Horseradish

A lot of people are suggesting buying index tracked funds, but is nobody even a little bit worried that this has (a) been the longest run in history with no recession, (b) the yield curve has inverted, and (c) so much QE money has been pumped into various companies that there is very probably a *lot* to get cleaned out come said recession? I'm not sure that an index tracker is a great idea for weathering the storm.

Well, yes. And no. Ian Mulheirn works there now, but this is hardly some rhetoric that they've come up with. The chap who wrote it has been saying the same for years, and long before he worked there. He was a policy wonk in the treasury, and also worked for a consultancy called Oxford Economics, so he's been around. Please refer to his blog and twitter and you will see quite clearly that this is the case: https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn https://twitter.com/ianmulheirn He's been building up the thesis for a long time, and this report I think is the culmination of that work. As h

https://institute.global/insight/renewing-centre/tackling-uk-housing-crisis By the venerable Ian Mulheirn (https://twitter.com/ianmulheirn). He's been arguing this for a long time via his blog and twitter, but this is a rather more comprehensive take on the subject.

Entirely right. The problem is low interest rates, which have pushed up the value of housing as people can afford to borrow more (and the bank creates the money when they loan it to you - perverse, but true). And Quantitative Easing (or more accurately: printing money) has caused the low interest rates. So the government's own stimulus program has caused a massive distortion in the market. It is then trying to correct that distortion by printing even more money and giving (well, loaning, but on very very favourable terms) that money to the people on the other side of the equation - the poor bu

Or, as per the article, invest the difference (what you pay towards the principal) in a diverse set of assets elsewhere. The yield on those would pay the rent. So it's no different, except your main asset is undiversified.

Hear hear!

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You realise that this is anecdotal evidence and thus meaningless, right? Well, this is kind of the point. You've undone your own argument here. It probably won't be.

I advise anyone (especially the OP) reading your reply to actually read the article itself to see for themselves. @Si1 has already pasted the relevant section, but essentially: the author directly addresses the things you raise in a section entitled "What about capital gain and leverage?" - perhaps you didn't read the whole article? I think the (very common, and rather old) aphorism that "Past Performance Is No Guarantee of Future Results" is really what's at the core here. You're suggesting that you know housing returns will be as disproportionate in the next 35 years as they were in the

To bring things back to your original question; I highly recommend the following article where Ian Mulheirn (used to be in the Treasury) makes a very compelling case that buying and renting are, in the long-run, roughly equivalent in cost: https://medium.com/@ian.mulheirn/is-owning-a-house-cheaper-than-renting-it-ff5754c4f7f5

See also: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-markets-capital-flows-deutsche-idUKKBN0M61FM20150310

Point. But she's not got much else in the way of new policy going on this at the moment. Interest rates are out of the government's hands though, so I guess we just have to wait for it to sort itself out.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/home/shared-ownership-scandal-dbl3bfj8f Raises all the problems: Opaque charges, Poor build quality, Lack of maintenance, No transparency, and more. And the whole "you own nothing" aspect. Such a con.

Yes ,it's a problem. But the point is that this policy is a lowbrow electorate-pleasing non-solution.

Came to post the same. It's time to blame it on the foreigners, I guess. Roll on the interest rate increases to show the real cause.