If Labour get in, will house prices fall?

Some people might not be able to manage, and so that is a fair point for those people. But most over 55's can look after ourselves just fine, thankyou!

But there are a lot of single people who'd like to have the same comforts as families, and why shouldn't we?

After all, the 'single penalty' means that we contribute a higher proportion per person in tax, spending, etc. to society than a couple with kids.

I suspect they will go up a fair bit in my area as it is a grammar area. The VAT on privates is going to keep demand high here - currently around the £700k mark for a 3 bed.

As a result there is huge generational inequality which is likely to remain.

and it contributes to our low productivity. Work should pay

I do think future governments are going to tap into the boomer wealth though more so because the country needs ££££ spent on a myriad of things. It will probably be by stealth eg the NHS hip operation has a 2 yr waiting list or there aren’t any council founded carers to come to your home etc. I know 3 older people who have gone private for OPs because the wait is too long & some relatives have spent 80k on private carers as they wanted to stay in their home.

Yes, this is the issue. We need to Tax wealth rather income, but even Labour have said that they won't do this.

As a result there is huge generational inequality which is likely to remain.

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.

It’s not that simple. With first time buyer stamp duty exemption, people buying homes later in life (ie. Late 20s early 30s) and shortly after would be trying for a family - which causes your affordability to be screwed due to high childcare costs. It’s basically you buy a 2/3 bed or you just don’t bother and have to wait until the kids are in primary school and then you need to buy a 2/3 bed anyway.

This is true. Even under the Tories, net social spending is actually higher in the UK than it is in Sweden. Sweden is just more sensible when it comes to spending (healthcare isn't completely free, you can't claim unemployment benefit if you haven't worked etc) which means better services overall.

I can't see Labour being any less wasteful with our money than the Tories tbh.

Yes, we need more homes. But we also need choices beyond the standard two adults and two kids model that builders and politicians think is the norm.

Thats a good point as we don’t have enough suitable housing for the ageing population.

Times are not hard yet, still record numbers of people eating out, flying off on foreign holidays and buying iphones. None of which people in their 20s used to be able to afford.

Todays 20 somethings spend more on housing than previous generations. Eating out & iPhones are new but previous generations spend money on pubs, drinking & smoking.

The current flat(ish) market of the past couple of years is pretty much a nominal price reduction playing out as it has happened at the same time as the general rise in inflation and all the massive pay-rises so many have been getting. i.e. in real-terms houses have been getting cheaper compared to energy/food/core-services. You are in the middle of your House Price Crash right now.

who has massive pay rises? Not the majority & plenty of people are yet to come off fixes but I agree it’s playing out now.

They just aren't building enough bungalows or smaller houses, I'm afraid, and when they do, they often cost far more than a larger house with more rooms!

It's the well-known 'single person penalty' that politicians ignore - and nobody wants to recognise that society has changed.

Just because you're 'on your own' doesn't mean that we want (or should settle for) a flat or apartment. Builders and politicians don't seem to realise this.

Yes, we need more homes. But we also need choices beyond the standard two adults and two kids model that builders and politicians think is the norm.

Quite frankly we’d only see house prices coming down significantly if we had significantly higher interest rates and the associated repossessions.

Times are not hard yet, still record numbers of people eating out, flying off on foreign holidays and buying iphones. None of which people in their 20s used to be able to afford. When labour get in they do their usual trick of giving lots of money to everyone and fuel house price increases.

The current flat(ish) market of the past couple of years is pretty much a nominal price reduction playing out as it has happened at the same time as the general rise in inflation and all the massive pay-rises so many have been getting. i.e. in real-terms houses have been getting cheaper compared to energy/food/core-services. You are in the middle of your House Price Crash right now.

House prices will rise over the coming years. 20 years ago we couldn’t buy a better house in the part of the country we wanted so we had to relocate to another part of the country to get a bigger house.

It’s never been easy, when I was young (mid 80s) a sibling had a wife and small child, all living in a tiny 1 bed flat as that is all they could afford. My first NHS salary after college was £6k a year.

For the record when I bought my first house (1980s) it was a 2 bed terrace and cost 4 times the starting salary of an NHS RGN staff nurse. We had no furniture except a bed. That same house still costs the same as 4 times the starting salary of a staff nurse. This illustrates that not all areas of the country have housing that is more expensive than it was 40 years ago.

We have the highest taxation since WW2 and the highest peacetime taxation in our history. We have higher corporation tax than the high tax Nordic countries.

And yet look at salaries or the services we get for that tax. Tax is far too weighted on PAYE imo.

Labour and the Conservatives are basically identical. We will just swap one set of incompetents for another. They are both Blairite. The have both overseen policies that have resulted in massive house price growth. Arguably this government’s policies are to the left of Blair. We have the highest taxation since WW2 and the highest peacetime taxation in our history. We have higher corporation tax than the high tax Nordic countries. Wealth, business investment and employment opportunities are leaving daily and there is no party willing to reverse it.

Let me get my crystal ball out....

They may do something about Air BnB - though as a family we prefer these to hotels - as you don't get hotel suits in UK really but can see they make many tourist places housing situation worse.

The house problem is rising population and lack of supply going back decades.

The natural population is predicted to go into reverse as soon as next year more deaths than birth is expected but immigration likely lead to increase population for decades and at same time we need more workers to pay tax to fund aging population.

On top of that is under occupation - due to divorces aging population and lack of suitable and preferable housing to move to. But building more in area where demand is high is increasing difficult as services in those areas are already under strain. Increased density of housing - but poor build quality and people in UK preferring houses makes that hard.

Rent controls being their own issues and rental market has huge problems.

Labour are making noises about building more but so have previous governments and once you start to try you run into local opposition and need to also build up local services - which takes more money and actually getting the developers to build type of housing stock needed not what makes most money.

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Plus as PP have said it's not just a UK issue - Ireland, Australia, USA - various European countries also have high housing cost and housing problems.

Building more houses won't fix the problem. Encouraging businesses into areas outside of the south east and spreading the housing crisis round the country and out of (not just south east) cities will.

True. It's absurd that there is such a massive variation in house prices and rents between regions. It's causing real problems for recruitment in the SE in occupations like teaching and nursing, where pay scales are the same for everywhere outside of London, but rents and house prices are so much higher.

I’m pretty sure London has been the weakest market for growth for a good few yrs because it isn’t just supply and demand, affordability matters. Other cities and cheaper areas will see more growth as people are pushed to other areas, more hybrid working etc.

And no government will be tough on immigration because of the ageing population issue.

I expect house prices to stagnate in nominal terms as they are now so unaffordable that the ‘housing ladder’ has gone

yes, the concept of a ladder is outdated for most.

These issues are not "Tory" issues though. They are happening in all countries regardless of who is in power. Too many people, not enough housing. Basic supply and demand.

How do you shake off a recession once and for all?

we never really recovered from the 08 recession just masked it with low rates.

If Conservatives continue then fewer people will afford to have children and to buy so could lead to falls in 30 years time. Plus more likely to be a recession due to money continuing to flow out the country to tax havens.

Birth rates are already low & have fallen far faster than predicted. There are big issues in schools due to the funding model and lack of pupils in parts.

The obsession with high house prices in this country is ludicrous. Logically if prices go down a bit, so will the cost of your next purchase.

It’s crazy, people should be far more concerned about low wages.

How could anyone know that,OP?

Oops, it was meant to quote, I meant nobody seems to know how to shake off a recession once and for all, if they did I hope they would have already! But regarding house prices and anything else that may happen in the future, I guess nobody knows either 😉

They have already fallen in parts haven’t they? Particularly when taking inflation into account. Whoever is in house prices are not going to have big lifts over the next few years unless our economy somehow turns around.