Half of England owned by less than 1 per cent of population
Discussion
grumbledoak said:
Correct. Until some idiot contrives to slash house prices by 3/4, at which point almost everyone with a mortgage will be in negative equity. The lucky ones will be unwilling to sell at a massive loss, the rest will lose their home but still owe the money. They will probably consider themselves "affected" by this.
And the rest of the planet will start buying up every house until prices reach an international price/risk parity.
Why will they lose their homes? They have more to pay back than it is worth, agreed, but people get into negative equity all the time and that is not a reason for repossession as long as the mortgage is paid. And the rest of the planet will start buying up every house until prices reach an international price/risk parity.
Condi said:
Why will they lose their homes? They have more to pay back than it is worth, agreed, but people get into negative equity all the time and that is not a reason for repossession as long as the mortgage is paid.
You always have to pay back more than it is worth. About three times the price. But the banks have loan to value limits on application for a reason, you might get a mortgage at 90% but if that becomes 360% the banks will start repossessing.
grumbledoak said:
Condi said:
Why will they lose their homes? They have more to pay back than it is worth, agreed, but people get into negative equity all the time and that is not a reason for repossession as long as the mortgage is paid.
You always have to pay back more than it is worth. About three times the price. But the banks have loan to value limits on application for a reason, you might get a mortgage at 90% but if that becomes 360% the banks will start repossessing.
I maintain it wouldn't make much difference. And I own my own place which would obviously be in negative equity too.
As long as things move in relation to each other, the outright value of anything is pretty irrelevant. Its impossible to argue that the housing market is broken and unsustainable in its current form, and so at some point it will have to correct. That correction is unlikely to be 75%, but house prices cannot keep increasing at such a delta to earnings otherwise you will simply get to the point whereby people cannot afford their first house, and so much capital being ploughed into ill-liquid assets at the expense of more consumer spending is not desirable either.
As long as things move in relation to each other, the outright value of anything is pretty irrelevant. Its impossible to argue that the housing market is broken and unsustainable in its current form, and so at some point it will have to correct. That correction is unlikely to be 75%, but house prices cannot keep increasing at such a delta to earnings otherwise you will simply get to the point whereby people cannot afford their first house, and so much capital being ploughed into ill-liquid assets at the expense of more consumer spending is not desirable either.
Condi said:
I maintain it wouldn't make much difference....
Absurd assertion. Leaving aside the catastrophic economic consequences of even a 50% crash, if you could reset prices at a lower level painlessly, which you can't, they would surge back to a level determined by a reduced supply and a demand supercharged by lower prices.I agree lower prices would be a good thing all round but the adjustment would be very painful. It always is and it always bounces back.
Condi said:
I maintain it wouldn't make much difference. And I own my own place which would obviously be in negative equity too.
As long as things move in relation to each other, the outright value of anything is pretty irrelevant. Its impossible to argue that the housing market is broken and unsustainable in its current form, and so at some point it will have to correct. That correction is unlikely to be 75%, but house prices cannot keep increasing at such a delta to earnings otherwise you will simply get to the point whereby people cannot afford their first house, and so much capital being ploughed into ill-liquid assets at the expense of more consumer spending is not desirable either.
How do you sell or move when your house is worth 1/4 of the mortgage? What happens when the mortgage company ask you to pay back a lump of the capital to get the LTV back to levels they"re happy with?As long as things move in relation to each other, the outright value of anything is pretty irrelevant. Its impossible to argue that the housing market is broken and unsustainable in its current form, and so at some point it will have to correct. That correction is unlikely to be 75%, but house prices cannot keep increasing at such a delta to earnings otherwise you will simply get to the point whereby people cannot afford their first house, and so much capital being ploughed into ill-liquid assets at the expense of more consumer spending is not desirable either.
I agree that the current market is unsustainable but a massive correction is not the answer.
Rather than a land redistribution, how about writing off private debt?
Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
JPJPJP said:
Rather than a land redistribution, how about writing off private debt?
Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
A debt jubilee is a seductive idea, but the poorest in society can’t even afford to raise debt, so it would really only benefit the middle class.Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
loafer123 said:
JPJPJP said:
Rather than a land redistribution, how about writing off private debt?
Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
A debt jubilee is a seductive idea, but the poorest in society can’t even afford to raise debt, so it would really only benefit the middle class.Something that some say is overdue to be repeated
E.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/forgive-them-their-debts-...
http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509525...
I’ve read the book now
The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
JPJPJP said:
I’ve read the book now
The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
What has that got to do with the thread title ?The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
gothatway said:
JPJPJP said:
I’ve read the book now
The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
What has that got to do with the thread title ?The only part that caused me significant concern is about landfill
“Across England as a whole, I calculate that a staggering 270,000 acres of land is taken up by active and historic landfills. In other words, since the Victorian period, we’ve generated enough rubbish to fill up an area of land almost ten times the size of the city of Manchester.
...
Before the 1990 Environmental Protection Act came into force, landfills were often built without proper linings, and records about what was put into them were often poorly kept or non-existent.
...
As Professor Spencer and her colleague Dr Francis O’Shea have uncovered, there are 20,000 historic landfill sites spread across England and Wales, with a terrifying 5,000 of them located in the Environment Agency’s flood alert areas. ‘The historic landfill sites situated on actively eroding and low-lying coasts clearly present a significant risk,’ they write.“
Just because it is landfill, doesn't mean it is animal carcasses weeping swine flu effluent!
sugerbear said:
V8RX7 said:
98elise said:
How do you sell or move when your house is worth 1/4 of the mortgage?
As long as you are moving to a comparable or better house I don't see it matters - the risk is the same / reduced
JPJPJP said:
The author uses the word terrifying. It is, from reading the book, his style
I wouldn’t go so far. But I do expect some of the sites will cause some problems in future and that the most likely to pick up the bill is the taxpayer
There was a documentary about this recently on one of the minor BBC tv channels where they showed some landfill site on the edge of the Thames estuary where due to rising sea levels it's now being eroded by the river & stuff washed out to sea including some old batteries leaking acid etc. There was another site from the 1960's they dug up where the fabrics made from synthetic fibres hadn't deteriourated at all along with plastics etc due to the lack of oxygen. The archaeologist presenting even showed a newspaper that was still readable & things aren't breaking down anywhere as near as quickly as they had predicted.I wouldn’t go so far. But I do expect some of the sites will cause some problems in future and that the most likely to pick up the bill is the taxpayer
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