Latest mansion tax should be on top % homes locally not nationallu

The point was no more taxes. Everything was fully funded.

Not sure many people would agree with your rejection of investment and higher wages in order to keep a lid on house prices. 😆

Stamp duty is a big one

I want to downsize next few years, get rid of the big mortgage and free up my 4 bed 2 bathroom. Stamp duty as it is really putting me off

You are comparatively wealthy though in your area. It is all relative. If we compare to the global population than we are almost all wealthy. If we compare ourselves to the wealthiest in the world the. Very few of us are.

Yes salaries that create meaningful wealth which then supports wealth creator eco systems. The professional service class. It's very limited.

@PerkyCyanPoet Lucky to have the most expensive unaffordable housing in the country and eye watering mortgages!? I’m sure everyone feels so lucky! The SE does provide better infrastructure but the SE pays way more tax too! I doubt anytime in the NE wants to come to London. Why pay so much more for the same house?

Well no I don’t think I’d be caught by a wealth tax because I’m not wealthy (although I do pay a lot of tax) my point was that outside London there are fewer wealthy people, and even those in the most expensive 5% of housing don’t benefit from the things London does, which is why property is so much cheaper even an hour away from London.

How exactly would they value a house to be worth 2 million if it has not sold in many years? Council worker walking around Richmond or Greenwich with a pen, jotting down various houses. Or would they ask surveyors/estate agents? People would be disincentivised to improve their properties. 2 houses next to each other, identical facade, could be vastly different inside with a different value. You would need a national database of accurate house valuations first.

I am not writing off anyone. There are many ways to skin a cat. I'm not saying the North is Eutopia but factually house prices are very affordable there. The earnings to house price ratio is one of the lowest in the country. Rents are also low. It isn't as simple as more investment and higher wages improves living standards if all your costs are spiralling too.

It is a tax on the rich - the rich just happen to live in the capital city and surrounding areas. Which is the south. I don’t think you realise how much wealthier London is compared to the rest of the country and how lucky you are to live there and your children to grow up there.

I was actually served an Instagram ad for this house the other day and I can’t quite believe it. £3m for 205sq m and it needs a reno, actually unbelievable.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166577324#/?channel=RES_BUY

Which bit? The house price to earning ratio is much lower in the northeast than where I am.

Do you mean salaries are much, much lower than in the south east (outside london, rather than just a little bit lower?

The thing is minimum wage is the same in both areas, and things like teacher pay scale, nursing pay scale get an extra £1500 a year which doesnt cover the difference in house price at all. If i look at a lot of jobs on indeed they seem be paid very similar. My dh company only gives a tiny supplement to the south east v north east.

But maybe you are thinking top end salaries which i dont know about as its not my world. So senior partners, ceo level.

It can't get much worse in the NE. There's such a small professional eco-system that there's only a tiny wealth base. Vast numbers are employed by the state. I don't think there's much danger of things improving and young people wanting to stay there. There's no jobs.

But thank you for writing us off on the investment front! We know our place...

In summary, you want a wealth tax on other people.

@user4750 I agree - our house price increase is solely improvements - well, actually only maintenance really. Had to have new windows last year as a couple of panes fell right out their rotting frames.

In Italy you get a rebate (20% I think) for (proven) home maintenance. That encourages people to keep their homes in good condition and because receipts are required discourages black market.

I don’t think you could do it regionally, we live an hour away from London because property is cheaper here, we’re not in top 5%, probably top 20% and we do pay far more council tax than we would in a property of this value in London, transport is expensive and inferior to London. While someone in Hampshire in a house worth just under a million may be a similar size to a £2m in London, their level of wealth and lifestyle is not comparable.

We need a wealth tax, inequality is so huge now, we also need a massive social housing programme, we’ve not built enough housing for 40 years and the cost of housing is now driving inequality.

But is your cost of living the same as the SE? I don't live in the SE and our cost of living is considerably less. Lots of wages are broadly similar (public sector especially and minimum wage type jobs).

Wages where l live are nothing like SE salaries.

Yes it’s a higher salary but your comment made it sound like you thought the ratio would be broadly similar. “Yes houses are more expensive but you get a higher salary”. With ratios like that you’re paying a lot more of your salary on housing costs.

The rest of the SE is 5.6 times salary. With the area around London being 6.2 times.

Factually the earnings to house price ratio is far worse in London and the South East than the North. This is why I would be very wary of any so called levelling up if I was a Northerner. Yes, you may get a bit of investment and wage growth, but your house prices will shoot up and your standard of living may well drop. If you complain then you will be told to go and live in Wales or Scotland where house prices are still low. Be careful what you wish for.

I literally know of people with £1.5m+ mortgages. So people do have them…

That's not true in the North East at all.

Exactly like a tax on education. Costs more than it raises, damages lives and livelihoods, distorts the housing market and very few other countries do it. That didn't stop RR.

I live in the south east (not london) and the house price is around 10 times average earnings.

I think salaries are much more similar across the country than they used to be. Small differences but not as big as the house difference.

It’s not true to say other countries apply CGT to main residence sales.

While I’m not a tax expert I did attempt to search for the details and from what I can see very few countries do so and those that do have multitude of exemptions (eg in Germany it doesn’t apply if you’ve lived in the house for more than 10 years) and in the US there is a cap on the maximum you can pay.

The reason most countries don’t do it is simple - it doesn’t work and does more damage to the economy in stalling the housing market.

It's impossible to introduce CGT on primary residences fairly. The only way to do it is that it applies only to properties purchased from 2025 onwards. Otherwise people wont have retained receipts etc to prove their expenditure.

If they only apply it to properties purchased from 2025 onwards it will crash the market instantly. Nobody will want to move unless they really have to.

We have been in our house for 20 years. It's worth double what it was when we bought it but a big chunk of that is just inflation and another big chunk is renovations we have done which we can't possibly evidence. New windows new roof, new detached garage, new kitchen all new bathrooms, work to septic tank, new driveway. We just don't have the receipts from any of that. Most of it was over 15 years ago. What looks like a large gain is actually us not going on holiday etc because we needed to invest that money into our house. Whenever anyone is doing work to their house they factor in the fact that whilst its a sacrifice, it isn't completely wasted money because it will increase/maintain the value of their property.

If they apply a mansion tax to houses worth over £2m it will lead to a lot of houses for up for sale for £1.99m

What all of this does mean though is that surveying looks like a good career for young people..