Housing market is realy bucking up!

[Doctor Drivel]

"Roger" wrote Rogerness yet again in message news: [e-mail]...

As usual, Roger has totally missed it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

When does dribble ever give a true total cost for any job? Strange, given he claims to be a heating engineer.

[Doctor Drivel]

** Snip babbling nonsensical senility **

[Richard Faulkner]

In message , Doctor Drivel writes

Another thing which could happen in the free market is that the rich, (russian billionaires??), would buy up all the land, (or most of it), and release it in volumes small enough to maintain the value?

Thinking about it, this is more likely than a first time buyer being able to buy a plot cheaply, and build on it.

[Doctor Drivel]

In effect that is what we have right now. Only a few thousand families own most of the land, but they are not operating in a free market, they have rigged the market, by fair means or foul, over the centuries to suit themselves. Land reform would prevent land being in the hands of a few who could manipulate the market. Land and housing are too critical to be allowed to be manipulated by individuals or companies. We can't live without land. Land is not washing machines.

Land Value Tax (LVT) would prevent this sort of thing as you would have to pay tax on the land, whether it is used or not. All land everywhere. The city of Pittsburgh had dilapidated vacant buildings owned by speculators who just left them and would sell when the time is right for them. The city was a mess, and useful buildings left vacant. They introduced LVT and the buildings were sold or renovated.

The city of Liverpool has exactly the same problem and is attempting to introduce a form of LVT to rid the city of vacant eyesore buildings in preparation to the 2008 European City of Culture. That current TV prog about searching for owners of vacant house and doing them up, highlighted a large smart looking vacant and boarded Victorian house in Liverpool in a nice area. They searched and found the owner was French and lived in France.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Doctor Drivel writes

About 8000ukp.acre. This is the sort of money paid by housing associations for *exception land* i.e. land that would not normally have a hope of getting planning consent but has been released because of a local need.

Yes but, how many home owners are going to vote for a government that has just halved the value of their biggest capital asset and put them into negative equity. Also consider the impact on party funds from national builders with large investments in land banks to say nothing of city investment houses currently advertising to buy up land on the periphery of existing development.

Hmm... We put up a 2 bed timber frame, brick clad chalet bungalow and garage 10 years ago for 60k excluding land value.

Difficult to know the current real value of land. Once upon a time you could work back from the cropping potential. Currently, in the absence of direct production subsidies, this is often negative. This might be a deliberate ploy on the part of our current government.

regards

>

[Richard Faulkner]

In message , Doctor Drivel writes

MM! A free market for land...... with regulation and taxes???

This wouldnt remove speculation.... The land/building owners would either just pay the costs, or would develop the land/buildings to the point where they covered their costs.

[John Cartmell]

In 1970/71 I had the job of finding work for light-labourers and kitchen porters unemployed in Manchester 14, 15, 16. There were very few that stayed unemployed for more than one or two weeks - and that was usually by choice (to get the 'right' job eg avoiding Dunlops or Turner's Asbestos) - and those few were in categories that Thatcher re-classified out of the unemployment statistics when she was in power. I can assure you that if light labourers and kitchen porters in Hulme & Moss Side had assurance of employment then so did everyone else. Things got worse in the 70s but even then those leaving short training schemes were able to find employment even in the building trade. All from personal knowledge with no need to test the validity of the Department of Employment statistics - which I was, in any case, reading on a monthly basis in addition to contributing to the raw data.

[Doctor Drivel]

Regulation? No. Only the normal planning regs of commercial or domestic, not near a power stations, etc.

Taxes will not reduce the free market.

But put it in its place where it does not act against the people as a whole, which right it certainly does.

Yep. And prevent buildings being vacant. And prevent people hording land. The Dukes of Argyll and Westminster would have to sell much of their unused land as tax would be due on it. They can keep it but will have to pay, which currently they do not. Foreign billionaires hording land is another matter and laws reducing foreign ownership may have to be introduced.

[Doctor Drivel]

With the current mindset, very few. People have to be educated into any new law changes and where it would benefit them and society as whole. Value is abstract, and negative equity means nothing until you sell, as cash is reality. Any law changes would need a pot to deal with negative equity.

I am fully aware of vested interest that aims to keep the status quo. The Tory party has always been funded by large landowners and is the biggest propaganda spouters of "concreting over the countryside" and urban sprawl", when in fact it is just impossible to do such a thing as there is so much land available.

Things have changed.

The real value is what the market dictates in a free and open market, not a rigged one as we currently have.

It is clearly best to have a free and open land and housing market and not using the planning system as a tool to manipulate the market. The current planning system is a form of people control. Just look at the way other countries do it. The French planning system is good base to start from. Build where you like as long as the local community is with you; and they tend to insist you build to the local vernacular and actively discourage dense housing estates like we see here. As land is generally cheaper in France they spend more on the structures and hence the superior build quality and look of the houses there. The French use the UK as a way not to go in planning.

Then governments can govern and not piss about with people's lives.

[Stuart Noble]

Not a commodity then....

[Tony Bryer]

[Doctor Drivel] :

IOW anything but a free and open market. In a free market you could build whatever you chose, high density flats or mansions, vernacular or cutting edge.

[Geoffrey]

According to my mother, my father earned £5 per week in 1950. He was an RAF trained car mechanic. We didn't own a house of course - we rented like 90% of the population then.

£1000 per year in 1950? That's nearly £20 a week! Your family must have been rolling in it.

[Andy Hall]

PMSL.....

That's a classic......

[Doctor Drivel]

A free and open market in land and a planning system that allows you build anywhere, parks, etc, excluded. That does not mean build a 30 floor block in the Cotswolds or the Dales. Get the point and use some common sense. In France you can build anywhere as long as the local community says yes. You see new homes way high in the Alps. They also have regs that insist on building to the local vernacular, and more enforced there than in the UK. You could have a "flexible" reg that states, say in the Dales nothing over 3 floors and must be domestic in certain zones (you don't allow someone to build a house in the local industrial estate), but can build anywhere as long as the locals agree. So, if someone wants to build in local stone and ye olde style a house in the corner of a farm surrounded by trees, then no problem.

[Doctor Drivel]

Matt, it is.

[Roger]

The message from "Doctor Drivel" contains these words:

With two properties Dribble is part of the problem, not the solution. :-)

[Roger]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

He ignored the question as well which leads me to believe he has been economical with the truth yet again.

[Doctor Drivel]

"Roger" wrote overt Rogerness in message news: [e-mail]...

** snip senility **

** snip Rogerness **

[Doctor Drivel]

"Roger" wrote overt Rogerness in message news: [e-mail]...

** snip babbling Rogerness **