Monday, Oct 20, 2008
Government to buy developers' empty new-build houses
Mirror: Exclusive: War on Home Front
Thousands of empty houses are to be bought by the Government in a bid to beat the economic crisis, it will be revealed today.
Housing Minister Margaret Beckett will announce the plan to buy from developers who cannot sell their new build homes.
They will be rented to people waiting for a council house.
As well as cutting the waiting lists, it will boost the building trade, where thousands of job losses are expected in the economic downturn.
Ms Beckett said: "This deal will help deliver much needed affordable homes while supporting housebuilders facing difficult times. It is part of a range of actions we are taking to help overcome the challenges in the housing market.
Posted by little professor @ 08:54 AM (1596 views) Add Comment
23 Comments
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1. bilko said...
So:-
1. Profligate lending = financial meltdown = government bailout using taxpayers cash.
2. Rather than let properties fall to their true worth the government decides to prop up the market using taxpayers cash.
3. Meanwhile those who borrowed irresponsibly take the option of bankruptcy and leave the lending institution with a debt.............that's picked up by the taxpayer.
This is a national disgrace. I've written to my MP to demand an independent public enquiry. It's the very least the taxpayer of this country deserves. Propping up homebuilders is the last straw.
2. Daviddwd said...
Where is all the money coming from? All of a sudden the government has found billions of spare taxpayers money, we must have been overpaying for a very long time!
3. baroo said...
"This deal will help deliver much needed affordable homes" - Wrong. What would help deliver affordable homes is the government halting their interfering.
"We will continue to look at what more we can do." - And therein lies the problem.
Although this should put some downward pressure on rents (assuming that the rent is competitive), which should remove some bottom end support to house prices when we get there?
4. phdinbubbles said...
The government's behaviour in trying to prop up the cause of the financial turmoil is disgraceful, but I suspect about as effective as p*ssing in the wind.
5. Nubbers said...
These places are going to become the new ghettos, but even worse than the concrete 'Bull Rings' in Hulme, Manchester (now demolished) where I spent some time as a student.
At least the old concrete developments tried to be a nice place for people to live, even if they ended up being a complete disaster. These new developments were only built with profit in mind, to be sold to dumb buyers on easy credit and who probably never even looked at the sites before purchase.
It would be far more sensible to demolish them rather than unleash what will become a concentration of crime, drug abuse etc. in the newly refurbished city centres.
6. malct said...
3. phdinbubbles said...
about as effective as p*ssing in the wind.
Monday, October 20, 2008 09:18AM
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
and yet the permanent wealth extraction 'effectively' grows apace.
most people have a valid reason for doing odd things even though it may not be obvious to others.
7. Dr Ray said...
Ho Hum
I'll get my wallet out....sigh
8. Vladislav Skalicky -ariadneclub Prague said...
It is wrong to bail the rich shareholders and investors with taxpayers money and invest it in housing of those who are least able and willing to give much to the prosperity of their nation. It basically helps out only the extremely rich and extremely poor immigrants or incompetents. This does nothing for honest middle income taxpayers who will bear the costs. Never in history of manking owed so few to so many with goverment wastefull welfare. Glad that I do not live in UK to witness and pay for this deplorable error.
9. phdinbubbles said...
You may be right, but I just think they're incompetent.
10. Chilli said...
Nubbers???
Demolishing houses will only reduce supply; sending prices up. I accept the point on slums; but the issue with slums is that they are determined by the people that live in them. These people are already here. The houses to be bought are presumably not concentrated in once spot. In any event 335 houses on a national scale is nothing really.
On the upside the government just acquired cheap council housing which they are going to rent out. This is a step up IMO. Even the bit about renting is progressive for this government.
Also; The builders have lacked the courage to build during the speculative boom. Now that the bubble has popped, the builders who stayed in until the last (albeit for greed) deserve to get their fingers burn't but they don't deserve obliteration. I'd rather keep them around so they build more houses.
Unfortunately in this recessive climate I don't see builders building, when they really should be doing so.
11. charlie brooker said...
'Thousands of empty houses are to be bought by the Government in a bid to beat the economic crisis'
This was mooted many months before all the banking collapses took place. Basically the forces that New Labour have gotten into bed with - bankers and builders really started pulling the strings effectively taking control of HM Government's purse strings.
I'm sorry to see the country of birth go this way, I'm just glad I'm no longer a UK tax payer.
12. stillthinking said...
@baroo
I don't believe this would put any downward pressure on rent at all. The actual payment to the owner is normally not so bad, just that council tenants don't pay all of it.
Imagine if you would, that there was no housing benefit available. If that were the case, rents would collapse as the bottom would disappear. Rents are priced from the bottom. The scale of housing benefit is a major factor in private rents. Certainly though, if your BTL block gets a lot of council tenants in, then the capital value is going to plummet. I think we all agree that the reason why council estates have failed, as tower blocks have, is not because of the left's idea that they are somehow unsuitable, but because of the rank nature of the people who go in them. They work well in other countries.
So despite all our efforts, we are collectively going to be buying overpriced housing anyway, but we won't be living in them.
13. mark said...
i think the story about the kid with a pea stuck up nose and having to wait was more realistic and portrays Gordon Browns real miracle, long waiting lists still, no police or useless ones with radar guns, poor roads, high taxes, banks and now houses, wow that really is a miracle Gordon you have spent spent spent and got nothing, I am voting for Henry the Monkey in my local Zoo I am sure he will be just as good as Gordon at running an economy and country.
14. harold said...
"Housing Minister Margaret Beckett will announce the plan to buy from developers who cannot sell their new build homes."
We need to know which developers the government is planning to bail out, and why. A prerequisite of this scheme MUST be the declaration of bankruptcy by the developer, and the purchase AT FIRE SALE PRICES of the developer's mal-investments.
15. watchman said...
Mark said:
"I am voting for Henry the Monkey in my local Zoo I am sure he will be just as good as Gordon at running an economy and country."
I actually think Henry would do a better job because he wouldn't try to meddle so much, and even if he did he'd probably do less damage
16. shipbuilder said...
Guys this is just another 'new' policy announcement that the government were/will be doing anyway. I can guarantee that, as per here in NI, your local authority has a budget each year set aside for this very purpose, good times or bad.
17. str 2007 said...
Time to apply for a council house then !
18. p. doff said...
By using taxpayers money to bail out builders, it seems that we are all being forced by the government into borrowing money to buy houses again.
How has it come to this situation where the government can only think of the housing market and banking sector as a means of financing an economy. Whatever happened to 'industry' and 'making things' ?
19. mark wadsworth said...
What Harold says.
That is what is known as a market solution - let the builders go bankrupt and sell the housing off at fire sale prices, let's say 40% below what they were asking for in 2007. Then see what happens.
20. Bertywooster said...
The government has cleared all contentious legislation off the commons timetable, it is actively distorting the housing market, and micro managing the banks. Their friends at the B.B.C are acting as cheerleaders, suppressing the critics of Brun and his role in the crash, and leading the call for lower interest rates. Why?
There will be a snap spring general election before, to paraphrase the song, things can only get worse.....
21. Geoffk said...
Imagine the faces when people who have payed 300k for a shoe/slavebox see that the local serial benefit scrounger moves in next door and pays no rent because of housing benefit...looks like mrs 300k is going to be mrs 100k very quickly...
22. dohousescrashinthewoods said...
Pretty soon we'll part-nationalise every sector and enough taxpayers' cash will materialise to buy the whole jolly lot?
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