How to profit from the housing crisis, Tory style

Some mahusive sponging going on here. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/devastated-families-face-eviction-after-3786578 Ker-ching, ker-ching.

My question is why on earth should we care about 'market rates' when the market cannot provide? Is there really no place in London for people who do low income jobs like 'care coordinator' or does it have to be choc a bloc with wealthy hipsters?

Of course one layer to this is that the council, unable to build it's social housing stock may have provide extra housing benefit for soon to be homeless families and may even need to rehouse into this accomodation at 'market rates'. This is why the state needs to intervene.

Somebody will be along shortly to blame immigration and the EU for this.

 

Personally I blame immigration and the EU.

 

'Like'

 

It's not rocket science Moose.

If you can't afford to live in central london then move somewhere more affordable.

At present vast numbers of London's workers commute in from outside London because they can't afford to live more centrally. Why should these families be any different? I imagine the people who already commute into London pay more tax than these guys, so why should the commuters subsidise these people to live where the cannot afford to?

 

Like the woman who has lived there for 70 years?

How will those on low incomes pay 3-4k in fares?

What will happen to rents on the periphery?

Who is going to clean hipsters homes for them, or stack the supermarket shelves, or porter the hospitals or any number of jobs below the London living wage?

You don't think things through do you?

 

Of course I think things through. If you can't afford to live somewhere without significant taxpayer assistance, then don't.

The central londoners will soon realise that they have to pay a premium to get workers to travel in to do lower paid work and the market will adjust. Otherwise they will have to clean their own houses. Pay nurses a London premium - it will be significantly outweighed by the sums saved on paying for low income people to live in central london locations.

Unfortunately it's you who doesn't think things through as you don't have any idea how markets work, and just see the nasty Tory trying to make money and want to kick up a fuss.

 

And the woman living there for 70 years is of what relevance exactly? She didn't earn enough over her working life to retire in a central london location so it is unreasonable to ask others to pay for it for her. Which part of this doesn't make sense to you?

 

Supply and demand. Solve the supply issue and the demand (prices) will reduce.
Any other fix is like using a sticking plaster to fix a broken leg. Might look better on the surface but you're not sorting the underlying issue.

The issue isn't immigration, the issue is far too many people wanting to live in the same space. We can't control where people live but we can control migration (from outside Europe).

Subsidising people to live in London to work in low paid jobs is effectively enabling employers to get away with paying low wages. Stop this and employers will have to pay more so that people can afford to work in London.

The government interfere in far to many things, in a vain effort to justify it's massiveness.

 

Another thing I hate is the term "affordable housing."

It's marketing speak for cheap accomodation. No one should have to live in cheap accomodation. We should aspire to live in decent quality housing. If there is enough stock due to increased supply vs demand it will be affordable.

 

The yuppies will soon be complaining when they have the choices of:

a) Paying cleaners more so they can afford to commute in and clean the Shard.
b) Have no cleaners and watch the Shard rot.
c) Clean the Shard themselves.

 

You are correct - that is exactly how it should be. As opposed to what we have now is the yuppies getting cheap labour because the taxpayer is paying for them to live in central london.

 

By the way.

Just wait till you see house prices & rent rocket when people can withdraw their pensions in a lump sum. Due to massive overspending for years, pension funds have been raided to the extent that they're not worth the paper they're written on.

If you are dithering about buying a home, don't. Get in quick.

 

Next moose will be asling for rent ceilings.....sigh

 

Market forces don't always work because they exist on the assumption that something must be immediately profitable to be beneficial to society.

 

You watch how quickly central london cleaner market rates go up once big business realises that nobody will bother commuting to do it. Wages would double. Everyone wins. Business pays the true wage. The cleaner has more cash in the pocket due to getting a better wage and living in a more sensible location. And we don't have to put up with Moose's utopia of paying lower income people to live in central london locations.

 

If you read the article it's not like they don't pay significant rents now.

These people, particularly the elderly ones are highly unlikely to be able to up their incomes. The shortfall, because there will be one unless they all move to Bootle as rents are high anywhere within the M25, will be made up by you and me and will disappear into the private sector. It's stupid, heartless and inefficient. It's not a 'market' it's a pseudo market created by a lack of supply and a need to find investment vehicles.

And the shortfall is also paid for by you and me if you simply offer all lower paid workers a 'London Premium' as you suggest.

 

It's Hackney. You have a low threshold for 'Utopia'.

And as for the idea that cleaners wages will double if rents go up - can I have what you are smoking please? The work will be done by immigrants, legal or otherwise living in sheds or 6 to a room, whilst the folk who were living there can live on benefits on the outskirts and star in documentaries about feckless lifestyles for you.

 

"The shortfall, because there will be one unless they all move to Bootle as rents are high anywhere within the M25"

Unfortunately they do need to move to Burnley/Hull etc. If you earn enough to pay your way then you can choose where you live. If you don't then unfortunately can't.

We don't subsidise people to buy sports cars (although bizarrely we do seem happy to subsidise holidays in the sun) and we shouldn't subsidise people to live in high rent locations.

The State is positively bonkers when it comes to housing benefit. Going away from the people here in question, we currently have a situation where workers are forced to travel in from well outside London in order to pay tax to pay for the rents of unemployed people in Zone 1/2. Utter socialist madness.

 

Eventually the same will occur out here and after the process iterates a few times we'll soon all be living in Hull.

 

Employing illegal immigrants would be illegal. The clue is in the word. If this happens then fine the companies extremely heavily and deport the workers.

If a legal immigrant is willing to live in a "shed" and do the work then what is the problem? You were moaning that there would be nobody to clean earlier, and now your are grizzling that there is a huge pool of immigrant labour who are willing to do it.

Any chance your left wing wailing can have a consistent tone?

 

Indeed. And then the same will happen in Hull and we'll have to move abroad and live without running water if we can't keep up.

What do people expect to happen when our population gets too big? The State can't solve everything with borrowed money I'm afraid.

 

Somebody who works in marketing earns on average £40k per year. Somebody with a PhD in Materials Science will on average earn £20k per year.

Who has to leave first? Who's left with nothing to market? Who's more beneficial to society?

 

If you can't see the problem of driving living conditions down so far then I feel genuinely sorry for you. Your problem is your politics don't work and you have absolutely no idea how to resolve the contradictions of market/wages/housing/welfare. You sound bitter that you are getting fleeced, but haven't progressed beyond wishing it on others.

 

But the population isn't yet 'too big' for us to manage. There are lots of properties in the UK owned by people who use them as pied a terres or holiday lets. That's not a population issue.

And these people in question are ones who have housing now and have continued to pay for it. You are describing a world with no tenure whatsoever without the increasingly distant prospect of home ownership. A half and half society where one half can have no real roots.

 

I'm not bitter about the amount of tax we pay. It's a necessary evil, although I think it's got to a ridiculous level now with more to come (50p rate + mansion tax).

What I am bitter about is the left not being satisfied even with that huge income for the State and demanding that we borrow money to waste on their idiotic projects. One of which is the insanity of paying for people to live in central london when they can't afford it.

And in terms of politics, yours seem to revolve solely around Ed Miliband borrowing money on a never ending cycle to pay for things you want. You think that works?

 

Community, wellbeing, happiness, health. None of these things are important to the market. It's trite but true.

If the answer is 'go live somewhere else', the problem is not being looked at in terms of anything but money. If that itself isn't a problem for you then that's where I suspect moose differs in opinion from you, and to such an extent as to render any discussion pointless, as you're going to be arguing in different languages.

Surely making this problem all about economic means is the whole point? The market 'works' to the extent that profit can be made by some people and the market will go on. It is not utopian to think that there might be a better way or that the answer isn't here (even without putting forward an 'answer' I'd say as well), the truly hyper optimistic utopian is surely the one who believes the current state of affairs - market prices, profit trumping all other motives, and so on - holds the answers and things will level out (and cleaners will see their pay double in real terms or whatever you want to say).

(This may or may not have made the sort of sense it did in my head before writing it. I'm at work, forgive the stream of consciousness style writing. I am also expecting a 'Get Real' response if I get anything in response at all.)

 

It's not currently a population issue. But at present too many people want to live in London driving up prices. So I'm merely suggesting that those who can't pay for it don't expect the Government to do it for them and live in less expensive locations.

I don't see what is remotely controversial about this viewpoint.

 

By the way, don't think the Tories have escaped my wrath with their pitiful attempts to cut the deficit.

 

They're not paying the market rate now because they're were being subsidised by taxpayers. Others around them are paying the market rate so why shouldn't they. The best way to solve the housing crisis is to create jobs outside of the southeast, where there is space to build. That's easier said than done, instead what will happen is labour government will come in and build a load of houses on flood plains in the south, blaim the tories when they flood. God help us if labour impose the rent ceiling to London, deteriorating the area.

 

The economy is definitely functioning more efficiently when a few acres of land in central London are bought up to make space for £30m apartments for Saudi's to purchase and use once a year.

 

Nothing controversial with that at all.

People want to live where there is work. There aren't many non-seasonal jobs in Truro or Penzance.

If the government stop subsiding accomodation the wages and rents will settle to a sustainable level. What we get at the moment is avergare wage earners like me subsidising low paid workers to pay rent to line rich people's pockets.

 

I'm on the side of the taxpaying worker. I can see that it is undesirable for foreign nationals to buy up prime capital real estate purely as an investment, thus depriving the workers the chance to live close to where they toil.

I can see the argument for a heavy tax to discourage this behaviour. This kind of government interference works for the good. What doesn't is merely accepting it for what it is and pilling huge amounts of borrowed money into subsidising people. That kind of action is expensive and doesn't solve the problem.

 

There is a difference between the market rate and the cost to run and maintain the property. We don't know what if any 'subsidy' was involved here other than the loss of 'opportunity' to make a profit.

 

Except the tax-paying elderly woman in this block with the temerity to think she is still good enough for Hackney.