More from the economist on uk housing

the_flying_pig

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21667973-britain-has-one-booming-market-could-do-crash-through-roof?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/trhoughtheroof

Mistermeaner

Interesting. Thanks

george4064

Thanks for the link.

Generali

As ever The Economist gets to the heart of the problem:

Since coming to power in 2010 the Conservative government has done more to boost demand for housing than increase its supply. Labour, meanwhile, talks about rent controls, which could flatten supply further still. Persuading homeowning voters that more building is needed is hard. “When The Economist’s readers all write in to me having read your editorial and say: ‘Oh yes, and by the way, I’d like a house next to me,’ then we’ll know we’re winning,” says Mr Osborne. Letters should be addressed to the Treasury, London, SW1A 2HQ, before prices get any sillier.

Thanks for the link OP.

mayonnaise

Well done by posting a link OP.

I clicked on it and it opened a whole new page, pretty nifty.

lisyloo

‘Oh yes, and by the way, I’d like a house next to me,’

I don't think I'd want to invite it, but I wouldn't object to homes being built next to me (either right next to or in the same town).
I would like another main road though and leaving the hospital open and perhaps extending it's services.
Infrastructure is already heavily used up so any new housing needs new infrastructure.

Conrad

More housing and infrastructure will attract more immigration, build it and they will come.

Generali

lisyloo wrote: »

I don't think I'd want to invite it, but I wouldn't object to homes being built next to me (either right next to or in the same town).
I would like another main road though and leaving the hospital open and perhaps extending it's services.
Infrastructure is already heavily used up so any new housing needs new infrastructure.

In general terms, more housing doesn't need more infrastructure. Just because someone builds me a house doesn't mean that my kids will suddenly go to school having sat at home previously or I will need to commute to work which I didn't need to do before.

Obviously if building makes people move then that wouldn't be the case.

It may even be that by building where people want to be (generally near where they work) we need less infrastructure as people will have shorter commutes and so spend less time using infrastructure.

BobQ

The article seems rather London centric.Maybe if we invested more in the regions and made it less attractive to buy in London we might not have this problem.

gadgetmind

We built a house next to us as we had too much garden. Mind you, a chap a few doors down recently bought the house next door and is then knocking it down as he wants more garden!

michaels

We wanted to build a house in a garden on a corner plot so filling in a misisng house where there was already a matchign house on the other side of the road. People 300m away complained that they would be able to see it (they can see aleready the lines of houses on each side of it that are much closer to them), people on adjacent roads complained that even though it would have 2 parking spaces (for a 3 bed house) it might impact their ability to park on the road it was on (not the road they lived on).

No doubt they are also complaining that their are no affordable houses for their children.