Do you want house price to rise or fall?

chucknorris

GreatApe wrote: »

To those who say we need more social housing, how much social housing do we currently have and how much do we need? What about the areas with lots of social housing already did the mass social housing fix any of the problems you think more social housing will fix?

To those who say prices are too high, in which areas are they too high and in which ares are they too low? There is at least a factor of 5x between the cheapest to the more expensive areas.

To those who say we have a housing shortage, how do you square this with the fact we have more space per capita than ever?

With respect, I think that you are wrong, and I will use Bob Crowe (union leader of the rail union) as an example. He is obviously a socialist, and would therefore would deeply care about social (subsidised) housing being correctly allocated. He only (allegedly) earned £145k per annum, so who the hell would have a problem with him living in social housing?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513521/Bob-Crow-says-moral-duty-leave-council-house-despite-generous-salary.html

I'm sure there must be a socialist out there somewhere who actually just doesn't want more just for himself, but I haven't met them yet.

buglawton

UK figure may be improving due to starting from a low base.
And heavily skewed by empty oligarchs mansions and empty Asia investor flats being built by the thousand.

Currently the UK dwelling averages 33 sq m, Germany 55 and Denmark 65.
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house

Thrugelmir

buglawton wrote: »

Currently the UK dwelling averages 33 sq m, Germany 55 and Denmark 65.
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house

That's a lot of space per person.

GreatApe

buglawton wrote: »

UK figure may be improving due to starting from a low base.
And heavily skewed by empty oligarchs mansions and empty Asia investor flats being built by the thousand.

Currently the UK dwelling averages 33 sq m, Germany 55 and Denmark 65.
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house

When you mix the fake with the real you devalue the real

The fake news is your idea that the stats are skewed by empty mansions and flats. This is fake it is clearly fake and no need to go further than that. UK housing occupancy is very high.

What is real is that the UK does have less housing (square meters per capita) than say Germany. So the first question I would ask is how much more space do the Germans have and has it solved their problems? The answer is they have a LOTs more space per capita but it has NOT solved their 'problem'. Just google German housing shortage and you will see endless articles about the German shortage. So why would you think if we had mass house building it would solve the 'housing problem' if we can point to German which has much more housing yet still thinks it has a 'housing problem'?

So what is going on, well like with most things its more complicated than a glance at the topic would have you think. I dont think I have the energy to go through it all with you but in short hand it seems to be

The UK does not have a housing problem not a real one

People are happy to pay a third of their income on housing

Build more homes and you get a huge increase in single person housing. This can be a positive or a negative but imo it is a small net negative especially as I think it tends to lower the birth rate to well below replacement.

The want for more housing doesn't go away because if you build more housing housing gets cheaper but people are still willing to pay a third of their income for housing so they still want more homes therefore the want for more homes is not a good indicator of a problem or not. Else you end up with Germans who have a ridiculously large housing stock something like 43 million units for 82 million people yet they still think they have a shortage.

Building more homes does not necessarily lead to cheap homes. This sounds odd and a decade ago I would have thought myself dim for making such a statement that sounds so obviously wrong. But there is proof of this again look at Germany compared to the UK you can say they have a huge surplus relative to the UK yet Dusseldorf is more expensive than Doncaster, Berlin is more expensive than Birmingham, Stuttgart is more expensive than Stoke-on-Trent.

Having made the argument that the UK housing market is fine that does not mean we should or should not build more homes. It is just an observation that we have no major housing problems but if the nation wants many millions more single person households the debate should be on how homes can be built cheaper and faster. That is a debate about materials regulations and building methods mostly outside the scope of the interests of you me or our politicians. We would rather say there is a problem and pretend its got something to do with capitalism or free markets or which party is in power or greed or some such nonsense

buglawton

A typical Canary Wharf development 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159322/Flats-worth-140m-sell-buyers-queue-road-230-homes-41-storey-tower-east-London.html?ito=email_share_article-top
Was mainly be snapped up by Asian investors. Canary Wharf is expected to fill up with residential high rises over the next 5 years, 100,000 housing units. £900,000 for a large studio or maybe a 1-bedroomer. The marketing suites for each release will open simultaneously in London and Hong Kong.
Nothing to see here here (for us British) so move along please.

economic

buglawton wrote: »

A typical Canary Wharf development 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3159322/Flats-worth-140m-sell-buyers-queue-road-230-homes-41-storey-tower-east-London.html?ito=email_share_article-top
Was mainly be snapped up by Asian investors. Canary Wharf is expected to fill up with residential high rises over the next 5 years, 100,000 housing units. £900,000 for a large studio or maybe a 1-bedroomer. The marketing suites for each release will open simultaneously in London and Hong Kong.
Nothing to see here here (for us British) so move along please.

I don't understand why this should be looked down upon, the fact that foreigners are buying these flats up.

Clearly they are over priced even for canary wharf. However it keeps the developers in business and the developers can then afford to undertake projects that are of lower margin so that they can be sold to mainly UK nationals - which is riskier as your target market is not cash rich multi-millionaires with cash to burn.

These developers have many projects going on from luxury flats to more mainstream flats/houses more normal-wealth people buy. If it weren't for the overpriced luxury flats sold to Chinese, there wouldn't be many less expensive houses/flats being built for the British.

phillw

buglawton wrote: »

Was mainly be snapped up by Asian investors. Canary Wharf is expected to fill up with residential high rises over the next 5 years, 100,000 housing units. £900,000 for a large studio or maybe a 1-bedroomer. The marketing suites for each release will open simultaneously in London and Hong Kong.
Nothing to see here here (for us British) so move along please.

It's not about being British, it's that you have less money. That is not the Asian investors fault.

Moby

The problem of the UK is now one of underinvestment by government post Thatcher. it isnt the size of the budget, but a refusal to invest, in housing perhaps most of all. The entire nation has gorged on house price escalation as the way to get rich, while actually failing to build tangible houses to live in. Just getting lots of certificates claiming we are wealthy. This has spawned a banking industry making a mint from this asset price inflation, both here and all over the world. In so far as we are rippping off foreigners thats all very well, but we have ripped off ourselves and future generations most of all!

buglawton

economic wrote: »

I don't understand why this should be looked down upon, the fact that foreigners are buying these flats up.

Clearly they are over priced even for canary wharf. However it keeps the developers in business and the developers can then afford to undertake projects that are of lower margin so that they can be sold to mainly UK nationals - which is riskier as your target market is not cash rich multi-millionaires with cash to burn.

These developers have many projects going on from luxury flats to more mainstream flats/houses more normal-wealth people buy. If it weren't for the overpriced luxury flats sold to Chinese, there wouldn't be many less expensive houses/flats being built for the British.

phillw wrote: »

It's not about being British, it's that you have less money. That is not the Asian investors fault.

British government policy has been to encourage the UK to become an international property bazaar. Putting average Britons in competition with the the rich from around the world for land and building resources. Actually, not just the worlds rich, but also the worlds middle classes who pay much less tax in countries that don't have a social net. They can save more than us but want a nice rule-of-law home for their assets.

So with all this new money flowing in, is it any surprise that the original inhabitants of this new bazaar-land don't have the money to compete?

Result: Extreme land and property price inflation in hotspots around the UK. I've heard that extreme inflation never ends well.

GreatApe

Moby wrote: »

The problem of the UK is now one of underinvestment by government post Thatcher. it isnt the size of the budget, but a refusal to invest, in housing perhaps most of all. The entire nation has gorged on house price escalation as the way to get rich, while actually failing to build tangible houses to live in. Just getting lots of certificates claiming we are wealthy. This has spawned a banking industry making a mint from this asset price inflation, both here and all over the world. In so far as we are rippping off foreigners thats all very well, but we have ripped off ourselves and future generations most of all!

There is plenty of investment you think otherwise because most of the heavy industry was already built and additional capacity was much easier and smaller. For instance build a train line its costly and visible. Upgrade from analog to digital signaling to double train capacity and no one even knows. Build five power stations and its in the news. Install LED lights so you don't have to build 5 power stations and no one knows.

With regards to housing we have a sufficient number for our needs with just perhaps one exception and of inner London. Also more housing doesn't guarantee cheaper homes. Plenty of UK cities are cheaper than German cities even though Germany has 12 million more homes and much more floor space per capita. Doncaster is cheaper than Dusseldorf. Manchester is cheaper than Munich. Birmingham is cheaper than Berlin.

There isn't really a housing problem there is a small number of concentrated house price crash cheerleaders