How to profit from the housing crisis, Tory style

Look I have some sympathy with what you are saying. But you are not being obvious about where you draw the line, you are being evasive as usual. Just tell me. You criticise others for not doing so, have the grace to do so yourself.

When did the 70 yr old women become a special case (you keep bringing her up).

When you say "inflation" what inflation? The inflation in the price of apples, condoms, TV's, or rents in Sunderland or rents in London. What is the most relevant?

How would you solve the problem today? Let's not hear general political or social dogma, let's hear real answers or solutions, PM Moose.

Be specific, or stop avoiding the real practicalities and just admit that your ideals are just that. Ideals, totally unworkable nonsense.

Or, you could do what you normally do, avoid answering the difficult questions altogether and just press the "dislike" button, if you could.

 

Of course we don't know whether the costs of running this estate have gone up. What has gone up is it's earning potential. I'm not interested in market value. I'm concerned that people can be housed.

The problem with the three of you above is that, I'm fairly sure, you are all owner occupiers. This is not possible for everyone and if that was you your point of view would be changed utterly. Your arguments that you cannot live where you like are fatuous because you are able to live somewhere suitable for you.

 

I don't avoid answering difficult questions ZZ. The facile guff you spout is not testimony of some thought out position so do lay off.

There is a market for housing which can meet the needs of some. It needs cooling, by more supply through building and curbs on who can own and for what purpose.

And while we pay such poor wages we need affordable social housing and it is desirable that this spread across all areas to ensure that key workers get housed.

But **** me it's a complex area to be sure and I wouldn't claim to have all the answers. There needs to be the prospect of mobility for example.

But please don't tell me the market is working now though. We have 100's of thousands homes used as holiday homes, pied a terres, or even kept empty and yet young people despair of ever owning and being secure. It's utterly dysfunctional.

 

So after criticising others for not "drawing the line" or being specific, the only solution to the housing problem you can come up with is the idealistic - build more houses and restrict private ownership. Once again, avoiding the questions and avoiding the specifics that you demand from others.

How long did it take you to work that out? Simply brilliant - with the emphasis on 'simple'.

This is my problem with leftie socialist views. Those that spout them rarely come up with specific practical solutions, only the utopian ideals - some of which I share. But i also realise that they are completely unworkable.

 

It should be possible for everyone that wants to own if the prices are right. The only way to make the prices right is to provide more homes. That will reduce demand, prices and rents.
Yes I do own my own house. I've worked damn hard to be able to and forgone things like holidays, to be able to continue to afford it. I object to paying tax to fund people on higher salaries than me that decide they can't be bothered to save up so that they can live in a house I can't afford.

 

This idea of utopia or a utopian. Is the true utopian not the person who thinks (broadly) that The Market and Things The Way They Are hold all the answers, given all the evidence to suggest that it isn't working and things are getting steadily worse for the poorest, etc etc.?

I also don't like the way we blame people for this. Sure, some people might be heartless or not consider the consequences, but I think framing our discontent or even disgust at a situation such as this (obviously i'm talking to moose here given that most others here think this situation is fair enough) in this way is not helpful really. It is not the person that should be the target of our criticism. It is the system that allows, or in fact not only allows but actively encourages this type of action that is the real and most upsetting problem.

I don't claim to have all the answers, and nor does moose by the way zz, but it is clear as day that The Market does not consider issues that affect communities and other important aspects of life. I don't think I'm a utopian for believing this.

 

Ha, own a house? I barely own a car and I'm still looking at house sharing for a couple of years yet, because where I want to live is more expensive than the surrounding area.

If them being owners makes them bias are you bias if you are a renter? The issue here isn't about being able to buy, its about being able to afford to live in an area and house you desire.

 

352.

Of course I know that moose doesn't have the answers, this subject is no different from others he posts in, but he is so quick to criticise others for not being specific and so quick to blame the Tory's when the same policies were in place during Labours reign, and even willing to start a thread about it with an anti Tory headline.

If he says he knows the specific causes of the problem then he should also know the specific practical steps are needed to turn things round otherwise there is little credibility.

He kept bringing up the 70 year old but has given no idea when a 70 year old becomes a special case worth mentioning over and over again. To try and protect citizens that have lived in the area for a long time, a line has to be drawn as to when that happens. That is the where ideals fall down, as every step you take to reach the ideal means that boundaries or lines have to be drawn by decree, and when dealing with the housing issue you cannot hide from those specifics because the every line drawn and every similar decision is life changing for someone.

 

I don't think Moose is a renter.

 

It's not about being able to live where you like. It's about living in the least desirable area of town for years, paying your way and waking up to find one day that the cost of your rental has rocketed, merely because other people will pay more.

You make it sound frivolous, but of course people remain in the same area for many different reasons such as work, or caring for relatives.

 

And that was a neat and useful social contract in many ways. People with aspirations working hard to save for a modest deposit to buy an ordinary house, not to rent to someone else, but to live in, go to work from, or raise a family.

How does that ambition lie these days? Fewer and fewer can manage and they do so with potentially ruinous debt. The market does not provide. The state has to in order to avoid homelessness, disorder and poverty and to re-establish a viable market and it needs to intervene in some other way to ensure fairness and stability.

And I'm not going to pretend that the exact details of how can be summed up on an Internet forum. But the first thing I would do is look at why many other countries do not have our problems.

 

You know ZZ the 'specifics' that you bring to any argument (Google random article, share link, write a thousand words, argue tangentially in annoying fashion) just make you look a colossal berk. I'm pleased to avoid doing so on complex issues.

And try not to mis-represent. I've never said that the 70 year renter is a 'special' case. What she represents is a particularly vivid consequence of allowing people no security in law. That doesn't mean that I think others should not be protected either.

 

352 I would give your post a 'like' were such a thing available.

I don't think the argument is utopian though. Even 20 years ago we had a mixed economy of housing that pretty much meant people could live in the areas they grew up in and there was lots of choice of areas to move to. There was a natural churn of the elderly leaving family houses in cities to go and while a way carefree hours at the coast playing bingo and tutting at people. There was enfranchisement.

Since then we have failed to respond to changes in the market and changes in demographics. Instead of doing so, building homes, creating social housing the right have developed an ideology that it is no longer possible. Utopian.

And yet there are country villages dead through the week because they are all second homes and houses in the city empty as investment vehicles.

 

"It's not about being able to live where you like. It's about living in the least desirable area of town for years, paying your way and waking up to find one day that the cost of your rental has rocketed, merely because other people will pay more."

That's a concept called "the market". If more people are willing to pay for a scarce resource then the price goes up.

What is your solution - would you like Leader Miliband to decide an appropriate price for everything?

 

"The state has to in order to avoid homelessness....................needs to intervene in some other way to ensure fairness and stability."

And who decides what is "fair" Moose. You? The Politburo?

Let's face it - all you have done for the last day or so is whinge about "fairness" (undefined) without providing a single solution.

 

"And try not to mis-represent. I've never said that the 70 year renter is a 'special' case. "

Not you haven't that's true. What you have done is focus on this particular case, so people get distracted from the monstrous situation where workers must commute into a city to work and generate tax to pay for other people to live in a location that they couldn't afford.

 

More waffle, with not the slightest hint of a genuinely practical solution. You even managed to used the "fairness" word to try and win people over, but without giving specifics on what that means.

You have a go at me for trying to back up my opinions with other facts and opinions, and say it makes me look like a "colossal berk" yet my article came from the well respected "Institute for War and Peace Reporting" whilst your article, the one that you based your whole thread on, came from a crappy red-top newspaper that cant even outsell The Sun, even though it has an almost total monopoly amongst labour supporters. The rest of the thread you have just continued your, no substance waffle, without any attempt to back up your opinions with any sort of facts.

Then you have a go for apparantly not understanding your stance on the 70 year old women (the one that YOU kept bringing up), yet you have been continually avoiding answering several requests that you explain it. :doh:

It is Utopia because you are completely ignoring the different types of human nature. Your utopian existence could only work if everybody had the same amount of aspirations for their future, which is plainly not the case. If there were 20 potato pickers in a Soviet field or small housing complex, a proportion of them would be happy with their lot, no matter what motivation you gave them. A proportion could be motivated by outside knowledge and a proportion would be self-motivated to improve their lives regardless. As soon as improved communication prevented the Soviets from repressing their population, the system broke down. A significant proportion of the general population will always want to better their lifestyles. You just cannot seem to deal with that can you!

Your statement about it being utopian 20 years ago is plainly wrong - and I am surprised to hear you say that as it was after 15 years of Tory rule. That was when it was quite normal for a young unmarried girl to get herself pregnant as it was the only way to move up the council house ladder. You really are talking waffle and nonsense.

 

Lets not get personal, everyone has a right to a point of view.

There's two schools of thought.

1 Fund people to live in expensive accommodation or artificially manipulate rental & property prices to make it affordable.
2 Let market forces dictate rental & purchase prices and solve the housing issues and pricing by improving availability & reducing demand.

1 is the tradition left position, state controlled method which will cost a fortune in subsidised housing, income support and stifle entrepreneurship.
2 is the traditional right position, which will create jobs, and prosperity and in the long term actually earn us money.

I'm sorry but option 1 just can't make sense to anyone with sense.

Investment in HS2 and other improvements to transport & industry in the North has to be a good option to move industry jobs and hence people to less densely populated areas.

 

In the Netherlands, the rent for the cheaper rental homes is kept low through governmental oversight and regulation. These types of homes are known as sociale huurwoningen.

In practice this is accomplished by non-profit private housing foundations or associations (toegelaten instellingen). Due to frequent mergers the number of these organizations dropped to around 430 (2009). They manage 2.4 million dwellings. The majority of the low-rent apartments in the Netherlands are owned by such organisations. Since the policy changed in 1995 the social housing organizations have become financially independent focusing on their role as social entrepreneurs. In most Dutch municipalities there came to exist a certain minimum capacity of social housing throughout the last decades. In many cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht the percentage of social housing approaches or even passes 50 percent. The public (financial) supervision is done by the central fund for housing (Centraal Fonds Volkshuisvesting).

The Dutch housing policy is based on a concept of universal access to affordable housing for all and the prevention of segregation.

From wikipedia.

God damn unsustainable Dutch. How dare they have an interest in making sure people have a realistic stake in society. There are absolutely no long term benefits or prosperity that could come from that.

 

Humans define what is 'fair' all the time, through Government, Law, Social Policy etc. If you don't believe 'fair' can be defined why can't I just come and steal your things?

We live in a constructed social world. There is no natural. There is no transcendental operation of the 'market'. It's only what we choose. Hence democracy to sort it out.

 

You still haven't defined what you think is fair with regard to housing.

For the sake of argument, let's say we have a population of workers who come in from Zone 6 and generate tax. They have rental costs of £400 a month.

Let's say we have a group of non tax generating citizens who have lived for the last 30 years in zone 2 and their rents are covered by housing benefit. I'm sure you will say that it is "fair" that the zone 2 dwellers to remain because they have been there many years and have communities etc. Presumably at some level of rental cost it becomes "unfair" on the Zone 6 workers for them to continue to fund this zone 2 dwelling and the zone 2 dwellers should move somewhere cheaper.

What level of rent would that be? What tips the balance for you Moose in terms of "fairness"?

Obviously a hypothetical scenario, but at least we can put some parameters on your ideology.

 

Your example is just too arbitrary and also false as who on earth pays no tax over 30 years, other than, let's say a Tory peer like Lord Ashcroft?

I agree that the better off should contribute to the cost of social housing through taxation. It's the price we pay for inequality and it is a social good. How that gets fairly sliced up is an issue of taxation rather than housing, just as it is for defence, or infrastructure.

I'm not sure that social rents shouldn't be linked to income so as your earn more you pay more. A better housing market would tempt more churn in social housing, but it's also beneficial that housing is more mixed with successful people providing some social glue in poorer areas.

Where we really differ is on the 'costs'. I don't consider the market value of social housing, once built, is a cost. The only costs are running costs.

You all need to answer me this. How is your market onlystrategy going to deliver a place for all to live in?

 

Well no surprise that you wouldn't answer the question And then you demand specifics from everyone else at the end

In terms of market strategy, people who can't pay their way will be provided for. It just won't be in central london thus reducing the burden on government expenditure.

 

How on earth will people commute in from outside London (3-4k) to stack supermarket shelves? Get real.

 

We've already been through this Moose but I will explain again for you If Tescos wants shelf stackers in central london then either wages will have to rise, or Tescos will need to subsidise their living quarters themselves.

Why do you expect the Government to subsidise Tescos having central london locations and being able to pay poor wages?

 

So you see that you will pay one way or another.

 

Like.

 

Like most things there is no single policy - it needs a balanced approach. Everyone on here has valid points imo.

Does this make me a liberal...? :notimpress:

 

I have not had time to read every post on this thread, but the topic in general relates to property prices. I discovered at first hand the asking price for an apartment in a very well sought after area in London. The price truly shocked me. £2.45m for a three bed room apartment. Nice area, but the apartment itself was very basic (was renting it for a short stay visit and the auctioneer disclosed the asking price for purchase). In terms of return, the rental yield would be a small fraction of the value. This smacks of a property bubble that could have hugely negative impact on the British economy, as we in Ireland discovered to our cost. I hope for everyone's sake that there will not be a crash, but that price just seems way beyond any reason.

 

You are right. The rental yield is very low in London in comparison with elsewhere - even where rents at London market levels are being paid. Of course there is the prospect of capital growth and I would expect that to continue for a year or two in the London area, but it is unsustainable and they will plateau and even fall in the not to distant future. Any form of government subsidy raise the general rents in the same locality and this is a familiar situation where landlords are happy to accept tenants on benefits, it increases the rents in the same area. One of the objections landlords had regarding the cap on housing benefits was the general downward effect this would have on rents and landlords profits. Labour MP's also opposed it, and landlords would have been grateful for that.

 

How? Subsidising Tesco's wages from tax is compulsory. If Tesco raise their prices in central london due to paying higher wages then I don't have to shop there.

 

What do you like about it?

If central london supermarkets put up prices to cover increased wages then central london rich consumers have a choice. Pay higher prices or travel to do your shopping. If they choose to travel then central london supermarkets will decline. If unavailabilty of supermarkets exist in London (as they do already anyway) then it will be a negative against living centrally. If a few people prefer to live outside for ease of supermarket shopping then it will depress central house prices. This takes us back to the start of the cycle but with the issue less exacerbated.

Eventually the market will find a level whereby central london dwellers are happy with the premium they pay for their goods, and central london supermarket employees are happy with their wage premium and associated rent.

But no. Moose wants to stick his finger in the air and decide an artificial rent because he wants to subsidise the supermarkets and allow them to operate centrally when the economics don't allow it without government intervention.

 

Give this man a degree in economics. When George gets ousted we could do with someone that knows what they're talking about to take over.

 

Nice idea, like it, or at least it raised a smile. But tell me is this going to also work for Hospital cleaners or midwives, or care workers, or front of house theatre staff or anyone else for that matter? I'm all in favour of eradicating low pay, I just hadn't thought it could be so easy. My bad.

 

Which is why there is so much money to be made in privatising social housing.