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Priced out of home ownership

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Priced out of home ownership

#401

Post by rcpt »

tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

Higher rates don't do anything because incumbent owners simply pull houses off the market to wait it out.

You need to increase carrying costs. Land value tax is the best way but it's about as far as you can get from what's implemented anywhere

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#402

Post by ivan_gammel »

Macha wrote: post #375
ivan_gammel wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc, 20% of all bedrooms in UK are spare bedrooms in houses that are too big for their owners. This is indeed underutilization.

As someone with spare bedrooms, this itself is a problem of undersupply. If you can't be sure of being able to trade up when you need to (e.g. after starting a family) because house prices are up 100% in 10 years, then you're going to want to buy a house for all possible future needs, rather than current needs. Add to that, things that might be desirable for other reasons, like garden space, rooms for use as offices,…

House ownership is higher among boomers, who are not going to have children anyway. Maybe for some people concern for future prices is a good reason, but certainly it is not for everyone. If there’s spare capacity enough for 20% more people and population growth forecast by 2050 is just one third of that, you cannot really talk about undersupply, when there’s enough accommodation to cover even future demand.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#403

Post by deergomoo »

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #290
deergomoo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one can kick you out of your own home because they want to rent to someone they can charge more. No-one can tell you you can’t change the wallpaper in your own home, or remodel the bathroom, or get a dog. Not everything is a purely financial decision. A home is primarily a place to live, not an investment opportunity.

> No-one can tell you you can’t change the wallpaper in your own home, or remodel the bathroom, or get a dog. Yes, the housing association absolutely can tell you not to remodel your bathroom. Unless you literally own a house rather than an appartment, you really don't have a lot more rights than a renter would have. I am speaking as a Finnish homeowner.

Two points:

Firstly I am legitimately surprised that Finland has HOAs. I had always assumed they were a largely American construct (I’m British).

Secondly I was absolutely talking about owning a house rather than an apartment. I feel an apartment is a slightly different situation by virtue of being an inherently shared space.

That said, I still it baffling that someone would try to exert control over what you do with the inside of your own home.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#404

Post by Wytwwww »

shuckles wrote: post #318
tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

> People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. In my experience, people "intuitively" jump to basically every conclusion besides this one. "Greedy landlords" or "[favorite scapegoat] collusion" are intuitive conclusions which are far more common than supply and demand. > Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same ina…

> Yes they do, to varying degrees. The Anglo land use regime is a disaster.

Population growth (which is mainly concentrated in relatively small number of areas) is not helping either.

e.g. in European countries which have comparable population growth to Ireland/UK like Norway, Sweden, Belgium real estate prices have been increasing at a similar pace.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#405

Post by WalterBright »

jachee wrote: post #309
tmnvix wrote: post #274

People intuitively jump to the conclusion that the problem is caused by a lack of building. While more building would help, a lack of it isn't the main cause of this problem. Ask yourself, do Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Britain, Ireland, etc, all have the same inability to build or is there maybe some other common cause? In my view this is symptomatic of a more fundamental issue - global asset price infla…

> This is a problem of underutilisation in my view. Too many properties are being used as investments and not as a primary residence. I've believed for a long time that heavily taxing income from second+ properties, similar to capital gains, would help reduce rent-seeker hoarding, to help free up and reduce the cost of properties for primary-residence owners.

Taxes on rental income are already more than capital gains tax rates.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#406

Post by Wool2662 »

Plasmoid wrote: post #358
jayski wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so could this be resolved by having a high tax (~50%) on second/rental/investment homes?

So... where would renters live?

In their own houses. That's what cooperatives are for. Also prices would drop once speculation on housing is no longer profitable.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#407

Post by rcpt »

robertlagrant wrote: post #372

The problem is lack of supply vs demand. In 2022,England and Wales: - built 254000 homes[0] - had 745,000 people immigrate (net)[1] - had 600000 people turn 21[2] - had 577160 people die[3] If you gain a load of people, far more than you increased dwellings for, prices will go up and dwelling size will go down. It's not particularly complicated. [0] https://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/229130/357082-0 [1] http…

UK also has the Council Tax which is arguably a stupider tax policy than California's Prop 13

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#408

Post by rr808 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #55
rr808 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany's population has only risen 5% in 50 years. It is one country that should be able to have affordable houses.

The problem is rural flight. We have insane housing pressure in the largest cities (Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt), but a loooot of vacant housing in the rural areas - over 10% of units [1], in extreme cases in Eastern Germany 15-18% [2]. Turns out young people flee in droves as soon as they can, when they don't even get ADSL at their home, where they don't have any chance at employment, or where neo-Nazis have…

Same everywhere. 100 years ago my great grandparents all lived on farms, now we're all in big cities. I always assumed I'd go somewhere quiet after retirement but that isn't looking possible anymore.

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#409

Post by tmnvix »

WalterBright wrote: post #399
FactKnower69 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000%. I will never get tired of teaching people (it's news to every single one of them!) that at any given time, there are more than 20 empty housing units in the United States for every single homeless person on the street ( https://www.self.inc/info/empty-homes/ ). There is not , nor has there ever been , anything resembling a "housing shortage". We live in a post-scarcity world as far as housing is concerned, and…

A lot of houses are empty simply because they are for sale. It's not unusual to take 6 months to sell. Nobody is going to want homeless people living in it in the meantime. Houses are also "empty" while they are undergoing renovation.

Definitely true. Probably also worth considering that during a speculative boom there is a lot more turnover which will increase the proportion of properties sitting empty while they are on the market (not sure how significant this would be but another example of how a booming market can lead to a decrease in properties used as a permanent residence).

Re: Priced out of home ownership

#410

Post by baobabKoodaa »

deergomoo wrote: post #403
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No-one can tell you you can’t change the wallpaper in your own home, or remodel the bathroom, or get a dog. Yes, the housing association absolutely can tell you not to remodel your bathroom. Unless you literally own a house rather than an appartment, you really don't have a lot more rights than a renter would have. I am speaking as a Finnish homeowner.

Two points: Firstly I am legitimately surprised that Finland has HOAs. I had always assumed they were a largely American construct (I’m British). Secondly I was absolutely talking about owning a house rather than an apartment. I feel an apartment is a slightly different situation by virtue of being an inherently shared space. That said, I still it baffling that someone would try to exert control over what you do with…

> Firstly I am legitimately surprised that Finland has HOAs. I had always assumed they were a largely American construc

The Finnish HOAs are a uniquely Finnish construct. They are in many ways different from the American HOAs, even though the name is the same.

> That said, I still it baffling that someone would try to exert control over what you do with the inside of your own home.

In the Finnish system, as a "homeowner" in a HOA, you actually don't own things such as... the walls inside your apartment. The HOA owns the walls. You own a piece of the HOA and the right to live inside the walls. But if you want to fix damage inside the walls, for example, you need the HOA to do that, because they own the walls.

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