The boomers ate all the avocados
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MM house sellers are price takers not makers.
£400k may be too much now but £400k when everyone's wages have gone up 30% looks quite different.
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Yeah - I see that but likely?
What's an "MM house seller"
Wilier Izoard XP0 -
A house seller haha. Typo.
I mean, cycling in Paris over a 5 year period has become the preferred way of travel. These things can be changed.
Holland in the 60s was awful for bikes and everyone drove. Now look at it.
These things can be done. It's about having the leadership and the political capital and will to spend it to solve the problem.
All these houses we live in now were once built - overriding local objections. These things can change.
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I agree in theory but the issue is it will take more than one parliament to loosen the legislation and start accelerating building rates. If, in that time, the policy is unpopular then they'll get kicked out before anything meaningful can happen. The current Government has even backtracked on their own policies that were designed to help fix the system during the term in which they were elected with that as a pledge. We may, as you suggested earlier, be reaching a tipping point where being pro-house building wins more votes than it loses (hopefully the same in respect of 'green' issues too). That said, we are probably a generation or two away from being able to get to there being the levels of housing that will bring sale prices down.I would say they're more likely to stall first due to not enough people being able to afford to enter the market.
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I thought the stall was going to happen a decade or two ago. There seems to be no end.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Given that PB has some rather novel ideas on the functioning of markets, I'd put more weight on findings that are consistent with standard economic theory. A deflationary housing market is absolutely not a good thing. Moderating inflation is a good thing and a general increase in housing supply such that people don't have to accept living in vermin infested, mouldy and sewage fouled dwellings is definitely a good thing.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Bang up to date info there. 😁
Can I suggest things might have moved on in 35 years.
It's very handy for the independent schools around Dulwich.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
That standard economic theory is working out oh so well after all...
How is housing to become affordable without a deflationary housing market? Double wages with the related inflation?
No. Things will just carry on as they are and people will become more mobile again or just moan about being poor.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
It was a s***hole then and not a huge amount has changed.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Not sure what you mean by well. If you massively restrict supply, below demand, prices will spike. That is what is happening. It's not 'people paying more than they should'. If supply outstrips demand then prices will fall, as briefly happened in London during COVID when 700,000 people left London and rents dropped briefly. We are a long way from even matching demand, let alone over supply, but if house price and rent inflation can be brought below wage inflation then properties of all tenures will become more affordable without deflation.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
You should visit.
Has up and come since you were last there.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
On the flip side, can someone explain how to “significantly” increase new housing stock without also quite significantly pushing up the cost to build them, at least in the short to medium term?
Building a house requires a surprising amount of skilled labour, plus reliable and cost effective material supply chain. If your market is anything like ours, it’s hard enough to get the labour skills now, let alone a lot more of it. Where do you get these tradesmen from? If there’s more demand for their services, do you seriously think their prices will go down? If you want to attract more people into that industry, where will you get them from?
Materials are already (still) in difficult supply. Expecting you can ramp up demand WITHOUT pushing up the prices is also just plain dumb. Reminder: this stuff is now a global supply chain, so the manufacturers are going to sell to the highest bidder. The business reality is they are going to manage their production to maximise their profitability - not over-produce so there’s a glut of product they need to sell cheaper.
So, irrespective of all the planning hoohah and land availability, the chances of the current cost to build a house going down, or even staying much the same are pretty much zero. And whatever does get built that’s “nice” and in a “good” location is going to be flogged for the absolute highest price the developer can get. Guaranteed.
Whinge, moan, hand-wring, bitch all you want. That’s the reality.
And anyone that thinks government intervention to control prices or assist buyers will somehow fix this is obviously taking too many handfuls of the dumbarsefuckwittery pills on their way out the door in the morning.
Open One+ BMC TE29 Seven 622SL On One Scandal Cervelo RS0 -
It will push up the cost to build.
But I‘d be surprised that the actual building of the houses is all that expensive relative to the cost of land and all the designs and planning, as those costs presumably have been growing roughly in line with inflation forever, not in line house prices?
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Wait till you try and build a house then!
all markets are obviously different, but here at least the dwelling build cost commonly exceeds the land purchase price for new development areas, often by a considerable margin. The developed land cost already includes the infrastructure expenses such as roads, utilities and services (to some extent maybe) and planning application costs are the relatively insignificant ones.
Open One+ BMC TE29 Seven 622SL On One Scandal Cervelo RS0 -
The cost of land will rise too though. As mentioned before the biggest issue of the amount of tradespeople. Off-site production may help but even that will need significant extra labour plus suitable factory space.
It’s definitely something we need to be doing but we’re talking decades to get any meaningful progress.
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Yes, there's already a skills shortage in construction, what with us telling a large part of the workforce that they weren't that welcome. On the other hand there's a huge opportunity to get people into trades rather than Amazon warehouses and call centres, which would be pretty transformative to local economies. I am pretty sceptical that system building will ever be anything other than a small contributor. Even when we were converting aircraft factories to make pre-fabs they were a bit of a novelty and most housing was still bricks and mortar.
The volume housebuilders are probably around £2k per square metre, so a house might be £300-400k. That might eventually go on the market at £700-800k in Cambridge so construction is very roughly half of the sale cost. The land is priced according to how easily it can be developed. Land doesn't tend to be sold with infrastructure already in place (apart from small individual plots) and that cost will be dumped on the developer as a condition of planning consent. The main cost arising from planning is delay. It can easily take years to get consent for a scheme.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think the cost of materials and labour is driving the house prices here.
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It's not the main driver but it's not helping.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think this is an important point, because even if the land is free a house in Cambridge can't be built for less than your quoted £300k-£400k plus infrastructure costs, so no matter how liberal planning conditions are there is a floor to the pricing.
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Other things people don't appreciate that cost a developer include all the S106 contributions towards things like additional school or medical provision, upgrading utilities, off-site improvements to roads / drainage, improving active or public transport etc. plus all the consultant and application fees. Basically, all the issues people raise as reasons for objecting to new houses are things developers have to spend money to resolve. Also, as demand sets house prices it also sets land prices so building in an area with high house prices will generally be more expensive.
That said, some housebuilders are making pretty decent / high profits, between 12 and 30% of pre-tax turnover, which some admit are due to lack of competition. However, it's quite a long game so cash flow can be an issue for the smaller companies.
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That's a 3-4 bed house. If you are building flats the costs come down.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
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Rick wants a big house. You should know that by now.
If the country was happy to live in flats, lots of nice of things could be done. In Korea, virtually everyone lives in a flat. It means places can be densely populated and lots of services are then close by.
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Too much of this discussion focuses on sale prices when there is a greater shortage in rental properties, especially at the social end of the spectrum.
I mentioned it before, but property prices falling would be bad as well: reducing the rate of inflation is the goal so that wages can catch up.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
I think you'll find I am in favour of denser living.
The response to that here has largely been "can't be done!"
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I'm not overly concerned with his wants 😁. There is however a very significant *need* for more housing
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
Could someone start up a housing thread?
We seem to have strayed away from Boomers and avocados. 😉
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
It's all linked together as you say. There are now some build to rent developments.
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Thought we had one ‘Ouses and greenbelt stuff….
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I was probably there much more recently than you 😉
Peckham Rye is is on the edge and as close to Dulwich as it is to central Peckham. For the most part, its still a dump.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0
