This needs to be stamped out now, but I'd be willing to bet our government either have investments in Lloyds and companies like them or they are receiving donations.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...iary-168m.html
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This needs to be stamped out now, but I'd be willing to bet our government either have investments in Lloyds and companies like them or they are receiving donations.
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...iary-168m.html
Wait until the banks start renting out repossessed houses.
You'll own nothing and be happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1959
MAGA!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
No, WEF! You'll need to MAGA your way out of it if you don't like it.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1959
Its outrageous. Much of what is being built in Cardiff is buy to let. No one has a chance of owning it.
Welsh Govt could outlaw it if they so wished. They should, but they won't.
I'm not Maga-ing my way out of anything. That's your badge of dishonour!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wales-Bales
You need to do one fundamental thing to stop this. Prevent companies owning private housing. Do you think that will happen? Nope.Quote:
Originally Posted by Doucas
1. Many senior politicians such as Hunt and Blair own property portfolios with limited companies. There are offshore private companies and landed UK aristocrats that own most of UK land a lot of bulk property in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...downers-author
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...land-ownership
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-hoarding-land
2. Housebuilders - in a challenging market they want guaranteed sales and a level of buying that keeps prices high. They donated to New Labour and the current Conservatives. Don't expect either party to sympathise.
3. Banks and insurance companies needs yields on their portfolio investments. In recent years they have only received 1-2% on average on their insurance portfolios. This is paid out to pensioner with policies in the form of annuities. The higher their yields the higher the payouts and profits. Once you own a bond the yield is fixed and predictable, and capital is limited upside. Not so with property. Rising rents mean a rising yield and increase in house price gives them capital gains a bond never could if bought at par value, or just below.
Why else did you think Osborne and Hunt kept the crusade against private landlords? They needed the tax and Left leaning voters would agree. Remove the tax net off, take private buyers out of the market, depress the market so that these big insurance companies can come in, buy in bulk, write the mortgage off via their companies (that a private individual mortgagee cannot unless inside a limited company) and reap the yields.
So you have vested interests. Don't expect any help from Labour. Their private donors are already lining up. I think this practice will continue, unless an anti-globalist Capitalist, or a hard Left candidate is in the driving seat. With Blair and Mandelson advising Starmer behind the scenes, this practice will only gather pace.
For those not reading the above link, the first link reveals staggering statistics:
1. 30% - Aristocracy and gentry
2. 17% - Unaccounted (owned for so long, never declared to Land Registry. Therefore probably more aristocratic land since the Norman Conquest)
3. 18% - Corporations
4. 17% - Oligarchs and City bankers
So nearly half of UK land (30% + 17%=47%) is aristocratic owned. Corporations not so bad if it is supermarkets and manufacturing as that is normal freehold owners. But add in the oligarchs (17%) and that is majority ownership (64%: aristocrats + oligarchs) not by the UK people.
We don't have a land problem. We have a land control problem with vested interests that works against the interests of the UK voting population. Bear in mind the aristocrats are effectively bullies from a millennium ago. Sir Rupert was harder than Sir Tarquin, one killed the other took his land and exploited workers for near-penury. These are not skilled business people.
Leaving aside the Crown for a separate subject, the government ought to find a way of getting the property and land off aristocrats, and use the land for public good. Force oligarchs to sell theirs back at market price to the government.
Those two measures alone would release 67% of land for housing, schools, social housing, road building and other useful public works. Until then, land will be continually locked and prices kept at artificially high levels, rendering the price of houses ever-high. I don't think this will ever happen, but it would be two moves that would solve a lot of the country's problems.
Mass social housing needed
Anything else is back of the queue till that happens
I would agree Sludge. I don't like the private v public housing debate. It is where my opinion is more nuanced and not answered by the current main parties. My views is that private housing is good for independence, wealth accretion and control of your own land and roof.Quote:
Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY
Public housing is best used for people in temporary financial crisis, former military workers who fall on ill health, disabled and those on low incomes. In the modern day the flexible workforce / contractors and gig workers benefit by temporary movement and therefore need temporary housing to help.
If aristocratic land was seized, and land removed from oligarchs, use the land as public land, and modular building which now costs 40k to assembled could be rolled out up and down the country. Governments could centrally contract these private firms and build them at 40k a head. Economic, green and clean. Rock up, decide if it is 1 month, 3 month, 6 month or whatever. Pay like B and B, get a key. Modular housing can be built much cheaper than the old brick "mining houses" seen in the valleys.
It is being rolled out in the US and Europe more and more, and areas like Newport and Hull are using it to good effect. Housebuilders won't like it as it may put price pressure on them. But I think any government wishing to be popular could seize this opportunity and correct a problem practically, and take the heat out of the politics.
Cost? It is rumoured that there is a shortage of 1 million homes in the UK. Before allowing unlimited people into the country sort this housing capacity problem out first. By my calculation 1 million modular homes * £40k = £40bn. With national debt already £2,516bn, pay and build for that £40bn over three years and it barely moves the debt needle, and the reduction in high social housing costs should sort that out within three years.
The only remaining question is what is the second-order effect elsewhere. If a housing shortage is fixed, do the prices of private housing fall? Do rents fall? Probably. Then you have to assess the fall in stamp duty on private sales, VAT, corporation tax on private rental companies, and other such effects. If the loss of tax revenue for the government is greater than the savings made on social housing payouts and the good politics of sorting the problem, then the shortage of tax could hit the government's ability to pay for the NHS, civil servant wages etc. So it's not cut an dry, but worth exploring.
If I were Starmer or Sunak, chasing young disgruntled voters, I would make this a commitment. Bound to be a vote-winner.
Not that simple ,Social Housing needs to PPCA standard before house-builders can apply for grants etc , at least in Wales.Quote:
Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY
https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/...sociations.pdf
They are already doing trials that meet standards. My example of Newport was already mentioned above.Quote:
Originally Posted by TWGL1
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...could-26702036