The General Election was a disaster for the UK

Yes, houses are freely traded but, shouldn’t be. Houses are your sanctuary. Houses are the places that provide security for you and your family. Accordingly, they should not be subjected to the vagaries of the marketplace, or pledged as security or, regarded in any way as a means of releasing equity to be spent, as is very often the case, on frivolities.

Believe me, I do know. I’ve been in breach of most of the above strictures not once but, many times.

……together with the adjusted true value for inflation, which has more than doubled prices since 1980. How many years would you have to work to buy a given property now compared with 30 years ago? It applies to any freely traded commodity and houses are but one of them.

Anything and everything can (should?) be seen as a tradable asset but I’ve always questioned people’s ability to see the whole picture when assessing the tradable value of a house (and a home)! As I said, you still have to buy somewhere else to live.

How often have we heard ‘I bought this house for…..and now it is worth’…

…fine, but does that ‘increase in value’ include how much interest you paid to the mortgage lender over that time, and the stamp-duty that you paid the government?

Private property should not be seen as a tradeable asset. It is a roof over your head – nothing more.

Dual irresponsibility – buyers should not have overextended themselves and lenders should not have made the means available. Mortgages would have been much scarcer and priced would not have exploded.

I wonder why in Germany house prices have barely changed in value over two decades or more. Less ownership and more rental perhaps….less pressure on the market. It all comes down to supply and therefore availability and demand.

Renting should be solely within the remit of a public body with rent to buy schemes encouraged.

What you are suggesting is effectively nationalising the private rental sector.

As for the supposed benefits you suggest these could not be achieved without a massive injection of (borrowed) public money that the return would not justify; it is as unsustainable as anything you have criticised earlier.

When do we say “That’s it, no more building on green sites”.

The country will run out of people who can afford a house long before it runs out of space to build houses!

I worried too about the sustainability of the housing boom during 1997-2007; with house prices running so far ahead of wage rises it was clear to anybody that it couldn’t continue.

The other thing that I never understood during the ‘boom’ years was the fallacy that because your house (your home) was going up in value it meant you were getting wealthier; unless, as has been said, you were speculating on property. As a ‘homeowner’ you only gain from the value of your house if you can sell it and buy a similar house for less money and pocket the difference; and how can you do that?

And in Spain, how much of the new property was bought by foreign buyers moving to Spain or buying a holiday home; at least that involved foreign currency going into the Spanish economy to fuel the building boom?

There’s something about housebuilding that the politicians will never address.

There is no need for anyone to have an empty house (beyond recently inherited) or a house they rent out. Renting should be solely within the remit of a public body with rent to buy schemes encouraged.

But, they’ll never address that elephant in the room.

Just imagine what that (after the initial shock in the system) would do for:
– improved social mobility.
– having investments made in enterprise rather than property, which encourages jobs.
– reduced mortgage payments meaning greater purchasing power, which encourages consumer spending.
– reducing pressure on housing availability.

Of course, in the short term, there would be a massive shock, people who have funneled loads of money into property would be essentially wiped out. But, the longer term benefits would outweigh the short term pain and I feel that its something that the government should be looking to bring in. It would need to be gradually done over something like a 30 year timeframe (through reducing the number of houses anyone can rent) to mitigate against the shock.

There’s something about housebuilding that the politicians will never address.

When do we say “That’s it, no more building on green sites”. Or do we get to a point
in the distant future, where you can drive from one end of the country to the other, and
not see a blade of grass ?

The house construction industry was at probably its highest output during the Blair years.

But it was never sustainable.

If its not sustainable, its no use.

The most sustained period of house price growth in the U.K in the last forty years was 1997-2007 .

Exactly! The idea of this being a good thing beggars belief.

Just think for a moment of all the negatives associated with an inflated property market. Then name one positive aside from easy money for those with the assets to stand over the mortgages 2 or more houses.

The house construction industry was at probably its highest output during the Blair years. Construction as a whole benefits not just the constructors but the suppliers and service industries which serve construction.

As to ‘unaffordable credit’ being a root cause of the financial crisis. The problem was lenders in the U.S selling mortgages to people who clearly couldn’t ever afford to repay them. These mortgages were then bundled and sold on as investments to other financial institutions. All very well when the house prices are going up and people expect to sell quick and take the profit. However the greed of the mortgage people in pushing unwise mortgages was a factor in the financial crisis -there was however an understanding in business that the entire housing market was getting overheated especially in Spain and that a market rebalance was likely -what wasn’t expected was the speed of the recession.

The most sustained period of house price growth in the UK in the last forty years was 1997-2007…

Now we have to be a little careful here; this isn’t actually a direct measurement of the success of the economy!

Housing shortages can also push house prices up. Also, the extension of, in some cases unaffordable, credit can also push house prices up; in fact, the extension of unaffordable credit was one of the root causes of the financial crisis.

Of course, the other way of ‘producing’ a boom in the economy is to pour money into the public-sector, money that the country has had to borrow; nothing wrong with public-sector spending, so long as it is sustainable and doesn’t involve too much public-borrowing.

A disaster or not, my shares have soared, so the city thinks otherwise. So bring it on for the next 5 years.

‘Successful by what yardstick?

Getting re-elected?
Or laying solid foundations for the future of the country?

On the former, they were successful, on the latter, a complete disaster’.

Really ?? The most sustained period of house price growth in the U.K in the last forty years was 1997-2007 . That fueled a lot of people to make a lot of money -not just millionaires but ordinary people who bought and sold average houses. People forget the boom years -just concentrate on the global meltdown.

Oh there’s no need Trekkie. He’s just done what politicians do!!;)

So a man who has campaigned about politicians keeping promises and slating those who don’t, doesn’t keep a promise himself.

Quote” unlike other politicians, I keep my promises”

To try and be a bit balanced about this, it seems he was begged to return by the other kippers as they realised what would happen if he wasn’t at the party’s head, so he was between a rock and a hard place.

As Eddie Mair has just said on the radio, doesn’t he at least deserve a bit of a break over the summer?

Bl**dy hell, I am even beginning to feel sorry for the guy

His resignation has been ‘rejected’ by UKIP!

Hurrah!!!! Nigel’s changed his mind!!!:very_drunk::very_drunk::very_drunk::very_drunk::very_drunk:

About what?

Bob,

Where did you spot that ?