bye bye, Nimrud, bye bye

[MrGongGong]

No, "the whole "homes" thing is not at all like "hard working families"; each does indeed exist, of course, but whereas we all need homes whether or not we own them, the term "hard working families" has been dragged kicking and screaming into cliché land where it's forced to serve the will of its political masters!

What I meant, was that when you hear folks going on about "homes" when they mean "houses" they are trying to manipulate the emotions. All the talk about old people being "kicked out of their homes" to pay for their care etc etc. People seem to want to have it both ways, they like the way that the value of their property goes up because it makes them feel wealthy BUT they object to using the wealth.

I live in a house, it IS our home and is distinctively ours BUT there are many like it and when we eventually move we will have somewhere else.
Cultivating a bit of detachment from objects (as long as they aren't esoteric Hi-Fi, Instruments or Microphones ) is a healthy thing IMV

[Honoured Guest]

Yes, I have heard of them, in case you were in any doubt. These types of housing are just as "owned" as any other and their owners have rights over it and are at the same time legally charged with certain responsibilities in respect of it purely by virtue of owning it; what on earth do suppose "local authority housing" is if it is not insured, managed and maintained by its owners, the local authority?!

Local authorities and housing associations also have responsibilities, relating to the general resident population and the relevant social sector, which are not shared by private landlords or private homeowners.

[Dave2002]

Who said people shouldn't have the right to buy houses?

The whole "homes" thing is a bit like the "hard working families" :sad face:

I don't object to people buying houses, but the "right to buy" thing is a populist move, and may effectively (yet again) transfer wealth from the "hard working taxpayers" to those who could not afford things any other way. That in itself is not horrendous, but all those other "hard working" people will then have to work more in order to build more homes - though perhaps they'll train up people in the construction industry and employ them on minimum wages in order to get new homes built.

As a home owner, I can't say it's always a bundle of fun. The aspiration of having a nation full of home owners is not necessarily great - a "home owning democracy" - as with a "share owning democracy" - sound bite stuff. I have rented, and on occasions it was good, and allowed us to get on with living - as I've mentioned before. I have also been a landlord for a short while - which was helpful financially, but I'm not rushing to repeat that.

I sympathise about not being able to move. That's one of the reasons why I'd support something like the Californian condominiums, with a 30 days notice period. The accommodation is/was quite good, and gave great flexibility. Useful if people want to take up jobs at short notice, and for various other reasons.

[Richard Barrett]

Interestingly, given the Thatcher governments' right-to-buy ideology and Cameron's promise to continue it in the future, the proportion of owner-occupiers in the UK is now lower than it was under Thatcher, as we see from this article in the Torygraph. So that worked out pretty well did it not.

[Dave2002]

The BBC TV News - around 3.35pm has a very good illustration of the historical data re house builds and housing needs. It seems obvious that allowing renters to buy their houses without providing any mechanism to compensate by having new homes put in place to meet need is just bonkers, but then what do I know? The BBC presenter - not quite sure who he was - but seemed knowledgeable, seemed to be putting this view forward, and had data to back up these views.

The graphs showed that since the mid 1980s around the time when the first right to buy policies were put in place, that the drop in house building was very significant, and that builds due to housing associations have not compensated for the decrease in house builds.

[Honoured Guest]

Interestingly, given the Thatcher governments' right-to-buy ideology and Cameron's promise to continue it in the future, the proportion of owner-occupiers in the UK is now lower than it was under Thatcher, as we see from this article in the Torygraph. So that worked out pretty well did it not.

Cameron's promise is for electoral advantage, to encourage votes from those who will benefit. Most of the people who exercised their right to buy did benefit financially from substantial capital appreciation. Society as a whole lost out. Cameron has no interest in that. Nor did Thatcher.

Now, private landlords benefit from the housing shortage which has increased property prices and rents.

[teamsaint]

the right to buy , and the disastrous housing shortages at present are an excellent example of the failures ( or success depending on who you are) of rigged markets.

There is a really straightforward answer to our housing issues, ( shortage and high price) and that is to create more housing units, and to put supply back in some sort of equilibrium with demand.

Oh , and encourage businesses and enterprises out of the south east wherever it makes sense.

....and tax the financial sector a bit more to pay for it all.

[Honoured Guest]

the right to buy , and the disastrous housing shortages at present are an excellent example of the failures ( or success depending on who you are) of rigged markets.

There is a really straightforward answer to our housing issues, ( shortage and high price) and that is to create more housing units, and to put supply back in some sort of equilibrium with demand.

Oh , and encourage businesses and enterprises out of the south east wherever it makes sense.

....and tax the financial sector a bit more to pay for it all.

And encourage more efficient use of the existing housing stock by a new property tax calculated using a formula taking account of the number of household members and the number of rooms.

[MrGongGong]

Oh , and encourage businesses and enterprises out of the south east wherever it makes sense.

You mean SALFORD

good enough for JCC, PMD et al then fine for the BBC

[jean]

And encourage more efficient use of the existing housing stock by a new property tax calculated using a formula taking account of the number of household members and the number of rooms.

You mean the Bedroom Tax?

[teamsaint]

You mean the Bedroom Tax?

I think HG means the poll tax, which makes the bedroom tax look like a runaway success story.....

Should be great for kids living in London paying £700 a month for a room out of the decidedly ordinary wages that so many of them get paid.

[teamsaint]

And encourage more efficient use of the existing housing stock by a new property tax calculated using a formula taking account of the number of household members and the number of rooms.

see, the funny thing is that this wouldn't necessarily have your desired effect. If my parents move into my house, which is presumably a more efficient use of housing stock, such a move would be disincentivised by a system such as you advocate, so introducing such a system might actually have the opposite effect......

[Honoured Guest]

You mean the Bedroom Tax?

The present bedroom tax is principally a politically motivated persecution of some of the most vulnerable members of society. My proposed tax would apply to all private homeowners. In cases of financial hardship, payment could be deferred until after death, to be recovered from the estate of the homeowner. But hopefully, many people would choose not to pay the tax, in which case the housing stock would be more efficiently used, alleviating the housing shortage.

[ahinton]

What I meant, was that when you hear folks going on about "homes" when they mean "houses" they are trying to manipulate the emotions.

Well, not everyone of them surely - some do live in apartments!

All the talk about old people being "kicked out of their homes" to pay for their care etc etc. People seem to want to have it both ways, they like the way that the value of their property goes up because it makes them feel wealthy BUT they object to using the wealth.

The care problem is indeed a grave one and what's made available to people seems to vary widly from district to district ather than being something that wold be broadly the same for everyone and could therefore be understood rather better. When the value of people's homes rise, most of those homeowners don't (or at least shouldn't) really think about it making them feel wealthy because it does no such thing; if they want to move, the property that they buy when they sell up will probably also have risen in value and they have to face the costs of the move out of their "wealth", including conveyancing and other fees + VAT on the sale and new purchase as well as the price of the move including VAT and SDLT on the purchase of the new home.

I live in a house, it IS our home and is distinctively ours BUT there are many like it and when we eventually move we will have somewhere else.
Cultivating a bit of detachment from objects (as long as they aren't esoteric Hi-Fi, Instruments or Microphones ) is a healthy thing IMV

I agree - but not everyone even has to make a point of "cultivating" that kind of thing in any case because not everyone's obsessed with the monetary value of everying that they own, however much certain advertising and politicking might try to persuade them to be so.

[ahinton]

Local authorities and housing associations also have responsibilities, relating to the general resident population and the relevant social sector, which are not shared by private landlords or private homeowners.

Of course they do - and I didn't suggest otherwise (on the contrary, I wrote "and are at the same time legally charged with certain responsibilities in respect of it", in case you'd overlooked this) - but that doesn't alter that fact that they own the property that they let to their tenants!