2024 Election thread
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Define desirability. If YOU want it, pay for it. Others don't because it's just not desirable to them.
I listen to a river at night from my bedroom. Two species of owl in the woodland I live next to. And we have visiting badgers and foxes (so far). My compromise in salary is probably 20-30%.
For that 20-30% more I think I could get a 3-4 bed semi in a nice bland part of the SE, next to an identical house and an identical street and have the same disposable income, but miles from nature.
I prefer my life now.
Your thesis that it's expensive because it is nice is fundamentally wrong, or more people would want to emigrate to Lagos.
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But the market is an aggregate of everyone's opinion, combined with affordability? It's not my opinion, it's the market?
The market price is where supply meets demand. That is literally it. Come on guys.
Why are we suddenly taking about individual opinions on where you should live? The housing market is the aggregate supply and aggregate demand for properties. That's what a market is.
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This is what is so frustrating about this argument. You get some boomer who lives in the sticks claiming their life is great and all these people wanting to live elsewhere are idiots, and they miss the reality of the situation.
If it was so great and affordable, people would move in droves and it wouldn't be so affordable anymore. That's how a market works.
The issue is that there where there is high demand for housing the supply is not matching it and the result is skyrocketing prices which forcing Brits to pay more of their paycheque on housing than any other OECD country.
And it is massively driving down home ownership for young people. Currently, the most common home situation for under 35s is now living with your parents! In the mid 1990s it was owning your own home!
That makes people angry!
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Cities are expensive and the bigger they are, the more expensive they are in the middle, and the more that costs radiate out.
Most people live near where they are from, so it is self perpetuating. Still more people want to live somewhere with more eggs in the basket in case they change jobs. Which I understand, but that's not free.
Objectively, now that I've lived in the SE, Oxfordshire, Scotland and the South West, I'm confident that unless you specifically want what London offers culturally, everywhere else is nicer, pound for pound.
To counter your supply and demand argument, I would point to qualify or life and happiness indices that regularly put London and the SE low down, and places like Orkney or Mull near the top.
You just don't want to hear it.
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Planning restrictions are a large part of the problem in Canada, too.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Building standards are a problem. From what I remember of some of the gauche houses getting built, actual planning was fairly lax.
It is one of the largest counties on earth, and even in places like Calgary and Edmonton with absolutely no barrier to sprawl, costs are sky high.
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Lol. Make it as personal as you want. The house prices reflect desirability and affordability versus supply in aggregate.
If a house is cheap as chips, very few people want to own it. That’s it.
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Like I say, you don't want to hear it. So you are simply repeating the same assertion.
Other than the SE, where have you lived in the UK?
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Are we about to get the forums first reform party voter?
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FA, you are not remotely representative. The opportunities for a well-paid (top 5%) job that allows you to afford a nice house with a river, badgers and no neighbours, are relatively few even in prosperous Devon.
And most people actually like having neighbours/are happy to watch badgers on the telly.
I know you and pblakeney don't like London and the SE but a great deal of people do.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
If life is so good elsewhere, why does the house price not reflect that?
Not sure the logic behind this stacks up. £1million gets you (possibly) a teeny studio flat in zones 1- 2 in London. Near to me around £700-800k gets you a 6-8 bed detached, very high spec house with an acre of land in a leafy suburb. You are going to have access to lots of green spaces, good local schools, independent shops, low crime, low traffic etc etc. Surely that indicates life is better outside of London in many regards?
Surely property prices in London just reflect the fact that people have no concept of VFM and are prepared to pay massively over the odds just to live in London. I say this as someone who lived and worked in London for 15 years.
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Planning as in restrictions on dwelling types and density, I don't know Edmonton, but Victoria has lots of very low density, oversized, single family dwellings, that the local authority will not allow to be subdivided or redeveloped. As you say, there is plenty of space, but the space within the city is tied up by regulation and the space outside the city is so poorly connected that it's not attractive for anyone with a job in the city.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Slightly off topic but we bought an antique clock recently for £350. The dealer with 40 years experience in the business said he would have had to charge £1000 to sell it in the London area, because at £350 they would have thought there was something wrong with it. As they probably never see anything that cheap.
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Sure I'm an outlier in many ways, and the west country has comparatively poor affordability because of the second homers and lack of work here.
But I was also brave enough to move somewhere that offered me enough salary and opportunity, and more than enough of what else I wanted. That happened to be Scotland. But you can get something similar within reach of lots of other cities.
I actually don't think most people like living in higher density housing with less green space, because they can watch Planet Earth. It's just that most people don't want the supposed complomises of somewhere else.
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You answered it in your final paragraph. If no one will pay the price, that’s not the price.
I appreciate some posters here think their valuations are of higher order than everyone else, but this thread’s basic lack of understanding of supply and demand makes the debate futile a s probably goes some way to explain the inability to comprehend the problem.
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Separately, if you are a policy maker, you probably don’t want to be driving people away from higher paying work as that hammers the tax take.
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The problem has crept up over decades, it would make sense that the solution would take decades. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try and move to solving it does it?
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That's the only good point you've made.
Supply and demand is trivial. It is hubris to presume that people who don't agree with you don't understand something.
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I'm not convinced it is as simple as that with housing e.g. aren't there a lot of foreign owned houses in upmarket parts of Central London that aren't actually lived in? Buy to let is also driving up prices. I think the 'you have to be in London to make it' attitude from the 80s and 90s is living on even when times have changed. As I said, there are undoubtably people who prefer life in the big city and that comes at a premium - there's no right or wrong on that - and there are probably still some sectors where being outside London limits your career opportunities but in most 'normal' lines of work there is very definitely a choice to take a relatively small pay cut to live somewhere cheaper. I've been careful not to say one or other is better but if your principle aim is being able to own a house then for most people locating outside London would be beneficial surely? I genuinely struggle to understand someone working in, for example, a local government office job in London and having to rent a house and / or commute miles when there will be numerous similar jobs available in somewhere like Birmingham other than things like family ties. One of my previous companies had a London office where I would have got somewhere in the region on 15% more salary for an identical job. My counterparts were travelling further and living in houses costing far more than mine (I don't know how they afforded it as I've never been swimming in disposable income).
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😉if you say so FA. Feel free to generate your own explanation for how the house prices are derived.
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You answered it in your final paragraph. If no one will pay the price, that’s not the price.
I appreciate that but your point (unless I am mistaken) seemed to be that a higher price reflects a better quality of life, whereas it just reflects the fact that people are willing to pay a higher price.
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Also, if it is purely supply and demand then there are obviously enough people who can afford the prices. I the housing is too expensive then why aren't prices coming down?
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I mean, rationally, is that not why people will pay the price? Their quality is just different to yours.
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Quite. It is the open market. As long as muppets are prepared to pay over the odds for houses then people will capitalise on that. Blame the muppets. Just say no. Or accept the situation and move on.
Bottom line, it's not the fault of anyone outside of the SE for the housing costs in the SE. Not my fault, not my problem.
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 -
Have you seen how popular plastic lawns are, not to mention turning your front garden into a parking bay.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Feel free to identify an area with good affordability and plentiful employment of sufficient income.
Looking at this map, us Muppets are occupying anywhere south of Birmingham.
Quite a strong correlation, I would say.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
They are derived by supply and demand. You have linked that to "desirability" and ignored a plethora of other factors.
Like I say, one of the most expensive cities on earth is Lagos. Because of supply and demand. Off you go.
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Pick any city you choose outside the SE and there will be somewhere within easy (Cambridge to London) distance that affords more disposable income. If people don't want to move that's fine but there is a premium to be paid.
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
