Some people are unable to afford housing, I'm not seeing demand for housing going down in London at the moment?
I suggest you make use of the quote facility instead of constructing straw men.
Are earnings too low / living costs getting too high??
- Thread starter Buffman
- Start date
Some people are unable to afford housing, I'm not seeing demand for housing going down in London at the moment?
I suggest you make use of the quote facility instead of constructing straw men.
In a country where the rental market is well regulated (eg Germany), rental is fine, and could be fine here too.
But we have a particularly toxic combination of skyrocketing house prices, and a rental market which is best described as "exploitative". I'm sure I don't need to remind anyone that recently it was found that 1/3 of private rental properties are unfit for human habitation.
If home ownership is to become the privelege of a select few, we need to seriously think about fixing the rental market. It's like the wild west atm, and landlords can largely get away with whatever they want, if they play their cards right.
It's no big surprise tho - another investigation found that 1 in 5 MPs have property portfolios, worth up to £100 million. Hardly going to shoot themselves in the foot by voting for tighter housing regulations. How that doesn't constitute a conflict of interest I genuinely have no idea. But that's how it is.
https://politicalscrapbook.net/2016...it-for-human-habitation-clause-are-landlords/
Soldato
The problem is that people are willing to pay extortionate amounts for rentals.
I looked at buying a place a couple of weeks ago, mortgage would have cost me £550, suggested rental price was 850 pcm. I know why people let out, because people are willing to pay that extra £300 over mortgage purely down to lack of deposit etc.
Yes I do think it should be better regulated, but not to the point that someone can turn around to me and say you're charging too much for that rent! Well if its that high nobody will pay for it, so you have to drop it and so on.
Its not rocket science, and its also nothing to do with MP's or the establishment. The only argument youve got for that is that theyve inherited houses which they are now renting out. If you inherited 10-20 houses what would you do? Rent them out or sell them off to a crackhead for a quid?
This is capitalism, people make money from other people. I really can't see why you've brought MP's into what is essentially an argument about people with less money wanting what the ones with more money have.
Caporegime
The point is it's not well functioning capitalism.
In response to some internet bills messages here. Internet prices have barely changed over the last 18 years that I've had home internet.
Year 1999, 56k dial up cost was £10 line rental? approx £10 internet fee and/or 1penny per minute.
Year 2000 I turned 19 my very last 56k dial up internet bill was £220 - when I lived at my parents house when I'd recently lost my job.
Then the unlimited packages became available for, total £20/30?
Then was it year 2001/2? 512k broadband came out from the NTL/Telewest for a total of £35? Then with each new speed increase it stayed at about that until I think 50Mb was initially £50 at around year 2007/8?
Now we have:
TalkTalk £32 for 76Mb
Virgin £48 for 200Mb
Hyperoptic £30 for 100Mb
Year 1999, 56k dial up cost was £10 line rental? approx £10 internet fee and/or 1penny per minute.
Year 2000 I turned 19 my very last 56k dial up internet bill was £220 - when I lived at my parents house when I'd recently lost my job.
Then the unlimited packages became available for, total £20/30?
Then was it year 2001/2? 512k broadband came out from the NTL/Telewest for a total of £35? Then with each new speed increase it stayed at about that until I think 50Mb was initially £50 at around year 2007/8?
Now we have:
TalkTalk £32 for 76Mb
Virgin £48 for 200Mb
Hyperoptic £30 for 100Mb
Caporegime
Soldato
Yet despite that more and more Germans are now buying their own homes now that interest rates and LTV requirements have changed drastically in the last 10-15 years.
Soldato
But also PC Games used to be £30 max, then 35, now 60 is the norm apparently for less content.
Soldato
No, because the consumer won't walk away to find a better deal, they pay regardless. I can honestly see (note, not agree with) why some landlords charge so much.
I'm not sure the definition of capitalism includes an earnings cap...
Caporegime
There is no better deal. That's the point.
Soldato
Well there is but thats been done to death, relocation, actually saving a deposit etc.
The problem is you can't leave housing purely to market forces.
In a truly unregulated market, prices adjust until the majority of the market can be/has been profitably serviced. But in every market, not everybody will be able to afford to buy. Now that's fine when you're talking about a TV or a remote-control car or something non-essential.
When you're talking about shelter, food, heating, etc... you can't leave the supply of such things purely to market forces, unless you want a certain % to go homeless/ starve/ freeze to death. We now have things like the "winter fuel allowance" whereby the government pays a contribution to your heating. We also have government subsidising rents. Are such things the sign of a market that's able or willing to supply everyone according to their means? Heck, no. The market doesn't care if a certain % can't afford to heat their homes. The market only cares that enough are able to pay to turn a profit.
Capitalism isn't the solution to every situation. The fact that government has to intervene so often shows us that unrestrained capitalism would *never* work in our own best interests as a society. Without food safety regs, for instance, what do you think would end up in your food? A whole load of poisonous crap, no doubt. The markets would only care when enough people died that reputations were destroyed or profits suffered.
Housing is also not a great candidate for market forces to be left alone with, because the barrier for entry is so high that only a handful of developers can afford to build new stock these days, and the supply of land is very constrained. And we all know what would happen if there would no planning permission, don't we. Or building regs.
Why do we (collectively) worship at the alter of capitalism when it's very obvious capitalism in its pure form is extremely bad for almost everyone?
"That's capitalism!" Yes, and it's a very bad thing to think capitalism will solve problems if we just let it do its thing, and unburden it with govt "interference". We'd end back up in the Victorian era. Only have to look to history don't you. Because we had pretty unrestrained capitalism in this country before unions, workers rights, safety regs ever existed. Just look to the past...
Soldato
You're ignoring (all of) my points though. To what standard do those earning less than 'house buying' wage be compensated?
I know housing is expensive. But in the same thread there is a gent saying 'I'm in a council house, but next month I'm having £750 of PC upgrades because its for my quality of life, but I can't get a mortgage!'
The housing market is what it is, supply and demand. You want to meet the supply? You have to earn more. I've found out the hard way, and I've never felt once that someone is trying to price me out of housing more than renters paying twice the going rate which then drives house prices up.
I know housing is expensive. But in the same thread there is a gent saying 'I'm in a council house, but next month I'm having £750 of PC upgrades because its for my quality of life, but I can't get a mortgage!'
The housing market is what it is, supply and demand. You want to meet the supply? You have to earn more. I've found out the hard way, and I've never felt once that someone is trying to price me out of housing more than renters paying twice the going rate which then drives house prices up.
we don't - we have housing benefit and social housing
Soldato
I can't help but think that rental prices should be fixed on a yearly basis, very closely to how much monthly mortgage repayments would cost on that property, having paid a certain deposit percentage eg. ~25%.
And then once a landlord has paid the mortgage off on a rental property, perhaps with regulations about what landlords do with rental income (i.e. how much they can use for other purposes while the rental property has an outstanding mortgage), another fixed lower rate (compared to when there was a mortgage) for the rental value is used (as this rent is now profit above maintenance costs, besides ridiculous agent fees and other fees associated with tenant changes).
The current rental situation that is brewing in the UK makes me compare it to the old pay as you go electric meters, where the people often with those meters are those on lower incomes, being charged the highest rates. But in this case it is to have a roof over their head, with the rental black hole pulling them ever further away from the event horizon of saving a deposit for their first mortgage.
Caporegime
Housing supply is strangled because it suits developers, the government, pension funds, investors to limit it. That's another part of the problem.
And do you think renters are willingly paying twice the going rate? If they're paying it then by definition it's not the going rate. Who do you think sets their rent anyway? Not the renters...
Associate
renters like me don't really have a choice though or do we? guess i could live under a bridge
Caporegime
Have you ever rented?
It took me 3 months to find a property in a viable location for travel to work and within my budget, because they were going so fast, if you weren't on the sites the second the ad went up and got the first viewing, you had pretty much no chance of getting it.
Demand massively outstrips supply, causing prices to shoot up, getting people stuck in a cycle of not being able to save up to buy in the first place. Those that do, then get screwed by landlords with more buying power vying for the same limited housing stock pushing up prices further.
Not everyone can just 'move back home and save', that would involve me returning to South Africa, and others might not have family they can do that with. Should we be penalised as a result?
Clearly you must like it here, though? Otherwise you would go home? This is how it works in this country, stop moaning about it or go home if this country is such a problem to you?