Debate House Prices


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Housing Shortage - Rents soar to another new record high....

2

Comments

  • kabayiri
    kabayiri Posts: 22,740 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    lisyloo wrote: »
    No it doesn't necessarily follow that just because average rents are rising, that HB tenants rents are rising.
    We can force them to move down market by reducing their HB or make them share til they're 50 rather than 35.
    I'm not saying those are good ideas BTS - just saying it doesn't follow automatically.

    We could have done these things quite some time ago, because the cost has grown significantly in the last decade+.

    Perhaps the reality has dawned that we need to do these unpopular things.

    I suspect the overall bill will still rise. Time will tell.
  • lisyloo
    lisyloo Posts: 30,090 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    We could have done these things quite some time ago
    We could, but there were polictical and economic reasons why not.
    I think now is an excellent time because the Tories can get all their "bad news" out of the way early on in their term in enough time to recover before the next election.
    I suspect the overall bill will still rise.

    You might be right, but it's still better to have it rise less isn't it.
    Many of us also feel that it's unfair to put long term unemployed up in expensive places in central London when workers who contribute are having to commute on cattle trucks, so as well as the bill there is also a fairness agenda.
    I have compassion for those that cant work, but also for those who work hard for little pay and also those who have to travel, live away from family etc. so there does need to be a balance.
  • ruggedtoast
    ruggedtoast Posts: 9,819 Forumite
    It is time to steamroller the NIMBYs. Britain needs housing.
  • the_flying_pig
    the_flying_pig Posts: 2,349 Forumite
    Average Rent in April now £774 per month, up 4.6% on last year.

    Average BTL rental yield now 5.1% and total return including capital growth 8.9% in the last year.

    Fastest growing area is the East of England at 12.5% YoY versus London at 7.8% YoY.

    Proportion of rent in any arrears, even just a few days, falls to 7% and proportion in serious arrears just 1.8%, well down on where it was just a few years ago.


    http://www.lslps.co.uk/documents/buy_to_let_index_apr15.pdf

    Well, based on the logic of some on here, the way to tackle rising house prices is to throttle lending so that fewer people can buy. (While conveniently ignoring the fact that this approach also ensures fewer houses are built and so worsens the shortage.)

    So, using that same logic, the way to tackle rising rents must be to throttle wage growth so fewer people can afford to rent? ;)

    this debate has been had about a billion squillion times but what the heck:


    (1) I've never once seen you on here advocate a supply-side measure, never, ever. All I ever see you do is bang the drum for increasing the demand for owner-occupation. Never supply. Why?


    (2) I'd be very much in favour of rent controls. The classic textbook argument against price controls [in general, in any sector] is that they constrict supply. But the supply of houses in the UK is just about as inelastic as anything ever. What's annual housebuilding, call it 150k a year (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building)? Compared to how many households in total, call it 28 million? so that's fresh 'supply' of about about 0.5% of the total every year. even when prices have been increasing at a rate above inflation for quite a while, call it 5-10% HPI per year. that [very] crudely implies an elasticity of supply of about 0.05 to 0.1. in other words supply is to all intents and purposes fixed. in other words the main argument against price controlling almost completely falls away. what's more worth fighting for, lower rents for the taxpayer & millions of private renters or a microscopic pinprick of an extra few houses built?
    FACT.
  • HAMISH_MCTAVISH
    HAMISH_MCTAVISH Posts: 28,592 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    I've never once seen you on here advocate a supply-side measure, never, ever. All I ever see you do is bang the drum for increasing the demand for owner-occupation. Never supply. Why?

    Ahem.... :)
    to build the millions of houses we need will take lots of solutions.

    We need more council houses.

    We need more social housing.

    We need more private rented.

    We need more owner occupied.

    So we need more taxpayer funding for government to build, more private funding for investors to invest, more mortgage lending capacity for individuals, more development funding for builders, and more people willing to buy places to rent out.

    It takes all of these things.

    So restricting any of them is idiotic and counterproductive.

    As we have seen.

    But what you absolutely cannot do, and indeed what we have categorically proved is a dismal failure over the last 5 years, is to prevent a million people from buying homes and force them into rented for half a decade instead.

    While providing no other solution.

    That just leads to supply falling off a cliff, rents soaring, and building dropping to the lowest level in a century.

    Making the housing shortage worse, and building massive pent up demand that will ensure prices boom even more in the future.

    Not to mention the building and associated housing related industries contracted, hundreds of thousands of people were laid off, and the wider economy was severely hurt.

    It was a massive, catastrophic, unconscionable failure on the part of government and the BOE to wait this long before partially repairing the dysfunctional markets
    .
    “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.

    Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

    -- President John F. Kennedy”
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    kabayiri wrote: »
    Arise the Northern party !

    A party mobilising nationalist sentiment from Scotland coupled with the North of England ( a collection of paupervilles ).

    This is the best route for Queen Nicola the Sturge to build her power base; she just doesn't know it yet.

    My guess is that you're not entirely serious but if you have a genuine split where the Northern part of the UK is expecting ever more cash out of London there will come a point where London says, "No more!".
  • the_flying_pig
    the_flying_pig Posts: 2,349 Forumite
    Ahem.... :)



    mm, ok, I was exaggerating. that post was mostly about boosting demand, with boosting supply being restricted to the margins. which is very silly.
    FACT.
  • padington
    padington Posts: 3,121 Forumite
    edited 13 June 2015 at 7:18AM
    Generali wrote: »
    My guess is that you're not entirely serious but if you have a genuine split where the Northern part of the UK is expecting ever more cash out of London there will come a point where London says, "No more!".

    That's the history of London all over and why the royals chose to reside in Windsor, more than a stones throw away..

    London's always been the turbine of innovation and the lazy and f*ckless have always been trying to over tax it.

    That's where London's non conformist spirit comes from. Left or right a Londoner is always prepared to make a stand if need be, it's in the historic DNA working as an ancient response to economic blood sucking.
    Proudly voted remain. A global union of countries is the only way to commit global capital to the rule of law.
  • lawriejones1
    lawriejones1 Posts: 305 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    padington wrote: »
    That's the history of London all over and why the royals chose to reside in Windsor, more than a stones throw away..

    London's always been the turbine of innovation and the lazy and f*ckless have always been trying to over tax it.

    That's where London's non conformist spirit comes from. Left or right a Londoner is always prepared to make a stand if need be, it's in the historic DNA working as an ancient response to economic blood sucking.

    What a load of @&£?.
  • Generali
    Generali Posts: 36,411 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    padington wrote: »
    That's the history of London all over and why the royals chose to reside in Windsor, more than a stones throw away..

    London's always been the turbine of innovation and the lazy and f*ckless have always been trying to over tax it.

    That's where London's non conformist spirit comes from. Left or right a Londoner is always prepared to make a stand if need be, it's in the historic DNA working as an ancient response to economic blood sucking.

    Possibly a hint of twaddle but something in it too.

    The City of London (London) shows its power but that it will not use its power via the Lord Mayor's Show where the Lord Mayor of London (not Boris) gets in his gilt carriage and pops over to the west to promise not to raise an army to overthrow the Queen (I exaggerate but that is the spirit AIUI*).






    *antrobus correction awaited
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