Most people move because their job dictates it, or they're having more kids, or they're retiring. But with housing being such an attractive tax free investment, the market is inevitably distorted, to no one's benefit in the long run. We bleat about the breakdown of society (yes, Andy, there is such a thing), and the feeding frenzy we call the property market is the major cause of it.
You would instead
I mean, why should people be allowed to keep their own money when Governments spend it so much better than they do themselves?
Or get rid of the ability to offset the mortgage interest payments on a buy-to-let mortgage against the rental income. After all, if I borrow money to invest in the stock market I can't offset the interest against my dividends.
Andrew
I don't follow that. Can't they use the 60% they keep? If they've borrowed on the strength of it and converted their house into a cinema, more fool them.
Yep. Introduce Land Value Tax. (LVT)
If you are a company you can IIRC. I would not e surprised if this also applies to individuals too.
On NEW housing yes maybe..
That would encourage people not to waste energy building new rather than refurbishing old.
However perhaps not on housing itself, just on the materials.
All taxes on transactions tend to reduce transactions.
Which i fine when you wan that result.
So you tax income to make people not want to work, you tax house sales to encourage people not to own them at all or to not trade in them. You tax death to encourage people to stay alive longer,or move elsewhere if they are rich enough.
But on no account tax goods a you want them to spend as much as possible on generating packaging waste.
You know it makes sense.
Anything more than a handful is wasted.
MBQ
You may be right but if you were how would it be implemented? If I borrow 10k to buy a new car in the same year as I invest 10k in stocks should I be able to offset the dividend against the interest on the loan? Probably not but if I instead use my 10k to buy a new car and borrow 10k to invest should I then?
Just a thought. One of the problems with renting is the lack of tenure. With assured shorthold tenancies you can be kicked out after six months, or whatever the agreement says. While this is not too much of a problem for professional singles/couples it is for families who want some stability and may be in that area because the children are at school, near friends etc.
One solution to both problems might be (and I have not thought this all the way through yet) to enable people to elect to be treated as either individuals or property companies. Individuals would get no tax-relief, as you don't on your primary residence but would get short term tenancies so they could get the property back when they want. If you elected to be treated as a company you would get tax relief on the mortgage payments but because you were operating as a company would be expected to offer longer term lets to give tenants some stability in their lives.
Would be interesting to see what some of these buy-to-let landlords would choose to do.
Andrew
Which is exactly the opposite of where we are now.
Because they do believe that the government can deliver and/or it is up to the government to do x, where x invariably involves spending money - q.v. the endless Daily Mail campaigns to funds drugs of dubious merit which only cost £2.50 per day (= another £1bn on the health service budget).
Are the Conservatives pledged to slash government expenditure: no, just to spend the same [but allegedly get better value]. They know that there is a huge constituency in the private sector (I guess I am a small part of it) that survives because of government spending and/or legislation which is why they take this line.
I was being facetious.
Tenants are best served by having a ready supply of properties to rent which there now is, in contrast to a generation ago. If you increased security of tenure this would rapidly change, not because landlords are desperate to throw people out, rather because they (and their mortgage co.) need the option of being able to sell when they want to.
Did he?
And many are second homes and empty for various reasons: divorce, death, unsuitable needed massive renovation, etc. Second homes don't count.
The fact is the country is short of homes. Read the articles I linked to.
... meanwhile in the real world......
It can also be because they'd like a different house or a different place or don't like their neighbours.
It depends on what you mean by "benefit".
It's an illusion
That's because "society" is, at best, a veneer of respectability.
...LVT works....
Hmmm.....
Let's see what he does next following his screw up of the economy....
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