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Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#151

Post by imtringued »

nly wrote: post #70
pibechorro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation will make any increase in wages meaningless. It will also further drive investment into housing to escape the free falling cash. The answer is no lockdowns, no bailouts, and no quantitative money printing to oblivion. Let the everything bubble pop and start over with sound first principles. We will get there, but not before politicians make it worse and delay the inevitable defaults.

- Boris Johnson (the British Prime Minister) sold his London family home in 2019 for £3.75M after having rented it out for £2000/week (just under 4x the national average income) while living in his Government provided accommodation in his role as Foreign Secretary (2016-2018).[0] - Property prices have shot up 10% during the pandemic, bolstered in part by the Government cutting stamp duty on sales. - A few days ago t…

>- Property prices have shot up 10% during the pandemic, bolstered in part by the Government cutting stamp duty on sales.

Something that is hard to understand is how taxes influence the price of homes and land. People have a fixed budget. The rule of thumb is that they will spend at most 30% of their income on housing. Popular cities usually have an inrush of educated people getting high paying jobs. The existing residents see their % rise beyond 30% as a result but the rule of thumb still applies.

When you have a fixed budget then adding more taxes won't lead to spending more, it means the government siphons money off the purchase of the home. That money cannot be used to purchase homes. When people talk about how taxes make housing expensive they are dead wrong. Taxation does not change your budget. When the government drops taxes on housing what happens is that a bigger chunk of the budget is being used for actually purchasing housing rather than paying taxes. This means house prices will rise and you will not be better or worse off than before. However, the rise in home prices fuels speculation. People buy houses expecting that they go up. The reduction in taxes created a gap and speculators simply insert themselves in that gap and take their profits.

The problem isn't the speculation in itself but rather the expectation that housing will always go up. It's not only investors that want to make money. Homeowners see an opportunity to create a big gap by voting for restrictive zoning or making new construction a legal minefield. The real problems begin when even grandma and her dog are speculating.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#152

Post by ghaff »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #86
mschuster91 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real estate is so ludicrous we need quite a bit of inflation to make it reasonable again. Alternatively, we could invest in rural areas and other left-behind areas ("flyover states" in the US, Eastern Germany in Germany). Right now, the infrastructure there is flat-out unable to sustain quality modern human life unless you're Amish and fine with travelling on horseback: no high speed internet, no public transport,…

Rural areas aren't so bad off. Satellite and boosted cellular internet are a thing, and that covers the education, entertainment and business opportunity categories. Health care and shopping are infrequent things that you can drive for as needed.

Current satellite and hotspots can be made to work. Netflix is not actually a necessity for modern life. But it does mean compromises. Hopefully some combination of StarLink and 5G will be able to better fill-in for lack of wired broadband than we have today.

Also, while there are certainly very rural areas in the US, most of "flyover" country is not actually in the 100+ miles from a grocery store, Walmart, or hospital category.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#153

Post by nly »

bb123 wrote: post #120
nly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Boris Johnson (the British Prime Minister) sold his London family home in 2019 for £3.75M after having rented it out for £2000/week (just under 4x the national average income) while living in his Government provided accommodation in his role as Foreign Secretary (2016-2018).[0] - Property prices have shot up 10% during the pandemic, bolstered in part by the Government cutting stamp duty on sales. - A few days ago t…

There is housing available within commuting distance - I bought a 2 bedroom flat walking distance from a station with a 35 minute link to Kings Cross for under 200k. People seem to think they have some sort of God-given right to live in central London. If you want to buy a property you may need to make some sacrifices in that department. Yes the town I live in is pretty shite, and I have to train to work or to see fr…

Define 'commutable distance', because to me that means 30-40 minutes door to door.

Hitchin is 33 minutes to Kings Cross on Thameslink and I could definitely do my commute from Hitchin station in ~50 minutes, which is roughly 10 minutes more than it takes me from Zone 3, door to door, now.

If you look around on RightMove, 2 bed flats going near Hitchin station (Purwell) are ~£335K and a 20 minute walk away, so my commute would be up to 70 minutes.

Then factor in that you're dropping £5K/year for a season ticket (roughly the equivalent to adding ~£100K to your mortgage at current interest rates), giving up a lot socially, still don't have a garden, still have a pokey little flat, is it worth it?

I respect your life choices, but it's not for me.

> People seem to think they have some sort of God-given right to live in central London.

I think anyone earning in the top 2% should be able to do this, yes. After all, central London contains 2.3% of the UK population. If they're all at the top then by definition it should be possible.

In any case, I don't want to get too personal. My partner works all over London also so being in London makes sense for us. I also respect that this is a nationwide issue affecting a lot of people worse off than me.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#154

Post by _vbnz »

FredPret wrote: post #112
nivenkos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is to control the housing market and stop it being used an investment against inflation. Force people to invest in industry against inflation - not rent-seeking in housing, or cryptocurrency pyramid schemes. Only allow resident citizens to own the one property they live in, and have the government handle rentals like the old council housing / Folkhemmet homes.

Actually encouraging landlordism will decrease rents. - Buy-and-hold rental property investors buy properties using Excel, and are vastly less susceptible to hyped and emotional pricing than the public. - More landlords = more capital available for home-builders = more houses built - Supply and demand - more houses and more landlords, with the same number of tenants, shifts pricing power to the tenants

Step 2 just isn't happening, at nowhere near the levels necessary.

Instead people are investing in housing as a "store of value" against inflation, maybe not even renting it out and just hoping it appreciates. This is driving prices sky-high.

Meanwhile local politicians and boomers support NIMBYism and oppose all housing developments, leading to a massive shortage in housing. Landlords love this as it increases the value of their properties, and developers don't care as they can sell the fewer houses they build for greater profit.

Whilst at the same time national leaders support mass immigration leading to a huge increase in demand.

Overall this rewards property owners and hurts working people and the economy (when people can't easily move to economically active areas, and have less disposable income). Ultimately harming social mobility and destroying faith in capitalism and private property as a whole (it becomes to resemble feudalism, destroying the idea that you can work hard and have a good life).

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#155

Post by nivenkos »

bko wrote: post #133
nivenkos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is to control the housing market and stop it being used an investment against inflation. Force people to invest in industry against inflation - not rent-seeking in housing, or cryptocurrency pyramid schemes. Only allow resident citizens to own the one property they live in, and have the government handle rentals like the old council housing / Folkhemmet homes.

> Only allow resident citizens to own the one property they live in, and have the government handle rentals like the old council housing / Folkhemmet homes. How can you say you "own" something if you're not allowed to sell or rent it to anyone you want?

It's like that when I buy a bottle of whisky right now!

And because you can live in it, and don't pay anyone to do so.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#156

Post by jonfw »

yardie wrote: post #131
NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second part is not that simple in global economy if you have Chinese cheap labor as direct competitors especially in the food industry where margins for farmers are already too low. I would recommend Jeremy Clarkson - "Clarkson's Farm" first year of operation on a 300 acres farm made a yearly profit of £144 :)

That’s a lot better than most small businesses and startups where there might not be a profit at all but lots of starting and fixed expenses. Let’s see how he’s doing at year 3 and beyond.

Not sure what style of accounting shows that profit, but it's very possible to be massively cash flow negative and still earn a profit on your balance sheet.

While I wouldn't expect most startups to be cash flow positive after year 1, I would expect most businesses report a profit on their balance sheet. Maybe not tech startups where it's hard to put a dollar figure on what 2/3 of a viable application is worth, but when you're buying things like tractors and land which are easy to value you should do pretty well.

Investing in real estate and farm equipment won't hurt the balance sheet nearly as much as it hurts your checkbook

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#157

Post by luckylion »

neilwilson wrote: post #130

There are 1.034 million vacancies and 3.277 million people without work that want it. There isn't a shortage of labour. There is a shortage of decent pay and conditions. Firms are going to have to get over their cheap labour obsession or close and leave the market to those firms that can.

I have a neighbor who is quite happy with what the government pays him while he's not working. I'm sure he could be motivated to work by offering larger salaries, but they'd have to be raised by at least 100% to convince him to go from 0 hours/week to 40 hours/week.

I'm not sure there are 3.277 million people without work who want it.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#158

Post by willcipriano »

adventured wrote: post #138
zpeti wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty big red flag was why so many multinational corporations are pro open borders. Corporations rarely take a stance on political issues unless they have a reason to do so.

In the US there is a particularly pro big business conservative wing of the right that is hyper in favor of unlimited low skill immigration. It's totally at odds with the mainstream conservative position on immigration. So why do they hold that position? It's not out of the kindness of their gentle pro-immigration conservative hearts of course. It's because they want the cheap labor to feed to big business and it hel…

The more you think about it the worse it gets. It's one thing to be in favor of immigration, it's another thing entirely to be in favor of illegal immigration. The Tyson Chickens of the world love illegal immigrants, they don't file workers comp claims or take you to court if you fail to pay them. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting the creation of a untouchable quasi-slave caste. If immigrants had the same rights, privileges and responsibilities of domestic workers, they probably wouldn't work for such a steep discount. This is why I believe many proported immigration proponents don't ever seem to manage to meaningfully open up the border, that isn't what they are going for.

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#159

Post by imtringued »

zpeti wrote: post #73
pibechorro wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation will make any increase in wages meaningless. It will also further drive investment into housing to escape the free falling cash. The answer is no lockdowns, no bailouts, and no quantitative money printing to oblivion. Let the everything bubble pop and start over with sound first principles. We will get there, but not before politicians make it worse and delay the inevitable defaults.

Agreed. 20 years of lower and lower interest rates, meaning higher and higher mortgage amounts have driven up prices into oblivion. Either these prices are inflated away or there is a collapse. There's not much else you can, UK housing market is so far from market reality that it's a joke. And ironically the more you create policies like lower deposit amounts for younger people, or subsidised mortgage payments, the m…

>Agreed. 20 years of lower and lower interest rates, meaning higher and higher mortgage amounts have driven up prices into oblivion.

The falling of interest is purely market driven. There is no government intervention there. Interest rates have been falling for a long time, far longer than 20 years and the reason is pretty simple. There are people out there who do not spend their money. The interest rate simply moderates between saving and investment. If saving is going up relative to investment then the interest rate must drop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28373304

You say higher and higher mortgage amounts have driven up prices but if you spend $360k what is wrong with getting a $360k house out of it in the end? What's so good about paying interest?

Re: Job vacancies surge past one million in new record

#160

Post by Veen »

moreira wrote: post #149
Veen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's why I'm contemplating moving from the South West to the North East. I work remotely, so it doesn't matter much where I am. Rental costs in the North East are dramatically lower than where I am now (a location that attracts Londoners wanting a place in the country, significantly increasing house prices).

I did exactly that this year - went from £1050/mo for a 2-bedroom flat in the south to £375/mo for a 2-bedroom house with a back yard, in the North East. You can get anything you need delivered these days, including groceries, and I’m within walking distance of a train station if I need to head to an airport or go anywhere bigger. It’s seriously worth considering.

I was looking at rental prices in County Durham and Northumberland, largely because that's where I lived when I was a young kid. My partner was initially convinced they were some sort of scam because houses are so much cheaper than we are paying down south. We could rent a three-bedroom detached with a decent chunk of land for less than we pay now for a two-bedroom end terrace with no garden.
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