More from the economist on uk housing

Hedgehog99

I disagree with changing the tax system to penalise people who stay in houses they own for a long time. It's their house, and if it suits them to stay, why not? If they live there & pay council tax there, the property is generating revenue for the council. It's different for properties left vacant while the owner waits to profit from an increase in value (as opposed to being vacant due to recent bereavement etc).

Also, the spare room thing - if you own the house and you want a spare room, why not? You're paying increased council tax for the privilege. As long as the "guest" who stays comes from a property also paying council tax, who cares? Besides, the "guest" could well be someone staying to help out an elderly person who'd otherwise need more help funded by the council or NHS, or staying because they'd otherwise need housing help themselves from the council. The forced- or incentivised- downsizing campaigners ought to look at the consequences and the increased demands on other services that would result.

Generali

BobQ wrote: »

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.

Tens of billions of pounds are already taken from Londoners and spent on most of the rest of the UK. How much more would be enough?

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

Tens of billions of pounds are already taken from Londoners and spent on most of the rest of the UK. How much more would be enough?

There was probably a time when "tens of billions" had a degree of shock value. It probably sounded a lot.

Not now. Don't Londoners already subsidise Scotland for an extra £8bn+ since the referendum? I think "Better Together" means they want some more too.

Given this, I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving another £10bn for the NW here

gadgetmind

Generali wrote: »

Tens of billions of pounds are already taken from Londoners and spent on most of the rest of the UK. How much more would be enough?

Everything they've got if they are also boomers. Sorry, them's the rules!

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

There was probably a time when "tens of billions" had a degree of shock value. It probably sounded a lot.

Not now. Don't Londoners already subsidise Scotland for an extra £8bn+ since the referendum? I think "Better Together" means they want some more too.

Given this, I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving another £10bn for the NW here

To put it a different way, without the London subsidy, GDP per head in the NE would be around that of one of the more prosperous central European countries: perhaps Poland or the Czech Republic. The NW a little higher.

lisyloo

You're paying increased council tax for the privilege.

That's not necessarily true at the top end.
I'm in band G (or whatever the top one is). I don't ahve to pay more council tax for extra bedrooms because there isn't a higher band.
Council tax is capped at a certain point. I don't live in London so you don't have to be a millionair to get into the top band round here, just have a largish house.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

To put it a different way, without the London subsidy, GDP per head in the NE would be around that of one of the more prosperous central European countries: perhaps Poland or the Czech Republic. The NW a little higher.

That analogy carries a lot more resonance.

The other angle is if we can encourage lower income workers to take up lower cost property outside London, could we not make a dent in that £28bn housing support bill ?

kabayiri

lisyloo wrote: »

That's not necessarily true at the top end.
I'm in band G (or whatever the top one is). I don't ahve to pay more council tax for extra bedrooms because there isn't a higher band.
Council tax is capped at a certain point. I don't live in London so you don't have to be a millionair to get into the top band round here, just have a largish house.

There was a government project in 2005 to increase the council tax bands to 20. This would have allowed for a wider set of charges.

However, the government of the day bottled it, just when it was ready to go live. Hey ho, more wasted millions.

BobQ

Generali wrote: »

Tens of billions of pounds are already taken from Londoners and spent on most of the rest of the UK. How much more would be enough?

Fair point. But anything that drives down property/rental prices in London is surely going to benefit the average Londoner apart from those with plans to downsize and leave London.

Graham_Devon

lisyloo wrote: »

That's not necessarily true at the top end.
I'm in band G (or whatever the top one is). I don't ahve to pay more council tax for extra bedrooms because there isn't a higher band.
Council tax is capped at a certain point. I don't live in London so you don't have to be a millionair to get into the top band round here, just have a largish house.

And in some parts of London, the top level of council tax is cheaper than band B council tax in more rural areas.