The value of properties will be driven down by the Government’s planning reforms, council officials have warned.
We want more “affordable” housing. The best way to get this is to reduce the cost of planning permission: that planning permission being the largest component of house prices in the South.
Jeez, what is so difficult about this?
7 responses so far ↓
1 JamesV // Sep 28, 2011 at 9:19 am
Aha – but “their” housing should be affordable. And “their” affordable housing should not under any circumstances be allowed to make “my” housing more affordable.
People really do think like this. Most of them. It’s scary out there with real people.
2 SimonF // Sep 28, 2011 at 9:52 am
JamesV is correct and much as I sympathise with Mark W’s stance on LVT there is a real political problem. For most of their lives baby boomers have been led to believe that rising house prices are inevitable and furthermore a good thing.
Many, pick your own percentage but I believe its quite large amongst the politically active, have based their pension strategy on this basis and are now looking at the reality of retirement, possibly on a smaller pension than they had hoped. The reality for them is that their house may have to be their pension pot but now they have offspring who believe they also have a divine right to it.
Good luck to the politician who is going to try to drive home the reality that they need to sell and down size to pay for their own retirement.
3 Tim Almond // Sep 28, 2011 at 9:59 am
Mr Holmes said the changes on employment land could have dramatic consequences for even large firms.
He said: “Under these rules, Jaguar wouldn’t have expanded in the Midlands because the land it built on would have been used for housing instead.”
How would that be a bad thing? If someone can make more profit from a piece of land by housing people than running an engine factory, isn’t this a good thing?
4 Tim Almond // Sep 28, 2011 at 10:12 am
SimonF,
Many, pick your own percentage but I believe its quite large amongst the politically active, have based their pension strategy on this basis and are now looking at the reality of retirement, possibly on a smaller pension than they had hoped. The reality for them is that their house may have to be their pension pot but now they have offspring who believe they also have a divine right to it.
It’s not just their house. I know people who have switched their pension into BTL homes. Either they expect to collect on the rents, or to take the money out on the capital increase.
I avoided it because in the end, a belief in eternally inflation-busting house price rises is slightly more irrational than homeopathy.
5 fake // Sep 28, 2011 at 10:22 am
Being in negative equity in a flat I want to move out, I do worry about prices falling further.
Ideally I would want prices to stay flat, Housing over time would become cheaper, but no one would be put in my position.
I personally am prepared to take the hit, my girlfriend would not, what can you do….
6 Frances Coppola // Sep 28, 2011 at 11:23 am
I think housing is overvalued and prices need to drop. As a middle-aged homeowner, that would hurt me, obviously….but that doesn’t mean I oppose it. Not everyone who has benefited from house price inflation necessarily thinks they should keep the profits.
7 SimonF // Sep 28, 2011 at 8:25 pm
Fake, having lived through a a few housing bubbles I think we have come to proving Einstein’s theory of insanity. All you need to do is sit tight and the politicians will engineer another house price bubble whilst claiming a new paradigm.
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