Overall, yes - unless there's some huge sentimental attraction - but it's e asy to imagine cases where renting out at a loss still makes financial sens e. Apart from the buy-to-let investors who are hoping to make a profit on t he eventual sale of the house (doesn't always work out, of course...) you h ave all the people taking short term contracts or moving to jobs they're no t certain are long-term. Under those circumstances it makes sense to rent o ut the house for a few years, even at a loss, before either returning to th eir former home or selling up once their position is more certain
neither do houses. if the government ever relaxes planning so lots of new house can be built you will find that a three bed semi is only worth about £65k.
Ask anyone with negative equity about rising house prices.
I think the comparison with Tescos is, like so many things, a matter of what you measure. Energy companies have done an excellent job of splitting the operation to look like they're doing us all a favour while siphoning the cash out of the back door. The bottom line is that if I don't like Tesco, I can go somewhere else that competes properly and openly with it.
Controlling prices would be a start, but I'd rather we re-nationalised the essential utilities, myself.
Others can be content with donating their hard-earned to the fat cats. I'd rather see a properly managed infrastructure where surpluses were invested in the system rather than sucked up by a tiny minority of well connected people with an over-inflated sense of entitlement.
Well, if you look across the Atlantic, they just closed for business because they think that bringing in healthcare for the population will turned them into pinko liberal socialists like us, so it's probably a matter of where you stand and which way you're looking.
I couldn't believe (or begin to understand) the strength of objection among some in the US to a basic level of universal healthcare, which we have all come to expect in Europe. Of course, the reason for this is the intensive PR campaign run by the vested interests who stand to lose their massively overpriced cartel, geared to profit and not patient care.
Pretty much the same situation then: The vested interests pay the media (whether Fox or the DM etc) and their weak minded readers/viewers etc lap up the propaganda, fed with erroneous made up 'facts' and distractors to shout at anyone who has another viewpoint.
If in doubt then, invoke the Soviet Union, though it doesn't look like anyone there is better off since the wall came down, simply exploited and oppressed by a different bunch. Of course, we (or the DM etc) don't mind now as that's free enterprise. Oh, and they brought all the stolen cash to launder in London, so that's fine.
I'd quite like prices to collapse right now, as we currently don't own one. It'd have to be in the next few weeks though... contracts are due :)
I've made a lot of money from house price rises. But I can't do anything with it. The only time I could spend it is when I don't need a house any more - which presumably is when I'm either dead or doolally, and in a home...
No. You own the house, the charge that they place on the property gives them the right to force you to sell it, and means that you can't sell it without letting them know.
It's not a lot different though - 'in practice' :)
But houses have to be maintained. Which is why thinking paying a mortgage is no different to paying rent is deceptive. As long as house prices rise and people can afford to trade up every few years that maintenance cost is hidden in 'home improvements' and a belief that they add value. Live somewhere long enough and without a housing ladder to mask the expense and the cost of maintaining a house starts to matter
Leasehold enfranchisement means there is very little difference between leasehold and freehold now. Flats are leasehold because that provides a legal mechanism to ensure your neighbours cooperate to maintain the whole building (see above re maintenance)
House price money isn't real money, it's like the chips in a casino. Maybe you can cash a few in when you trade down, or put more in to trade up. But the price of a house is not real money. What you pay each month for a mortgage, for services, and tax, and repairs is real money. But the price of a house is not, it's just a number, you use when talking to estate agents etc. If it were real money most of us would be paralysed with indecision when buying or selling: another thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, if you let yourself thing of all the real stuff you could buy with numbers like that you would never deal.
It is a job creation scheme. They will need loads of invigilators to handle the multitude or a hugely delayed, vastly overpriced and under performing computer system to administer it.
Of course not. Thinking is not what this government does...
Their policy of house bubble inflation with 95+% mortgage guarantees is likely to be far more disastrous in the long term. They don't learn :(
Before buy to let expanded to the extent it has in more recent years then people were not homeless. A solution would be council houses, but we can't do that anymore after the mass disposal at knock down prices by Thatcher.
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