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Why Britain doesn’t build

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Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#391

Post by Marazan »

DeathArrow wrote: post #372
vogon_laureate wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It’s a…

>It’s even worse because there’s an adult social care crisis, a pension crisis, and in some areas a rundown NHS and school system. So all the incentives are towards not just home ownership but also additional buy-to-let ownership so that those with the means can afford private health care, dentistry, school fees for their kids/grandkids, inheritance for the kids who are priced out of the market, and retirement. It's…

Hi, the Cradle to Grave Welfare state has existed since the 1940s.

Were people not willing to work in the 1940s?

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#392

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tomaytotomato wrote: post #388

To summarise: - Lack of political willpower either due to competing priorities, or lobbying - Banks and economy are tightly coupled to UK housing market - Lots of people aren't willing to move to less desirable areas - Lots of people want a McMansion with little/no maintenance - Since WW2 we have been dependant on lumber from outside the UK for timber frame constructions. Its less so nowadays, but still a reason. - I…

>Immigration

Impossible! Brexit was meant to fix that. /s

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#393

Post by ilyt »

talideon wrote: post #382
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Politicians and the bureaucratic class have deep investments in real estate 2. Foreign money keeps flooding into western economies to find a safe haven and lack of capital controls. A bulk of it goes into real estate. 3. Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners. The entire system is rigged against anything that would impact home prices - such as an increase in supply or ch…

> Elections are largely monopolized by older people who mostly tend to be homeowners. This is just a self-defeating excuse. "Monopolised" implies that they're somehow preventing younger people from voting. The only way in which this is a thing is by scheduling elections on days that are inconvenient for younger people to vote. If you want change in who represents you, the first thing you need to do is vote. The secon…

now compare how many people are in age of 18-35 vs 35-90

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#394

Post by bradleyjg »

Lastodon wrote: post #365
bradleyjg wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greed is exactly the right word. There is a flat unwillingness to acknowledge or reason from the fact by so many homeowners that they are sitting on giant, completely unearned windfalls. There’s a huge sense of entitlement around these inflated prices.

It is an unearned windfall, but people deserve to keep their homes. It bears noting that the issue is caused by property investors, not homeowners. How about we go for the individuals that own more than 3 properties and let grandma keep what she earned?

The question isn’t: does grandma get to keep living in the home, there’s no one that’s against that.

The question is who, if anyone gets the million bucks, that she didn’t pay for or earn, when the house is sold.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#395

Post by ilyt »

ericd wrote: post #249
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theresa May tried to sell this as part of her election campaign. It was a disaster. No one wants to be forced to give up some of their personal wealth to pay more for an NHS they've already paid into. That may not be fair, but when most voters are property owners you're not going to get a different outcome. This is an interesting topic because it highlights how the political and economic culture is broken and incapab…

It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age. Also, not enough kids, and of those, not enough who wanted to go into medicine. It seems like baby booms have a way of making things seem artificially good for a w…

> It seems like maybe they didn’t pay in enough - baby boom demographics meant there were relatively more productive workers paying for relatively few old people, so each worker was paying a fraction of what it would cost to carry themselves through old age.

Right but manufacturing technology better and more efficient, we produce far more "per worker" now

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#396

Post by DeathArrow »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #49
ggm wrote: post #3

I find the economic reductionism in housing planning really irritating. It's not like other public utility functions, but it is damn close to a fundamental and is included in human rights declarations. What kind of state throws up it's hands and claims "it can't" fix housing when states can do precisely that? Thatcher's revolution in council housing is a cesspit of counterfactual outcomes. It made individual househol…

It’s the whole western world at the same time. The same policies, the same social outcomes. It makes me question whether there is any real democracy; did we all just happen to make the exact same decisions in lock step since the 70s by incredible coincidence? And it’s not as if the eventual negative outcomes of housing costs continually outstripping wage growth weren’t obvious and growing year on year. Who is actuall…

> Can’t we figure out what we actually want as societies, and make policy that matches it?

Not in a democracy, not when respecting free market and property. But they are able to do it in China.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#397

Post by ilyt »

CaptainMarvel wrote: post #369
Lastodon wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an unearned windfall, but people deserve to keep their homes. It bears noting that the issue is caused by property investors, not homeowners. How about we go for the individuals that own more than 3 properties and let grandma keep what she earned?

She may have earned the house to some degree (the article outlines a number of government subsidies which make this doubtful), but she definitely didn’t earn the land value increase. I’m reminded of this quote: > Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and n…

Sure but most people just want to live in that house, not capitalize on it

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#398

Post by DeathArrow »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #117
jareklupinski wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is actually in control here? Is it blind forces pushing us to an inevitable outcome? The Illuminati? Lizard people? less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land natural resources aside, land only really has the value that other people are wil…

> less blind forces, more "well, what would you do in their situation": the people who first paid money for a given square of land were also the first to try to convince someone else to pay them more for that same land It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of huma…

>It seems a bit silly to argue that increasing land prices is principally a result of marketing. The amount of earth on the planet in the last 10k years essentially hasn't changed but the number of humans has increased almost 2000%. Population growth is surely a "blind force", right?

But in some places population is the same or even declining and prices are still going up.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#399

Post by ilyt »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #338
Grimburger wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly how it should be. Housing is a consumable, not an investment.

Why would you think that? A well built house can last hundreds of years. Why should it not be an investment? It makes absolutely no sense to put any kind of money into something that one day will be worthless - like I read that it happens in Japan that on average a house is worthless after about 40 years.

While I wouldn't call it consumable, you do have to put money into it if you want to keep it working and in good state

But the house part is not an investment. It's the land that appreciates in value, the value isn't in a bunch of bricks and boards that sits, it's the location of the piece of land.

Re: Why Britain doesn’t build

#400

Post by angrais »

cbeach wrote: post #362

In the UK, property developers are forced by the govt to build a certain proportion of social housing into their developments, or to subsidise the building of social housing elsewhere. Obviously, this means the high end property is less desirable (because big spenders are forced to live next-door to social housing tenants). And the social housing built will be boxy and low standard, so again, less desirable, and unpr…

For reference, this isn't always the case. It is possible for building companies to provide incentives to local authorities to bypass this (£££). Absolutely ridiculous but unfortunately true.
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