Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 216 posts

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#91

Post by mtkd »

djhworld wrote: post #71

My mother used to live in Belgravia, in one of the buildings pictured in that article, when she was a young girl. ....well when I say lived there, my grandparents were caretakers so they lived in the basement. This was back in the 1960s mind, but even back then Belgravia was an extremely affluent area, with Lords, major industrialists etc living there.

> living there

Most of the home owners referred in the article don't live there for more than a few weeks a year - if at all - there is a material inbalance

I live in a village where people buy 2nd homes or they buy to retire - the locals slowly drift away to nearby towns to live in shared accommodation

The life gets sucked out of the village over time - house prices go up - but the problem is deeper than that - the school closes, the public transport frequency reduces (nobody commutes), the local shop closes (as pensioners/visitors buy online for delivery), the pub closes ... the only infrastructure with any growth is the doctor surgeries - more of those are planned right across the county

It's not a sustainable position - there are 2 families in a village with 80+ houses - the few businesses that are left have no pool of resource to hire from - we live next to a cow farmer with 400+ cattle - he has no help - in any normal world he wouldn't be working from 6am to nightfall like that

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#92

Post by Symbiote »

melling wrote: post #43
pjc50 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is. It's full. (Most of the towns in the southeast of England are dominated by commuters to London)

What about the other directions? How many people commute from Birmingham, for example? It's only 126 miles away? That's a 30 commute sometime this century. It's really just a question of when.

According to the visualisation [1], something like 1000 people commute from Birmingham to Central London. Though it's not easy to tell, as London is divided into many statistical areas.

It's 85 minutes at the moment [2], plus the journey from Euston Station to the office in London. 85 minutes is commonly accepted for a total journey, but I'd guess most people with longer journeys are only doing this temporarily.

If you find places closer to London on the map, you'll see many thousands of people make ~30 minute journeys by train into London, before continuing by metro/bus/whatever. (If you can find it, try and click "Westminster and City of London". It's small.)

[1] http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc193/

[2] http://traintimes.org.uk/Birmingham/Euston/0800/Monday

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#93

Post by bduerst »

jandrese wrote: post #89
tome wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want to make a few percent on their capital?

Being a landlord is a huge hassle, and it makes the property harder to sell when you need the cash back.

Yep, tenants laws add a new layer of complexity to the asset, which as a wealth sink isn't really needed.

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#94

Post by notfromhere »

tezza wrote: post #75
jonknee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should be allowed to buy the homes, but then face stiff property taxes (with a homestead exemption for actual residents). The property taxes on Billionaire's Row in NYC are often absurdly low: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/why-billionaires-dont...

They will pay pensioners to live there 'on paper' to meet your homestead requirement. The whole tax penalty is thwarted that way

At least they'll be occupied that way. Maybe they can even have whole families move in there, with some sort of agreement that they receive a monthly payment in exchange.

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#95

Post by darryl42 »

conception wrote: post #8
s_q_b wrote: post #5

In DC, there's a big glut in foreign capital flowing in from foreign oligarchs and elites, particularly from Russia and China. Residential properties in so-called "safe cities" are both a form of investment and a potential life-raft should the political situation change in their nations.In addition to the artificially low supply created by extreme height limitations, this has caused prices to skyrocket. The apartment…

Vancouver recently enacted an anti foreign buyer tax that seems to have almost completely stopped the practice. Curious if we will start to see more and more of this local protionism.

More sales records are being set even after the new tax http://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/tax-shows-no-si...

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#96

Post by bradleyjg »

jonknee wrote: post #44
r00fus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it should go viral. Wealthy individuals/ buying houses in droves to sit empty does not benefit anyone in the long run. What happens when the bubble pops?

I think they should be allowed to buy the homes, but then face stiff property taxes (with a homestead exemption for actual residents). The property taxes on Billionaire's Row in NYC are often absurdly low: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/why-billionaires-dont...

Happily the 421-a exemption program referenced in that article was allowed to expire. Not because of a consensus that it was a bad idea (which it was) but because of a pissing match between the governor and the mayor. We have to take our victories where we can get them; hopefully they'll continue fighting forever.

We still have structural problems in the city property tax code -- for example condo and co-op buildings have to be taxed as if they were rental buildings, a complex calculation that generally undervalues them. But if and when those are fixed, I think full property taxes are would be enough. I don't see the need for a punitive rate on top of that. At least not in NYC, other cities may have a bigger problem with absentee owners.

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#97

Post by chadgeidel »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #55
chadgeidel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure foreign oligarchs aren't interested in AirBnB-style arrangements.

Maybe afarrell wasn't talking about the oligarchs being the ones renting out the spaces.

That's a fair point, and this is merely my opinion, but if I could afford housing all over the world, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with the fact that I maybe cannot go visit London/NYC/wherever on a whim and stay at my own private residence. Renting has downsides even with "perfect renting arrangements" which cannot be mitigated by a third party (well, without presumably breaking an entire host of laws).

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#98

Post by msh »

tezza wrote: post #75
jonknee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they should be allowed to buy the homes, but then face stiff property taxes (with a homestead exemption for actual residents). The property taxes on Billionaire's Row in NYC are often absurdly low: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/why-billionaires-dont...

They will pay pensioners to live there 'on paper' to meet your homestead requirement. The whole tax penalty is thwarted that way

If you realitet the oner to live there and pay property taxes is quite risky to use a straw man.

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#99

Post by emmelaich »

yodsanklai wrote: post #74
mtkd wrote: post #68

I walked from Kings Cross to Marylebone at dusk recently - half way, I took the road up from the main Euston Road - walking through mostly residential - barely an apartment window with a light on - it's just money parked in property - the parks don't have kids playing in them any more The recent Vancouver tax changes have worked, I suspect/hope we'll start seeing that repeated in every city thats had it's life sucked…

I suspect it's a pretty common phenomenon. I recently visited Venice with a Venetian friend of mine. He mentioned that most of the apartments in the historical center were empty.

Yes, I rented a flat in Rome right near the Trevi fountain, in a beautiful old stone two storey building with a lovely courtyard. There would have been somewhere between 20 and 40 apartments there.

There was a software / techical business of some sort in one corner, but I don't think I saw anyone else.

(Thank you AirBNB)

Re: Even the Rich Are Being Priced Out of Central London

#100

Post by bogomipz »

mtkd wrote: post #68

I walked from Kings Cross to Marylebone at dusk recently - half way, I took the road up from the main Euston Road - walking through mostly residential - barely an apartment window with a light on - it's just money parked in property - the parks don't have kids playing in them any more The recent Vancouver tax changes have worked, I suspect/hope we'll start seeing that repeated in every city thats had it's life sucked…

Yeah thats oddly dystopian.

Can you elaborate on the Vancouver tax change? I have not heard about this.

Post reply on HN