Wednesday, May 02, 2007
frightening reality of housing shortage
bloomber.com: frightening reality of housing shortage
frightening reality of housing shortages.I am not saying the same will happen here,but there have been riots in spain(mostly unreported)from people protesting against high housing prices
Posted by taffee @ 02:16 PM (336 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. Ts200010 said...
If there was a housing shortage in the UK then why are rents so low?
2. Chilli said...
If you want to see what happens when nature stops keeping human population numbers under control, South Africa is a good place to start. The mentality is 'the more kids I have the more comfortable my retirement'. It has to do with culture, status and fear. A man with 8 kids is considered richer than a man without. There were even rumours about birth control being a white conspiracy to reduce voting numbers in elections.
Even adding houses is not going to eleviate the situation. It eleviates suffering in the short term, but allows greater numbers of kids to be accommodated. Because of this, numbers swell, and next thing you know, the house, which is really just an open plan studio with the most meagre plumbing and electical facilities, is housing an entire extended family of 50 people all sharing the same toilet.
The only answer is education, but that is seen as an attack on culture. So where does that leave you?
Also: considering unemployment is so bad in SA, how come these unemployed people don't build their own houses? Potential answer might be; Because someone will steal it from them. To which their response is to defend their homes. It is at this point that they typically die. On the other hand there are kangeroo courts in SA for people like rapists and murderers, but I don't believe these vigilantes will rise to defend their richer neighbours from this form of attack.
South African politics at its best
3. Scott said...
Civil wars are prone in that country. At least now they have something serious to fight about.
Anyway, I thought that a crash had started over there recently due to over-supply.
4. confused76 said...
Riots against high house prices in Spain? Maybe. Certainly unreported.
However this is additional evidence that high prices have nothing to do with supply and demand, since in Spain (as everybody knows) they have overbuilt... millions of new houses in the past ten years. Cheap credit, reckless lending and naive speculators are the reasons for unaffordable house prices. Angry mob should direct their fury at Banco Santander, the proud owner of The Abbey... they have scr***d Spain like they have scr***d the UK!
5. Tipping Point said...
Its unfair to blame the banks. Its also unfair to blame the speculators, its the system that's at fault. If the government were serious about doing something then they would issue compulsory auction orders on properties empty for more than 6 months. But hey,I don't see that getting passed the commons, let alone the lords.
6. Chilli said...
Scott....??? I'm speechless.
Oversupply??? "Civil wars are prone in that country"???
Jeez - might want to check your facts there mate!!!
7. confused76 said...
Tipping Point,
should the government impose lending criteria? I think it should, but will not be able to do so because of banks' opposition.
In the end, financial institution will not suffer about credit default because there is a convenient equity cushion in the UK housing market... so who is going to suffer? the average Joe who bought in 2006/07, or the parents who mortgaged their home to help buy a place for their son/daughter. It is a scam, please do not tell me it is unfair to blame the banks, they will escape unharmed... once again...
Re the the compulsory auction on empty properties... I do not agree... let the ECONOMY work. Empty properties do not generate income, can they be kept empty forever? The owner wants to sell... if the property is empty for a long time that puts more pressure on the owner and leads prices down eventually
8. Tipping Point said...
confused76
As we have seen, economic cycles in the housing market take a very long time. The problem is that due to speculators having more money than sense the market has been greatly distorted. Compulsory auctions would I believe drive a lot of speculators out of the market, thereby allowing the houses to be bought by genuine landlords and home buyers at more realistic prices.
9. shipbuilder said...
The problem is, if you let the economy work/let the market sort it out, you get boom and bust - it's the natural economic cycle. Letting an unregulated free market sort everything out is capitalist fantasy land - it only serves those with plenty of money. Had traditional lending criteria been enforced we wouldn't be here. Low interest rates would have meant that homeowners actually got richer by saving on mortgage payments, rather than just getting richer on paper.