Labour plans for FTB ISAs

C_Mababejive

Why the continual Government interference in rigging the housing market? Will they be launching the "buy your first car" ISA soon also?

Drp8713

Anybody with half a brain can see Labour just come up with headline grabbing ideas, without any thought on the actual feasibility of the plan or knock on consequences for others.


Hopefully the electorate are now realising this, and hopefully they realise this before Labour win the election and ruin the economy, again.

HarryD

Yup, this is mindless electioneering bo**ocks for the mindless.

LeafGreen

Coveredinbees!!!! wrote: »

Where exactly is he planning on building these 1000's of new homes?

My small village has been earmarked for nearly 1000, so pretty much anywhere that doesn't already have something built on it.

Glen_Clark

There is only one way to alleviate the housing crisis - ease planning restrictions and let us build more houses. Builders would soon stop hoarding their land banks because rising building land prices would no longer be guaranteed by the Government restricting the supply.
Throwing more money at the same limited supply, as in Osborne's 'Help to Buy' just pumps up prices. I feel sure he knows that really and thats what he wants to do, since his own supporters are obsessed with their house price and profits from their BTL portfolios.
But the economy can never truly recover whilst young professionals are spending half their salaries on rent and commuting, and others are choosing to have kids for housing benefit as their only way of getting a home
Its going to become even more obvious that rising rent isn't really 'Growth' in GDP as they claim, and the rising National Debt can no longer be ignored.

lawriejones1

I think Millibands aim to build more houses is fantastic, and what the country needs. Personally, propert has been a canny investment for many on this forum, at a nationwide level building 125,000 homes and selling them at market rates would make the Government a tidy sum, not to mention safeguarding many thousands of jobs in the building industry and potentially rejuvenating some neglected areas.

If these were genuine homes (not awful flats) if support the policy, and I'd back the Government to borrow more to build them (a housing bond perhaps?). Trying to force the banks to do so seems, well, odd.

gadgetmind

Coveredinbees!!!! wrote: »

Where exactly is he planning on building these 1000's of new homes?

Well, quite.

Houses are cheap. You can build an OK one for £50k, a nice one for £100k, and a small palace for £250k.

Of course, the land (with planning permission) to put it on will cost you many times this figure because getting planning permission, 1) takes many years, 2) often fails due to nimby pressure, 3) costs a fortune in various kickbacks to local government.

gadgetmind

lawriejones1 wrote: »

If these were genuine homes (not awful flats)

And what if they are flats of the not awful type, which most are?

There's nothing wrong with high density housing and it's the norm in most countries. It reduces the demand for land and often enables people to be car free, so a double win.

colsten

lawriejones1 wrote: »

I think Millibands aim to build more houses is fantastic, and what the country needs.

There is nothing wrong with building 125,000 houses (other than it's not anything near enough houses). The questions I have are around how he intends to pay for them. He says it costs £5bn - that could be about right. Now where does the £5bm come from?

He says he will fund them from the FTB ISAs. As we know, the max such an ISA can hold is £15,000 (of which £3,000 comes from the government) and it takes 5 years to get to £15,000. As one user has pointed out, £15,000 x 125,000 = £1.88bn. So there are £3.12bn still missing, and the £1.88bn will only be available after year 5. Is he going to wait that long before he starts the building?

His plan also seems to assume that there will be hundreds of thousands of FTBs who will want to take out this particular ISA, and pay in for 5 years. This may or may not happen - unless he forces young people to save like that, it seems a rather high risk strategy to promise houses with money he has no guarantee to ever get.

On top of that, Miliband says he will force banks to invest the FTB money into housing. The problem with that is that the banks will not appreciate such interference as this would be communist-style interference. I think one of the countries in which banks do as they are told by the government is Cuba. Beautiful country if it wasn't for the immense poverty. Not something we'd want to aspire to, I don't think.

Enterprise_1701C

You forget one thing OP. Minibrand does not like the idea of a free market economy.

Every time labour come to power the state expands, they would like everyone in their thrawl, and their ideal populace would be a whole load of ants following the leader.

Labour can only be bad for the economy, and the idea of using the FTB ISAs to fund this would mean that the banks simply would not offer them, or they would offer a very low interest rate because it would be costing them so much.