If Labour get in, will house prices fall?

You don't. Countries go in and out of recession regularly. It just happens its been a few years since the UK had one.

Once the boomer generation are gone our population levels decline rapidly.

Will they? Looking at population statistics I don't think that's a foregone conclusion.

Besides, the UK will just keep importing more people to replace them.

Unlikely nationwide, if you live in an area where a significant number of properties are Airbnb /holiday homes/second homes, then possibly, but any restrictions on holiday lets/second homes won’t have a significant overall effect.

No. Supply and demand.

I think there is such intense pressure on housing that prices won't fall.

I think that what could become a bigger issue is trying to find a private rental. I have a relative currently looking for one (as current landlord wants to sell and has given notice). But there is absolutely nothing to rent near work.

I think clamping down or taxing the hell out of BTL or whatever will have unexpected consequences.

Very slowly

Definitely not.

Immigration is likely to increase under Labour and so pressure on housing will be greater.

Actually will concede you are right here on expectations. We had some young couples look round our house and honestly it was like they’d not settle for anything less than a castle with a moat round it. They were mostly in tiny rentals and were in a position to buy a family home, but no, grass is always greener.

That said, we are still short of a few millions homes.

Single people are not all young! The newly divorced for example. Also my aged parents have just 'downsized' from a 3 bed to a 4 bed because they wanted to stay in the same town and there was so little on the market.

It would be nice if they did but unlikely unless they throw us into a huge recession.
House prices will never fall in the SE because the population grows and there is insufficient supply.
Cheaper areas to live have more stable house prices already.

What would be helpful is if interest rates could fall which would make borrowing more affordable for people but whenever that happens house prices go up.

Agree with this. We are in our 50s and bought our first house nearly 30 years ago. House was much cheaper in terms of ratio to salary than would be now but the interest rate on our mortgage was more than double what it would be now

Because they have unrealistic expectations (I'm not old myself). Many people want their first property to be a 3 bed detached house in a prime location - you only have to read threads on here and the property boards to see what people are looking for. Gone are the days of buying a bedsit/one bed and sticking to what you can afford. We appear to have moved into a society of over reaching then complaining when it all gets a bit too much.

The stats don’t back you up there. Young, single people generally can’t buy.

I expect house prices to stagnate in nominal terms as they are now so unaffordable that the ‘housing ladder’ has gone. Maybe in 10 years, when baby boomers start dying/moving into care homes there may be a glut of family homes becoming available.

Otherwise they’ll stay pretty constant in nominal terms, but fall in real terms after adjusting for inflation.

But we don't need that many houses. Once the boomer generation are gone our population levels decline rapidly. So what we are at risk of doing is building excessively, losing our green spaces and farm land then will be in a situation of having too much housing stock.

We have reached the point of no return. We’d need to build 350k houses a year for at least a decade. We struggle to build 100k houses and that’s in a good year. We lack the infrastructure, voting power and willpower to ever build enough houses.

How many young people will never move out of the family home or start families. How many families in bedsits. Shocking. There is literally no hope. What will see is a two tier society developing divided by the haves and have nots. Perhaps, 10 years from now, encampments in public spaces.

We aren't short of homes, what we are full of is single people buying up family sized homes as sole occupants. You can't really legislate against that because people will buy what they like and what they can afford, but the housing stock is there it's just got issues with occupancy.

Labour did it last time and turned much of the south of England into a concrete jungle of new build houses that were and still are sold for £500k+!

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.

We’re short of a few million homes. This is due to post war, restrictive planning laws (1947, Labour government) plus other factors such as: family break ups, amazingly high immigration, incentives for the elderly to remain in large houses (e.g subsidised fuel bills), landbanking by the main housebuilders.

Re rent controls - the Scottish situation tells us what will happen here. It won’t help, likely to make the situation worse.

The incoming Labour government have talked about ditching the Rwanda scheme. Their solution to ‘stop the boats’ is to increase safe legal routes into the UK. My prediction is that they will enter into a European pact to take a proportion of illegals coming into Greece and Germany, for example. They have not said anything about stemmings the 100s of 1000s coming in via student visa (and their families) as far as I’m aware.

Obviously, we need to be welcoming and kind, but the sheers maths of the situation is not good.

I think we will see a resurgence of houses being divided into smaller units, more HMOs, higher house prices, increased rents. One thing that is worrying me is this scheme https://www.serco.com/uk/sites/serco-aasc/landlords because, if I were a landlord, why would I rent to locals who may or may not pay the rent (and whom I can’t evict) when I could sign up for 5 years’ guaranteed rent, maintenance and guaranteed vacating of property at the end of the term? This scheme, if it were to expand, would seriously reduce rental stock for people who already live here.

Indeed.

I was a child at that time - but my understanding is that broadly it was seen as a good thing that prices were increasing, as everyone suddenly felt they were much wealthier.

Was there any debate at the time about the eventual issue of affordability? I’m not sure any government is able to look beyond their 5 year term tbh.

House prices in the UK are only realistically going to fall (and people be able to afford them) if there is a huge house building programme.

Labour might do this - but, I fear it will take so long to ‘catch up’ with where we need to be, it wont help most young adults today.

Sorry wrong thread

Those who think the government have no control over housing affordability are wrong. The government have a long-term plan for the building of new homes and infrastructure. They are also responsible for planning legislation.

😯. That’s shocking.