skilled immigrants and eastern criminals .

Meanwhile, back in reality.....

European immigrants to the UK have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits, helping to relieve the fiscal burden on UK-born workers and contributing to the financing of public services – according to research at University College London.

European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011.

Moreover, they have endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.

Over the period from 2001 to 2011, European immigrants from the EU-15 countries contributed 64% more in taxes than they received in benefits.

Immigrants from the Central and East European ‘accession’ countries (the ‘A10’) contributed 12% more than they received.

· EU Immigrants who arrived since 2000 were 43% less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits. They were also 7% less likely to live in social housing.

· European immigrants who arrived since 2000 are on average better educated than natives (in 2011, 25% of immigrants from A10 countries and 62% of those from EU-15 countries had a university degree, while the comparable share is 24% among UK natives) and have higher employment rates.

http://www.res.org.uk/details/mediabrief/6909811/POSITIVE-ECONOMIC-IMPACT-OF-UK-IMMIGRATION-FROM-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION-New-evidence.html

tkane

jjlandlord wrote: »

'
Do the people supporting this actually understand the negative impact on the economy?

A lot of people can be swayed by populist ideas which are founded on little more than fear and propoganda.

Once they have been 'swayed' they tend to ignore all facts thrown at them.

For instance, only 3% of the land mass of the UK is dedicated to housing human beings - but many millions of people believe that the UK is 'full up'.

Cyberman60

antrobus wrote: »

It is not a question of commonsense. It is a question of statistics.

And neither is it something that I would necessarily go all UKIP about. It's just that if you have something like 2.5m extra people coming to live in the UK over a decade, they have to live somewhere. And if you don't build the extra houses for them to live in then, well, you are going to have rising prices and a 'crisis'.

It's just demographics.

No, it's commonsense as I've never had to consult statistics, and stats are after the event. If there are limited resources you do not add to the demand for those resources by a ridiculous amount of immigration.

The problem with some people is that they need to look at stats after the event rather than engaging their brains to avoid a totally predictable situation happening. Labour and socialists are guilty of this every time !!! :mad:

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

CLAPTON wrote: »

it could mean simply stopping the net 250,000 new arrivals each year

But then how would we replace the missing millions of young people caused by decades of the birth rate being below replacement level?