Westminster Politics

i think once you start letting people own their own homes, they’ll soon want better lives for themselves and their children. that’s only going to come at shareholder expense. i bet none of you even thought about those poor shareholders.
 
rimaldo said:
i think once you start letting people own their own homes, they’ll soon want better lives for themselves and their children. that’s only going to come at shareholder expense. i bet none of you even thought about those poor shareholders.
Click to expand...
On top of this, I just heard a sickening statistic. The UK has only 55 billionaires compared to 813 in the US. This inequality shouldn't be allowed to stand.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
So… The Tories have been in power for 5000 days.

In that time, they’ve added £300m to the National Debt. Per Day.

Anyone voting Tory is thick as feck.
Click to expand...

This added to the ever increasing list of failures.
Like not enough prisons.
Like all the money that was going to be saved by scrapping HS2 will be used to fix all the pot holes.
I could go on but I just don't have enough time.
 
decorativeed said:
Yes, you're right with your first point, and I had considered the fact that landlords will most likely pass on any more modest tax on to the tenant. That's why we need a more radical solution. Rent controls/caps being a first step, perhaps.

I disagree with the second and think that there should be limits on how much housing an individual or company can stockpile.
Click to expand...

Everything you can think of has an unintended consequence.

Rent caps - landlords sell en masse, house prices crash and with it the economy, government has to step in.
More tax on landlords - just gets passed down to tenants.
Subsidies - cocks up just about everything it touches.
Controls on landlords - alienates higher risk tenants and forces them into the hands of unscrupulous landlords who don't follow the rules.


I think the two big fixes are an extreme tax on foreign property ownership and penalties for empty houses. Taxing only foreign ownership doesn't pass the cost on to tenants because most of the market doesn't have to bear it and empty houses/holiday lets are mostly outside what is meant by private rentals. But mostly not do what the government is always best at, pulling the ladder up. Penalise the people who have already done it not the ones still trying to do it.


UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Why are they? And to what end? How many private rented homes should there be?

I believe zero. I realise that’s unrealistic. But I also can’t see an argument for anyone having a portfolio of properties.

What circumstances can you outline to support a huge private rental market?

Asking in good faith.
Click to expand...

Unless the government builds a few million council houses (where, how are they paid for, what happens to property prices and by extension UK economy) then they fill a need. People must live somewhere and not everybody can buy/wants to buy. If you kill the private rental market there is nowhere for them to go and what does remain multiplies in price.

If you argue that nobody should have more than one house and therefore there is enough to go around, then you can blame the government for that one not being viable. When Gordon Brown screwed private pensions people turned to buy to lets to supplement the inadequate state pension. Get rid of that and the government is going to have to pay for all those people's retirements or risk losing 3 million votes.
 
11101 said:
Everything you can think of has an unintended consequence.

Rent caps - landlords sell en masse, house prices crash and with it the economy, government has to step in.
More tax on landlords - just gets passed down to tenants.
Subsidies - cocks up just about everything it touches.
Controls on landlords - alienates higher risk tenants and forces them into the hands of unscrupulous landlords who don't follow the rules.
Click to expand...
If your economy crashes when the people hoarding houses are forced to sell them to the people who actually need houses.. maybe it's a pretty shitty economy that needs changing?
 
decorativeed said:
Total pie in the sky stuff. Since 2010, about 2,000,000 new homes have been built in the UK. In the same period the average price has increased from £160k to £260k - over 60%. How many millions more will we have to build to get the prices to come down?
Click to expand...
So that's 143k/year on average vs a 300k / year govt target.

The 2004 Barker Review, which it appears the govt target is baed on, said that in order to keep house price inflation to 1.1% per annum, we needed to build approx 300k new homes a year.
 
decorativeed said:
Total pie in the sky stuff. Since 2010, about 2,000,000 new homes have been built in the UK. In the same period the average price has increased from £160k to £260k - over 60%. How many millions more will we have to build to get the prices to come down?
Click to expand...

Population grew 4.3 million from 2010 to 2020.

A big part of this whole problem has been money printing which is only now coming to an end.


Mogget said:
If your economy crashes when the people hoarding houses are forced to sell them to the people who actually need houses.. maybe it's a pretty shitty economy that needs changing?
Click to expand...

Maybe but if you think its bad now just wait and see how bad it could get under that scenario.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
So he's banking on a successful euros for England?
Click to expand...

That might explain why he was so eager to be photographed at the Southampton game. No doubt he'll be donning the flag-shaggers armour when England play.

Big footie fan, are Richy. Not far right, just right. Nuff' said.
 
nickm said:
So that's 143k/year on average vs a 300k / year govt target.

The 2004 Barker Review, which it appears the govt target is baed on, said that in order to keep house price inflation to 1.1% per annum, we needed to build approx 300k new homes a year.
Click to expand...
You seem to have confused house prices going up with house prices coming down.
 
Mogget said:
If your economy crashes when the people hoarding houses are forced to sell them to the people who actually need houses.. maybe it's a pretty shitty economy that needs changing?
Click to expand...
Just buy all the landlord stock off the landlords, wouldn't cost a huge amount, then sell those houses and allow people to take out longer mortgages.
 
The Commons is due to rise for the Whitsun recess tomorrow. It is due to return on Monday 3 June. A dissolution on Thursday 6 June (which would allow time for non-controversial legislation to be passed in the wash-up) would allow an election to take place on Thursday 11 July.
 
decorativeed said:
You seem to have confused house prices going up with house prices coming down.
Click to expand...
No, I think you have misread what I am saying.

To keep prices stable (at 1% rise per year) the report says you need 300k houses/year.

I think we should be aiming for approx 3x that a year, in order to bring prices down.

Instead what we are actually doing is building about 150k houses/year.
 
Last edited:
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Your math doesn’t math.

We already have more properties than people. It’s who owns it, which ones are filled and by whom that’s the problem.
Click to expand...
Your facts don't fact.

England has fewer houses relative to population than the OECD average (434 homes/1000 v 487/1000).

England has the lowest rate of available properties in the OECD.

England has the highest proportion of substandard homes in Europe - worse than Poland and Bulgaria - because we don't replace old housing fast enough

We have the 3rd lowest rate of vacant homes in Europe at 2.7% Vs the OECD benchmark of 6.9%

Source - home builders federation analysis based on OECD data.

But hey, you can also you know, just look around.
 
11101 said:
Unless the government builds a few million council houses (where, how are they paid for, what happens to property prices and by extension UK economy) then they fill a need. People must live somewhere and not everybody can buy/wants to buy. If you kill the private rental market there is nowhere for them to go and what does remain multiplies in price.

If you argue that nobody should have more than one house and therefore there is enough to go around, then you can blame the government for that one not being viable. When Gordon Brown screwed private pensions people turned to buy to lets to supplement the inadequate state pension. Get rid of that and the government is going to have to pay for all those people's retirements or risk losing 3 million votes.
Click to expand...

‘People turned to buy to lets to supplement pensions’ is a crock of shit.

That sentence actually means;

“People that had the ability, got someone else to buy them a house and pay for their retirement”

If you’re ok with that, cool. But I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument for private landlords that isn’t just a translation for ‘Let’s bake in wealth inequality because I don’t care’.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
What actually is the logic with football and votes? Cus Englands won feck all so wheres that trail of thought/data come from?
Click to expand...

They don't have anything else left to go on?
It's pretty much all they have left.
Hope for some nice weather and England wins the football.

I'd imagine their list looked something like this,

Tory 24 Campaign Strategy
The NHS
Schools
Immigration
The National Train System
The Prison System
The Roads
Water Companies
Food Prices
House Prices
Rent Prices
Local Councils
Public Libraries
Warm weather
England might win the Euro's.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
‘People turned to buy to lets to supplement pensions’ is a crock of shit.

That sentence actually means;

“People that had the ability, got someone else to buy them a house and pay for their retirement”

If you’re ok with that, cool. But I’ve yet to hear a compelling argument for private landlords that isn’t just a translation for ‘Let’s bake in wealth inequality because I don’t care’.
Click to expand...

Except its not. People in the private sector held private pensions and got a good income through their retirement. There were roughly 2 million privately rented homes and about half of UK shares were owned domestically. Then Gordon Brown decided to tax the pensions. They became worthless. You lost a big chunk of your income and also all the growth from the reinvested dividends. People looked for an alternative. That was in 1997. In 1998 the first buy to let mortgage was launched. By 2015 the number of private rentals had trebled to almost 6 million. UK institutions now own less than 4% of UK companies. He crippled the retirement income for people and they went and found an alternative. Idiotic politicians always cause unintended consequences.

It was amongst the stupidest decisions ever made by a politician (he had a few contenders in that list) and is directly responsible for a lot of the shit we find ourselves in now.


You did say you were asking in good faith after all...
 
11101 said:
Except its not. People in the private sector held private pensions and got a good income through their retirement. There were roughly 2 million privately rented homes and about half of UK shares were owned domestically. Then Gordon Brown decided to tax the pensions. They became worthless. You lost a big chunk of your income and also all the growth from the reinvested dividends. People looked for an alternative. That was in 1997. In 1998 the first buy to let mortgage was launched. By 2015 the number of private rentals had trebled to almost 6 million. UK institutions now own less than 4% of UK companies. He crippled the retirement income for people and they went and found an alternative. Idiotic politicians always cause unintended consequences.

It was amongst the stupidest decisions ever made by a politician (he had a few contenders in that list) and is directly responsible for a lot of the shit we find ourselves in now.


You did say you were asking in good faith after all...
Click to expand...
Brown exacerbated the problem with pensions, but the demise of final salary pensions was the way bigger issue.
 
David Cameron is returning to the UK early from a trip to Albania.

We will know if there is a July election by tomorrow.

Edit: Cabinet Ministers are also cancelling their media bookings.
 
Certainly seems like there's a lot more noise this time, July election seems very likely.
 
11101 said:
Except its not. People in the private sector held private pensions and got a good income through their retirement. There were roughly 2 million privately rented homes and about half of UK shares were owned domestically. Then Gordon Brown decided to tax the pensions. They became worthless. You lost a big chunk of your income and also all the growth from the reinvested dividends. People looked for an alternative. That was in 1997. In 1998 the first buy to let mortgage was launched. By 2015 the number of private rentals had trebled to almost 6 million. UK institutions now own less than 4% of UK companies. He crippled the retirement income for people and they went and found an alternative. Idiotic politicians always cause unintended consequences.

It was amongst the stupidest decisions ever made by a politician (he had a few contenders in that list) and is directly responsible for a lot of the shit we find ourselves in now.


You did say you were asking in good faith after all...
Click to expand...

I truly was asking in good faith. That involves openness.

I truly don’t give a damn which Prime Minister or Party did what. Both barrels at all of them. I’m not backing Labour on this.

But there’s no social utility in private landlords. Your numbers speak to that. 6 million homes being purchased for people that have more, by people with less.

Who did it and why simply doesn’t matter. My good faith question was ‘What purpose/role do private landlords provide for society as a whole’. Your response was to justify it by claiming it as a replacement income stream for wealthy people who could pay one mortgage, and get another mortgage to allow a renter to buy it for them.

It’s another area where it gets easily muddled. You DO need a non zero amount of private landlords as people move regions, countries, suburbs routinely. Students find homes after university and don’t want to buy. You obviously need a rental market that’s not under social control.

But the moment that passes the tipping point and you’ve got millions of people unable to buy a house identical to the one they’re renting for £1000 a month, while the mortgage would cost them £800 is evidence of the stupidity of it all.

The transfer of wealth is baked in. Destroys generations. The number of necessary privately rented properties is tiny. That it’s now where it is, and instead of the market bubble bursting, we just add on an Airbnb middle man and offer short term lets with no ID verification and and and. Layers of costs added. It’s utterly depressing.

Very cross at the insanity of it all. Not you. So apologies if I sound confrontational.
 
rimaldo said:
i think once you start letting people own their own homes, they’ll soon want better lives for themselves and their children. that’s only going to come at shareholder expense. i bet none of you even thought about those poor shareholders.
Click to expand...

I personally did but I didn't want to say it in case all the woke lefty loons who don't care about shareholder profit at their expense ganged up on me

You know people from Bristol and what not
 
You must log in or register to reply here.