Dont cap my benefits.

[CharlieT]

 

Those findings don't surprise me at all. Germany, the wealthiest nation in Europe by a country mile makes its money from export manufacturing not domestic property dabbling. Playing the property market doesn't interest Germans in the least. There is no need to pretend to be Sarah Beeny when you've got a proper job that turns a surplus. Germans are also Europe's best savers. They prefer to save their money than spend it paying interest to a mortgage company. Their rents are affordable and the quality of their new build is vastly better than ours.

 

 

Germany does not, like the UK, have the same mind set over home ownership. We bought a factory in Germany years ago, which included sufficient housing stock for all intended employees. Not one of the factory units I looked at came without housing.

[keg]

 

Those findings don't surprise me at all. Germany, the wealthiest nation in Europe by a country mile makes its money from export manufacturing not domestic property dabbling. Playing the property market doesn't interest Germans in the least. There is no need to pretend to be Sarah Beeny when you've got a proper job that turns a surplus. Germans are also Europe's best savers. They prefer to save their money than spend it paying interest to a mortgage company. Their rents are affordable and the quality of their new build is vastly better than ours.

Spain, need we remind ourselves, like Ireland, bankrupted itself trying to build its way out of debt with borrowed cash, just as George, Dave, Vince and Nick would like to do here. Now they've got a country ruined by a vast over-supply of hideous and shoddy buildings which are empty because no-one can afford to buy them: they're properly, completely, incurably broke and they've suffered a comprehensive brain-drain as most of their young people whom they need to rebuild their economy have fled to become waiters in tapas bars in London and Bournemouth where Dave and little George will house them all with money they will borrow from your children, and the Germans will sell them the tools to do it and go home to sleep peacefully in their warm, quiet, well built, low rent houses and dream of holidays and nice cars.....

Agree with your comments re Germany, we are obsessed with the value of our houses, the value of our cars and our "net worth" very much like the USA.

 

Spain has been bankrupt for years having been run by socialists.... like many of the med countries. They only have tourism but our EU brothers wanted them all in the club at any cost.

[CharlieT]

And all this time I thought a council having its own housing stock.in which it housed those who chose, or could not afford to buy their own property, and which was maintained and supplemented via the rent it received was a far better option than handing over millions upon millions with no return whatsoever to landlords who put it into their back pocket,s all this time not realising that the property offered by the private renters was much much better :lol: than the dilapidated offerings eagerly snapped up by those who strangely thought "I want To buy this ****hole" rather than have my rent paid for me and have a lovely private rented dwelling,seems your view of the world does not stop at the horizon, it stops past the end of your nose.

 

KW

 

I'm with you all the way on this.

I truly believe that selling off the council housing stock, at huge discounts to boot, is the primary cause of todays housing problems for low earners.

It was nothing but a political move by Mrs Thatcher to attract socialist votes.

[islandgun]

 

I'm with you all the way on this.

I truly believe that selling off the council housing stock, at huge discounts to boot, is the primary cause of todays housing problems for low earners.

It was nothing but a political move by Mrs Thatcher to attract socialist votes.

This lack of cheaper rented housing in turn leads to the less well off turning to private landlords who then charged excessive rents making it harder for low payed people to make ends meet and too decide that because they have more income from being un-employed with the rent payed for them, than to work, then why work, which brings me back to an earlier observation that housing benefit should be capped,

[Gimlet]

This lack of cheaper rented housing in turn leads to the less well off turning to private landlords who then charged excessive rents making it harder for low payed people to make ends meet and too decide that because they have more income from being un-employed with the rent payed for them, than to work, then why work, which brings me back to an earlier observation that housing benefit should be capped,

 

Another factor was the buy-to-let mortgage. A scum landlord's charter. Give preferential incentives to those who already have capital so they can cream off the housing stock and rent it back to those who haven't at rates determined by their mortgage liabilities not by what the market can stand.

Second homes is another one, and holiday lets.....

[aris]

 

Another factor was the buy-to-let mortgage. A scum landlord's charter. Give preferential incentives to those who already have capital so they can cream off the housing stock and rent it back to those who haven't at rates determined by their mortgage liabilities not by what the market can stand.

 

Did you ever consider that some people actually want the flexibility of renting? Without Landlords, who would rent to them?

[Gimlet]

 

Did you ever consider that some people actually want the flexibility of renting? Without Landlords, who would rent to them?

 

Of course. But I don't think buy-to-let mortgages is a very good way of doing it.

[aris]

Of course. But I don't think buy-to-let mortgages is a very good way of doing it.

 

Why not? Landlords should have cash up front?

[goodo123]

I think it's highly unfair when landlords are allowed to pay interest only mortgages, effectively living off the bank.

[aris]

I think it's highly unfair when landlords are allowed to pay interest only mortgages, effectively living off the bank.

Anyone can get an IO mortgage.

[overandunder2012]

 

I'm with you all the way on this.

I truly believe that selling off the council housing stock, at huge discounts to boot, is the primary cause of todays housing problems for low earners.

It was nothing but a political move by Mrs Thatcher to attract socialist votes.

they make a great buy to let

[SneakyD]

Why not? Landlords should have cash up front?

Of course. That way, only the already wealthy can improve their position, hard working thrifty people should know their place

[Gimlet]

Of course. That way, only the already wealthy can improve their position, hard working thrifty people should know their place

 

Bit more to it of course, but in spirit that's more or less my view of it.

If you're going to have a property owning society, particularly on a crowded island with limited housing stock and limited space, then its the first-timers who need the preferential treatment (provided it isn't inflationary direct subsidy) rather than creating further opportunities for professional investors and have-a-go property developers. And if you're going to have a society of renters then you want local government devolved right down to parish level overseeing professional landlords who are properly regulated and accountable directly to the communities in which their properties stand: not a rag-tag army of absentee amateurs.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Gimlet

[aris]

While space is not unlimited - there is alot of space left in the UK - just look outside your window next time you get in a plane. Someone just needs to do some planning and building. I don't just mean build anywhere - but do some strategic planning and build a new city or two, with local industry to support them.

[Gimlet]

While space is not unlimited - there is alot of space left in the UK - just look outside your window next time you get in a plane. Someone just needs to do some planning and building. I don't just mean build anywhere - but do some strategic planning and build a new city or two, with local industry to support them.

 

 

It depends whose eyes are doing the seeing. There is no empty space. Almost every square inch not concreted over is used in some capacity to service that which is. Land which does not have buildings on it is not "empty". We are barely 50% self-sufficient in food. The south and south east routinely run short of water. The roads are gridlocked and we struggle to dispose of our waste. More dead are now incinerated than buried.

When I get on a plane I don't see empty space, I see a tide of concrete and glinting glass spreading across the landscape like a virus in a laboratory dish. I'm dismayed how little land is "left", not how much.

[aris]

Well, my glass isn't half empty - I don't see any challenge as insurmountable - housing included.

[sandspider]

I live near Bristol, and I don't see all this desperate housing shortage people go on about - there are lots of empty houses / properties in Bristol. For example, I was chatting to the harbour master a few years ago and he said that only 12 flats out of the 250 odd in a new development on the harbour had been sold. This was a year or two after it was completed. I don't know how full it is now, but there certainly wasn't a huge rush to buy - and the flats weren't badly priced for the area. Also, there are lots of derelict brownfield sites that could easily be redeveloped, but the council seems to prefer to grant permission to build new flats in unsuitable green belt locations outside the city.

[Fisherman Mike]

There will be plenty of brown field land to build on when we pull out of the EU. All of the Large European conglomerates currently located and manufacturing in the UK will no doubt respond to the Eurozone factory downturn of the last 7 years and relocate to member countries. Bloods thicker than water and they will soon become aware of the financial and socio-economic benefits of doing so and opportunity to rebuild home economies. Hopefully our economy will be strong enough to counteract the commercial and industrial exodus that awaits us and the mass unemployment it will bring with it. This has nothing to do with any fluctuation of UK import or export or our ability to trade as an independent economy either, It will be sound business sense to take advantage of cheaper labour of course, but more a national morality issue to support their own member states.

[CharlieT]

I live near Bristol, and I don't see all this desperate housing shortage people go on about - there are lots of empty houses / properties in Bristol. For example, I was chatting to the harbour master a few years ago and he said that only 12 flats out of the 250 odd in a new development on the harbour had been sold. This was a year or two after it was completed. I don't know how full it is now, but there certainly wasn't a huge rush to buy - and the flats weren't badly priced for the area. Also, there are lots of derelict brownfield sites that could easily be redeveloped, but the council seems to prefer to grant permission to build new flats in unsuitable green belt locations outside the city.

Perhaps that's because first time buyers can't afford to buy them.

[sandspider]

Perhaps. But the flats / houses they're building outside the city aren't any more affordable - the opposite. And the public transport infrastructure can't cope with the extra load of commuters, nor can the roads.

 

Going a bit off topic here! Ignore me...

[Gimlet]

There will be plenty of brown field land to build on when we pull out of the EU. All of the Large European conglomerates currently located and manufacturing in the UK will no doubt respond to the Eurozone factory downturn of the last 7 years and relocate to member countries. Bloods thicker than water and they will soon become aware of the financial and socio-economic benefits of doing so and opportunity to rebuild home economies. Hopefully our economy will be strong enough to counteract the commercial and industrial exodus that awaits us and the mass unemployment it will bring with it. This has nothing to do with any fluctuation of UK import or export or our ability to trade as an independent economy either, It will be sound business sense to take advantage of cheaper labour of course, but more a national morality issue to support their own member states.

 

Excellent. More watertight reasons to add to the countless others to get out as soon as possible.

 

I live near Bristol, and I don't see all this desperate housing shortage people go on about - there are lots of empty houses / properties in Bristol. For example, I was chatting to the harbour master a few years ago and he said that only 12 flats out of the 250 odd in a new development on the harbour had been sold. This was a year or two after it was completed. I don't know how full it is now, but there certainly wasn't a huge rush to buy - and the flats weren't badly priced for the area. Also, there are lots of derelict brownfield sites that could easily be redeveloped, but the council seems to prefer to grant permission to build new flats in unsuitable green belt locations outside the city.

 

This goes back to what I said earlier. There isn't a housing crisis, there's a funding crisis. There are plenty of houses but few buyers because the houses are too expensive. They may not seem expensive per se but they are expensive relative to average incomes, particularly incomes of the people who would be most likely to buy them in that area. The housing ladder has had the bottom rungs cut off. It needs bringing back down to earth with a period of contraction with the slack taken up in the economy with genuine exportable productivity (which will be possible when we leave the EU, deregulate our economy and free ourselves to trade bilaterally with the rest of the world). The Government in trying to bypass those missing bottom rungs by using taxpayer's money as an election bribe leg-up only pushes the ladder further out of reach.

And developers like to build on greenfield sites because for one thing is it often logistically easier and therefore cheaper to build on a blank canvas and because they don't pay VAT on greenfield sites which they do on brownfield: a little tempter the government is offering in its quest to get as much of the countryside concreted over as possible.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Gimlet

[sandspider]

You post a lot of sense on here, Gimlet - thanks.

 

It seems crazy that there is no VAT to build on greenfield sites but there is on brownfield - surely it should be the other way around, to try and protect the few bits of greenery we have left?

[Fisherman Mike]

You post a lot of sense on here, Gimlet - thanks.

 

It seems crazy that there is no VAT to build on greenfield sites but there is on brownfield - surely it should be the other way around, to try and protect the few bits of greenery we have left?

 

 

New build is exempt Vat on both Brown and Greenfield sites

[Fisherman Mike]

 

This goes back to what I said earlier. There isn't a housing crisis, there's a funding crisis. There are plenty of houses but few buyers because the houses are too expensive. They may not seem expensive per se but they are expensive relative to average incomes, particularly incomes of the people who would be most likely to buy them in that area. The housing ladder has had the bottom rungs cut off. It needs bringing back down to earth with a period of contraction with the slack taken up in the economy with genuine exportable productivity (which will be possible when we leave the EU, deregulate our economy and free ourselves to trade bilaterally with the rest of the world). The Government in trying to bypass those missing bottom rungs by using taxpayer's money as an election bribe leg-up only pushes the ladder further out of reach.

And developers like to build on greenfield sites because for one thing is it often logistically easier and therefore cheaper to build on a blank canvas and because they don't pay VAT on greenfield sites which they do on brownfield: a little tempter the government is offering in its quest to get as much of the countryside concreted over as possible.

Actually that’s not strictly true…

Edited April 16, 2014 by Fisherman Mike