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Eight Radical Solutions To The Housing Crisis


getknk

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HOLA441
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HOLA442

Apparently there's some obscure theory about supply and demand.. very radical.

Obviously I'm not suggesting build 20 million. In our current circumstances building more is far from radical. With waiting lists twice that of stock there is clearly a shortage. Either change the eligibility criteria or build a few more. I think the whole system needs a shakedown but that's off topic.

Edited by Parkwell
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HOLA443

Just looking through these again.

8) A definite no. Council housing is a very poor way to allocate housing, taking away choicing and hoisting extra tax on people who are not lucky enough to get a free house. Any new house building should be done by the market, and all council homes sold off to the highest bidder.

Because the market has been so good at this in the past?

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HOLA444

Obviously I'm not suggesting build 20 million. In our current circumstances building more is far from radical. With waiting lists twice that of stock there is clearly a shortage. Either change the eligibility criteria or build a few more. I think the whole system needs a shakedown but that's off topic.

Probably I should clarify.. I find it amazing how we can have a situation of obvious housing shortages and a private sector clearly failing to provide, and not be embarking on a major council house building program, to drive down rents (and therefore house prices) as well as making sure that people have decent homes to live in.

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HOLA445
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HOLA446

Probably I should clarify.. I find it amazing how we can have a situation of obvious housing shortages and a private sector clearly failing to provide, and not be embarking on a major council house building program, to drive down rents (and therefore house prices) as well as making sure that people have decent homes to live in.

Private companies are more than happy to build houses as well as councils can. The allocation of the housing that they build is far fairer too, according to what people are judged to have produced in the market place rather than what need they have managed to concoct or worse, through corrupt allocation of a crooked housing official, which all gets paid for through the hard work of others.

Why on earth would anyone want that unless they are happy for one group of people to exploit others?

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HOLA447
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HOLA449

Probably I should clarify.. I find it amazing how we can have a situation of obvious housing shortages and a private sector clearly failing to provide, and not be embarking on a major council house building program, to drive down rents (and therefore house prices) as well as making sure that people have decent homes to live in.

Yup, I misunderstood.

Private companies are more than happy to build houses as well as councils can. The allocation of the housing that they build is far fairer too, according to what people are judged to have produced in the market place rather than what need they have managed to concoct or worse, through corrupt allocation of a crooked housing official, which all gets paid for through the hard work of others.

Why on earth would anyone want that unless they are happy for one group of people to exploit others?

That's why I think a building program needs to be with a change in policy. Council housing should be part of the benefits safety net to minimize spending on housing benefit, instead of whatever the hell it is at the moment with people on decent wages living there for umpteen years. I'm all for private building being the primary driver if they can stop the throttling of supply and free up planning permission for individuals.

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HOLA4410

_47463783_favella4babiloniaslumfavela.jpg

:lol: - I was going to post a pic of shanty town or favellas - as that's what we'll wind up with (more) of if we had 'freestyle planning' and continue to host +240,000 immigrants per annum. the overall population's going up by almost half a milllion a year (5 million per decade!). It's probably physically impossible to build not just houses to accomodate those numbers, but schools, roads, other infrastructure, without going the favella route.

What a grim future we're probably bequething our grandkids.

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HOLA4411

9. The BBC and other media stop presenting house price inflation as a path to national and personal riches

Not even that. Just give a balanced view on the matter. So one day a story about house prices rising is greeting with a smiling face by the newsreader. And the next they do it with a frown. At the moment we only get presenter #1.

I have seen a couple of surveys about what people want to happen re. house prices in the UK - and I think in both it wasa pretty even split between the rise and falls. Yet if you turn on the apparently non biased BBC you get the story from a 100% biased angle.

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HOLA4412

10. They can stop propping up the housing market with M4 money supply. A 15% Tier 1 capital requirement on banks would be a start. Had the credit crunch let rip without bank recapitalisation then they would have had to write down their loan books and liquidate their bad debts by now. (P.S. anyone noticed the 3month libor steadily creeping up the 2007 levels?). And...

11. Interest rates set by the market not the quango of the MPC.

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HOLA4413

Private companies are more than happy to build houses as well as councils can. The allocation of the housing that they build is far fairer too, according to what people are judged to have produced in the market place rather than what need they have managed to concoct or worse, through corrupt allocation of a crooked housing official, which all gets paid for through the hard work of others.

So, the huge run-up in house prices over the past decade must have lead to a private housebuilding boom due to market forces?

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HOLA4414

So, the huge run-up in house prices over the past decade must have lead to a private housebuilding boom due to market forces?

Alas no. Supply is restricted. I am sure that part of that is due to monopoly, house builders maintaining land banks and not giving them up. There is monopoly over the land too, a few people own most of the land, which is why I call for a progressive land value tax.

Much of the reason though has been the unprecedented immigration to this country. Some say 80 million live in the UK now. I dont know what the true figure is, but clearly it is out of line with the official figure.

I have no doubt that if more land was made available at suitable prices, more building would occur, particularly in the south east.

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HOLA4419

In Denmark, if you own a home which is empty, you have 6 months to fill it with a tenant or the government will find and install one for you. Exceptions made for those on extended business trips etc, but basically it keeps the houses full and the 2nd home owners at bay.

Not sure if it is in effect across the country or just Copenhagen.

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HOLA4420

Alas no. Supply is restricted. I am sure that part of that is due to monopoly, house builders maintaining land banks and not giving them up.

But why didn't the house builders, you know, build some houses on their banked land?

And if we can't trust house builders (whose business is surely to build houses) then someone needs to.

The fact that neither Labour nor the Conservatives has initiated a major council house building programme - especially when the construction industry is near rock bottom - tells me that this is a matter of deliberately keeping demand high and supply low.

After all, who the hell would pay over the odds for all those property portfolios from serving MPs if they could find a decent-sized, well built family home for rent in the area they live? :blink:

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HOLA4421

In Denmark, if you own a home which is empty, you have 6 months to fill it with a tenant or the government will find and install one for you. Exceptions made for those on extended business trips etc, but basically it keeps the houses full and the 2nd home owners at bay.

Not sure if it is in effect across the country or just Copenhagen.

A fine idea, but as long as about 85% of MPs are second home owners what do you think the chances of a similar policy being implemented here are...

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HOLA4422

A fine idea, but as long as about 85% of MPs are second home owners what do you think the chances of a similar policy being implemented here are...

I believe there are many historical examples, [especially in religious texts,] of uprisings, where the rulers had their houses burned down by the subjigated masses.

Edited by Milton
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HOLA4423

I believe there are many historical examples, [especially in religious texts,] of uprisings, where the rulers had their houses burned down by the subjigated masses.

We've generally been lucky in the UK - at various points in history first France (1789) and then Russia (1917) had revolutions; these revolutions spooked the UK ruling classes into making concessions in the relevant areas, thus heading off revolution here to a large extent, which meant that the ordinary UK prole got the benefits of uprising without the economic havoc associated with full scale civil war and economic experiment.

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HOLA4424

We've generally been lucky in the UK - at various points in history first France (1789) and then Russia (1917) had revolutions; these revolutions spooked the UK ruling classes into making concessions in the relevant areas, thus heading off revolution here to a large extent, which meant that the ordinary UK prole got the benefits of uprising without the economic havoc associated with full scale civil war and economic experiment.

The UK has not had a revolution specifically to end the Feudal Tenure of Land.

In the UK Tyler's Rebellion or the peasents revolt occured as far back as 1381, over 300 years after 1066, by which time over 95% of the land in the UK had been stolen by the Normans. Centuries later In 1861 Russia proclaimed the emancipation of serfs on private estates.

Tyler's Rebellion was the most extreme and widespread insurrection in English history. During the General Enclosures acts in 1846, and for centuries beforehand, our political masters, had gradually stolen millions of acres of land from commoners.

Denmark redistributed its land to the peasantry in 1800.

In Ireland, in 1876, 616 [mainly english aristocratic] landowners owned 80% of the country.

Yet by 1930, 13 million acres of Ireland's 20 million acres had been sold to owner-occupiers.

By 2001 home ownership is 82%, Ireland's 149,500 farms are 97% owner-occupied and owner-farmed, there is no poll tax, water is free and pensioners get free transport, TV and glasses. In 1872 "most" of the Irish people owned "nothing at all".

The 1 million dead in the potato famine was due to land ownership and repressive laws and not the potato blight

Less than 8% of the UK is developed. The scarcity of Land is a myth. Agriculture only accounts for 3% of the economy.

Although the poll tax of 1381 was the immediate cause of the Peasants' Revolt, the root of the conflict lay in deeper tensions between peasants and landowners.

The speech above is worth a quick listen.........In 1381 King Richard soon revoked the charters of freedom and pardon that he had granted, and gave the above declaration.

Its a speech that could have been repeated Century after Century by our political masters.

Lets hope the birth of the Internet marks a digital revolution.

Edited by Milton
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HOLA4425

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