What steps could government take to help mortgage borrowers?

[The Angry Capitalist]

8 minutes ago, cbathpc said:

Covid shifted any sense of personal responsibility over to the government. See energy price cap, see people on the dole whinging about cost of living.

The answer is never, work, earn more money, or put effort in. 

Yes. It's a natural response to their environment.

It's more than a little worrying how government is encroaching more and more.

There is less incentive to work and it has been a problem since the beginning of the century and worsening every year.

The social fabric is crumbling and this is a major problem. Productivity has been stagnant for the last decade at best.

Real incomes in the UK have actually declined since the beginning of the century despite "growth" in that time-frame in relation to GDP.

If this does not get resolved huge problems are going to emerge.

[scottbeard]

9 minutes ago, The Angry Capitalist said:

There is less incentive to work and it has been a problem since the beginning of the century and worsening every year.

Totally

I work 4 days a week now because if I worked 5 I'd be taxed at 63%, so why bother?

Same thing happens at 50k, and at 16 hours etc etc

So many disincentives to work before you even get to bailouts etc

[The Angry Capitalist]

2 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

Totally

I work 4 days a week now because if I worked 5 I'd be taxed at 63%, so why bother?

Same thing happens at 50k, and at 16 hours etc etc

So many disincentives to work before you even get to bailouts etc

Same for me.

Worked less than 30 hours a week now for a few years. Between 20 and 30 hours.

Used to own my own business and worked silly hours but was wasting my time.

The system is not arranged to favour or encourage business owners or just hard work in general.

Therefore, I do the minimum required and  devote the remainder of my time to leisure and reading books etc.

Life is too short and what's the point of collecting more paper that will lose value anyway?

[“Nasty Piece of work”]

Subsidised euthanasia.

[Lord D'arcy Pew]

1.) Blame Emanuel Goldstein

2.) Increase the Chocolate ration from 30g to 20g per week.

3.) Blame Emanuel Goldstein

4.) Go to war with Eurasia & Eastasia at the same time.

5.) Blame Emanuel Goldstein

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Lord D'arcy Pew

[btd1981]

Have to say the squealing is getting pretty loud!!

Where is the proposed support for hard-working tenants? Haven't heard much about that.

[btd1981]

Oh yes, and thanks to my restraint (stupidity) having looked at the ZIRP environment back in the day, thinking it was too risky to buy ("what if rates do rise from this unprecedented low") while watching prices increase by many tens of percent around me. 

Now I and many others have to pay much more for a mortgage than I otherwise would have, too. Just for different reasons.

Thanks to trying to understand the wider economics and take some responsibility for the risk. So where was our protection from insane ramping of house prices?

Homeowners need to suck up the consequences of their decisions (and I speak as one of them).

Edited June 16, 2023 by btd1981

[btl_hater]

If they increased income tax bands in line with inflation then no one could complain.

[clarkey]

8 minutes ago, btd1981 said:

Have to say the squealing is getting pretty loud!!

Where is the proposed support for hard-working tenants? Haven't heard much about that.

Housing benefit? 

[btd1981]

Just now, clarkey said:

Housing benefit? 

I never received housing benefit as a tenant? What did I do wrong? Apart from putting effort in at school, making sensible life decisions and getting a reasonable job?

[bomberbrown]

1 hour ago, scottbeard said:

+1  It would be flabbergasting to anyone from, say, the 1970s or the 1950s to imagine it's the GOVERNMENT's job to sort out you being able to pay for your mortgage

The 'problem' we have now that we didn't have in the 50s - 70s is there was an abundance of Council dwellings these defaulters could have moved into back then.  We simply don't have that now.

Edited June 16, 2023 by bomberbrown

[clarkey]

3 minutes ago, btl_hater said:

If they increased income tax bands in line with inflation then no one could complain.

quite. Mortgage payers are likely to be working people not sit on arse all day benefits scrounges so government reducing the tax burden is the best help that can give 

[msi]

11 minutes ago, clarkey said:

quite. Mortgage payers are likely to be working people not sit on arse all day benefits scrounges so government reducing the tax burden is the best help that can give 

erm BTL is benefit scrounging by proxy...

[bomberbrown]

1 minute ago, msi said:

erm BTL is benefit scrounging by proxy...

.... because there's been bugger all council dwelling building in the last 40 years.  That's where this all started (and ZIRP)

[msi]

1 minute ago, bomberbrown said:

.... because there's been bugger all council dwelling building in the last 40 years.  That's where this all started (and ZIRP)

ThE mArKeT cAn PrOvIdE ...

[bomberbrown]

Just now, msi said:

ThE mArKeT cAn PrOvIdE ...

...at a massive, inefficient and uneconomical premium!

[msi]

4 minutes ago, bomberbrown said:

...at a massive, inefficient and uneconomical premium!

Careful you'll get the loons here calilng you a SoCiAliSt LiBtArD

[lastlaugh]

Double the Rent-A-Room Allowance from £7,500 to £15,000.

Kills many birds with one stone.

It would:

Send a clear message that the solution to mortgage difficulties is in the hands of mortgage payers.

Discourage the underuse of property in the UK, which is the root cause of the housing crisis.

Would benefit the SE the most, where the housing crisis is most acute, mortgages are the most unaffordable, and the whinging voices are the loudest.

Pushback against the BTL brigade bleating that if they exit the sector then people will be homeless.

It would cost nothing.  I suspect the number of households paying tax on lodgers is 0%.  So there would be no reduction in tax receipts, just a change in behaviour.  

 

Downside?  Nothing!

[scottbeard]

2 hours ago, bomberbrown said:

The 'problem' we have now that we didn't have in the 50s - 70s is there was an abundance of Council dwellings these defaulters could have moved into back then.  We simply don't have that now.

But the houses they are living in won't disappear.  They will be repossessed, bought by people currently renting privately, and then the kicked-out former mortgage-holders can start renting the newly-empty rentals.

Council houses would be great but aren't needed to square the circle.

[spyguy]

Reduce national debt.

Run a budget surplus.

 

 

[bomberbrown]

7 minutes ago, scottbeard said:

But the houses they are living in won't disappear.  They will be repossessed, bought by people currently renting privately, and then the kicked-out former mortgage-holders can start renting the newly-empty rentals.

Council houses would be great but aren't needed to square the circle.

I get what you're saying, but all that (vacancy, new price discovery, available finance etc) is not going to happen overnight (see 1989 - 1995 crash as example).  And with private sector rent prices on the increase, it's going to be even harder to secure private rented homes.  A huge number of cheap, not-for-profit council dwellings would have been an ideal buffer for the next 3 or 4 years whilst this all plays out.  

[zugzwang]

2 minutes ago, spyguy said:

Reduce national debt.

Run a budget surplus.

 

 

Like George Osborne promised to do in 2015.

[Bruce Banner]

4 hours ago, The Angry Capitalist said:

It's disconcerting that hardly anyone is saying that they should be left to default if they can't afford to pay their mortgages.

Printing money has brought us here.

Now the consequences.

It's been said so many times, over the years, on this forum that as far as I'm concerned it goes without saying.

Bailouts are theft from the prudent.

[winkie]

3 hours ago, The Angry Capitalist said:

Same for me.

Worked less than 30 hours a week now for a few years. Between 20 and 30 hours.

Used to own my own business and worked silly hours but was wasting my time.

The system is not arranged to favour or encourage business owners or just hard work in general.

Therefore, I do the minimum required and  devote the remainder of my time to leisure and reading books etc.

Life is too short and what's the point of collecting more paper that will lose value anyway?

We are not a nation of small businesses....the banks nor the government support small or medium sized small businesses..... a nation of small shopkeepers said the grocers daughter.....saying what the electorate want to hear and doing absolutely nothing about it....very clear that hard self employed work does not pay.

[AAA]

The best help for mortgage borrowers would be to increase taxes across the board and to hike interest rates in larger increments. This way we will reduce the inflation below 2% within a few months and bailouts wouldn't be necessary.