Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007
Radio 2 show wants your opinions on AFFORDABLE HOUSING
BBC Radio 2: Jeremy Vine: AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Gordon Brown announces his plans for affordable housing today as the Council of Mortgage
Lenders says that first time buyers are taking on record levels of debt.
We ask what people can do to get their foot on the property ladder.
Er, wait for the crash of course Jeremy ?! Allegedly Mr Vine was done
up like a kipper at the last crash, and in negative equity for a while.
Posted by doomwatch @ 02:09 PM (165 views) Add Comment
5 Comments
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1. Boarder said...
"Affordable" is code for more taxpayer subsidised homes for likely labour voters.
The extortion needed to do this will harm the economy, and also lead to more benefit addicts.
The only way for homes to truly be more affordable is for either./and
Higher net pay (cut tax)
Lower house prices (cut money creation, which is a tax)
Move taxation burden from earners to land holders.
2. confused76 said...
Ok, I sent my comment in, and I tried to be balanced
Jeremy,
You will probably have to read 1m emails today, so I will be brief.
IMHO affordable housing can be addressed only by letting house prices to more "rational" levels. House valuations remind of the dot.com bubble, with risible multiples and all of the value today being rooted in irrational price growth expectations tomorrow (e.g. the fact that noone minds the very low rental yields is indicative of the trend).
Houses have stopped to provide just a roof for us, but now are also a pension investment vehicle and a speculative asset. Can that be sustained? Only if you believe the income side of the equation (average salaries, rentals etc) keeps up. But that is not the case, data are very clear.
So what to do to improve affordability... would you recommend the government to sink subsidies and reduce stamp duty? not really, that would only prolongue the speculative bubble. Incidentally, the stamp duty cost is - de facto - borne by the seller.
I think the only medicine is quite bitter. Government should scrap the tax incentives for BTLers, should introduce greater tenant protection - not price control, but just longer tenancy duration and notice periods... in the end renting is not a bad idea, cheaper than buying, but one should take away the lingering uncertainty of being forced out in a month. If we can rebalance the equation, the market will take care of the excesses.
Lastly, after the current bubble deflates, the government should regulate the mortgage industry. But do it after prices take a hit, or Mr Brown will be accused of having caused a crash.
3. night said...
Also dropped a mail...
Jeremy.
I expect you are going to get a lot of mail about this today...
I'm a first-time buyer on what I consider to be a good wage, but I can't possibly afford to live in the South East and buy a house. Although I don't want to, I am leaving my job and moving to the Midlands where house prices are (barely) affordable. I believe that there will be an increasing number of young people who are forced to migrate away from the capital as housing gets more and more unaffordable with each interest rate rise.
As one generally overlooked cause for the current boom I cite Mr Browns policies which encourage more women to work. I don't mean to sound sexist, but the more women go out to work instead of staying at home with kids (for example), the more income a couple has to pour into housing. That is why I believe there is no easy fix to the problem; the economy improves because of the higher number of workers and we can't go banning one half (male or female) from working.
Obviously that's not THE reason, it's just a factor, but I believe it's a factor that has been overlooked by most of the media.
4. robh said...
Well I followed the link, but got distracted by an article on digital television and wrote poor Jeremy a diatribe about that instead
The thing that confuses me about these house prices is that one minute we need 200,000 homes a year to be built on green belt, but when a few extra places came up because of the seller packs the prices fell because of 'over supply'
When will they get a grip and stop referring to a ladder. There's no ladder! The gap between rungs is so big that only a small number of people will ever get the salary rises to 'step up'
5. Scott said...
night my friend, the west midlands is much better than the south east. Next year I am moving back there.