How to solve the housing crisis?

[DavidWhitesBoots]

A population cull.

Population control is ultimately the answer to most of the UK/planets problems, however 1st world capitalist economies will never allow it. People are needed to fuel supply and demand, flatten out the population flatten out demand to a degree.
Eventually I believe it'll have to happen one woman one child or something along those lines for a few generations...

 

[WNRH]

yeah but the point I was making in 1974 a decent middle or upper middle class standard job got you that house - a decent middle class management job in Leeds will see you on £50-60k if you are lucky - x 5 is £250- £300k where is the other £250k coming from?

You can be on 50/60k a year and have a decent house in a decent area.

I don’t earn that much yet can comfortably afford a three bedroom house with a good sized garden in a nice area.

Maybe the issue is aiming for half a million pound houses?

I get what you are saying and you are correct in what you are saying generally but I don’t think that comparison is the best.

 

[bluethrunthru]

You can be on 50/60k a year and have a decent house in a decent area.

I don’t earn that much yet can comfortably afford a three bedroom house with a good sized garden in a nice area.

Maybe the issue is aiming for half a million pound houses?

I get what you are saying and you are correct in what you are saying generally but I don’t think that comparison is the best.

so you are good with people being priced out of homes and having their aspiration to own a home like their parents owned removed?

 

[WNRH]

so you are good with people being priced out of homes and having their aspiration to own a home like their parents owned removed?

Well first of all kudos for assuming that based on what I’ve said.

Secondly why can’t a couple on a joint income of £50k a year buy a house for £200k-£250k?

 

[bluethrunthru]

Well first of all kudos for assuming that based on what I’ve said.

Secondly why can’t a couple on a joint income of £50k a year buy a house for £200k-£250k?

They can - they can't get a mortgage on a £543k one though - and thats my point - as a multiple of income housing has spiralled out of control - I am actually mortgage free and own my house outright - its a 3 bed semi and even if I sold this and wanted to buy my inlaws 4 bed detached round the corner I can't afford to because of how the gap has grown compared to incomes. In the late 80's in Middleton I was able to sell a small 2 bed end terrace on Grimshaw Lane and move a few doors up from my local MP on Towncroft Ave - the difference wasn't that great now its nearly £150k. You can try and defend it how you like but people are being priced out of home ownership end of.

 

[WNRH]

They can - they can't get a mortgage on a £543k one though - and thats my point - as a multiple of income housing has spiralled out of control - I am actually mortgage free and own my house outright - its a 3 bed semi and even if I sold this and wanted to buy my inlaws 4 bed detached round the corner I can't afford to because of how the gap has grown compared to incomes. In the late 80's in Middleton I was able to sell a small 2 bed end terrace on Grimshaw Lane and move a few doors up from my local MP on Towncroft Ave - the difference wasn't that great now its nearly £150k. You can try and defend it how you like but people are being priced out of home ownership end of.

Im not trying to defend it at all. I got my first mortgage at 34, I know too well how hard it is to get the house you want due to the prices.

I just object to comments like people are being priced out of home ownership when that’s clearly not true. They are being priced out of the home ownership they want, there is a difference.

There are hundreds of thousands of young couples with average income who are getting home ownerships in this country, it’s not impossible as you are making it out to be.

The issue with myself and many others is the deposit. I rented for 8 years, paid every bill on time and even in advance but I was struggling to save the 10% whilst paying a mortgage sized rent and living a life I wanted. I believe there should be a minimum amount of 100% credit history for renters over day 5 years for either a reduced deposit or no deposit, there wouldn’t be this ladder issue that you allude to.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Im not trying to defend it at all. I got my first mortgage at 34, I know too well how hard it is to get the house you want due to the prices.

I just object to comments like people are being priced out of home ownership when that’s clearly not true. They are being priced out of the home ownership they want, there is a difference.

There are hundreds of thousands of young couples with average income who are getting home ownerships in this country, it’s not impossible as you are making it out to be.

The issue with myself and many others is the deposit. I rented for 8 years, paid every bill on time and even in advance but I was struggling to save the 10% whilst paying a mortgage sized rent and living a life I wanted. I believe there should be a minimum amount of 100% credit history for renters over day 5 years for either a reduced deposit or no deposit, there wouldn’t be this ladder issue that you allude to.

Would that solve the problem of people overleveraging and pushing up house prices disproportionate to income rises?

Just like help to buy or "help to sell" it would probably have the opposite effect.

This seems like sensible stuff to me.

https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-keen-two-proposals-to-eliminate-the-unproductive-debt-burden/2012/04/24?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_dHOLHDa.fpeneQFyAWX7bQ1vPgc9z.12WEUSmuaZrcg-1632873499-0-gqNtZGzNAjujcnBszQil&cn-reloaded=1

Property Income Limited Leverage

Some debt is needed to purchase a house, since the cost of building a new house far exceeds the average wage. But debt greater than perhaps 3 times average annual wages drives not house construction, but house price bubbles.

Property Income Limited Leverage (“the PILL”) would break this positive feedback loop by basing the maximum that can be lent for a property purchase, not on the income of the borrower, but on a multiple of the income-earning potential of the property itself.

With this reform, all would-be purchasers would be on equal footing with respect to their level of debt-financed spending, and the only way to trump another buyer would be to put more non-debt-financed money into purchasing a property.

It would still be possible–indeed necessary–to pay more than ten times a property’s annual rental to purchase it. But then the excess of the price over the loan would be genuinely the savings of the buyer, and an increase in the price of a house would mean a fall in leverage, rather than an increase in leverage as now. There would be a negative feedback loop between house prices and leverage. That hopefully would stop house price bubbles developing in the first place, and take dwellings out of the realm of speculation back into the realm of housing, where they belong.

 

[Bill Walker]

Take the thousands upon thousands of acres of the UK the Royal family has at their disposal and build a mixture of high density housing at reasonable prices.
It's not as if you can ever use or even see the land anyway.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Would that solve the problem of people overleveraging and pushing up house prices disproportionate to income rises?

Just like help to buy or "help to sell" it would probably have the opposite effect.

This seems like sensible stuff to me.

https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-keen-two-proposals-to-eliminate-the-unproductive-debt-burden/2012/04/24?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_dHOLHDa.fpeneQFyAWX7bQ1vPgc9z.12WEUSmuaZrcg-1632873499-0-gqNtZGzNAjujcnBszQil&cn-reloaded=1

Do you think all of the landlords in government want to see the housing bubble solved? They rake it in if people are forced to rent (often paid for by the taxpayer) as well as seeing the value of their investment go up exponentially.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

Do you think all of the landlords in government want to see the housing bubble solved? They rake it in if people are forced to rent (often paid for by the taxpayer) as well as seeing the value of their investment go up exponentially.

No. Which is why I would never vote conservative.

The trouble with their model though is eventually they will run out of road, there won't be enough people with the income level to buy them to use as occupiers or the excessively wealthy will just buy them up after the bubble has burst and rent them out.

Household debt was already at 90% of gdp before the pandemic.

UK Household Debt: % of GDP, 1987 – 2024 | CEIC Data

UK household debt accounted for 82.1 % of the country's Nominal GDP in Jun 2024, compared with the ratio of 82.1 % in the previous quarter.

www.ceicdata.com