pig

So I had a bit of a thought experiment while bored on New Years Day listening to blanket coverage of the housing market as more or less being "London Good, Everywhere Else bad". This seemed to make the 'edge' of London an interesting place. Conventionally this is defined this as inside the M25, but for many 'London' is basically its tube network. Also clearly the tube network must have an objective economic effect on the 'actual' M25 edge. The question naturally evolved: how does housing cost compare at the edges of the tube network ? Of course the tube 'edge' includes stations from Zone 1 all the way to Zone 9 and indeed some 'end' stations are in the middle of other lines (I completely omitted the circle line) - but this made it all the more interesting. So for fun I created a summary. Who knows it may succinctly indicate much more than the sliver of London it covers, anyway see what you think. The information is all based on Zoopla, which I understand is based on average prices for 2 bedroom properties. From this I derived a 'cost/bed' to include the cost of rent + monthly travel card to the centre. Again very crude, but necessary for speed and simplicity. Note it is just purely travel and rent - for the moment I haven't included anything else eg council tax. I've included below a couple of 'sort's for convenience - apologies for mistakes but hey it was New Years Day... Sort By Travel + Rental Cost: Sort By property price change:

It was interesting. I do wonder if the Democrats are simply allowing the Republicans so commit a shocking home goal. If so either they are just as bad as the Republicans, or they are playing a high stakes game trying to avoid the stalemate of the previous term.

Excellent - and made me laugh out loud. I would only qualify with the obvious: that the reason the inconsistency is not 'processed' is that the key perception is that said workforce achieves wealth through transferring earnings into houses. So therefore the higher house prices are the wealthier 'we' all are... In this situation, even if the penny has dropped, nothing can be done without a political constituency pushing for it - and the general populace are clinging on to their jobs and their 'house wealth' for dear life. Indeed the penny has dropped in a rather selfish and incoherent way as many fear and oppose the building of new homes. So we are left with a sublime and slowly catastrophic inconsistency. In other news today Cameron was saying we can't compete with China et al with a 'millstone round our neck'...

Well, MSW is a nailed on militant bear so I guess they had Pryce on as likely balance ? What these sort of programmes hint at is that we do need to put the bull vs bear debate to one side and have a deeper debate in this country as to what is going on with housing. Currently its called ''the housing crisis' and is explained in a rather wooly sort of way that we don't have enough houses and we don't have enough mortgages. It is of course a much more complicated mess sustained by misinformation, short-sightedness and vested interest. We've driven ourselves up a economic/political/social cul-de-sac and are going round in circles not understanding why we can't go forward.

There is plenty of money. Look how much has been spent on houses...

Headline is nice and scary- but a December drop is nothing to write home about. Rightmove are something out of George Orwell though.

Well, coming on here and having a bit of a moan or a bit of a debate, might not be voting, might not be haranguing local politicians, might not be taking to the streets etc etc but it is something. At the very least you'd hope a site like this would push the likelihood of interested people that bit further away from appearing on a Panorama programme.... Clearly you're at least interested at a sort of 'meta' level in the political process - do you have any ideas how this crisis might be solved or are you otherwise completely disengaged and disinterested ?

Lol - well I'm sorry if you feel it didn't. If I've misunderstood you, apologies but would be interested in your appraisal of the tension between 'personal responsibility' and the mass brainwashing (if you think it exists of course) we've been subjected to.

I do have a lot of sympathies for what you say, but just to risk contradicting my reply to cybernoid, we do have a personal responsibility to demand of our politicians. They're not the only culprits/people who can make a change though.

Oh really ? Well that is very good of you - top marks ! Unlike those other naughty children who do what the other teachers say... Our leaders have told us that house prices up good, house prices down bad. Our leaders have told us no more boom and bust. Our leaders have set interest rates to protect house prices as much as banks and the general economy. Our leaders have tried to entice first-time buyers into ridiculous schemes and shore up the runaway profits of house-builders. Our leaders even employ advisers from property ramping shows. And even more pernicious we have mortgage 'advisers', we have older relatives who tell us we can't go wrong with bricks and mortar, and peers who at least up to 2008 marvelled at their spiralling endless property wealth and warned how others would 'miss the boat'. So ...as much as much as I admire your faith in personal responsibility, it is comically complacent and self-indulgent, and it is telling that the only sort of 'leadership' that registers with you seems to be of the totalitarian kind.

Well - now look who is not living in the real world ! In an ideal world I agree with all of the above. And your deterministic moralism could be applied without further consideration or thought. But guess what ? we don't live in that ideal world any more than the ideal situation Adam Smith envisaged. There are consequences to our actions, but we have been brain-f*cked out for decades now with HPI propaganda under which even short-term consequences have been relentlessly obscured, let alone the gathering disaster we are facing. From the 'experts' who are really Vested Interests, to ignorant or spineless politicians, to 'on message' family and friends - it really is quite breathtaking how the collective delusion has persisted, is still persisting. If even above-intelligent individuals have gone along with the 'sheeple' then Victorian style paternalistic complaints about the poor and the dumb-asses are as useless and self-indulgent as saying 'let them eat cake'. This isn't going to be solved by individuals suddenly realising the 'error of their (individual) ways' because the 'error' is an endemic and collective problem. Its going to take leadership and/or real disaster to change direction.

Apologies - I wasn't clear. Criticism was not directed at you but at numerous previous posts by others. As I said I agree with you - yes Panorama, repossessions happen and they are pretty bad but they happen all the time. If you preface the programme with the fact we are in the grip of a Housing Crisis then shouldn't you offer some insight why ? Who knows you might come to the conclusion we've had remarkably few so far...

Broadly agree with this but I'm not sure the programme had any remit other than a straight telling of the suffering and the waste of people losing their home in a climate where this is increasing. I guess if you are wishing for a housepricecrash you will feel impelled to moralise and judge, but it does seem rather pointless. I pretty much felt sorry for all of them, from feckless to unlucky. I thought it particularly devastating for the children. At the end if the day there is relentless property propaganda throughout society and ruining it and I'd like people out of it - sneering at people caught up in it is just a sort of inverted equivalent of enjoying property porn.

Of course you can connect your tablet to a keyboard. Those who think that the desktop market should be dead as a dodo are right - most people could get away with a tablet which they upgrade now and again + a few peripherals, e.g screens and keyboards which they don't. So most of us should be flitting around with our tablets occasionally plugging/tethering/wifi linking in to cheap 'stations' at work, school etc. Then again a lot of people don't quite understand this. I know somebody who at the extravagant most needs a Mackbook Air or PC equivalent, but who has bought practically the entire apple suite.

Not really. It is the most 'average' of places - has posh bits, swathes of average, and shit-hole bits. Not reflected in the prices though - it does seem way, way over-priced. I know its on the tube and has a very big hospital - is there also perhaps a few schools nearby ?

Agree with the broad thrust, but this did not start with Nu Liebour - this has been a catastrophe at least 30 years in the making.

Crazy, but the majority of people on this site should be falling over themselves to support the Guardian. There has been a line of sceptical bearish articles over the years and they have just opened a window for proper debates on the issue to enter the mainstream with their housing network thingumabob: http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/18457653

Exactly - its one of the biggest myths going and in this case a white lie - a professional could in theory be sued for misleading. Only really works when the price of land is particularly high e.g. prime London.

It is a meaningless simplification to try to describe them as independent actors facing the same situation, except one chose to react in a better way than another. Yes its a headache to unravel, but best put them back in the real world. The situations were totally different, and each party has been deeply influenced by the situation inherited from the other as well as the the political successes and failures of the other. You would have to be under 30 or credulously myopic to believe this is a mess created by Nu Labour. Add a decade or two and ditto with Thatcher. Even worse you are probably part of the problem and have no idea how serious this situation is. For one thing this is not a mess created by 'other' people. We have voted in these policies over the last 3 decades or more, implemented by both parties. In a similar vein, until everybody starts getting the stupidity and waste of rampant house price inflation, what is the point of blaming the effing banksters ? We've all had our snouts in the trough, scoffed at the very idea of its removal and now we are choking on the swill we try to blame the last person who poured it ?

Hard to disagree for the moment - London prime property is the new gold. Also while It distorts the overall statistics is pretty much detached from the rest of the market.

Well there you go then - I wouldn't worry too much about densities or nimby planning - taming the speculative beast and the government deciding propping up this sorry mess isn't worth it are what will actually make an impact.

Pretty sure studies have been done on this - even taking into account land constraints, immigration etc this is not the main factor. Its a bubble, pure and simple: Tulipmania. In the end this is all a financial crisis driven from the top to the bottom of society by fear (e.g. pension crisis, fear of being left behind) and greed (speculation, get rich quick, pyramids). Also blaming planning is exactly what land bank hoarding developers (who's profits are actually going up) are doing which is enough reason to be suspicious of it as a decisive solution. Also would be ironic as well as unlikely that the solution to disastrous liberal policies in one field are liberal policies in another. Its just another version of what I call Schapp-Trap - exploiting the crisis to help those who caused it in the first place: http://www.guardian....me-buyer-summit

Its an interesting point, but I think density is a factor rather "the" reason - at the end of the day house prices are probably driven more by existing stock which in turn drives land prices rather than the other way round. And of course people think they are buying 'bricks and mortar' not gambling on the price of dirt in increasing proportions. I would agree with the general point that its all about land prices, hence the likelihood that LVT would make a dramatic impact. If the government spent less time listening to interests looking to make money out of high house prices* and focussed on the economics and control of land use we might be in a better place. *in particular those with large land banks !!

Of course - its either/or. There is only one way and if you don't like it, sorry no houses. Now we are p*ssing up the wall spending 50bn on High Speed Rail and the like, funded in part no doubt by National Compulsory Organ Donation there is nothing left to give to merely provide homes for the population. Personally I think its such a great principle I don't know why they are thinking so small. I think they should sell Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Albertopolis all the Churches any and all of it to the Qataris and the rest. Can you imagine the amazing wealth that would be generated from this sale of all sales ? With the money we could then build the perfect New Capital of England. Green, DDA compliant, ideal transport the lot, a perfectly engineered 21st centurty Citadel that would boost the economy for the next century or more let alone this piddly little depression. And cash to spare for free houses, beer and pizza for everybody for decades . Lovely.

What a load of nonsense. This is not a barely economically literate solution. This is just more political drivel distracting from the real issues. Most people are against them Evil Scroungers (who we are now meant to gang up on now we are in dire economic straits and All In It Together) living in a nicer bit of town than them. No sh*t Sherlock. Please don't tell me people were paid to confirm this politically loaded populist bull. So in summary the solution to the housing crisis is by either fleecing first time buyers or by going after the 'Evil Scroungers' ? And it has just dawned on them that that building houses will create growth and jobs ? What is the point of effing Grant Schapps ? What has he achieved ? Are we seriously saying that the best way we can build new Social Housing is by depopulating poor people from expensive areas of and selling them ? These properties should stay Social Housing and we should nonetheless build MORE housing. There is a deep sickness in the economics of shelter, as has been pointed out by this site for well over a decade and this is just another idiotic distraction for the sheeple and another attempt by politicians to avoid dealing with the real issues around the disastrous pyramid scam of land distribution and speculation. Sorry for the rant but I think weirdly a couple of weeks of an Olympic break has just served to underline the shallow and unimaginative, cowardly bullying self and vested interested agenda that is all this government is capable of.