You’re right. Demand for housing way exceeds supply, and financial tinkering won’t help. Supply isn’t the problem. Some 10m dwellings were built in the last 50 years - about a third extra. But, through mass immigration, our population increased artificially by 8m in the last 20 years or so. And so we have increased our already-high population density and also increased our demand for energy and food whilst reducing our capacity to produce them, making ourselves imprudently dependent on expensive and insecure imports. While immigration continues unabated, we can never build ‘enough’ houses. Demand needs fixing in our crowded little country, not supply.
The 1947 Planning Act is yet another socialist dog egg laid by the Attlee government the incoming Conservative administration should have repealed as a matter of priority. Just like the Human Rights Act, Climate Change Act and the Equalities Act dog eggs laid by Blair, the current set of Tory clowns have left in place. So much of the malaise in modern Britain is due to Labour legislation they had no democratic mandate to implement getting a pass from subsequent Tory governments.
Please please do some research on the cost of building a house. It is a key element in understanding our housing issues.
We hear “affordable” housing screamed all the time , but what is an affordable house?
Let’s define that first.
Your log cabin project is the cost to supply the kit. We could do the same with a bricks and mortar house. Order all components to be stored on site and they will match the £50k in your example.
Now ask what the assembly cost is. For a typical house the cost is £2000 per sqm (assembly and materials).
You might be able to get it down to £1500 if you are involved a bit more. So let’s use £1500 x 132 (your log house) and you get a real cost of £198k. Now buy some cheap land to sit it on. Say £100k. Is a £300k house cheap?
Maybe it is in London but would it be cheap in Nottinghamshire?
Houses are expensive let’s face that fact. Yes prices are distorted by the financial system but they still cost a lot.
When writing about this topic we must outline what a real house costs to build in different parts of the U.K. then we can see how distorted the financialisation of the housing market impacts the actual buy price.
Hard-hitting and perfectly accurate assessment of our dreadful situation. It's almost as if.....as if this had been brought about by design. Scary to think just where we go from here.
Although your article mentions the impact of government policies on house prices, let me give you one example that is happening right now.
The government, as you may have read, is increasing the subsidy on nursery and pre-school fees for most of the families. It is very welcome as it's unbelievable that I pay more for my 2 year son to stay at the nursery than I pay for my mortgage. We were happy that our total expending would go lower, we made calculations of how much we would save, what we could do with the new money we would save every month.
I was already suspicious nurseries would use the opportunity to increase their prices in line with the subsidy increase by the government. And that's exactly what happened.
Out of a sudden we received a letter saying prices would go up 28% at my kid's nursery. 28% in one go! Imagine that! I thought it could be an isolated impact just from this one nursery, but we we decided to get in contact with a couple other parents, from other nurseries, and they said the same thing happened to them.
I don't know if it's an isolated thing here where I live, if other nurseries in other towns are doing the same, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case. And of course, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the same happens to house prices if we get this 1% deposit option.
One of the issues in housing (that is probably too controversial to mention) is under-occupied family homes.
I understand how previous generations feel that have raised their families seen them move out, yet wish to remain in the family home that they worked so hard for.
I know many friends and family in this situation and I know of housing estates where many family homes are occupied by an elderly couple or even single elderly ladies.
Pretty much the same issue here in Oz. People who don’t own their own house also tend to vote green / communist imho. Here building costs are astronomical and often the house piece isn’t much more than the cost of the land, which never used to be the case. If the market set the rates and not the Central Bank, then maybe there would be a flush out.
No-one really wants their slice of the Ponzi payout sliced up and redistributed. And no one will admit it. 'Death taxes' is the lastest civil-society mud to sling.
If we can head-up any conversation with that admission, then we may have a chance of resolution - but I shalln't hold my breath.
We are heading towards Neo-feudalism and the rear end of the 70% are too busy running to avoid being sucked back into the vortex of despair and the sleaze of 'Portfolios', to ever care about the existence they just left.
I could go on, but I'd be pissing in the wind, ....and these are my only suede shoes.
Hi Dom, the price is for the shell delivered to site. No erection costs, no internal fit out, kitchen,bathroom,elec,heating, no plasterboard- I could go on. Add 100% & you might get close.
£45,000 to provide a house is clearly an untruth, you do yourself no credit. What else did you get wrong ? A modest extension to your house costs more than that.
You’re right. Demand for housing way exceeds supply, and financial tinkering won’t help. Supply isn’t the problem. Some 10m dwellings were built in the last 50 years - about a third extra. But, through mass immigration, our population increased artificially by 8m in the last 20 years or so. And so we have increased our already-high population density and also increased our demand for energy and food whilst reducing our capacity to produce them, making ourselves imprudently dependent on expensive and insecure imports. While immigration continues unabated, we can never build ‘enough’ houses. Demand needs fixing in our crowded little country, not supply.
The 1947 Planning Act is yet another socialist dog egg laid by the Attlee government the incoming Conservative administration should have repealed as a matter of priority. Just like the Human Rights Act, Climate Change Act and the Equalities Act dog eggs laid by Blair, the current set of Tory clowns have left in place. So much of the malaise in modern Britain is due to Labour legislation they had no democratic mandate to implement getting a pass from subsequent Tory governments.
Please please do some research on the cost of building a house. It is a key element in understanding our housing issues.
We hear “affordable” housing screamed all the time , but what is an affordable house?
Let’s define that first.
Your log cabin project is the cost to supply the kit. We could do the same with a bricks and mortar house. Order all components to be stored on site and they will match the £50k in your example.
Now ask what the assembly cost is. For a typical house the cost is £2000 per sqm (assembly and materials).
You might be able to get it down to £1500 if you are involved a bit more. So let’s use £1500 x 132 (your log house) and you get a real cost of £198k. Now buy some cheap land to sit it on. Say £100k. Is a £300k house cheap?
Maybe it is in London but would it be cheap in Nottinghamshire?
Houses are expensive let’s face that fact. Yes prices are distorted by the financial system but they still cost a lot.
When writing about this topic we must outline what a real house costs to build in different parts of the U.K. then we can see how distorted the financialisation of the housing market impacts the actual buy price.
Hard-hitting and perfectly accurate assessment of our dreadful situation. It's almost as if.....as if this had been brought about by design. Scary to think just where we go from here.
Although your article mentions the impact of government policies on house prices, let me give you one example that is happening right now.
The government, as you may have read, is increasing the subsidy on nursery and pre-school fees for most of the families. It is very welcome as it's unbelievable that I pay more for my 2 year son to stay at the nursery than I pay for my mortgage. We were happy that our total expending would go lower, we made calculations of how much we would save, what we could do with the new money we would save every month.
I was already suspicious nurseries would use the opportunity to increase their prices in line with the subsidy increase by the government. And that's exactly what happened.
Out of a sudden we received a letter saying prices would go up 28% at my kid's nursery. 28% in one go! Imagine that! I thought it could be an isolated impact just from this one nursery, but we we decided to get in contact with a couple other parents, from other nurseries, and they said the same thing happened to them.
I don't know if it's an isolated thing here where I live, if other nurseries in other towns are doing the same, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the case. And of course, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the same happens to house prices if we get this 1% deposit option.
Lovely stuff.
One of the issues in housing (that is probably too controversial to mention) is under-occupied family homes.
I understand how previous generations feel that have raised their families seen them move out, yet wish to remain in the family home that they worked so hard for.
I know many friends and family in this situation and I know of housing estates where many family homes are occupied by an elderly couple or even single elderly ladies.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/overcrowdingandunderoccupancybyhouseholdcharacteristicsenglandandwales/census2021#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20majority%20of%20households%20had%20more%20bedrooms%20than,occupied%2Dto%2Dstandard).
Pretty much the same issue here in Oz. People who don’t own their own house also tend to vote green / communist imho. Here building costs are astronomical and often the house piece isn’t much more than the cost of the land, which never used to be the case. If the market set the rates and not the Central Bank, then maybe there would be a flush out.
No-one really wants their slice of the Ponzi payout sliced up and redistributed. And no one will admit it. 'Death taxes' is the lastest civil-society mud to sling.
If we can head-up any conversation with that admission, then we may have a chance of resolution - but I shalln't hold my breath.
We are heading towards Neo-feudalism and the rear end of the 70% are too busy running to avoid being sucked back into the vortex of despair and the sleaze of 'Portfolios', to ever care about the existence they just left.
I could go on, but I'd be pissing in the wind, ....and these are my only suede shoes.
Hi Dom, the price is for the shell delivered to site. No erection costs, no internal fit out, kitchen,bathroom,elec,heating, no plasterboard- I could go on. Add 100% & you might get close.
The Tory party and the blob at the treasury are financial terrorists, they're pure evil
Be karma is violent terrorists dealt with them.
I'd be delighted.
£45,000 to provide a house is clearly an untruth, you do yourself no credit. What else did you get wrong ? A modest extension to your house costs more than that.