Gvment to announce new desperate measures to help poor people afford expensive houses

AG47

Lots of speculation about this, last time they said they will give 40% interest free for five years in London.

Now they are talking to do away with stamp duty for ftbers,

What’s next they will give 50% interest free for ten years and you only need 2.5% deposite?

Linton

Since the number of houses in London is relatively constant what will happen?

Ans: Prices will rise until houses are affordable by the same number of people as they are now. The only affect will be to change slightly who those people are.

Rich2808

Before help to buy was introduced new build one bed flats in London were going for for £300,000. Now they are going for £500k plus – even in less desirable areas.

All the major developers have announced huge bonuses for directors and shareholders.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/britains-biggest-housebuilder-is-about-to-hand-over-a-xa3600m-bonus-to-bosses-x2013-and-you-helped-a7079696.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/03/19/revolt-brews-bosses-bonuses-housebuilder/

Who do you think is really benefitting from the help to buy scheme – first time buyers who now have to pay £200k more to buy a one bed flat (plus another £10k in stamp duty!) than they did before the scheme came in? Me thinks not!

I wonder who came up with the idea in the first place!

sleepymans

Surely HTB is purely for the benefit of developers????
Am I naive??

AG47

Linton wrote: »

Since the number of houses in London is relatively constant what will happen?

Ans: Prices will rise until houses are affordable by the same number of people as they are now. The only affect will be to change slightly who those people are.

There is a building bubble in London, more new properties being added than ever before

AG47

sleepymans wrote: »

Surely HTB is purely for the benefit of developers????
Am I naive??

HTB stands for help to bubble, last desperate attempt to keep the bubble inflated

Sapphire

AG47 wrote: »

There is a building bubble in London, more new properties being added than ever before

I read somewhere (think it was the Telegraph the other day) that only 19 per cent of 'homes' being built in England are 'affordable'. If only 19 per cent are 'affordable', what is happening to the other 81 per cent? Are they being bought by speculators?

If that is the case, then the government should be making sure that far more than 19 per cent of 'homes' being built must be affordable – otherwise, everywhere is going to end up being concreted over quite needlessly.

And the speculators and builders are only one of the elephants in the room… It is disingenuous of someone like Javid to try to 'blame baby boomers' instead, many of whom started off very poor (in fact living in squalid conditions that were prevalent in much of London until the late 70s), and worked their guts off for decades to achieve a decent standard of living. Perhaps Javid is a property speculator himself?

Private_Church

A few years ago it was revealed that the large Construction companies had been running a cartel with regards to black listing workers who were members of a Union. There was a company set up who had all the records of Union members and the cartel would use the system to find out who were members of a union and hence black list them from gaining employment with the companies.

The reason I posted the above is I firmly believe there is a cartel running amongst the House building companies. They landbank large swathes of prime building land and dribble developments onto the market so as not to flood an aear with houses which would reduce prices. If company "A" had a site started with say 500 homes company "B" who has land just a few miles away will put back the start of their development until the company "A" development is nearing completion. Its not rocket science , restrict supply of a product and the value remains high, flood the market with a product and the value falls.

There isn't a lack of site tradesmen in the UK because the quality of workmanship can be dire and the house builders can get away with it. Much of the skill in building homes these days has gone with the advent of things like Truss roofs,metal stud walls, click together pipework etc .

It went on with the likes of Belfour Beatty etc so why not Bovis Homes etc ?.

westernpromise

There should IMO be HTR (Help To Rent) rather than HTB. This would mean I could put my rent up, but the same tenants could still afford to rent.

It's a win-win.

Windofchange

AFF8879 wrote: »

I agree that HTB serves to keep house prices at their current levels, and I don't think anyone would argue that. But you have to look at the other side of the coin; thousands of people have bought their homes over the past few years, so simply allowing the market to "crash" is going to force thousands of people into negative equity and trap them in high cost mortgages. So whilst it is cynical, HTB is a compromise between preventing aforementioned situation and allowing people to get on the housing ladder. There are not exactly a plethora of alternatives that achieve both of these outcomes.

But thousands of people haven't brought their homes. They have brought 25% or whatever of their homes because that is what they can afford. This is the trick isn't it!? How can we keep house prices as high as possible, but also allow people to 'buy' into the dream?

Put it this way, if house prices were affordable, then we wouldn't need help to buy, 40% equity loans, freezing of interest rates for 5 years, BOMAD, Barclays family mortgages and whatever other madness is going to come out of this government in the budget. If they let the market function freely then we would have had a return to normal in 2008 when it all tried to go bang, but of course Cameron's pals wouldn't have had their £60 million pound bonuses.

As I was trying to explain to a friend who has just 'brought' 40% of a London 1 bedder for the best part of 250 grand, she will actually be better with prices collapsing. Yes she loses some equity / goes into negative equity, but the remaining chunk of her flat then becomes more realistic to buy. A 25 year old with a near £500 grand flat earning circa £35k per annum. When you write the figures down the madness of it all becomes crystal clear. Problem is that many under 30 have never known reversing prices, and £500 grand for a 1 bed flat seems to be quite normal.

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn

Windofchange wrote: »

But thousands of people haven't brought (drop the r) their homes. They have brought 25% or whatever of their homes because that is what they can afford. This is the trick isn't it!? How can we keep house prices as high as possible, but also allow people to 'buy' into the dream?

Put it this way, if house prices were affordable, then we wouldn't need help to buy, 40% equity loans, freezing of interest rates for 5 years, BOMAD, Barclays family mortgages and whatever other madness is going to come out of this government in the budget. If they let the market function freely then we would have had a return to normal in 2008 when it all tried to go bang, but of course Cameron's pals wouldn't have had their £60 million pound bonuses.

As I was trying to explain to a friend who has just 'brought' 40% of a London 1 bedder for the best part of 250 grand, she will actually be better with prices collapsing. Yes she loses some equity / goes into negative equity, but the remaining chunk of her flat then becomes more realistic to buy. A 25 year old with a near £500 grand flat earning circa £35k per annum. When you write the figures down the madness of it all becomes crystal clear. Problem is that many under 30 have never known reversing prices, and £500 grand for a 1 bed flat seems to be quite normal.

A 1 bed flat in Kensington, Westminster or Knightsbrige maybe?

Look at any other prosperous, capital city and you'll find exactly the same thing.

People harking on about how prices are ridiculous compared to when their parents bough are barking up the wrong tree, London is considered luxury now. Whereas before it was just like any other polluted city.

BTW £500,000.00 elsewhere buys you a lot of house in a nice area.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-60060337.html