Its you that's not fooling anyone. I explained in principled detail my objection. None of your responses even attempt to refute what I wrote. This one is pure verbiage.
UK - Election 2015
- Thread starter The Don
- Start date
As opposed to dependency on private landlords in market that is pricing first home buyers out of the market. Compounded by weak or corrupt planning committees not holding developers to their legal commitments to provide affordable housing. Because it's going so well at the moment...
At this rate there will be another housing bubble crash until someone realises that they have to force banks to cut back on the amounts loaned out on mortgages. 95% mortgages have already reappeared, it's ridiculous. A pool of social housing would help to regulate the sort of silliness seen in the housing market.
anglolawyer
Banned
Good point. I would like to hear a capitalist definition of the word 'work' (as in, 'this works, that doesn't work'). The UK's property market is a wonky, unstable thing that undergoes upheavals every twenty years or so (roughly the time it takes for everybody to forget the last meltdown and start doing all the same stupid things as before).
I agree that part of the problem with the UK private housing market is the amount of money sloshing around the system. If I can go out and borrow 4 or 5 times my salary and 95% of the value of the property then that will drive prices up FORCING me to borrow 4 or 5 times my salary and 95% of the value of the property.
I was lucky to get on the housing ladder back in the early 90's. Mrs Don and I bought a nice flat in Bristol with a 25% deposit and our mortgage was about 1.5 times our joint earnings. The bank suggested that we could borrow nearly twice what we wanted to, we declined saying that we wouldn't be able to afford to pay that much back.
Property prices have risen much faster than earnings and if we were in the same position now, we'd struggle to buy that flat.
If banks don't lend however, property prices may be in for a big correction and/or cash rich individuals and companies can swoop in and purchase large tracts of housing and rent it out privately and lucratively.
It seems that efforts to "fix" the situation only seem to make it worse in areas of high demand. Attempts to make property more affordable drives up prices in the South East and other areas of high demand. There simply isn't enough housing stock in general and it's in especially short supply in the South East where, due to the fact that high density schemes are unpopular, there simply isn't enough building land to satisfy demand.
Well regulated private letting works perfectly well as a system, with the proviso that there is adequate supply of property. With a supply situation unable to keep up with population growth, no system works well enough.
A mixed property market is probably going to be the "best", rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, but as you say it isn't a problem of balance between social and private it's simply that there isn't enough property, in the places where people want it.
The issue I have with the Tory's idea (aside from the remnants of the ideology of my youth) is that we have data that it does not in any significant way increase the number of properties available.
We need to build more properties and to me this one it's a real puzzle why no party actually seems to want to tackle this, there seem to be a number of simple (in comparison to many other social issues) policies they could adopt, at very little cost to the public purse to massively increase the housing stock.
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I live in the South East and apart from central Gtr. London there is plenty of land and space to build a huge number of properties, and even London can benefit from this, the commute to London from my village is about 40 minutes (when they can run the trains...), the next village over is just a 25 minute rail commute to London.
My neighbours are busy NIMBYing several proposals right now in my village, the irony is that many of these neighbours also complain that their kids can't afford somewhere "nice".
anglolawyer
Banned
Like what, Darat (I am genuinely curious)? Where I live, Guildford in Surrey, folks are fighting against development on the Green Belt. I am told by an affected person (affected insofar as two thousand homes are due to be built in the hitherto green fields abutting his home) the developers submit plans to build affordable housing, they get permission, then they start fiddling about somehow or other and end up building higher value properties.
Primary legislation to simple "grab" green belt and other land (politicians are happy to do this to build things like the high speed rail link, cross rail and so on). That will provide land for building. Then distribute this land between local authorities and the private sector. Forget about forcing "affordable" housing on the private sector let it build whatever properties it wants, at the same time allow local authorities to raise capital against their very lucrative "business" of providing social housing and use this to build the social housing.
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anglolawyer
Banned
Oh, I don't like that at all. Save the Green Belt!
Why?
anglolawyer
Banned
Why? WHY??
Because the country is too built-upon already. Let them eat cake, or build on brown field sites. Not in my back yard.
As you've already discussed there is a big brouhaha about the green belt and commuting that distance isn't cheap for your average working person. 25 minutes from London also hides a multitude of sins. I used to live in Brockley which was 10 minutes or so from London Bridge but it still took the neck end of an hour door to door to get to Temple and when I was working in Turnham Green it was closer to two hours.
Totally agree especially because they have to pay out so much for their housing, but that catch-22 can only be resolved by making a change. All the current policies have not, do not and will not solve the problem of too few homes (where wanted).
anglolawyer
Banned
I'm being Poed aren't I?
This verb I knoweth not. Surely, it can't be good to build all over what's left of our green and pleasant land. That was my point.
Edgar Allan Poe?
Information Analyst
Penultimate Amazing
It's reported that many charitable housing trusts are appalled by this, as it means they will be forced to sell off (dirt cheap) housing assets that they've been successfully managing for decades, if not - in some cases - over a hundrerd years. Those on the right throw up their arms at the idea of nationalising private assets, but this is essentially forcing the transfer of private assets from one set of owners to others.
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Francesca R
Girl
Yikes. Angel to Broadgate isn't too bad as a 25 min walk.
But the green belt regulations are one reason why my home is far too pricey. Another is low-density estates beyond it that require all resident families to have two cars so that they can be in a semi with a garden. Its other main purpose seems to be to add time and cost to commutes from outside it.
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Information Analyst
Penultimate Amazing
How are housing associations "the government"?
Francesca R
Girl
They're not but they are non-profit and usually part publicly funded.