General Election - 4th July 2024

[BlueHammer85]

A problem is that housing has become so good an investment. Pay 200k for a house, you know it will likely be worth 500k in ten years. In addition, because pensions have fallen apart, people see buying two or three houses and renting them out as a future pension income.

How you change this I don't know. It's a culture that has grown up over the years since Thatcher and the issue is that you have a big chunk of the population, maybe even a majority, for whom a rise in house prices is a Good Thing. Limiting supply is therefore quite popular! The fact that this shits on young people does not seem to be a major concern of any of the parties. Abolishing or reducing stamp duty is no answer. Far from it. Due to the laws of supply and demand, it will increase house prices still more, the only difference being it will move money from the government's pocket into those of fortunate private individuals. (Typical short-sighted Tory policy!)

It will be a bold government indeed that actively seeks to reduce house prices by creating a larger supply. Yet that is exactly what is needed. To make matters worse, the most active voters are those who have houses already, the least active are those in need of them. Politicians understand these facts.

simple ban on people buying 2nd properties.

 

[bluenova]

That’s quite a neat site. You can make your own predictions. If you look at the polls you can see a potential narrowing occurring - it won’t show through in the headline numbers as they are trailing averages however it is potentially significant if sticky

View attachment 123612

Assuming no further fuck ups from anyone (big assumption I know) and the narrowing firms up I’ve got Labour finishing with a 92 seat majority with results as follows:

Labour on 35% of the vote (371 seats), Tories on 30% (173 seats), LD 12% on (60 seats), SNP 3% (18 seats), Greens 6% (3 seats), reform 9% (2 seats), PC 1% (3 seats), NI is 18 seats then 2 seats to others.

As @blueparrot has pointed out, those polls appear to be odd outliers, which appear more obvious when the image is compressed (because the other 100 polls are mostly squashed on top of each other).

I'm still a little nervous, and while Labour are very unlikely to lose, the big talk seems to be about watching the first few seats, to see if there's a potential that some huge error has been made by the polling companies.

Of course, if you're confident, then the odds on the Tories getting around 30% are pretty high - 30-1 at the moment, suggesting most people are still going with the polls.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Here’s the most defining poll so far.

 

[bluenova]

View attachment 123627

Here’s the most defining poll so far.

I wonder where the Buckfast vote is heading?

 

[Fred_Quimby]

There are X people wanting a house/flat/prefab.

There are Y houses/flats/prefabs available.

A classic example of supply and demand. My house is worth multiple times what I paid for it, but only because there's a long list of people who would like to buy it, even at its current stupid price.

Interest rate increases merely suppress demand as fewer people can afford to buy. They also serve to increase rents as most landlords are buying on mortgages and those that aren't see it as a good excuse to raise rents anyway. Rents are at a stupid level because people are willing to pay the rents - they have little choice but to pay as the alternative is a park bench or to move back with Mum. Moreover, because of our silly system Housing Benefit subsidies rent at taxpayer expense, thus pushing up rent still further.

I absolutely guarantee that if we built 50,000 new Council houses in Manchester the average rent in Manchester would fall, as the supply would be greater.

Houses are relatively cheap to build and housing developers make huge profits. The state could do this job much more cheaply, as it used to do. The main problem is the supply of land. Unfortunately, private individuals and companies hoard land as a speculation. In addition, we have never had land reform. Certain individuals and institutions sit on vast acreages of land, while everyone else has to scramble for what's left. Not easy to solve, unfortunately. The much-derided Human Rights Act protects property rights. My answer would be to introduce Land Value Tax, but scaremongers would see that as a tax on everyone's garden, which it need not be at all.

As I said earlier. Mass build of prefabs by councils. Spare land you say? Compulsory purchase land that has been vacant for more than 5 years. Just needs the will to do it. You can have people moving in and paying rents in next to no time.

 

[BrianW]

simple ban on people buying 2nd properties.

Well, it might help a bit. But if (say) I had a holiday home in Abersoch, it would not be much use to a low-paid worker in London in need of a house if I sold up. There might be people in Abersoch who need a home, but they might not be able to afford to buy my million-quid bungalow. Being hypothetical, of course.

Similarly, there a cheap houses in Colne, but to commute from there to Manchester is a slog, expensive and not good for global warming. The problem is, the houses are in the 'wrong place'. I suppose it's OK if you can work from home, but that makes the Daily Mail cry.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

simple ban on people buying 2nd properties.

I genuinely don't think the amount of people buying second properties as holiday homes or just to leave then empty is causing the lack of housing which is driving up prices.

If doesn't matter if a landlord buys a house and rents it out, as long as its occupied by a family it doesn't make the lack of housing worse.

Politicians seem reluctant to actually state the full reason. They are all all saying we don't build enough homes , which is true we haven't built enough for several decades. But not building a enough houses also goes hand in hand with an increasing demand.

During the 70s and 80s we were building between 250,000 and 350,000 houses a year, and our population at the time was going up slowly by less than 0.20% a year, and in some years our population actually declined.

House building numbers declined in the late 80s and early 90s to an average approximately 160,000 homes a year, where it has stubornly stayed. But our population has increased since the early 90s annually to somewhere between 0.40% and 0.60%, several years it was over 0.75%.

This is further exasperated by the population growth occurring mainly in certain parts of the UK namely central England and the South East England in particular. Parts of the UK have had much slower population growth. The far north of England, Wales and Scotland.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I genuinely don't think the amount of people buying second properties as holiday homes or just to leave then empty is causing the lack of housing which is driving up prices.

If doesn't matter if a landlord buys a house and rents it out, as long as its occupied by a family it doesn't make the lack of housing worse.

Politicians seem reluctant to actually state the full reason. They are all all saying we don't build enough homes , which is true we haven't built enough for several decades. But not building a enough houses also goes hand in hand with an increasing demand.

During the 70s and 80s we were building between 250,000 and 350,000 houses a year, and our population at the time was going up slowly by less than 0.20% a year, and in some years our population actually declined.

House building numbers declined in the late 80s and early 90s to an average approximately 160,000 homes a year, where it has stubornly stayed. But our population has increased since the early 90s annually to somewhere between 0.40% and 0.60%, several years it was over 0.75%.

This is further exasperated by the population growth occurring mainly in certain parts of the UK namely central England and the South East England in particular. Parts of the UK have had much slower population growth. The far north of England, Wales and Scotland.

It’s not just 2 properties though is it? It’s landlords with bigger and bigger portfolios that can then keep pushing rent up and stopping tenants ever bring in a position to save up for a deposit.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

It’s not just 2 properties though is it? It’s landlords with bigger and bigger portfolios that can then keep pushing rent up and stopping tenants ever bring in a position to save up for a deposit.

That again is down to simple supply and demand isnt it. They couldn't do this if we were building enough houses as people would just go elsewhere.

 

[inchy14]

53 times….pfffffft

Think I beat that during the first half you sat next to me, plenty of cunts we’re voiced too!!