Average asking prices pass 300k!!!

Mistermeaner

Ponzi scheme with prices maintained through high demand and low supply.

Fix planning fix housing.

Unless you own more than one or are selling up to move to Thailand hpi is pretty meaningless for most people as its all relative, assuming you will always need somewhere to live. Yet people are seemingly obsessed with the paper value of their houses

mwpt

caronoel wrote: »

My parents bought in Barnes in the early 70s for £25k right in the middle of the oil crisis. Everyone told them they were completely bonkers

Value now is just under £1.5m

Moral of the story is that while prices may fluctuate in the short or medium term, they are on a long term upward trajectory.

No, you're talking medium term. The very long term the trend will be toward zero as we reach post scarcity and work becomes optional.

padington

mwpt wrote: »

No, you're talking medium term. The very long term the trend will be toward zero as we reach post scarcity and work becomes optional.

Unless we reach post civilisation or post life and work becomes barbarian or we are all dead.

westv

Average asking price within 1/2 mile of me is £135k. Some catching up to do!

iantojones40

There are only 2 other occasions when I've seen my local market in this much of a ramping, speculating, buying frenzy... 2001, when local prices went on to more than double in the following 5 years and 2006 when they went on to crash (ish) and have only just recovered.

BarleyGB

mwpt wrote: »

I refuse to believe that in a world where the cost of almost everything falls as the technology to build it increases, we can't find an ultra cheap way to mass assemble houses.

The problem is of course the price of land, but the government owns lots of that already. So what is it? Lack of will? Pandering to big builders?

This maybe true but your not just paying for the materials and labour. You cant mass assemble the location, or the limited supply of building land in locations people want to live.

wymondham

Remember Guys and Gals, high house prices are good for all of us as it means we are all doing well as a Country.... at least George has this nugget to keep him happy this Easter..

HornetSaver

cells wrote: »

Apart from the supply and demand problem in parts of the country the UK would need to return to building simple basic homes to reach the very affordable cheap prices of yesteryear. Homes with solid walls, no central heating, basic electrics basic finish, no 10 year guarantee, no s106, little or no planning fees, little or no building or employment regulations. Simply put we would need to roll back the clock on all the things that make building a house expensive in this country.

I agree with this paragraph in the context of affordable homes. Employment regulations (if labour were prohibitively expensive nobody would build in the north of England) and the safety of electricals aside.

Affordable homes should be less profitable than standard ones, but not the substantial losses for construction firms that they invariably represent. If affordable homes were profitable, we would have far fewer projects delayed over the developer's absolute insistence that they won't break ground until they've received an exemption, which is far too common at the moment - those that continued to play hardball in the hope of higher profits would soon find themselves overtaken by the more sensible ones.

EDIT: I screwed up - I had thought that section 106 was the section relating to the obligation to build a certain proportion of affordable homes unless you get an exemption. Section 106 should be loosened - if a council is actively trying to promote housebuilding then it goes without saying that they should be preparing themselves for the infrastructural work.

Thrugelmir

caronoel wrote: »

My parents bought in Barnes in the early 70s for £25k right in the middle of the oil crisis. Everyone told them they were completely bonkers

Value now is just under £1.5m

and we are in the early stages of a commodity crisis............

Life moves in cycles.

cells

mwpt wrote: »

I refuse to believe that in a world where the cost of almost everything falls as the technology to build it increases, we can't find an ultra cheap way to mass assemble houses.

The problem is of course the price of land, but the government owns lots of that already. So what is it? Lack of will? Pandering to big builders?

its the additional taxes. they pay all the normal taxes plus they need to sell upto 50% of the new builds to the local council or HA at a price where they can rent it out to a homeless mother with 9.7 kids.

What that means is if you just built a towerblock of 100 flats, the good ole local council gets to buy 50 of them below cost. The remaining 50 then need to sell at a price whereby its profitable enough to sell them at price x and cover the council.

So imagine a loaf of bread
A baker bakes 100 a day and needs an income of £100 a day to cover his costs and wages.
The council claims 50 of them need to be affordable loafs and gives the baker 10p a loaf for those 50. The remaining 50 need to sell for £1.90 or he does bust. If the council didnt claim the need for affordable loafs and he sold all of them at full price he could sell them for £1 a loaf.

plus on top of the affordable bread quota the builders need to stump up for lots of BS that really should be general taxation. like school places. parks. roads that have nothing to do with the development. etc etc