If Labour get in, will house prices fall?

Obviously it wouldn't help The Home Counties commuter belt but not everyone lives there. It would help plenty of places in UK with expensive rental properties compared with the average salary.

@Democracymanifest single occupancy of homes has risen and it’s at around 30% and has doubled since the 1970’s. It’s a huge factor overlooked. In my row of eight identical big three bed semi detached houses with big gardens and a drive each. Three are occupied by a single person and at one point five were occupied by a single person. I have two friends divorcing currently, that’s two households now requiring four houses all of a sudden.

Actually, it would lead to the opposite and increase the number of long term rental properties. Having a similar, but bigger, effect to areas which massively increased council tax for holiday homes.

Nope, as the 1st pp on this thread stated "why would they"? I was homeless with a toddler dc during the last Labour govt, nearly 20 years later I remember those times with horror.

Unless Labour get radical - eg: compulsory purchas all land-banked private developer-owned land and build 100% social homes to rent (built with Public Loan Board money - we';re all fucked and doomed

The only thing you missed is the cost of moving.
So much money goes on stamp duty and legal bills that it puts people off moving. You can easily spend £10k moving house so people would rather avoid that if they can.

House prices rose massively between about 1998 to the peak of 2008 when they went down by the recession caused by the banks. Labour were in power 1997 to 2010.

Places like Edinburgh, yes. The Home Counties commuter belt on the other hand has inflated for different reasons.

Regulating Airbnb will reduce prices in quite a lot of places.

Rent controls have failed spectacularly everywhere they have been tried.

Regulating AirBnBs and taxing second homes may improve matters locally in places like St Ives or Abersoch but it won't reduce prices nationally.

The opposite I suspect. There will be panic in rhe markets, ultimately leading to constriction of demand till it settles down and prices rising.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You think house prices will fall if the tiny percentage of them which are rented are suddenly sold!

Rentals are a business, if you cap the profit, you kill the market.

The o ly thing that will drive down house prices is if we build over a million of them a year, every year, for the next decade. And then only if the population doesn't increase.

An excellent summary of ‘best practice’ nowadays. Thanks.

I’m so glad this pain is all behind us.

Just arthritis to deal with now…

If it makes you feel any better, housing is a massive issue in the Netherlands and Ireland as well. It’s not just a UK thing.

Agree entirely re: broken home construction model.

@Democracymanifest - first homes are being bigger because that’s what people need by the time they are buying - a 1 bed flat in our town costs around £240k, but most young people need to save for several years for a deposit, and need to be established in careers to be earning enough to get a mortgage for that much. Most couples by the time they are in a position to buy have hit the late 20s/early 30s - so baby life stage. Given affordability checks for mortgages will take out nursery fees, you can’t as a couple assume you can buy a flat for now, then be able to borrow enough to upgrade in 4/5 years time.

stamp duty is so much now it’s not logical to buy a flat you know you’ll outgrow in a couple of years, compared to stretching yourself for the house now. And for anyone in their 20s, their life experience has shown that house prices just go up, drops are only for a couple of months max, so the difference between flats and houses grows faster than savings.

buying the 20 year house at 30 rather than the 5 year flat then the 15 year house at 24&29 makes logical sense- and few are in the position to buy flats in early 20s.

The housing ladder doesn’t exist for younger people. I’m in my 40s and I know very few who have done the traditional route of - buying a flat young, paying down the mortgage, using the equity to buy a small house, paying that mortgage down, buying a big house just before kids are teens.

The UK Is not currently in a recession.

If what you are selling drops, what you are buying drops, so not really much different to where you are now, with buying/selling. If trying to get on the property ladder, prices ‘may’ drop, but it’s highly unlikely to be hugely significant.

The UK will be stale for a VERY long time now due to damage done by all of the mismanagement.

You’d need three or four terms of socialism to begin to turn the corner. That's unlikely, as Wannabe Fatcats will continue to vote Tory to desperately try and ‘make it’ in life. Recent history shows that that concept doesn’t work.

Watch the upcoming PPBs and see who focuses on money money money…

No they won’t. Not unless you want a monumental recession and people unable to remortgage their homes.

This is nonsense - you are rewriting history.

House prices have risen far faster than wages.

Also rent has risen far faster than wages, making it harder to save for a deposit.

A bit like the current shower then (enacting bad policy like the carers allowance repayments as just one example?). I think we've all seen enough of Rushi shoving things through to pander to the minority poll numbers.

Perhaps people need to manage their expectations then? If flats are all we have space for and a house is too much to manage as an older person then a flat is where you downsize to.

In my family they were all looking just before or just after retirement - they paid houses off - had money in savings and pensions and were fit and well but were considering longer term needs that might arise. They weren't being forced to move but trying to plan for future needs.

Moving comes with costs - risks of property having problems - and is a lot of stress and hassle under current system. If they'd been properties that tempted them expect they'd have all downsized - as there were not you end up with 2 or 1 person in 3/4 bed houses.

Then by mid 70 even if there current properties drawbacks start to hit as health declines they don't want hassle or expense of moving - will tend to dig in plus often cheaper to fit things like stair lifts or showers with seats than move.

So it'd often 10-30 years of under occupancy in private owned houses - because we don't build houses that appeal to potential downsizers.

Another issue with flats - lack of gardens and outdoor space but also service fees which can suddenly jump up - last thing on fixed income and set amount of saving you want in sudden increase in costs or lumps sums for work to be demanded. I think there are issue with service fee and amount they can go up ie few current limits - I'd always prefer outright ownership of land and accommodation. Also adaptations for aging like handles at doors harder to get put in if you have communal areas - also stairs as age or being in ground floor and easier for breakings.

As ever more people can't get on housing ladder and end up renting during retirement years unless we increase HA housing to accommodate I think private under occupancy will be a lesser issue.

The only thing that will stop prices rising is for people to stop paying. I've recently heard that some landlords in Bristol are having to cut prices for rentals as there's nobody who can afford the ridiculously high amounts being asked. Not because there's noone wanting to rent just noone who can afford it. Prices are only second to London but there's no Bristol weighting

They have no plans to stop visas and general levels of migration.
House prices will continue to go up until the demand stops.

Starmer is just one of those “I think I’d be rather good at it“ types - like Cameron, Johnson and Blair. He doesn’t believe in anything beyond poll numbers. This type would even knowingly enact bad policy if it was popular.

Since Blair, British politics has basically just been a game of the two main parties thieving one another’s more popular policies - or at least what is popular with the clueless electorate in any given year - regardless of whether it’s in the in short term interest of the country (never mind long term interest).

This^