Housing: Misery Beckons On The Home Front

[Saving For a Space Ship]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/30/hosuing-benefit-reform-hosuing-policy

The Guardian, Saturday 30 October 2010

......The public, however, well understands that house prices rise faster than those of baked beans, and so would balk at the move to peg future payments to the cost of shopping, as opposed to the actual level of rents. A policy that simultaneously punishes young people who choose to stay at home, while also clobbering those who move out, invites head-scratching.

A collapse in house prices and rents might still have rescued the poor, except that such a slump would likely come hand-in-hand with prolonged unemployment, a condition which is now to trigger a fresh benefit cut.

Of all these many, mean-spirited plans, the one that stands out is asking someone who has tried and failed to find work for a year to stump up a share of their rent from the £65.45 a week that jobseeker's allowance grants them to live on. Britain's workless could soon be falling back on the sorts of charities, which are already the only thing keeping unemployed bodies and unemployed souls together in parts of the United States.

To resist this savagery is not to deny that established housing policies have failed. Some estates are indeed workless ghettos, from which it is hard to escape. But there is scant evidence that a new dose of market forces will be any help: a recent reform that allowed private tenants to shop around and keep any savings failed to curb rents.

At root, the problem is shortage of supply – from this single source the high rents, the long waits and the fear of moving all flow. Rethinking planning rules must be part of any solution, but a government that has made the public deficit its sole priority is unable to recognise that public investment must be an element too.

With interest rates low and idle workers plentiful, now is precisely the right time to be investing in new social housing. Instead, bewitched by the public accounts, the administration is left looking to an unpalatable rise in social rents as the means by which to spur a woefully modest trickle of new building.......

[aa3]

-Large idle population including many young healthy bodies.. check.

-Terrible shortage of housing around where many live.. check.

-ultra low interest rates to finance mass scale social housing.. check.

-government already with huge and growing monthly outgoings paying for social housing.. check.

Seems a complete no brainer to carry out a mass social housing building boom. Using private building contractors of course. Why do our leaders of all parties seem so poor they can't figure these things out?

[BuyInOxford]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/30/hosuing-benefit-reform-hosuing-policy

The Guardian, Saturday 30 October 2010

Of all these many, mean-spirited plans, the one that stands out is asking someone who has tried and failed to find work for a year to stump up a share of their rent from the £65.45 a week that jobseeker's allowance grants them to live on.

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

[Bloo Loo]

ANOTHER OMG if we dont keep house prices high the WORLD WILL END.

for the overborrowed it may well do...tough shit.

for the sensible, and for the good of the economy, lower house prices will:

reduce mortgage costs.

reduce the cost to advance up the ladder.

reduce costs to buy your first place.

reduce rents, increase yields.

all more disposable income to be SPENT, rather than MEWED and SPENT into the economy.

What these TOSSERS are missing is that its not high house prices that benefited the boom, it was MEW.

high housing costs HOLD BACK the economy, less local spending, less international competitiveness...how many times do we hear "JBloggs and Co have moved to X country becuase its cheaper to do business there"?...its not taxes, taxes you pay After making a profit...the biggest cost in firms is LABOUR and PREMISES....guess what, High housecosts means wages HAVE to be higher, and high Premises costs means the other big cost is obviously higher.

The Cure....LIMIT bank lending on private housing to 3 times the first wage earners salary....

in an ideal world, I would BAN mortgage finance for house purchase.

[hedgefunded]

What these TOSSERS are missing is that its not high house prices that benefited the boom, it was MEW.

But they couldn't have MEW'd without ever increasing house prices.

If house rices start to take off again, do you think it will be any different next time?

[Bloo Loo]

But they couldn't have MEW'd without ever increasing house prices.

If house rices start to take off again, do you think it will be any different next time?

well, the only way they could take off again is if lending increases....and we all know where that led.

[tim123]

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

It can't be that simple. In any one area there are 1000 out of work and only 20 or so working the night shift in Asda.

tim

[SNACR]

Looks suspiciously like The Guardian is suggesting keeping the poor in ghettos in order to keep nice educated middle-class folks in houses they can't really afford.

[SNACR]

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

You're assuming retailers have endless labour requirements they'll happily fill with any one who rocks up.

Neither are true.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Soon Not a Chain Retailer

[james_chch]

high housing costs HOLD BACK the economy, less local spending, less international competitiveness...how many times do we hear "JBloggs and Co have moved to X country becuase its cheaper to do business there"?...its not taxes, taxes you pay After making a profit...the biggest cost in firms is LABOUR and PREMISES....guess what, High housecosts means wages HAVE to be higher, and high Premises costs means the other big cost is obviously higher.

I don't think this is the way high house prices are holding back the economy. I think high house prices and a weak economy are consequences of the housing investment mania - both by banks, which prefer to lend for mortgages than to businesses, and by individuals, where every penny is thrown into housing 'investment'. Poeple have forgotten that housing is an unproductive investment, and the private sector - the only place where growth happens - is being starved of capital.

It's also worth noting that the artificially low interest rates, which are there to prop up all these malinvestments, are further starving the private sector of capital, since there's little incentive to save at the miserly rates on offer.

[SNACR]

It can't be that simple. In any one area there are 1000 out of work and only 20 or so working the night shift in Asda.

tim

A familiar refrain amongst middle-class people who've been made redundant is 'I can always get XYZ Mcjob'

I think a lot will be disappointed

[Bloo Loo]

I don't think this is the way high house prices are holding back the economy. I think high house prices and a weak economy are consequences of the housing investment mania - both by banks, which prefer to lend for mortgages than to businesses, and by individuals, where every penny is thrown into housing 'investment'. Poeple have forgotten that housing is an unproductive investment, and the private sector - the only place where growth happens - is being starved of capital.

It's also worth noting that the artificially low interest rates, which are there to prop up all these malinvestments, are further starving the private sector of capital, since there's little incentive to save at the miserly rates on offer.

absolutely...high house prices hold back the economy in many more ways than one paragraph can convey.

[Tonkers]

A familiar refrain amongst middle-class people who've been made redundant is 'I can always get XYZ Mcjob'

I think a lot will be disappointed

Espcially when they don't get the job due to lack of experience.

[Realistbear]

Our economy is 70% dependent on HPI.

To change over to a manufacturing/services/export based economy it will take a revolotution in thinking:

1. Bank reform and new lending standards

2. Dissincentives for multiple home ownership

3. Purpose driven plans to build more homes on brown belt

4. Common sense immigration policies

[Tired of Waiting]

-Large idle population including many young healthy bodies.. check.

-Terrible shortage of housing around where many live.. check.

-ultra low interest rates to finance mass scale social housing.. check.

-government already with huge and growing monthly outgoings paying for social housing.. check.

Seems a complete no brainer to carry out a mass social housing building boom. Using private building contractors of course. Why do our leaders of all parties seem so poor they can't figure these things out?

NIMBYs I suppose.

BTW, it doesn't matter much where the new supply comes from. It could be private builders as well. If you increase the housing supply enough all prices will drop. We just need more sensible planning laws, or perhaps some kind of zoning, like in many other countries.

[bricor mortis]

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

NO....... whatever job I apply for including minimum wage work, I just dont even get an interview. There may be say a 100 vacancies in my Bristol Evening Post on Jobs day Wednesday, but how many unemployed are there desperately chasing those jobs ? Tens of thousands. Currently I am having to live off my savings.

[silver surfer]

in an ideal world, I would BAN mortgage finance for house purchase.

That "ideal world" sounds very similar to Britain in say 1900, when apart from a few mutual societies there was no source of finance for the ordinary working person. The net result in 1900 was owner occupancy rates of 11%, in other words 89% of the population rented.

Actually, this is the direction we're moving in. House prices will fall (probably more slowly than most of us would like but they'll fall all the same) yet owner occupancy rates will also fall (they're falling right now), as it becomes harder and harder for the average person to scrape together a deposit.

The future's renting. And not as a lifestyle choice, but as a hard economic necessity.

[Tired of Waiting]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/30/hosuing-benefit-reform-hosuing-policy

The Guardian, Saturday 30 October 2010

First they write: "The public, however, well understands that house prices rise faster than those of baked beans" as if house prices will always rise, and as if house prices had nothing to do with government policy.

But soon after they write: "A collapse in house prices and rents might still have rescued the poor, except that such a slump would likely come hand-in-hand with prolonged unemployment"

Which, first, deny their previous point, and second ignores Vince Cable's argument and plans to redirect some credit away from mortgages and towards the productive sector of the economy - businesses, including small business, as they employ so many.

A very weak article. Embarrassing as an Editorial.

And then it gets even worse, they write: "Of all these many, mean-spirited plans (...) " and that reminded me of this article:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100060835/memo-to-my-leftie-friends-youd-feel-better-if-you-tried-not-to-hate-us-so-much/#dsq-content

And a readers comment there, by "dissidentjunk", "Northerner from a working class background" former Labour supporter.

dissidentjunk

10/26/2010 03:55 PM

Recommended by

56 people

For my sins, I used to work in the left wing political arena during the previous government. I made the break five years ago after I finally admitted to myself that the majority of people that made up the left-leaning media and political environment were nothing more than privileged, upper-middle class, arrogant Oxbridge-educated frauds with huge grievances and a horrendous tendency to smear any kind of alternative thought as 'deviant'.

In all my time, I hardly ever met anyone who had been to a comprehensive school or who had grown up on a council estate -- indeed, I hardly ever met anyone who could be described as even "middle-middle class" here in the North.

I met Labour Treasury advisors that did not know how much JSA was. Almost everyone I came across had either gone to a grammar or a public school, and I met people who were in very key positions in the Labour environment that I would describe as being "braying yuppies" who told me quite plainly that they practised nepotism in order to get friends political jobs. One young woman told me she had created "an old boys and girl's network" to help former college associates get left-wing think tank positions.

With the exception of a few Labour old timers, the lasting impression I have of the atmosphere in lefty politics and the media from 97 to 05 is that it was packed full of privileged, arrogant toffs -- yes, toffs -- who hadn't a clue what life outside their little socio-economic group was really like, and actually didn't care so long as they were near the centre of power.

They were some of the most revolting people I have ever met, and a danger to the notion of running the state for the benefit of all the people through the principles of democracy. For me, as a Northerner from a working class background, it was a horrendous shock.

I know people who had a very similar experience in academia.

.

Edited October 31, 2010 by Tired of Waiting

[bricor mortis]

A familiar refrain amongst middle-class people who've been made redundant is 'I can always get XYZ Mcjob'

I think a lot will be disappointed

Exactly so I am an unemployed registered nurse in learning disability, 3 years training then about another year doing post basic studies at Universities.

[bricor mortis]

Espcially when they don't get the job due to lack of experience.

Exactly you wont get retal work without experience, and lately I have noticed cleaning and kitchen porter jobs stipulating experienced only.

[silver surfer]

NO....... whatever job I apply for including minimum wage work, I just dont even get an interview. There may be say a 100 vacancies in my Bristol Evening Post on Jobs day Wednesday, but how many unemployed are there desperately chasing those jobs ? Tens of thousands. Currently I am having to live off my savings.

Here's the reality of employment in minimum wage Britain.

In London's West End, where I work, I see "Job Vacancy" notices in shops, pubs, and restaurants every day... every single day. But these are minimum wage jobs or just a little above minimum wage. The only accommodation those jobs can fund are a squalid flat in Southall with three or four sharing a room. And at the moment the only people willing to put up with those housing conditions are immigrants.

So what's going to happen?

Most of the workers are EU, so they're not going home even if far right political parties keep making gains.

No more social housing will be built, so the standard of accommodation won't improve.

The welfare state is retreating, so eventually British workers will be forced into those jobs and the living conditions that go with them.

Whether this is cause for despair or celebration depends on your political leanings. But sure as night follows day, this is what the future holds.

[rented]

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

Where pays £8 an hour for night work without any prior experience? I can't remember the last time I saw a job ad where the night shift (hotel reception/shelf stacking etc) got paid more than NMW.

[WiseBear]

-Large idle population including many young healthy bodies.. check.

-Terrible shortage of housing around where many live.. check.

-ultra low interest rates to finance mass scale social housing.. check.

-government already with huge and growing monthly outgoings paying for social housing.. check.

Seems a complete no brainer to carry out a mass social housing building boom. Using private building contractors of course. Why do our leaders of all parties seem so poor they can't figure these things out?

Actually our dumb leaders have got it right by accident.

There is no housing shortage and no need to build, we just an excess of speculators.

I'll bet with you now that when this crash really gets going there will be threads with confused people all wondering where all the supply came from and where all the people have gone.

[SNACR]

Where pays £8 an hour for night work without any prior experience? I can't remember the last time I saw a job ad where the night shift (hotel reception/shelf stacking etc) got paid more than NMW.

That's about right for Tesco/Sainsbury/Asda night-shift. It would be base plus an unsocial hours premium.

[ken_ichikawa]

There must be something wrong with you not to manage to get a job paying at least 8 GBP an hour within a year. Nightshift shelf stacking a Asda would pay that.

Not anymore, the anti social element of shelf stacking in Asda was removed a long time ago. At Xmas last year there were 100s of people clamouring for the ASDA night shelf stacker jobs, it paid £6.02/h.

Much like the extra pay for Sunday work, its now all reduced these days.

Edited October 31, 2010 by ken_ichikawa