House prices

Originally Posted by TuonoGrant

This is true for the average joe but there are plenty of pros out there that have made a lot of money. Buy to let investors and the renovators. Now the next ones in line to profit will be the the cash buyers picking up foreclosures.

*rubs hands*

*rubs hands some more*

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

That's symptom, not a cause. The only reason buy to let became popular is because house prices were rocketing, not the other way round. Sure it didn't help, but it's because people could afford to pay the ridiculous prices, and then some, that prices continued to rise.

Or rather, people couldn't afford to pay the ridiculous prices, but were borrowing far beyond their means. Now the banks have got the jitters and realised lending £300k to a those on £20k pa isn't such a good idea, hence the difficulty in getting a mortgauge and price drop that brings.

We know the cause - its as has been stated, both by myself - the Commoditising of property and its use as an Investment, and as you say, the fact that people were willing to do anything to get on the ladder, as you said.

In order to sort the situation out, however, there need to be more houses on the market, which making it un-economic to own loads of houses is one way of doing this.

And the fact the housing benefit was so substantial that it made it worth buying cheap properties on buy-to-let to sit on a DSS goldmine. All this did was price out first time buyers, falsely inflating the market. A crappy house now easily costs over £100k.

I work full time in a good career, and rent a small room in a crappy area of Cardiff. It's nearly 40% of my income, and no one around me works. They're all unemployed, always decorating, and next door (single bloke, no kids) has just build an extension! They're in the street drinking, there's always crime, there seems to be more plasma screens on display than dixons!

Is it even worth working?!

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

We know the cause - its as has been stated, both by myself - the Commoditising of property and its use as an Investment, and as you say, the fact that people were willing to do anything to get on the ladder, as you said.

In order to sort the situation out, however, there need to be more houses on the market, which making it un-economic to own loads of houses is one way of doing this.

And making it uneconomical to own more than one house, ruining thousands of people by forcing them to sell at low prices, flooding the market with "cheap(er)" houses and depressing the market further is your solution?

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

And making it uneconomical to own more than one house, ruining thousands of people by forcing them to sell at low prices, flooding the market with "cheap(er)" houses and depressing the market further is your solution?

What's your solution Jordon?

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

And making it uneconomical to own more than one house, ruining thousands of people by forcing them to sell at low prices, flooding the market with "cheap(er)" houses and depressing the market further is your solution?

Many of them got into it themselves - so no sympathy for them to be honest.

Something needs to be done to reset the cost of housing so that people earning less than say £30k can afford to buy and to stop the wholesale gobbling up of property by investors who dont actually want to live in them.

Yes its going to be painful to some who are blameless, but anyone who bought in the last 5 years should have seen this coming - its why I didnt.

If a house costs £60k to rebuild if it falls down - why should it sell for 5 times that?

Greed got many people into this, and I hope they get what they deserve.

Especially Shared Ownership schemes where the "tennant" (wont call them owners - they are just renting with HUGE deposits) have the right to buy at market value at any time - they could be the ones to benefit this time round.

Originally Posted by BigApe

What's your solution Jordon?

Abolish stamp duty and build more houses.

House prices were artificially inflated by unrealistic borrowing. That's now come to an end. Leave things be and everything will settle down and find a natural level.

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

Many of them got into it themselves - so no sympathy for them to be honest.

Something needs to be done to reset the cost of housing so that people earning less than say £30k can afford to buy and to stop the wholesale gobbling up of property by investors who dont actually want to live in them.

Yes its going to be painful to some who are blameless, but anyone who bought in the last 5 years should have seen this coming - its why I didnt.

If a house costs £60k to rebuild if it falls down - why should it sell for 5 times that?

Greed got many people into this, and I hope they get what they deserve.

Especially Shared Ownership schemes where the "tennant" (wont call them owners - they are just renting with HUGE deposits) have the right to buy at market value at any time - they could be the ones to benefit this time round.

That just sounds like sour grapes quite frankly.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by Flamin_Squirrel

Abolish stamp duty and build more houses.

House prices were artificially inflated by unrealistic borrowing. That's now come to an end. Leave things be and everything will settle down and find a natural level.



That just sounds like sour grapes quite frankly.

Your solution does nothing

All that will happen is that the houses built will be shared ownership so that the value of the property is unaffected, but people will not actually own anything.

Also are these new houses going to spring up from no-where overnight, this situation has been brewing for 5 years plus, and look no new tracts of new homes, due to developers knowing a good thing when they see it and NIMBYism from the people who already have houses but dont want more built near them.

There are more than enough homes in the UK already for those that want to buy IF there was less Buy-to-Let "Investors". It seems to me that regulation of THAT sector to the point where people had to get out would hurt the fewest people in the long run, and is technically affecting businesses (which is what Buy-to-let is) rather than people.

As for the sour grapes comment - why make things personal?

I am simply giving my viewpoint from the view of someone who looked at the situation and made a decision to not get involved.

From what I've seen the housing market hasn't depressed that much yet (in terms of purchase numbers, yes, but in price terms not so much, since people are refusing to budge on price?), I suppose it will settle down to a sustainable level at some point (it has to), but it sounds like the argument of 'do nothing' vs 'make multiple ownership hard' determines how we get there?

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

Many of them got into it themselves - so no sympathy for them to be honest.

Something needs to be done to reset the cost of housing so that people earning less than say £30k can afford to buy and to stop the wholesale gobbling up of property by investors who dont actually want to live in them.

Agreed. Whilst buy-to-let is good for a few, I think that SK is right and that it's a bad thing for the majority. This idea of houses as an investment, rather than somewhere to live is a very bad thing, IMO. Of course, if I actually owned a buy-to-let house, I probably wouldn't think that.

Originally Posted by SoulKiss

If a house costs £60k to rebuild if it falls down - why should it sell for 5 times that?

Because the price of the land upon which it's built is far greater than the price of the house itself. There's a major shortage of land for building, especially in the South East. Large property developers have bought most of the available building land and are sitting on it. Most of the other land is greenbelt or farmland and you can't get planning permission on it (quite rightly IMO). I looked into self-build a while ago and getting a plot of land that's got a chance of getting planning permission is nearly impossible, without buying an existing house and demolishing.