Amol Rajan: Why do we tolerate daylight robbery in housing?

[chem1st]

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/amol-rajan-why-do-we-tolerate-daylight-robbery-in-housing-8774033.html

 

I make no apologies for my obsession with the issue of housing. There is no other area of policy — aside from education — that better captures the enduring injustice of British society; and, more to the point, there is no other area — including education — in which our politicians are such hypocrites.

 

Various dunderheads among them were trotted out last week to suggest London’s housing market is just fine, following the revelation that house prices have risen by 8.1 per cent over the past year. Never mind Richmond and Highgate: in Merton, Camden and Hackney, prices rose 10, 10.7, and 11 per cent. One headline in yesterday’s Business pages was: “London house prices ‘poised to soar 40 per cent’” — and that’s before the disgraceful Help to Buy has kicked in, from January. If this isn’t a bubble, I don’t know what is.

 

The basic injustice of all this bears repetition. Strong inflation in house prices increases the wealth of the old and rich — at the expense of the poor and young. If you think governments should spend their energy and resources investing in the future, or looking after the downtrodden, then housing policy is as big a slap in the chops as you can imagine.

 

I too make no apologies for my obsession with the issue of housing.

 

Per capita dwelling space in the UK has fallen year on year every year for a decade. Housing costs have been forced up by the government. The market is rigged, and it is rigged in the favour of a landowning elite.

 

The working classes and the poor in the UK are getting shafted. The young have been well and truly screwed.

 

Whilst the old and rich have been protected and benefited from a form of grotesque violence against their fellow men.

Whilst the government actively built housing for them, and allowed them to build their own housing at the same time.

 

The government has been demolishing houses to force up the price and cost of housing.

It stopped building and forbade local government from doing so. It denied people the right to build their own houses.

 

So whilst one group had a right to be housed and to access better, cheaper housing, another does not.

 

The other group is forced to rent a small and ever decreasing amount of privately owned dwellings. They are forced to claim benefits to access this artificially scarce resource and in turn push the cost of such housing up even further.

 

People are being robbed. And they are being robbed via housing.

[cgksheff]

.....

Per capita dwelling space in the UK has fallen year on year every year for a decade. ..........

 

Without demolition and stopping building, this would still be the case.

 

If you refuse to address the causes of population growth, you have to accept the consequences.

[chem1st]

Without demolition and stopping building, this would still be the case.

 

If you refuse to address the causes of population growth, you have to accept the consequences.

 

Aye. But we need not reduce immigration driven population growth to improve housing standards, we could just build more housing.

 

We should be building enough to cope with immigration.

 

If we stopped immigration, our population would be falling and per capita dwelling space would rise over time.

[tinfoilhat]

Aye. But we need not reduce immigration driven population growth to improve housing standards, we could just build more housing.

 

We should be building enough to cope with immigration.

 

If we stopped immigration, our population would be falling and per capita dwelling space would rise over time.

 

Pathfinder didn't help. This stupid idea that osbourne had of reinflating a housing bubble isn't helping. Property is out there but not used and it does need using.

[Mecky]

I didn't know we did, but what can you do?

[Obelix]

Pathfinder didn't help. This stupid idea that osbourne had of reinflating a housing bubble isn't helping. Property is out there but not used and it does need using.

 

You can't use it though, that's not acceptable. It's just not cricket to buy property and do it up and then rent it out to people chemist gets upset because, well he wants to get upset at something.

 

I mean, it's clearly far more sensible to just leave it standing empty. Then he can whine about how it's not being used.

 

Or you could knock it down because no one will use it. But then he complains that we are destroying housing, unless you make it into an allotment that no one can live on.

 

Basically he likes moaning, and abusing people who actually provide housing for people, because he's unable to do so and is jealous. Or something.

 

Meanwhile, housing is affordable if you set your expectations at an appropriate level.

[angos]

Aye. But we need not reduce immigration driven population growth to improve housing standards, we could just build more housing.

 

We should be building enough to cope with immigration.

 

If we stopped immigration, our population would be falling and per capita dwelling space would rise over time.

 

This is a paradox, you want a larger population living in larger houses and all without increasing the land mass.

 

The land mass isn’t growing so each person must live on less land if the population is growing.

[the_fox]

I kind of agree with house increases and also rental increases.

 

There is a factor of supply and demand, for example

 

2 loaf of bread, 1 x buyer = the buyer has a choice and goes for best value

 

2 loafs, 2 x buyers = still in the buyers favour

 

2 loafs, 5 x buyers = shop keeper decides to up the prices, supply an demand

 

2 loafs of bread, 25 x buyers, shop keeper can charge what he likes.

 

 

1) OK, so with housing there are not enough houses to meet current demand, so the house prices go up.

 

2) The Government is in a bit of a quandey because it needs to show there are signs of an ecomomic recovery

 

3) We import millions into the country, so demand is stoked up even more

 

4) Government claims there is a recovery

 

Now, this poses a problem because your average working man now cannot afford a home.

 

BUT, the houses keep getting filled because the DSS can meet the ever increasing costs of housing

[Rupert_Baehr]

Eventually, when the other people in the world decide they would like to eat the food they grow (or when the cost of moving food around the world becomes prohibitive) how are you going to feed your population?

 

There's another thread about the troubles in Egypt. The UK (as a part of the EU) imports a significant amount from Egypt:

 

"Fuels and minerals account for more than 50% of Egypt's total exports to the EU (58% in 2011). Other major exporting products are chemicals (10.9%), textiles and clothing (9.5%), agricultural products (7.4%), followed by machinery and transport equipment (5%). The main export destinations for Egyptian products in the EU are Italy, Germany, Spain, France, UK and Greece.

 

What would happen if those imports weren't available?

 

What would happen if the other countries which export food to the UK decided their own people would like to eat it?

 

The UK imports 40% of its food. If it couldn't, what would that do to population figures?

[Vague_Boy]

Why do we tolerate daylight robbery in housing?

 

From memory about 70% of the population are home owners. They are also voters. Lower house prices would mean that they would lose some of the money they have "made" over the past 15 years. A sure fire vote loser.

 

Many MP own multiple dwellings that they rent out. Another reason why it's not in their own interests to allow houses to reach an affordable level.