Is property in a bubble?

MobileSaver

GreatApe wrote: »

Its a simple observation. Construction productivity has not improved ... just pointing out a fact.

It's a flawed meaningless observation.

The saying goes that it takes thirteen hours to build an average car and six months to build a Rolls-Royce. Therefore Rolls Royce have much lower productivity than most car manufacturers... a simple observation, just pointing out a fact... but completely pointless for obvious reasons.

BikingBud

GreatApe wrote: »

End user doesn't care about the number of engines or the materials used.
They care about speed cost and comfort. Speed and comfort haven't improved much over the fifty years. Cost has improved partly thanks to engineering and partly due to competition and different business models like the budget airlines.

Total weekly hours worked in the UK is 1,026,000,000 with 32 million working that makes it a mean average of 32 hours a worker. Full time is obviously more and sort time less.

The number of engines was reduced due to technological advancements and increased reliability and safety. No need for 4 engines now on most routes as if one engine fails, now extremely unlikely, the aircraft is now efficient enough to get to its destination without any real difficulties.

End user does care about tech and materials because if the efficiency hadn't increased as the weight hadn't reduced then the cost to run the flight would be significantly more expensive.

What should a transatlantic flight cost now given the 1975 price as a starter and then the inflation to 2018?

Whatever you may think competition and business models cannot make the flight run for cheaper I would see what Freddie Laker thought about that.

I have no idea what the last point means. I asked " how many weeks a year a UK worker puts in can you confirm that it is 50 weeks and provide the link as I still find that figure quite surprising."

And you respond with some other meaningless random stat that appears to be pulled from ..........:(

BikingBud

GreatApe wrote: »

Its a simple observation. Construction productivity has not improved and in many advanced countries has gone backwards..

Please confirm what you define as productivity. As we seem to have crossed purposes here.

Are we talking about the number of a product per unit man hours or the cash generated per unit man hour?

MobileSaver

I think we both realise that 13 hrs is production line time and not really the man hours involved in building a car.

The just in time supply principle provides the exact component or assembly at point of need as required according to a well planned and monitored build schedule. But what of those hidden hours at suppliers and sub contractors, such as the wheels having tyres mounted off-site, carpets being pre cut, dashboards and seats being pre-assembled.

We must also build in the design time and costs even where they are amortised across a number of differing manufacturers and models; VW, Škoda, Audi etc

But coming back to GreatApe and houses they similar to aircraft and cars are significantly more complex than houses 50 years ago. Complexity that provides easy and comfortable living is not simple to design or build. A mud hut is still a mud hut and forgive the example but if people are still living in mud huts in less developed parts of the world then the build rate is likely to be the same. However if they are now living in multi-dwelling apartment blocks with many bathrooms and Cat 5 wiring to provide all the extravagances of smart homes then clearly the build time must increase.

One other contextual piece is where houses are currently built, if we have used a lot of the primary, good, readily available sites then there will be extra effort to make those 2nd and 3rd choice locations suitable. Fancy paying the groundworks to build on a hill or on the floodplain or clear the woodland that has been around for 4-500 years?

MobileSaver

BikingBud wrote: »

MobileSaver I think we both realise that 13 hrs is production line time and not really the man hours involved in building a car.

Agreed. The point is that while both relate to building a car you cannot compare the productivity of a mass-produced robotically-built Ford with a Rolls-Royce where almost everything is completed by hand.

BikingBud

MobileSaver - Yep

So if we talk about cash generated per man hour then perhaps the RR model may be more productive.

There must be significant margins to allow the rework that seems to occur in the quest for perfection and still be a viable business.

GreatApe

BikingBud wrote: »

Please confirm what you define as productivity. As we seem to have crossed purposes here.

Firstly I will repeat once more that the fact that construct productivity has fallen isn't my observation it is the observation of the various national statistic bodies so if you fundamentally know better than dozens of nations maybe get writing to the ONS about why they are wrong and you are right.

I believe the way productivity is measured is value added in pound terms devided by the resources used. Most resources are just stored man hours so you can say value added decided by man hours if you wish that would be close. For instance a brick is the man hours to dig up some clay fire it to brick and deliver it to the site. If you use fewer bricks you use less man hours stored in that brick.

BikingBud

Still only what you think they are saying and not linked so we can validate the source.

Still only what you believe about productivity! I thought I offered 2 straightforward measures so we could differentiate but you have confused me again. What does your last sentence mean?

A brick is a brick not the man hours. There may be number of man hours represented in generating the brick, the same as there are consumables expended in mining bitcoin.

The cost of the project is the aggregation of the resources consumed. The value is what someone else may be prepared to pay.

If you use fewer bricks you use fewer bricks but the resources consumed by each brick doesn't change, the overall resource consumption for the project is lower.

Do you confuse yourself or just type too quickly to explain your real understanding?

AG47

The market can stay irrational far longer than most think

chucknorris

AG47 wrote: »

The market can stay irrational far longer than most think

Some people think that the market is acting irrationally due to their own biases, when in fact, it is not.

westernpromise

Yep. AG is long bitcoin and short property so he thinks that bitcoin is underpriced and property overpriced. This view was why he went long one and short the other to begin with, but now that he is in that position, if the market goes against him, then there's something wrong with the market.