Comments on: Timmy Elsewhere

By: DBC Reed

DBC Reed — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:29:05 +0000

There is a good account of comparative house sizes on Net: Googleable as Demographia Australia and USA have largest houses.Apparently our new houses are nearly as small as DDR flats built post-war.

By: john malpas

john malpas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:51 +0000

If things are cheap why is so much of our money taken from us in the form of taxes?
One might expect the government to take advantage of this cheapness.
Us automatic stabilisers like to know these things.

By: Winston

Winston — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:21:15 +0000

DBC Reed,

Re: the size of housing, would it not be true to say though that a disproportionately low number of people in the UK live in flats compared to in Europe? This seems to leave a lot more space to build bigger houses for those who do live in them. In Britain everyone must have some outdoor space of their own even if it is just the yard of a terraced house, our European neighbours don’t seem to share this obsession to the same extent.

By: DBC Reed

DBC Reed — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:14:18 +0000

British houses are comparatively small by European standards and getting comparatively smaller.
Was n’t aware that we tax land, as such, at all.
In the town centre where I live there is a deserted former factory site which has been undeveloped for, must be, fifty years.Time for LVT you’d think.Mais non,pas devant les domestiques.

By: AntiCitizenOne

AntiCitizenOne — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:50:30 +0000

Ed,

Right angles seem to totally fox modern builders too.

By: Ed

Ed — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:55:59 +0000

The one thing you can guarantee free markets will provide is high land and property prices

This is because:
* we have a very restricted market in land
* we undertax land ownership and overtax income and consumption.

Even housing which seems so expensive has increased in quality so much that it is cheap by any long term comparison

Increased in functionality, yes, but I’m not so sure about quality. For a nation obsessed by property, the design and quality of construction of so many modern homes leaves much to be desired. To take just one aspect, the standards on sound insulation are pathetic.

By: DBC Reed

DBC Reed — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:53:43 +0000

BTW The clock’s wrong on your message timer.

By: DBC Reed

DBC Reed — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:52:41 +0000

Only it does n’t make housing very cheap does it? Or,at least, the land underneath it.The one thing you can guarantee free markets will provide is high land and property prices, in the wide open spaces of Australia,in the closer confines of the UK.Everything else has to be cheap because after people have paid rents ,mortgages and the transport to get to dulce domum there’s not a lot left.