House Building

[Doctor Drivel]

Must avoid metal.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Doctor Drivel" saying something like:

The Irish govt is seriously considering demolishing many of them. Criminal waste, imo.

[John Rumm]

Top ones world wide are places lie Macau at 48330, Monaco at 43450. Of the decent sized places, then Singapore and Hong kong are high (c. 17K)

Closer to home, Gibralta at 11170, and Malta 3340 are fairly high.

Lowest, possibly Greenland at 0.07

[John Rumm]

Lol. I think your metaphor engine needs restarting.

(hint: you may recall that houses of cards are famous for something, and locking together ain't it!)

[John Rumm]

Its surprising, but you can often find masonry (as in rendered block rather than brick) can work out cheaper than wood over here.

[Roger Chapman]

Inflation tends in only one direction but if Dribble's Idol Henry George was right about agricultural land in the USA changing hands at $1000 an acre in the 1870s the return on agricultural land has been piss poor between then and now (and probably has regardless of George's or Dribble's delusions).

Unlike entropy intrinsic values can go down as well as up and there are plenty of corners around the country where land is worth significantly less now than it once was.

[Roger Chapman]

These are all effectively city states and, in the case of Macau and Hong Kong definitely not independent.

If Greater London was taken in isolation that would slot in above Gibraltar.

I can't see Antarctica on the list. :-)

[Doctor Drivel]

If they are half built then they may have no option.

[Doctor Drivel]

No tax on land

< snip drivel >

[Doctor Drivel]

Laughing for no reason. This one will need institutionalising.

< sbip drivel >

[Doctor Drivel]

Brick is maintenance free. Although some wood cladding is as well.

[Steve Walker]

It's not that expensive to build a house anyway, it's buying the land that forms the bulk of the price. Around here, a typical (average quality) rebuild cost would be 70-80K, while buying would be around 180K.

SteveW

[Andrew Gabriel]

Commercial buildings typically have a design life of about 30 years. Traditionally built homes have a design life of 200 years. There's no problem building homes with a design life of 30 years (and it's commonly done in other countries), but such homes are much cheaper, and UK developers are not interested in developing homes which sell for any less. Developers already use cheaper building techniques for many homes, but have so far managed to still sell these for top prices, even though they will not last as long as traditionally built homes. They largely see it as a game of how cheaply can they get away with building, without the sale price dropping.

Ultimately, house prices depend on supply and demand, and the supply has been too low for a long time. Artificial measures such as insisting on a proportion of "affordable housing" just makes this worse. It's only solvable by building enough homes in total.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is a bare shell rebuild cost. In reality when you buy a second hand house, its got a lot of after market addons in it: mature gardens, cupboards, more than a basic kitchen , cupboards etc etc.

You can easily double that cost to turn a house into a home.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, the *demand* has been too high.

In my day, there were less people and I was 28 before I could even afford a rented FLAT on my own, let alone buy a house, which I managed to do when I was 43.

These days pepole leave college and expect to instantly own a house!

Artificial measures

Yes.

It's only solvable by building enough homes

No, its solvable by peoples expectations coming down to the point where owning a house is a minority privilege, and something only very successful people can afford to do, until such time as the population drops well below housing stock, and there are more affordable homes. There are in fact plenty of affordable homes, as long as you don't mind living in a burned out post industrial town etc.

[tony sayer]

Seems rather late in life?, whenever was that?..

No not all, a lot rent out of choice as they tend to move around a lot...

Right houses in the right places i.e. more of what we used to call council houses and perhaps less exec flats etc etc..

[Roger Chapman]

snip

Is that a dribble I see before me ...

[Roger Chapman]

snip

It is a problem made worse by the large scale demolition of existing stock, more often than not property that was once more than adequate but has been vandalised. The shirking classes then refuse to live in such property and the whole sorry cycle will be repeated in ever decreasing time scales as the aspirations of the shirking classes are ratcheted ever upwards.

[Tim Streater]

You'd have to scrap the Labour Govt's policy of taking all council house receipts, thereby making it harder for councils to maintain existing stock or build new ones.

[dennis]

They weren't. In fact only one sold and the others were auctioned later.

There is a new three bed detached on the one now, the others are still bare.