Why have people tolerated the housing catastrophe of the last 30 years

[nomemono]

I know it has been good for those geared up or alt the top of the ladder in the mid 90s, and to a declining degree, most years since then, but really, how has this been allowed to happen. Just as one illustration, houses in the frankly crime ridden North London estate I grew up now cost 4 times their real, inflation adjusted, 1997 price. £420,000 to live in one of the worst areas of London, in an old, poorly insulated house. Oxford, affordable when I was a student, now almost worse than London. Cambridge, Brighton, anywhere well linked and with good transport links or local jobs, the same. People casually posting on this website about having £900k to spend on a house. Single people shafted, ditto those without inheritances. How has it come to this?

🤔

Nail on the head on all those points. Lending to small businesses/self employed is ridiculously difficult, so unless you've already got money in the bank or can remortgage your home, you're not going to get finance to start or grow your business.

Conversely, remortgaging to buy a run down house, do it up, re-mortgage it to buy another run down house, etc., and anyone can quickly build up a portfolio of buy to let homes - albeit very heavily leveraged.

It's why so many "entreprenneurs" have built up a portfolio of rented houses - it's simply easier and less risky than setting up a "proper" business.

With portfolio landlords being able to snap up run down properties at auctions etc (effectively "cash buyers" due to remortgaging so can move quickly and don't need surveys and can buy "un mortgageable" homes), they push out the likes of first time buyers who end up trapped renting (and paying for the portfolio landlords profits and growth).

The only asset that can never be hidden is land.

Something to think about if you wanted to devise an efficient and fair taxation system (not that anyone is).

Hard to hide a house as well, hence double council tax on empty rental etc.?

Sadly @SerendipityJane whilst land and property can't be hidden from the naked eye, they can be hidden from the tax man. It is relatively easy to set up an overseas shell company to wrap a property in.

Only if you employ blind tax inspectors who have been chained to their desks.

The house next door to me is there no matter who owns it, where they live, or any other irrelevant details.

Whether or not you want to use that as a basis for taxation is another matter. Generally we (as a society) have made our choice, and have to accept the consequences that flow from that choice.

I dont know how anybody affords a house these days. The rise in house prices was just insane.
Im lucky that I was able to buy a house right at the start of the crazy rises. Bought my house in 1999. If Id waited just 6mths I would only have been able to afford a flat....if Id waited a year Id still be renting.

@SerendipityJane with over 30 million dwellings in existence in the UK, you are going to need quite a few sighted and unchained tax inspectors to physically lay eyes on them all - should you want to tax them of course!

You may have (inadvertently 🤔?) addressed your own point with your last words 😀

The land registry is computerised or getting that way.

In addition the councils know where most of the houses are. They are pretty good at collecting council tax. There may not be a joined up system yet, but it will get there eventually.

Too many inferences there for me to work out. I guess you may be right - but I don't know which point I'm agreeing to 😂.

This

Yep, and the guy at the top now seems to want to go after this tax stream?

About 12% is not on the register and will never be, unless something changes.

That's around about 5 million acres. And (in case you hadn't guessed it), it's mainly owned by the indescribably rich.

Looking at the infographic about council tax rates and increases in the different local authorities, the main change under Andy Burnham's proposed changes (as I understand them so far) is that London and SE property taxes will rise sharply. I'm in the South, but our council tax is fairly high anyway, so I doubt any increase/decrease would be significant.

Better to start somewhere than not start at all.

well thank god people's home values have risen....

...because that's what will be paying their care home fees.

It all has to come from somewhere and we are all fucked.

Maybe.

But too many false dawns for me to get hopeful. He is proposing or at least been linked with a lot of stuff that is going to get a certain demographic really up in arms.

Do not let perfection be the enemy of progress, either.

Any links with more info?

He thinks rightousness is on his side, could be an interesting couple of years?

Haven’t read the full thread but it’s lucky my house is worth £500k+ (in the south) as it seems likely the whole cost will be eaten up pretty quickly, about 4/5 years worth, if I need care and if I don’t they’ll come after me for IHT or whatever is the latest tax for the squeezed middle.

?
https://whoownsengland.org/2019/01/11/the-holes-in-the-map-englands-unregistered-land/

Also, it's interesting to note that one thing in England has worked phenomenally well these past 10 centuries

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/high-house-prices-inequality-normans

Take house prices. According to the author Kevin Cahill, the main driver behind the absurd expense of owning land and property in Britain is that so much of the nation's land is locked up by a tiny elite. Just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land, running Britain a close second to Brazil for the title of the country with the most unequal land distribution on Earth.

Much of this can be traced back to 1066. The first act of William the Conqueror, in 1067, was to declare that every acre of land in England now belonged to the monarch. This was unprecedented: Anglo-Saxon England had been a mosaic of landowners. Now there was just one. William then proceeded to parcel much of that land out to those who had fought with him at Hastings. This was the beginning of feudalism; it was also the beginning of the landowning culture that has plagued England – and Britain – ever since.

The dukes and earls who still own so much of the nation's land, and who feature every year on the breathless rich lists, are the beneficiaries of this astonishing land grab. William's 22nd great-granddaughter, who today sits on the throne, is still the legal owner of the whole of England. Even your house, if you've been able to afford one, is technically hers. You're a tenant, and the price of your tenancy is your loyalty to the crown. When the current monarch dies, her son will inherit the crown (another Norman innovation, incidentally, since Anglo-Saxon kings were elected). As Duke of Cornwall, he is the inheritor of land that William gave to Brian of Brittany in 1068, for helping to defeat the English at Hastings.

the distorted housing market contributes to our low growth economy

Very interesting, thanks.