Government should do something to make house buying easier.

[Smartieismycat]

Why not nationalise mortgages, have one bank (the government) lending. Set interest rate (as it is anyway). Goverment mortgage bank is non profit so pays staff but not any shareholders. Any interest we pay on our mortages is put back into the economy to good use.
Un-sued vacant housing stock bought up by government and let out/sold. Profits put back into economy.
I'm in favour of the free market but too much weirdness is going on in the property market - with buy to let landlords able to borrow but first time buyers not.
Fat cats wouldn't like it.

and have the same principle as in scotland that once you make a formal offer thats it-point of contract- not waiting weeks for exchange and spending on searches, fees for solicitors for 'your buyers to pull out for no reason at exchange' and leave you with costs for a property that you now can not proceed to purchase

Nationalisation, then?

Ridiculous idea.

No, I don't agree with natonalising mortgages.

However I completely agree that there is a ridiculously large quantity of vacant housing which could be put to good use (by the government if needs be).

Buying your own house is hard work and a big responsibility, but it's not a right.

I don't think that only those who are better off should be able to buy their houses, but that's not the case everywhere or we'd not have a house.

I agree with wannabe

When you say 'non-profit' do you mean it would be like a mutual building society where investors earn interest but there are no other 'shareholders' taking a cut?

Or do you mean there wouldn't be be ordinary people saving via this bank? If not, how would it be funded?

Regards your description of a "government bank", haven't you just effectively described a building society?

The amount of empty property in this country is nothing short of a scandal.

I quite like the idea of there only being one or two (or three at a push) types of mortgage with a variable interest rate linked to the Bank Of England rate. Would make the whole process a darn sight easier.

Er 'Un-sued vacant housing stock bought up by government and let out/sold. Profits put back into economy.'
This is exactly what happened and now there is a major housing crisis for those unable to afford to buy because people are being forced to pay private rent, many don't have enough for a deposit and councils also have to pay full rate which takes money from the Government account. You can get buy to let as a first time buyer if you live at home with parents etc.
Lets face it Labour royally screwed the economy when they changed mortgage rules origionally to 5-6 times wages instead of three times the blokes salary. House prices rose accordingly because it appeared that people could afford more and consequently they are now too expensive for those who could have afforded it before. So NO! Making it easier creates debt and leads people to believe they are able to afford what they really can't!

why ridiculous? isn't that just rent control like ine US?

oops sorry misread op

Allowing house prices to fall back to 3 x average salaries woudld make it a lot easier rather trying to keep them up as the Bank of England is desperatley trying to do with .

Problem is that if that happened a lot of banks would go bust because millions of people would walk away from their mortgage in negative equity.

The USA effectivley nationalised its mortgage market to make it easier for people to buy homes through the two Govt agencies called Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both of these agencies have or will have lost trillions of dollars.

Not sure. Think we have reached some sort of stalemate with the housing market anyway. Without FTB I'm not sure what is going to happen. I don't believe it is that much easier to get a BTL mortgage either. Not sure nationalising the mortgage market would do much to change things really.

I agree the housing market is in a very weird place at the moment. However, we just capitalised with all the uncertainty and got a good chunk off the price of our house. After all, a house is just to live in rather than make money on surely?

what do you mean by a goverment bank?
goverments dont have any money of their own.
They raise money via taxation to pay for the services provided and at presnt we dont raise enough to cover what we already have spent. So where is the money going to come from to start up this bank or do you think they can just print a few extra billon tenners.

After all, a house is just to live in rather than make money on surely?

I do wish people would learn this simple lesson. But I'm old enough to have seen booms and busts before, so I doubt it - cupidity leads to stupidity.

As soon as house price inflation starts to outstrip salary inflation, and people start to see their house as an 'investment', you can be sure that at some point in the future many people will come to grief.

Never owned a house here in the UK so I'm not sure what provisions are in place to help homeowners out.

In Canada for instance you can put a certain amount of money per year - somewhere around $20,000 - into a gov't-organised retirement savings fund tax-free, similar to a 401(k) in America. For your first home purchase, and only for that purchase, you can use that tax-free saved money for a down payment, with strict repayment terms (otherwise you have to pay back the tax you saved). That's helped numerous friends of mine buy their first house.

In Holland, interest on mortgages is tax-free, so once you hit a certain rental cost, buying is just cheap as renting. There is rent controlled housing too but the waiting lists for that are so long that most people just buy. The downside is that real estate prices are (imo) kept artificially high, though good housing in NL is scarce anyway given the population density.

These kinds of measures would help people become homeowners, but imo the class-based social history in the UK means that home ownership for the masses isn't deemed a priority by the gov't. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.

Hi sorry back. My idea does need elaboration. We all know house prices got too high, where people on higher than average salaries can't currently get a mortgage without deposit. My sister earns £50,000 but has only £10k savings, clean credit record, and long employement record, but can't get a mortgage.
There are reasons for this, in our area particuarly (south east) not enough decent-sized family homes and the ones that are being built are being bought by landlords using equity in other property as deposit.
Home ownership is not a right, but we do - all those of us working at the very least - deserve to be able to choose to have a roof over our heads.
The government bank idea is because I feel property (residential) should not be an investment class. That's what's happened in the UK and if something isn't done then I think there will be trouble.

Government bank would be run as building society but the 'member's would be the UK public. The same bank would raise money the way governments raise (bonds etc) but also via a seperately run savings bank. So those that lend money to the government would be earning interest on their cash too.

Now why is that ridiculous? With a bit of tweaking it could work.

Crazy, whats the big deal in owning. I n many countries renting is the norm

Would this Government bank be competing against other banks or would it require the nationalisation of all banks operating. If its to compete against other banks how would it raise capital?
I'm pretty sure that the wholescale nationalisation of banks would be illegal under EU competition laws.

Where would the government get the money to fund this in the first place? It might use mine - stashed away for a rainy day! Interest put back into the economy to good use. Who would decide on good use? What is good use - NHS, Trident?

Thinks of putting house on market fast and emigrating.

coccyx - the deal about owning is that tenants have very few rights and not much stability. Fine if you are a younger person without a family but not if you have a family and get served with notice. You often can't do a place up or make any improvements and many LLs are happy to rent out properties in a sorry state.

All these things are different on the continent where people see renting as the norm. I wish things were different here (I actually hate owning property and would probably rather rent) but the Coalition have actually just scrapped plans to improve the rights of tenants which were drawn up by Labour when in power. Things aren't going to change anytime soon where renting is concerned.