The boomers ate all the avocados

Yeah - I see that but likely?

What's an "MM house seller"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's not the main driver but it's not helping.

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.

I can assure you 4 beds around here are not going for much less than £800k-1m.

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.

I'm not overly concerned with his wants 😁. There is however a very significant *need* for more housing

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.