Do you want house price to rise or fall?

Chrysalis

Cakeguts wrote: »

I am not convinced about the social housing thing. I have for a long time thought that social housing should be there for people who can't get housing any other way. So people who are disabled or who have long term illnesses that stop them from getting work. I am not sure that it is the state's job to provide housing for people who can't be bothered to get a job or who want to have more children than they can afford. There has to be some responsibility on the part of people about which choices they make in life.

I am old and luxuries to me include this. A television, holidays, bought toys rather than made ones, iphones, computer, takeaway food, satelite television, fizzy drinks etc. You cannot expect to get all this stuff provided by our young people's taxes. My generation was brought up without any of the things. If you want to educate your children there is nothing better than the local library and it is free. Fizzy drinks are rotting the teeth of our young children water is much cheaper to drink from the tap. What is not a luxury to me is somewhere to live which is a roof over your head a bed and somewhere to sit. If you are healthy and could work then to get the rest of the stuff you do that. You don't rely on someone else to pay for it.

There is not enough social housing for young single disabled people the people with no choices. We should not be providing more social housing for the people who want to live in areas they can't afford or who want to live in luxury being paid for by other people. It seems to me that there are rules for working people that don't apply to social housing. For example there are a lot of working people who can't afford to buy a house in the most expensive areas of large cities and yet some of these areas have social housing so if you want to live there you have to find a way to get social housing which makes it more attractive to take a poorly paid job or not to work at all. Social housing should be there for people in emergencies not for people who can't be bothered. For all the others private renting is good because it means that they can downsize quickly if they need less space.

As I said you out of touch if you think its just the unemployed affected. Housing costs are a problem for millions of workers.

Not to mention it makes it harder to concentrate on getting work (if unemployed) if you dont have secure stable accommodation.

Private renting is over priced, and it lacks security, two very big problems. It is clearly unsuitable for a big part of the market. If you dont think charging someone more than the cost of a mortgage to rent, with inflation busting rises every year and 6 months of security not market failure then I dont know what else to say. Accommodation is not a luxury, its a requirement of life. So its ok to have things like computer games as a rip off, but not a roof over one's head.

To put into perspective I pay more for a single bed flat, next to a main road roundabout, single glazed windows, broken boiler, than my sister pays on her mortgage for a 3 bed property with a large garden. The market is almost completely broken.

Your opinion that the private market should be used for the majority of private renters in this broken state is just really out of touch. Rather I think its more like that social housing should be used for the majority of renters, and that the private market can accommodate the minority who legitimately are fine moving house every year (flexibility) and the high end market, like luxury apartments.

Also quite why you decided to go on a jealousy rant how the younger generation has access to ipads etc. I dont know, it bears no relevance to affordable housing. Is your opinion formed on "what is right" or because you just want to make things harder for younger people.

It seems you havent accepted any of my points if you think people want social housing just to "live in nice areas" and get "luxury". Its about "affordability" and "security".

Also you seem to be under the impression everyone who is unemployed or in a low wage job can walk into a social home, most definitely not the case, there is a very extreme social property shortage.

Chrysalis

Arklight wrote: »

I’m a homeowner with a mortgage and I want house prices to fall.

The British obsession with seeing property as some kind of one way casino come ATM is an absolute cancer in this country.

5 star post, the obsession is highlighted as well by all the tv shows about house buying, decorating etc. to resell at a profit. Not to mention if there is a few months of price drops, its plastered all over the news like a disaster.

lisyloo

GreatApe wrote: »

House price movements up or down dont change affordability all that much for the majority because the majority already own and a majority that do not own have gifts/inheritances that correlate with house prices.

The most logical thing to want is house prices to boom even to go up 10 x because the only way that would be possible is if real incomes and real GDP goes through the roof.

I’d rather have a healthy economic than a poorly performing one that’s for sure, but if we had a boom then the spoils would not be split evenly. There would be those who take advantage and I have nothing against merit and reward, but plenty who would be on the losing side of the deal through no fault of their own losing out through paying higher rents or for example disable data people paying bedroom taxes for daring to store their mobility aids or sleeping in a separate bedroom from their partner when sick.

Of course I’d like a healthy economy. I don’t think either boom or bust are usually healthy.
A downward trend for a while would rebalance things a bit in favour of those worse off.
I guess you can be glass half full or half empty but I think the majority of the poor are unfortunate rather than lazy and some of the wealthy/rich are lucky rather than spectacularly hardworking or fantastic people.

I’m not against reward or merit but a slightly more equal societ6 would be better.
You are free to disagree but I don’t see any reason to feel shame.
My views arent shaped by greed or anything nasty.

GreatApe

Also there is no real poverty in the UK for functional people
There are just extremely dysfunctional people and families
People addicted to gambling or alcoholics or drug abusers they have !!!! lives and live in hell.
Left or right, economic boom or bust those people will be with us and many people will point to them and say look this is poverty when in fact it is dysfunction.

GreatApe

lisyloo wrote: »

I!!!8217;d rather have a healthy economic than a poorly performing one that!!!8217;s for sure, but if we had a boom then the spoils would not be split evenly. There would be those who take advantage and I have nothing against merit and reward, but plenty who would be on the losing side of the deal through no fault of their own losing out through paying higher rents or for example disable data people paying bedroom taxes for daring to store their mobility aids or sleeping in a separate bedroom from their partner when sick.

Of course I!!!8217;d like a healthy economy. I don!!!8217;t think either boom or bust are usually healthy.
A downward trend for a while would rebalance things a bit in favour of those worse off.
I guess you can be glass half full or half empty but I think the majority of the poor are unfortunate rather than lazy and some of the wealthy/rich are lucky rather than spectacularly hardworking or fantastic people.

I!!!8217;m not against reward or merit but a slightly more equal societ6 would be better.
You are free to disagree but I don!!!8217;t see any reason to feel shame.
My views arent shaped by greed or anything nasty.

You've fallen for propaganda

Firstly its useful to note the world under the current system is advancing and improving at an amazing rate probably as fast as anyone could have dreamed of. A large proportion of the benefits of this system we are in is going to the very poorest. As I keep saying the world is going to build 1 billion more homes over the next 25 years and most of that will go to the poor

By any real metric the current system is working and working great it is so great the the Marxists have nothing real to point to and complain about so they complain about 'the gap' something almost trivial. Look at china lots of billionaires today almost none in 1990 but you'd have to be a fool to think the poor or middle man was better off in 1990s china.

The simple reality is that you dont vote for wealth you dont protest for wealth those things are childish. Wealth and well-being come from technology and productivity and those tend to progress fastest under free market capitalism.

Don't be taken in by the propaganda the world is improving very rapidly and those who benefit the most are the very poorest. Those who peddle the inequity problem are trying to get you to burn the current system down a system which has saved mankind from the real enemy of nature and chance. Even if I were a Marxist I would keep my mouth shut just from the sheer evidence of how good things have been over the last 20 years under the current system I wouldn't risk this progress this amazing progress in the hope for some ideological utopia to improve things faster than they current are.

The world is building a million homes a week mostly for those who dont have proper homes currently. That is staggeringly amazing progress. We really should be singing the praises of the system the world finds itself in not complaining that it isn't perfect because perfection is not for this world. While the system might not be perfect it is extremely good extremely good.

GreatApe

This reminds me of another debate where someone was suggesting the modern world is not great we work so much and that hunter gather societies had it better.

It is wrong on two fronts, for a start in a modern country like the UK we only work on average 2.5 hours per day and even then most the work is very easy. So we dont work all that much.

And on the other end hunter gatherer societies like medieval societies were mostly a story of death and disease. For almost all of human history women had ~6 kids on average but 4 would die before they become adults. Even that is false probably the median kids per woman was closer to 10-12 but many women only had one or two and died in the process and two thirds of all those born would not make it past childhood.

Its a similar sort of idea with economics today.
People complaining that what we have is not a great system are like the people claiming modern day life is hard and the past was easy. Modern free market capitalism isn't just the best of a bad bunch of options free market capitalism is what has/will take a whole planet of great apes from living like animals to first world status in under a hundred years.

To anyone who claims the system isn't working the counter argument is easy. A million new homes a week if you call that not working then you really are a nut job.

lisyloo

Life is much better today and I am one of those people that appreciates that especially for women who until fairly recent decades had no control over family planning.
On the whole I think people are massively better off than previous decades and capitalism is to thank.
No nut job, no shame.

Where can I find one of these homes? (I work in the city - I mean the banking district of London).
I only want one of those million and I don!pt have £800k to spend.
Obviously like everyone else Id prefer to not spend more than 2 hours a day on a train as our train companies are failing everyone at the moment ( not complaining just playing devils advocate and looking forqward to your answer).

Can you give us an example of where those homes are in the Uk?
I!!!8217;ll the rake a look and see what my job prospects are if I were to move (therectical as I have elderly parents I cant leave).

ukcarper

lisyloo wrote: »

Life is much better today and I am one of those people that appreciates that especially for women who until fairly recent decades had no control over family planning.
On the whole I think people are massively better off than previous decades and capitalism is to thank.
No nut job, no shame.

Where can I find one of these homes? (I work in the city - I mean the banking district of London).
I only want one of those million and I don!pt have £800k to spend.
Obviously like everyone else Id prefer to not spend more than 2 hours a day on a train as our train companies are failing everyone at the moment ( not complaining just playing devils advocate and looking forqward to your answer).

Can you give us an example of where those homes are in the Uk?
I!!!8217;ll the rake a look and see what my job prospects are if I were to move (therectical as I have elderly parents I cant leave).

You don't have to look too deeply at the move to a cheaper area if you can't afford to live where you are is seriously floored. Property is cheaper in those areas is cheap for a reason normally shortage of good jobs. Not everybody can have a well paid job and in the expensive areas there are plenty of low paying jobs that need to be done and in my opinion the people who do them need secure affordable accommodation which is not being provided by private sector.

GreatApe

lisyloo wrote: »

Life is much better today and I am one of those people that appreciates that especially for women who until fairly recent decades had no control over family planning.
On the whole I think people are massively better off than previous decades and capitalism is to thank.
No nut job, no shame.

Where can I find one of these homes? (I work in the city - I mean the banking district of London).
I only want one of those million and I don!pt have £800k to spend.
Obviously like everyone else Id prefer to not spend more than 2 hours a day on a train as our train companies are failing everyone at the moment ( not complaining just playing devils advocate and looking forqward to your answer).

Can you give us an example of where those homes are in the Uk?
I!!!8217;ll the rake a look and see what my job prospects are if I were to move (therectical as I have elderly parents I cant leave).

You cant complain about not being able to afford X there are lots of things I cannot afford but what you and I and even the single mother on benefits can afford is good quality housing healthcare education and high quality food/goods.

Personally I no longer live in zone 2 London because I cant really afford the £2 million I would need on a house I would like to live in so instead I live outside of London in a house that I do like but it costs 1/4th as much. The fact that I cant live in a nice big zone 2 London house is no indication whatsoever of the merits or pitfalls of free market capatilism

Also I would not say women had it harder than men in the distant past, both had it very very difficult perhaps in different ways but certainly both sexes had very hard lives in the past.

GreatApe

ukcarper wrote: »

You don't have to look too deeply at the move to a cheaper area if you can't afford to live where you are is seriously floored. Property is cheaper in those areas is cheap for a reason normally shortage of good jobs. Not everybody can have a well paid job and in the expensive areas there are plenty of low paying jobs that need to be done and in my opinion the people who do them need secure affordable accommodation which is not being provided by private sector.

Why?

Lets imagine the opposite. Lets pretend London had no social homes whatsoever

Lets say I then proposed the state build and rent out at 1/3rd the cost a million social homes.
The question would be why do this?
I would then answer....well I would very much like to hire staff at minimum wage and I cant do that right now but if we import a couple of million low skill low productivity people into London then I can pay my staff min wage to do low status difficult work

The real solution is to sell down 500,000 of the social homes in London especially the ones in Zone 1 & 2. But believe me I am glad your view is the norm that poor people should be in inner London because if the state actually did sell down 500,000 social homes in London that would lower prices and rents considerably and I would be a lot poorer for it.