Talk:Affordability of housing in the United Kingdom

Housing

I am not a smart property buyer, so please tell me how this relates to the US market, and what "price to income" ratio we have historically and what it is now. thanks Steve

Hi Steve. I don't know but these people may. JASpencer 17:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The US market is a misnomer, the US operates, at best 'regional markets' (and otherwise state markets). The US housing market is definitely looking like a bubble (defined as when people begin to purchase housing, regardless of cost and mortgage payments, purely for capital gains), but this depends heavily where the housing is available. The price-to-income rate has to be calculated on a local basis, but you also have to consider the location. New York City, like London (where I live) is much more compact than Alabama, as a whole, and will have many more wealthy people living in the centre of the city, as compared to a state as a whole. This means that, even within New York City, people living in Manhattan will have higher incomes and may throw off a price-to-income graph for the whole city. The US markets, in general, I feel are heading for trouble (due to several factors, not just housing), but it really depends where you live. If the area is cheap and hasn't appreciated for what appears little reason, you'll be fine (or better off). The trouble is that the US does not suffer from housing shortages (unlike Britain, which has household formation that exceeds new construction, meaning that property is often converted into flats, etc.). So the there is little reason for a housing boom, other than low interest rates and a perception of 'get rich quick'. Cheers, Nick Kerr 20:42, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Updates

This article should be updated to include information about the structure of the housing market, issues with things like planning permission and infrastructure, and also issues like the North-South divide, which produces scope for the increases we've seen in the past few years (where Scotland and the North of England have much faster rises in property values than London and the SouthEast). Also, mortgage reliefs were removed around 1992, but rental income is still taxed separately from Income Tax, making it more advantageous for those earning at the Upper Rate of income tax to own property for investment purposes, as compared to shares, bonds, or simple bank deposits. Nick Kerr 09:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Older history

Could someone add information about prices earlier in the 20th century? mavhc 11:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Advertising for "propertysearchnow.com"

The domain www.propertysearchnow.com ("UK Property Guide with Maps & Photos.") is really quite useless, full with google adwords and some completely irrelevant information such as Forex trading and tax havens! It is almost certainly spam. I seriously question its inclusion as an external link.

Not familiar with the wikipedia system so please excuse any mistakes here. 81.106.150.95 18:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not NPOV

I have deleted the reference to a 'communist system of planning controls' since that is hardly NPOV. In fact, the actual communists in Eastern Europe were in fact rather keen on building - hence the vast number of ugly tower blocks you see there!

The way the article is phrased also fails to mention one of the main reasons why the deregulatory Conservative govt of 1979-1997 failed to liberalise the system. Existing middle-class home-owners don't like new developments going up in their area and so they like their local councils to have the power to block them! The article at the moment is written from far too much of a right-wing POV. Will try and make it more neutral. Vino s 19:54, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest the title itself is not NPOV is it? Andehandehandeh 23:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Sorry, I thought it was called "British Housing Bubble", but that was a redirect. I still think the use of the word 'bubble' is not NPOV as we can hardly say the market will definitely 'pop'. Andehandehandeh 23:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am changing the text as some of the recent edits put in some further NPOV material.80.47.178.138 13:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If someone with a relevant knowledge of economy could rephrase a lot of this article it would probably be more helpful. At present the article seems very POV, although not knowing anything relevant about economics, I may be completely wrong. However, the constant asserios that greenbelt and planning offices override personal freedoms, the lack of any citations to this effect or of any counterarguments, and the addition of embedded external links gives this article a very POV tone, as though written by an angry developer. Yasha212.139.165.254 12:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed quite a lot of it today to take out some of the more outrageously NPOV stuff, but this is hard without just deleting massive sections. I've also put in some links some sources which might provide firmer evidence for those who want to help get this article up to scratch. Andehandehandeh 16:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It could be argued that as my wife is a (very) hard working Planning Officer, trying her best to protect her fellow ordinary citizens from unscrupulous developers (is there any other kind?) who would literally cover every last inch of this green, pleasant and already overcrowded land, I shouldn't be commenting. However the tone of this article indicates that NPOV has been abolished so I suppose I can go ahead. Each reference to planning departments and greenbelt carries an overt perjorative tone and I believe they should be removed. Especially given the lack of citation. In fact I think I might do that myself. Bearing in mind the supposed sanctity of NPOV on WikiP it is kind of the author to include (POV) to indicate those bits which are POV and should be so removed. This biased and skewed article should be hacked to pieces and left as a purely objective look at what has happened to house prices in recent years and where possible a drawing together of citable material that purports to explain why. Currently citation-lite. Scorzon 13:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's unfair to describe all developers as unscrupulous. Surely a planning officer's role is to facilitate sound development as well stop bad stuff. I agree that planning departments are unfairly scapegoated though. They get a lot of flack for decisions that are actually made by poorly trained local councillors on planning committees. I agree with the slash and burn approach to this article until someone can provide some proper NPOV content with sources. I will try and add bits and pieces if I ever get the time.Andehandehandeh 23:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In fact now that I come to think of it, I strongly object to this diatribe - every day I hear stories of how planning departments fight to persuade fat cat developers that they should build higher density, smaller homes on the land that they acquire, instead of huge 5 bed executive homes. But of course, the exec homes yield a greater profit. Scorzon 14:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PricedOut

Is this pressure group noteworthy enough to be mentioned? How big are they? Have they had any impact yet? I'm not necessarily saying they haven't, I just haven't heard of them outside this and they seem to get a few mentions. Andehandehandeh 16:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I saw them mentioned on Channel 4 news, a while back, although I have no proof of it.82.24.115.150 20:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Buy to Let

At the same time as removing pejorative comments about planning departments and greenbelt, I have removed a misconception about the 'buy to let' investor (of which I am not BTW). The assertion that these people amplify the lack of housing supply is patently ridiculous. They do nothing of the sort. When they buy a house it does not magically disappear, it becomes available for lease as a home. It may stop someone else from buying it, but they can always rent it. Demolition experts and possibly those buying second (and third) homes in this country amplify the problem, as do developers who prefer to develop 5 bed executive homes on the same footprint that 2 flats and a 2 bed starter home could be built.

Yes I would agree that buy-to-let doesn't necessary affect availability of housing, but there is also the area a buy-to-leave where investors are buying up property off plan, then not letting and just looking to make money on capital gains. Even then it could hardly be said to 'cause' the crisis, because numerically it still must be a drop in the ocean compared to demand.Andehandehandeh 23:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back in the late 1990s, buy-to-let accounted for about 1% of loans taken out for the purposes of buying a house. Today, these property speculators account for 9% of outstanding home loans. In 2006, 330,000 buy-to-let mortgages were taken out, making it the fastest growing part of the housing market. This is a product of cheap money creating speculation in prices, the first time buyers are replace by speculators pricing them out the market then renting the property back to people who would of in the past been first time buyers. The number of owner occupiers is in decline as the number houses sold to buy to let investor was almost double the number of new homes built. There has been no significant rise in rental rates that you would expect if there was significant shortage of property. To say its "patently ridiculous" that BTL is pushing up prices is stretching credulity.

I didn't say that BTL don't push up prices, I never mentioned prices, I merely said that it is patently ridiculous to suggest that they amplify, i.e. make bigger, the lack of housing. I stand by that. Scorzon 21:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually* The buy to let boom does affect housing supply! Not in the absolute number of properties, but in the availability of those properties to buy. The statement 'When they buy a house it does not magically disappear, it becomes available for lease as a home' is true, but what is equally true is that that house is no longer available to buy. What happens is that the buy-to-let investor competes with the 1st time buyer in the market - both with very different goals. The presence of the buy-to-let (2nd or 3rd property acquirer) increases the demand artificially and at any point in time that a buy-to-let buyer gets a house at the expense of a 1st (or other buyer), the price goes up artificially. Of course you can only describe this as artificial if you consider residential property to be first and formost homes and not investments which is clearly now debatable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.30.250 (talk) 07:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cause of the Crisis

I have removed several blatantly untrue and POV statements from this section of the article, which has resulted in the loss of the first paragraph. The second I have left in as I cannot definitely refute them. The T&CP Act 1947 DID NOT introduce greenbelts, they were introduced by Sandys in around 1955 and the act was not put in place to encourage people to move to the new towns, that is patently not what it was for. In short the paragraph became at this point untenable so I removed it.Scorzon 14:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Homelessness? Priceless

The housing crisis has caused high levels of homelessness in recent years (no proof and no citation), especially for critical personnel (nurses, teachers, police, firepersons, etc.) Policemen are living in cardboard boxes now? Who's going to move them on? --Dilaudid 23:17, 4 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly and I notice that the house building figures that show the increase in number of new homes being built has been removed.

Bubble mentality?

I see that there is much on this page about Buy-to-let and home building, yet nothing that mentions bubble mentality and low interest rates. Surely these deserve a mention on this page? I am happy to put them in but am so surprised they're not here already I thought it best to check to see whether concensus is they'd improve the article or not Speedything (talk) 12:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Misrepresentation

I wonder if the person who added this appalling piece of misrepresenatation would like to justify it -

"An admitted error on the part of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee, led it to cut interest rates in August 2005."

BBC NEWS | The Reporters | Evan Davis

-- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 19:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Housing Crash

Would it not be appropriate for a significant mention of the predicted property crash/stagnation? (Mythiran (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC))[reply]

No. It would likely conflict with too many of WP policies and guidelines which was the problem with the article prior to cleanup. Thanks for asking though <g> ! -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 09:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What a rubbishy article

Nearly as bad as the one on professionalism last time I looked (dont like looking at it - its so awful).

Someone needs to devise a structure to it that others can fill in and elaborate. For example: History, Supply, Demand, and so on. And what does this mean? "House prices at the end of 2006 were 35% above the trend prices of the last 30 years." 80.2.200.169 (talk) 00:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is, due to the lack of content. Before it had a load of content, but it was not encyclopedic and breached Wikipedia policies and guidelines - personal opinion, original research, and unverified content which resulted in it's removal. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The trend price is the long term price of house prices when the peaks and slumps are removed in this case over 30 years, a simple trend line. The Nationwide building society to its credit has published this for some years and it shows that prices only go up around 2% in real terms in the long term. Assets values be they shares or houses generally return to the long term trend, despite claims by investors that "it is different this time". The problem with this article is that is that it has to be series of facts because of the belief that there is a housing shortage, that is used to support house prices that are 35% above 30 year trend line. Most people and the media believe that is why the house price are high and there is a real shortage of housing in the UK. The lack of increase in rents in line with house price suggest this is a myth, but if you write this in the article others will remove it (as has happened many times), as many people in the UK are very financially exposed if this is true. All you can do is state statistics and hopefully enough people reading the article will spot the dangers of being 35% above trend. In previous slumps falling prices did not stop once they got back to the trend line they fell well below it before recovering. In Japan (over crowed Islands like UK) prices dropped almost 70% from peak and this was removed when I put it in the article! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.34.8 (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's no conspiricy theory. Editors decided to add material that breached Wikipedia policies and guidelines, so it was removed. People need to read the policies and guidelines and decide whether or not they are willing to work within them, if not, Wikipedia is not the place for them.

The calculations for a trend line do not remove peaks and slumps. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 20:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A trend line OVER 30 YEARS or more will remove the peaks and slumps, you can see this on the Nationwide website, there are no peaks just a steadily raising trend line when adjusted for inflation. Investors use trend line prices to remove or if you prefer smooth out the peaks and slumps to find long term trends. If the peaks and slumps remained it would not generally be considered by many investors to be a trend line. Markets prices fluctuate a lot and experienced investors (particularly value investors) try to remove these fluctuation to find a longer term trend line when trying to value or forecast future prices. If you study investment history, what you find is that things don't really change that much, you get repeating tech bubbles such as Canals, Railways, the Internet or for example in UK house prices appear to follow a 18 year cycles going back almost 300 years. Therefore a 30 year trend line removes the peaks and troughs of the 18 year cycles and history show that prices generally fall back to the trend line or below in time. These trends can break down once investors take them into account, but this does not appear to have happened in the last 10 years and recent price falls are consistent with the 18 cycle. William —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.225.141 (talk) 20:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion?

I have to agree that this is a dreadful article. I dont think it contains anything that warranted the creation of a specific article on this issue. Unless someone can provide some structured, researched, viable information on the subject is it not better to delete it? Paulmallon (talk) 14:35, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]