"e27002 aurora" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 11:41:46 -0000, "tim....."
wrote:



You clearly believe government should be in the housing for rent
market.

Yes I do!

We have a situation at the moment where house prices to buy/rent are way
above what a large part of the electorate can afford. This has led to
windfall profits for owners of land that can get properties built on their
land.

We are attempting (and failing IMHO) to fix that problem by mandating that
a
percentage of houses are available on a "low cost" basis to the prices out
demographic by subsidising them using money taken out of the pockets of
the
purchasers of the more expensive properties - rather than from the people
who have made the windfall profits.

I think that wrong. We should be stopping the windfall profits, not
"taxing"
house purchasers.

And, short of directly taxing those windfall profits (and idea that has
been
mooted but abandoned as impractical), the only solution to the problem is
to bring down the price of new build properties (and hence the value of
the
land they are sitting on) by swamping the market with millions of new
houses.

And it is impossible to expect private developers to build this excess of
house as they would have to buy the land to put them on at the inflated
prices (and hence go bankrupt in the process) The only way that we can
achieve this is if government agencies commission the house on land that
they have acquired at un-inflated prices.



And as I'm shortly to be retire and start living off my "pile",
accumulated
mostly due to this perverse increase in house values - overall I don't
give
a damn if UK PTB solve this problem, so you can shoot the messenger if you
wish


Wouldn't think of shooting you for one moment Tim. I agree with your
diagnosis. I disagree with your treatment plan.

Government should set the rules and regulate. Private industry can
always do a better job.

But it can't.

We can't say to the private sector "We want you to build 2 million houses
"tout suite", and release them all onto the market at the same time in order
to push the average selling price for these houses down from 300K to 200K
(other price bands are available)

Because the private sector will have to build at today's land prices of 100K
per plot, plus 100K per build and be left with zero profit and zero
overhead for financing and sales costs. End result - bankrupt private
builder.

We have to break the high land costs before we can ask the private sector to
get involved. Nothing else will work (IMHO)

And, tenants tend to respect another person
property, more so than public property.

I don't see how the builder of the property changes the owner/tenant
relationship

We should be looking at a new crop of new towns.

That doesn't negate from my proposal

These could be at
key nodes on the East-West Rail link, extending down to Didcot at one
end and towards Felixstowe at the other.

But:

Nimbies!

I'll give you one example. I have just moved from a town that is about one
notch up from "you really don't want to live here unless you have to" and
the only reason people do live there is because it is "affordable" and has
excellent rail connections (to London). The town council have planes for a
20,000 estate on the edge of town.

And all the nimbies complain, "we don't want out town to get any bigger",
"it would change the character of the town" (like it had one to lose) etc...
None of the complaints are about "genuine" concerns like the towns
facilities couldn't cope, because they can, but that would be a major
concern in many places

The London Boroughs should be looking at densification around key
transit nodes with high rise developments for singles and empty
nesters.

High rises are the pits.

Even when well managed, which most aren't.

When a developer wants to build a new retail development, the
authority should ask "and how much commercial, and residential, space
to you plan to put above it.

Building residential property above commercial is not popular with
residents, particularly OOs. The need to manage the site as a single entity
but to different expectations make the costs of maintaining the properties
very expensive

tim