Would you prefer they not be solved, though?

I'd rather they didn't cock things up in the first place.

Would you prefer they not be solved, though?

 

None of those problems will be "solved" by anything in the budget. They are so severe that all they can do is make them less bad and come from 20 years of being ignored and insane policies that show no sign of being ended (Right To Buy, for one, where the f*** is my half-price house while they claim there is no money and raid local government to buy votes, and use taxpayers money to subsidise over-priced rental income for multiple well-off/rich property owners, like local multi-millionaire Dave Wells who now owns half the bloody property in Dorset)

 

Now, a serious attempt to "solve" the crisis would:

 

1. End Right To Buy immediately

2. Build more Council Houses *

3. Take land off companies (at market cost at the point of being granted planning permission) who are sitting on it despite having planning permission, and use it for Council-House building instead.

4. Make it easier to import skilled workers for house-building jobs (there has been a massive loss of these)

5. Tax heavily owners of holiday homes that are not rented out.

 

Just off the top of my head there. Plenty more that could be done to solve the Housing crisis, but they won't because the people who pay for the Tory party have major interests in making sure nothing rocks the boat and reduces their cash flow. I guarantee all they will do is fart around with making noises about assistance for getting mortgages to get on the way-overpriced housing ladder, and ensure everyone gets further into debt while savers continue to subsidise those in debt.

 

A bit like expecting Jacob Fleas-moggy to vote to ban ciggies in order to save lives when he hypothetically makes oodles of cash from it personally. I say "hypothetically"....

 

(* BTW the Tory council I work for is doing exactly that, despite virtually no land to use except public open space - and as fast as they build them the "poor" people living in them somehow manage to find the cash to buy a half price house less than a year on from being built, with all-mod-cons. This is a fact, I do the bloody sale plans for them and record how many are sold and bought each year, and for how much, so I have absolute total facts and figures at my disposal)

Some Tories do seem to be waking up to the housing crisis and how it's completely torpedoed their vote share with the 25-40 bracket. To be honest there's probably not a lot they can do to fix it in this parliament to boost their electoral prospects significantly because it's such a long-running problem and would require something truly radical to fix quickly, as has been mentioned above.

 

This is all for nought anyway as the Chancellor probably won't be prepared to make even small funds available. He's a proper fiscal conservative anyway, but Brexit is going to magnify that for the time being.

Why has nobody readdressed the ridiculous council tax bands that are based on house prices in 1991 and stop at £320,000?

 

I think we need a Land Value Tax but that's never going to happen.

 

 

Land Value Tax has been Lib Dem (and predecessor party) policy for as long as I can remember :lol:

 

If we are to keep Council Tax, a revaluation is now about 20 years overdue. The Tories included automatic revaluation in the original legislation but then screamed blue murder when the new Labour government dared to start the process. They were assisted by the usual suspects in the press who concentrated on the likely losers (largely those in large houses) and ignored all those who stood to gain. As the revaluation was meant to be revenue neutral, there were always going to be gainers and losers.

It'll be interesting to see how the upcoming budget will affect the polls. It appears there may be beneficial changes to student loan repayment and the public sector pay cap. There are some other big issues that, if tackled, could boost the conservatives - sorting out the universal credit mess, housing, more money for the NHS etc.

 

ALL their messes.

 

People despise them now. They are articially boosted by a media and press establishment desperate to keep their rich buds in. They are artificially boosted by UKIPers desperate to keep thr EXTREME RIGHT in power.

I'd rather they didn't cock things up in the first place.

 

If you know of any politician who never makes cockups, I'll be happy to vote for them. :rolleyes:

 

None of those problems will be "solved" by anything in the budget. They are so severe that all they can do is make them less bad and come from 20 years of being ignored and insane policies that show no sign of being ended (Right To Buy, for one, where the f*** is my half-price house while they claim there is no money and raid local government to buy votes, and use taxpayers money to subsidise over-priced rental income for multiple well-off/rich property owners, like local multi-millionaire Dave Wells who now owns half the bloody property in Dorset)

 

Now, a serious attempt to "solve" the crisis would:

 

1. End Right To Buy immediately

2. Build more Council Houses *

3. Take land off companies (at market cost at the point of being granted planning permission) who are sitting on it despite having planning permission, and use it for Council-House building instead.

4. Make it easier to import skilled workers for house-building jobs (there has been a massive loss of these)

5. Tax heavily owners of holiday homes that are not rented out.

 

The housing crisis cannot be solved while everyone tiptoes around one of its main causes - the population is rising faster than houses can be built, but political correctness prevents most mainstream politicians from spelling out why - immigration.

 

[feel free to run to your 'safe spaces' at the mention of that word] :P

 

ALL their messes.

 

People despise them now. They are articially boosted by a media and press establishment desperate to keep their rich buds in. They are artificially boosted by UKIPers desperate to keep thr EXTREME RIGHT in power.

 

There is no artificial boost - if enough people still didn't prefer the Tories to Labour, than *no* amount of 'right-wing propaganda' could protect them from the electoral consequences.

Edited November 19, 20177 yr by vidcapper

If you know of any politician who never makes cockups, I'll be happy to vote for them. :rolleyes:

The housing crisis cannot be solved while everyone tiptoes around one of its main causes - the population is rising faster than houses can be built, but political correctness prevents most mainstream politicians from spelling out why - immigration.

 

[feel free to run to your 'safe spaces' at the mention of that word] :P

There is no artificial boost - if enough people still didn't prefer the Tories to Labour, than *no* amount of 'right-wing propaganda' could protect them from the electoral consequences.

 

there are many reasons why there is not enough housing. People living longer and selfishly dying slowly at home instead of walking out into the woods on a frozen morning and doing the decent thing. House builders rationing supply to get maximum profits per house. NIMBYS blocking new housing sites. Right To Buy making it more attractive to get a half-price house rather than buy a new one. And, yes, immigrants working in the UK - note: WORKING. That's providing taxes and prosperity to those who aren't working (Hi all of you on benefits and pensions). The decisions to NOT build more housing is political. Once upon a time back in the Tory 80's and 90's lots of housing and lots of social housing was built BECAUSE IT WAS NEEDED. No-one said, oh let's get rid of all those people having babies - mostly because a declining population is a society heading for economic problems. Feel free to run towards your safe spaces (The Daily Mail website) if that information is too troubling for you. Personally I prefer to confront misinformation.

 

There is no such thing as a perfect human being and life is complex. What we DONT want though is politicians who make decisions that are clearly damaging given all available evidence. Some consequences of actions are not entirely predictable, some very much are. What you are saying is "I'm quite happy voting for crap politicians because all politicians are imperfect" which is not the same thing as choosing to vote for someone because they are less imperfect - which a reasonable person would do.

 

Propaganda works. If it didn't work then why are you trying to bring your own views online? Surely everyone would just magically know everything about everything without having to read papers or scroll online? What a happy fantastical world you live in where people just automatically absorb information out of thin air. Telepathic advertising must surely be the next step.....

there are many reasons why there is not enough housing. People living longer and selfishly dying slowly at home instead of walking out into the woods on a frozen morning and doing the decent thing. House builders rationing supply to get maximum profits per house. NIMBYS blocking new housing sites. Right To Buy making it more attractive to get a half-price house rather than buy a new one. And, yes, immigrants working in the UK - note: WORKING. That's providing taxes and prosperity to those who aren't working (Hi all of you on benefits and pensions). The decisions to NOT build more housing is political. Once upon a time back in the Tory 80's and 90's lots of housing and lots of social housing was built BECAUSE IT WAS NEEDED. No-one said, oh let's get rid of all those people having babies - mostly because a declining population is a society heading for economic problems. Feel free to run towards your safe spaces (The Daily Mail website) if that information is too troubling for you. Personally I prefer to confront misinformation.

 

There is no such thing as a perfect human being and life is complex. What we DONT want though is politicians who make decisions that are clearly damaging given all available evidence. Some consequences of actions are not entirely predictable, some very much are. What you are saying is "I'm quite happy voting for crap politicians because all politicians are imperfect" which is not the same thing as choosing to vote for someone because they are less imperfect - which a reasonable person would do.

 

Propaganda works. If it didn't work then why are you trying to bring your own views online? Surely everyone would just magically know everything about everything without having to read papers or scroll online? What a happy fantastical world you live in where people just automatically absorb information out of thin air. Telepathic advertising must surely be the next step.....

 

I'm not sure if this post is meant to be cynical or patronising?

 

Your 2nd chapter reminds me of HHGTTG & the lizards. :)

Even when you strip out the impact of immigration the growth rate in housing isn’t sufficient enough to sustain the natural population growth of the UK. Even if you limit it to part of the population deemed human by the Daily Mail.

 

Despite your cries that the opposite is true. If it looks like a racist and quacks like a racist.....

The idea that you could solve the housing crisis by significantly reducing immigration is a total misnomer. For starters a large proportion of our construction workforce are immigrants, so you would seriously struggle to literally put the bricks on the ground quickly enough if you were to tighten the borders. Obviously as others have mentioned, there are several other far clearer reasons why housing has become unaffordable which Paul as always wilfully ignores in favour of demonstrating his lack of understanding of safe spaces again.

 

Of course for years in the mid 20th century immigration was comparably high to what it is today, and we got by fine. The market built roughly the same numbers that it does today, and that it always will short of doing something stupid like abolishing development control. The difference was that the state pretty much matched those numbers, meaning we were regularly hovering around 300,000 homes a year being completed.

Immigration has absolutely nothing to do with the housing crisis.

 

Affordability is the big issue and I think you'll find that unimpeded lending at record low interest rates from the banks has had a far greater impact on that than supply constraints.

The housing crisis is due to a number of issues. Right to buy, successive governments failing to build the needed amount of homes each year (despite constant promises they will), record low interest rates for a long period of time, foreign investors (particularly in places like London), the buy-to-let culture or buying a home as a "pension pot". Add in the extra pressure from high population growth (from both natural births and immigration) and it becomes easy to see why things are as they are.

 

In regards to the housing crisis, Philip Hammond said the budget will set out plans for the government to build 300,000 homes a year. Of course that is something we've heard before from governments. I hope it will become an actuality as opposed to a false promise (haha).

I'm not sure if this post is meant to be cynical or patronising?

 

Your 2nd chapter reminds me of HHGTTG & the lizards. :)

 

It was meant to be informative. You seem to have little of that in your vague and general speculations. I assume it's a relevation to you? Revelation I mean, oops!

 

Oh dear I guess I AM being patronising after all....oops sorry!

In regards to the housing crisis, Philip Hammond said the budget will set out plans for the government to build 300,000 homes a year. Of course that is something we've heard before from governments. I hope it will become an actuality as opposed to a false promise (haha).

 

It's pissing in the ocean. I have little/no hope it will make any difference.

 

Several reports this year highlighted the main drivers for high house prices (and consequently high rents) being little to do with supply, though house building has remained relatively low since 2008 (only recently picking up) and little of it has been affordable, most has been driven by the high-priced flats and homes that have been driven by speculative investments in the property market in London and the SE. This is a big problem though because of course with stagnating wages/lower productivity, more and more disposable income is eaten into by higher and higher percentages of take home pay devoted to mortgage repayment or rent.

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/britains-hou...mbalance-2017-4

If you know of any politician who never makes cockups, I'll be happy to vote for them. :rolleyes:

The problems created by this government have generally been all too predictable.

 

Take Universal Credit. The aim behind it is fine. However, there is a reason why previous ministers haven't tried something similar. If ministers as intelligent as David Blunkett (I'm no fan of his, but he's clearly an intelligent man) decided against even trying, what chance was there of a minister as dim as Iain Duncan Smith succeeding?

It's pissing in the ocean. I have little/no hope it will make any difference.

 

Several reports this year highlighted the main drivers for high house prices (and consequently high rents) being little to do with supply, though house building has remained relatively low since 2008 (only recently picking up) and little of it has been affordable, most has been driven by the high-priced flats and homes that have been driven by speculative investments in the property market in London and the SE. This is a big problem though because of course with stagnating wages/lower productivity, more and more disposable income is eaten into by higher and higher percentages of take home pay devoted to mortgage repayment or rent.

 

http://uk.businessinsider.com/britains-hou...mbalance-2017-4

 

Thanks for that.

 

It's rather frustrating. Living in London I've seen countless high rise developments and such being built over the years and wouldn't think there would be a supply issue. Perhaps the UK government should target people buying homes for an investment. If I remember rightly, New Zealand recently banned forgein buyers. Perhaps the UK government should take a similar approach? I would love to see the London housing market bubble properly burst.

The economy couldn't handle it, especially with Brexit.

Thanks for that.

 

It's rather frustrating. Living in London I've seen countless high rise developments and such being built over the years and wouldn't think there would be a supply issue. Perhaps the UK government should target people buying homes for an investment. If I remember rightly, New Zealand recently banned forgein buyers. Perhaps the UK government should take a similar approach? I would love to see the London housing market bubble properly burst.

 

The Conservatives introduced legislation aimed to curtail people buying 2nd homes in 2015. Since 1 April 2016, if you buy a 2nd home or more, you pay an extra 3% of stamp duty on the price of the property. So for example, if you paid £250,000 on a 2nd house, you would have £15,250 of stamp duty to pay on the property, compared to just £2,500 if it were your first house. Of course, it could be argued that such a scheme doesn't go far enough, and that property magnates with a multi-house portfolio could easily live with such an increase, and I'm sure there are ways of getting around the increase using shell companies and the like. Perhaps an additional 1% for each additional house on top of the second one could be an idea?

The Aussies have some pretty interesting rules around foreign ownership

 

http://firb.gov.au/real-estate/

 

 

Generally buying an apartment in Sydney CBD to park cash in as an investment to grow in line with the market is unlikely to get approval. Taking a shell of a building and turning it into a new block of apartments would get approval. I think this is actually the kind of approach I want to see in the UK. Investors can investing in housing schemes that when complete are available to local residents at affordable prices. We need to see the top end of the market cut off as a route for investors to get their cash into social and affordable schemes instead.