Boomer life according to the economist
Discussion
BandOfBrothers said:
BAMoFo said:
There is a lot of house price inequality across the country. Perhaps more effort needs to be applied to resolving some of that? Understandably, people want to all live in the nice areas, but at the same time they complain about them becoming increasingly unaffordable. Cake and eat it springs to mind.
The weather/daylight is a large part of why a lot of people want to live in the South. Scotland is lovely,but I could never live there due to the cold/wet/short winter days.borcy said:
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
BandOfBrothers said:
borcy said:
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
Yes the highlands are cold, plenty of places in between.
I would think jobs and transport links etc rate higher than weather concerns.
borcy said:
BandOfBrothers said:
borcy said:
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
Yes the highlands are cold, plenty of places in between.
I would think jobs and transport links etc rate higher than weather concerns.
There are plenty of much cheaper to live places than the South East and people live there for all sorts of interlinked reasons, it having the best climate in the UK is a part of it though.
BandOfBrothers said:
It's a snowball effect though.
There are plenty of much cheaper to live places than the South East and people live there for all sorts of interlinked reasons, it having the best climate in the UK is a part of it though.
I'm not sure it's much of a factor, but can agree to disagree. There are plenty of much cheaper to live places than the South East and people live there for all sorts of interlinked reasons, it having the best climate in the UK is a part of it though.
Steve H said:
Meanwhile the landowners that hold the sites and potential sites won’t half their prices to meet the market; time is on their side so they will just wait.
Put a time limit on residential planning permission, with a fixed time-out period after that (e.g. 5 years) before any new request can be made.Tax undeveloped / unsold land with residential planning permission.
All sorts of ways around that.
BAMoFo said:
There is a lot of house price inequality across the country. Perhaps more effort needs to be applied to resolving some of that? Understandably, people want to all live in the nice areas, but at the same time they complain about them becoming increasingly unaffordable. Cake and eat it springs to mind.
London being the centre of politics, finance and a number of other industries is the headache - find ways to devolve power and influence away from London and you start to solve the problem.
Seems pretty clear to me that the most effective way to reduce house prices would to restrict mortgage lending, I mentioned it a couple of times but no-one has picked up on it.
The only reason a large part of the market can afford to pay the prices they currently are is because banks will lend them 4x or more joint income. Reduce that ratio and watch prices come down.
The only reason a large part of the market can afford to pay the prices they currently are is because banks will lend them 4x or more joint income. Reduce that ratio and watch prices come down.
havoc said:
Unfortunately, that dynamic leads people to (over-)stretch themselves to try to get their 2nd/3rd step house straight away. Which leads to:-
But what do we do?
We could have assistance schemes for those that go into negative equity? We could acknowledge that they had to get on the band wagon, that they can keep paying the mortgage but perhaps are facing difficulties remortgage because of the LTV? So the help to buy type scheme could be brought in to help stop repossessions and temporarily back the value shortfall. Ok those buyers can't move but they can still live there and ultimately buy it? GT03ROB said:
...however the people most impacted by that are likely to be the very people at the bottom of the tree. Those in their first few years of ownership with little equity & high LTV. These are the very people this thread has been arguing are struggling.
Agreed.But what do we do?
When I worked in a housing association I dealt with the accounting for the "Mortgage rescue" scheme, which was basically a subsidy to rescue mortgage 'owners' such that they stayed put and paid rent the bank got repaid for the mortgage and the HA got to keep the rent going forward and the property after the owners had died. If we can do it for these people (some blameless some not!!) then why not for the above, after all it's only fronting up a guarantee/security it might actually cost very little?
BandOfBrothers said:
Seems pretty clear to me that the most effective way to reduce house prices would to restrict mortgage lending, I mentioned it a couple of times but no-one has picked up on it.
The only reason a large part of the market can afford to pay the prices they currently are is because banks will lend them 4x or more joint income. Reduce that ratio and watch prices come down.
Your suggestion is pretty much how things used to be done, so is nothing new, but it did seem to keep more of a lid on things. I'm not sure how it would work in present times though because new housing stock is required to support the population growth. in some areas it would cost more to build the houses than the local population can afford to pay for them and I'm not sure that the market for materials and labour could compensate sufficiently. In my area it is already not unusual for the rebuild cost of houses to be significantly more than their market value. That isn't so much of a problem for older houses, but it wouldn't encourage new developments in the slightest.The only reason a large part of the market can afford to pay the prices they currently are is because banks will lend them 4x or more joint income. Reduce that ratio and watch prices come down.
Edited by BAMoFo on Thursday 18th April 17:09
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
Wisley Airfield is a disused airfield located about a mile from the A3/M25 interchange in prime Surrey “stockbroker belt”. The last flight was in 1973, and it’s now a concrete/grass wasteland, in temporary use as a construction yard for the A3/M25 works. The average house price in the neighbouring village of Ripley is over £700,000. There are plans on the shelf for c2,000 houses to be built, but it’s always been blocked by planning.
There are 95 golf courses in London, that together occupy more land than the borough of Brent. There are >3,000 acres of golf courses within walking distance of train stations, bus routes and town centres. Just half that land is enough for 30,000 houses; clearly many more dwellings if you built some flats.
These areas are far from “full”; the lack of building is a systemic choice.
brickwall said:
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
Wisley Airfield is a disused airfield located about a mile from the A3/M25 interchange in prime Surrey “stockbroker belt”. The last flight was in 1973, and it’s now a concrete/grass wasteland, in temporary use as a construction yard for the A3/M25 works. The average house price in the neighbouring village of Ripley is over £700,000. There are plans on the shelf for c2,000 houses to be built, but it’s always been blocked by planning.
There are 95 golf courses in London, that together occupy more land than the borough of Brent. There are >3,000 acres of golf courses within walking distance of train stations, bus routes and town centres. Just half that land is enough for 30,000 houses; clearly many more dwellings if you built some flats.
These areas are far from “full”; the lack of building is a systemic choice.
What about the infrastructure? The roads in the South East for example cannot cope already at peak times.
BandOfBrothers said:
It's not just about land though, is it?
What about the infrastructure? The roads in the South East for example cannot cope already at peak times.
Over exhausted infrastructure and insufficient new infrastructure is going to be getting worse and worse.What about the infrastructure? The roads in the South East for example cannot cope already at peak times.
Councils do not have the funding (govt continue to starve them) and building companies will not offer it up.
Building companies work on a business model which just like every other quoted company relies on keeping its share price up with projected forecasts. You change that forecast then their share price will tank. That will then impact the financial gearing then banks recall their funding then company collapses.
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
BandOfBrothers said:
brickwall said:
Build build build
Where where where?The places where people want to live are already crammed full.
Wisley Airfield is a disused airfield located about a mile from the A3/M25 interchange in prime Surrey “stockbroker belt”. The last flight was in 1973, and it’s now a concrete/grass wasteland, in temporary use as a construction yard for the A3/M25 works. The average house price in the neighbouring village of Ripley is over £700,000. There are plans on the shelf for c2,000 houses to be built, but it’s always been blocked by planning.
There are 95 golf courses in London, that together occupy more land than the borough of Brent. There are >3,000 acres of golf courses within walking distance of train stations, bus routes and town centres. Just half that land is enough for 30,000 houses; clearly many more dwellings if you built some flats.
These areas are far from “full”; the lack of building is a systemic choice.
What about the infrastructure? The roads in the South East for example cannot cope already at peak times.
The more nuanced response is to say
a) The infrastructure is already being built - CrossRail, the Bakerloo line extension, HS2…there’s massive investment going in. In the case of Wisley airfield, the Department for Transport are spending the thick end of £300M to massively increase the road capacity.
b) If more infrastructure is needed, then the developments should/do pay - that is precisely what Section 206 Community Infrastructure Levy (introduced in 2008) provides for.
c) If this were the true reason for opposition, then you’d expect opponents to support infrastructure building, or support developments following the build of infrastructure. Of course that’s not what happens. See HS2 opposition for a very visible example.
It it emblematic of the NIMBY mindset that they will seek any reason not to build; to literally leave a concrete wasteland derelict. They want nothing to be built, anywhere, ever. You can see how this mindset is not conducive to solving a shortage of housing.
Rail lines aren't infrastructure for most people, even in the SE.
- You can't go to the supermarket by train
- You can't go to the docs by train
- You can only go to school by train if your parents are rich and you're >11
- You can't get a medical diagnosis by train
- You can't get your kids educated by train
- A train won't entertain your kids / give them stuff to run around on.
Infrastructure means a LOT more than just a point-to-point public transport system. It means
- Roads which are fit for purpose AND have enough carrying capacity
- Bus services on those roads which mean that anyone can use them
- Schools
- GP surgeries
- Hospitals
- Pharmacies
...and probably more besides. And yet councils almost NEVER build any of them when new houses are going up, because new houses are a revenue generator but all the rest are costs. And councils are short-sighted a
holes who've been starved of cash by the government for the last 20 years.
- You can't go to the supermarket by train
- You can't go to the docs by train
- You can only go to school by train if your parents are rich and you're >11
- You can't get a medical diagnosis by train
- You can't get your kids educated by train
- A train won't entertain your kids / give them stuff to run around on.
Infrastructure means a LOT more than just a point-to-point public transport system. It means
- Roads which are fit for purpose AND have enough carrying capacity
- Bus services on those roads which mean that anyone can use them
- Schools
- GP surgeries
- Hospitals
- Pharmacies
...and probably more besides. And yet councils almost NEVER build any of them when new houses are going up, because new houses are a revenue generator but all the rest are costs. And councils are short-sighted a
holes who've been starved of cash by the government for the last 20 years.havoc said:
Infrastructure means a LOT more than just a point-to-point public transport system. It means
- Roads which are fit for purpose AND have enough carrying capacity
- Bus services on those roads which mean that anyone can use them
- Schools
- GP surgeries
- Hospitals
- Pharmacies
...and probably more besides. And yet councils almost NEVER build any of them when new houses are going up, because new houses are a revenue generator but all the rest are costs. And councils are short-sighted aholes who've been starved of cash by the government for the last 20 years.
Agree - though this is a solvable problem, right? We can build more roads, run new bus routes, and build more GP surgeries (though whether we have enough GPs to staff them…separate issue).- Roads which are fit for purpose AND have enough carrying capacity
- Bus services on those roads which mean that anyone can use them
- Schools
- GP surgeries
- Hospitals
- Pharmacies
...and probably more besides. And yet councils almost NEVER build any of them when new houses are going up, because new houses are a revenue generator but all the rest are costs. And councils are short-sighted a
holes who've been starved of cash by the government for the last 20 years.On schools specifically, actually here it’s interesting because (to state the obvious) school capacity required is a function of how many children there are.
Building more houses in a given area does not (in and of itself) change the number of children in total, it just changes the distribution of them. So you’ll need to create capacity for families moving in, but schools elsewhere will likely need to reduce capacity (or shut).
There was a case recently of a village that consistently opposed new housing. The general age of the village got older, few families moved in. Eventually there were too few children to sustain the local primary school, and suddenly the village were complaining that the school was closing. What did they expect!
brickwall said:
Building more houses in a given area does not (in and of itself) change the number of children in total, it just changes the distribution of them. So you’ll need to create capacity for families moving in, but schools elsewhere will likely need to reduce capacity (or shut).
Except where you've a growing population nationally and new schools just aren't being built.All the secondary schools around here are notably over-subscribed, and the main High School (which becomes the overflow) is already c.60 / 2 classes students per intake above capacity.
Also, travel distances are a factor - if two towns are say 5-10 miles apart, but only one is getting all the new housing (say an airfield has been converted), can you really expect KS1 and KS2 kids to travel that far to school because the provision is suddenly massively imbalanced due to the population change?
brickwall said:
It it emblematic of the NIMBY mindset that they will seek any reason not to build; to literally leave a concrete wasteland derelict. They want nothing to be built, anywhere, ever. You can see how this mindset is not conducive to solving a shortage of housing.
I’ve seen this referred to as Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone 
Always thought it was a shame this acronym never caught on…
havoc said:
brickwall said:
Building more houses in a given area does not (in and of itself) change the number of children in total, it just changes the distribution of them. So you’ll need to create capacity for families moving in, but schools elsewhere will likely need to reduce capacity (or shut).
Except where you've a growing population nationally and new schools just aren't being built.All the secondary schools around here are notably over-subscribed, and the main High School (which becomes the overflow) is already c.60 / 2 classes students per intake above capacity.
Also, travel distances are a factor - if two towns are say 5-10 miles apart, but only one is getting all the new housing (say an airfield has been converted), can you really expect KS1 and KS2 kids to travel that far to school because the provision is suddenly massively imbalanced due to the population change?
And if it is a problem, let’s just build some schools? I’ve been involved in the building of a new GP surgery, a new school and the expansion of an existing one - of all of them the easiest was the school expansion.
Council came to us (as the board of governors) and said “hey we’re predicting a need for more school capacity locally, can you increase your intake from 3 to 4 classes/yr - at least for the next 3 years but potentially longer”.
We did the planning - went back saying “ok we’ll need capital funding for X, Y, Z”. Council approved it, we started recruiting, and within a year we had the first extra class.
Actually what you tend to find in new developments is that new schools DO get planned/built, but then run into problems because parents actually don’t want to send their kids to a new school with no track record, so languishes under-capacity while the local “well-regarded” school further away is still over-subscribed.
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