iamnumerate

I am slightly bullish in that I think prices will rise by at least inflation for the next few, if not more. I would like them to remain flat for years so that i) people don't have negative equity and ii) people can afford to buy the least bad situation for every one. However I believe that i) net immigration ii) strict planning controls and iii) the way housing benefit and council house allocation work will cause prices to rise more than inflation. I could be wrong and in some ways I hope that I am (as long as I don't lose more than I have gained in the last few years. I do feel a bit sorry for people who are priced out but at the last election there was a party - UKIP - that wanted to change (i) (sadly no party wanted to change (ii)) - and most of them decided to vote for parties that would keep the system as it - causing massive HPI. PS Why do more immigrants believe that immigration causes HPI than Brits ? Has P.C damaged our collective intelligence ?

I agree - can anyone defend the bureaucracy in tax credits ? I know someone who has to pay back £5K which implies the system is very broke.

Don't wait, you might regret it for ever.

You don't believe in the law of supply and demand ? I agree with you though the UK on the whole is a good place to live but crime and tax are far too high.

I half agree with you. However the population can not keep growing for ever. When do we stop ? Also I think you will find the richest countries in the world have populations that have grown a lot slower in the last 30 years than the poorest. You are not. The scum bag politicians who want to stop new development and have large scale net immigration are responsible. Immigrants - assuming they did not lie to come here - are not responsible for house prices rising. Mass immigration and NIMBYism combined. We can not have affordable housing, mass net immigration and NIMBYism. I have a house and there is no space for more development near me, so I don't mind which we one don't have. Although for environmental reasons perhaps mass net immigration should go. You are obviously more intelligent than most of the labour party.

Actually it could not we pay the taxes.

I have got friends who teach immigrants English and friends who are immigrants who are learning English. They both say that the immigrants get free English classes. Probably not all do, but a lot do especially (and I arranged a course for a friend at westminister college/uni a few years ago so I know it is true) if they claim asylum -regardless of whether the claim is genuine or not.

I find this very hard to believe. I was moving a few months ago not far from Bromley and everything went very very fast. They must have useless agents. My flat went in 3 weeks for almost the original asking price (I droped by £250 to get relisted on right move as new).

That is because they get money. If we claimed asylum anywhere - they would say pull the other leg and deport us ! But here they take some stupid claims seriously and to be fair reject some genuine claims.

If you really think that the UK should treat all the world's sick people. It would cheaper to treat them in their own country rather than letting them come here and recieve housing benefit (which of course be used to treat people in the 3rd world without the money for an air fare). Saying that anyone who wants to should be allowed to come here and get treatment is hardly the moral high ground. That is just saying - "we should treat all poor foreigners - if they have the money to buy a ticket - otherwise they should not get treatment" !!

It already does it is called housing benefit. Which has a useful social function but definetly has helped some BTLs make money.

They must be mad. Why is it so much ? You can buy 3 bed houses in many parts of South East London for less £ 250 K.

You can rent with friends and find one of them is a loony as well.

House prices rise and fall through a variety of reasons including credit. Or in the 80s because the government encouraged people to buy MIRAS was abolished with less people wanting to buy afterwards. No one has said that immigration is the only cause. However that does not mean it does not affect house prices. If a BTL landlord pays his mortgage because of immigrant tenants and on the basis of this borrows money to buy a new house then are you saying that this multiplied by thousands would have no affect ? I pay my mortgage by renting out rooms to immigrants without that I would not have moved up the housing ladder in my small way adding to HPI.

Actually some brownfield sites have more biodiversity than greenfield sites. Although I am not a great fan of NIMBies at least they are better than liberal NIMBIES people who want lots of immigration but not any houses for it.

In South East London you can get a 3 bed house for £800-1000 pcm. The bad thing is that you are not on the tube apart from in the rush hour - the train is more comfortable. However I do know people because they are a single mum and a refugee who pay £350 pcm for a 3 bed flat in Islington - to me that seems a bit unfair

Very true that HB pushes up the costs of buying. The biggest problem is that a) the government is not always good at negotiating and when rents go up in area x then people who live there and pay their own rent may move if they consider it is no longer worth the rent - housing benefit receipients don't. Of course the other bad thing is that it can mean that someone who does not work is better off in terms of housing that someone working which is not fair.

I think a lot of people have grasped that fact they just they don't think that as more people enter the UK than we have new decent homes then property will not become affordable in the near future. Even if we feel sorry for those who voted for Lib/Lab/Con and now suffer as a result. I imagine now someone is going to tell me that people buy houses because they have liquidity and that supply and demand are meaningless. The thing about immigration is rubbish in a few years Poles will be able to get council houses or rather houses that BTL rent to the council for guaranted rents - why will they stop coming here when that happens ?

Actually a lot of immigrants -not all - get help paying rent which helps encourages BTL and puts up prices. I know a benefit seeker [benefit seeker = a fraudalent asylum seeker who comes here for benefits] who lived in a house I wanted to buy with the rent paid for with my taxes - therefore she made housing more expensive Also I personally moved up the housing ladder with help from rent paid by immigrants (from their own work) so they do cause prices to be sustained. However much liquidity there is if people do not want a house then prices will fall. If 10 million people emmigrated tomorrow however cheap borrowing money would be, then houses would fall because no one would buy them. True liquidity is a factor but supply and demand are also true. Which is why prices are going up most in places that either a) have a lot of immigration or white flight.

So demand and supply do not affect prices ??? Good I will tell my friend who lives in Norfolk than Londoners who retire there do not affect prices because the number of people who want to live in an area has no effect on the house price.

If you had subtract travel costs (which seems reasonable) they lent me 5.25 times 5 years ago !! So this is not that new.

A lot of people who are not racist and have no problems with limited immigration. Believe a) more demand for housing creates a shortage, something that ironically immigrants can say without being called racist by left wingers. When I was leftwing and an immigrant friend told me this, I thought that he was racist which shows how PC affects you mind. we don't like lazy English people getting housing but I suppose there is some arguments for that but why should people arrive and get housing ? Believe me it happens. and of course c) we don't want any more terrorists coming here so no more muslims white or black. Does anyone really believe blacks are less intelligent ? That must be a joke. How do you even measure IQ accurately ? (I have an IQ of 135 so I don't like arguing with the measurement but it is hard to compare IQ because someone has skill x and someone has skill y). That is stupid I have known 5 Nigerians and they are very different. Ironically one of them told me the problem with the NHS was health tourism or as she said it "foreigners". Personally I think if immigrants who work and pay taxes here and think of themselves as British, were in charge of immigration things would be a lot better. The problem at the moment is that we have rich liberals who give away our money to make themselves feel better about being rich.

Actually there were many different cultures. Persumably not any that believed in human sacrifice (Aztecs, Incas etc).

I have to agree with this. I have a friend who an immigrant and she was telling me about someone who lied to get asylum and housing and how awful it is. A lot of white people in this country do not believe things like this even happen and that only racists complain about it. Another example on the BBC website about Bulgarians teaching English but foreigners who come here think that is awful if their teacher is from Bulgaria but the BBC doesn't. For money and housing probably.

But wasn't the last crash triggered by changes to MIRAS ? Also we had a strong pound policy (later ERM) which caused interest rates to rise a lot and almost zero net immigration. Now maybe the interest rates will rise but will the other things happen ? I am not saying that they will never be a crash but I can not see us getting back to historical affordibility in the next 10 years unless the BNP win power - which I do not want.