I don’t claim to be an economist

Conservatory

Supply and demand and all that. First time buyer grant yak yak driving prices up.
What if some go getter in government looked at the figures and said eureka I’ve got it(just like the man in the bath) and said as long as we are only building a few houses let’s pass into law that only first time buyers or social housing people can buy houses.


What’d happen?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Chaos.

Conservatory

Maya Late Plane wrote: »

Chaos.

Chaos is a ladder

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Conservatory wrote: »

Chaos is a ladder

Chaos is a pit.

Fighting Tao

You haven’t thought this through.

Shenshen

Stagnation.

Assuming first time buyers and "social housing people" don't have large budgets, builders would not make profits from building, so would stop.

You could, then, try and subsidise the builders, but how long can you justify that to the much-quoted taxpayers?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Fighting Tao wrote: »

You haven’t thought this through.

Nothing new there.

Conservatory

Fighting Tao wrote: »

You haven’t thought this through.

I think there is enough first time buyers trying to buy at the moment but house prices are inflated by the lack of supply. This would cause a correction in prices it could go back to normal in a few years when they actually start building houses again instead of fudging the numbers.

Blaas4life

Conservatory wrote: »

Supply and demand and all that. First time buyer grant yak yak driving prices up.
What if some go getter in government looked at the figures and said eureka I’ve got it(just like the man in the bath) and said as long as we are only building a few houses let’s pass into law that only first time buyers or social housing people can buy houses.


What’d happen?

Or they could outlaw multiple property ownership and make those who have it register as landlords and tax above a certain mark at 99%



This is unlikely to happen since half the dail have multiple houses :rolleyes:

relax carry on

Conservatory wrote: »

Chaos is a ladder

How is chaos a ladder?

NOUN

Complete disorder and confusion.

Conservatory

Shenshen wrote: »

Stagnation.

Assuming first time buyers and "social housing people" don't have large budgets, builders would not make profits from building, so would stop.

You could, then, try and subsidise the builders, but how long can you justify that to the much-quoted taxpayers?

Now an actual answer rather than the usual smart Alec’s. I would counter that with saying dropping the prices temporarily could allow local authorities to use the hotel money they waste on buying up houses and the struggling workers on rent allowance could afford to buy getting them out of the poverty trap. Builders could sell the house with ten percent profit and refuse to sell if the price is too low like any other product.

Shenshen

Conservatory wrote: »

I think there is enough first time buyers trying to buy at the moment but house prices are inflated by the lack of supply. This would cause a correction in prices it could go back to normal in a few years when they actually start building houses again instead of fudging the numbers.

Constricting the potential number of buyers, and casting doubt on the prices that builders may be able to sell at once the buildings are finished is unlikely to increase stock, though. So the problem of there not being enough houses would only be aggravated.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

relax carry on wrote: »

How is chaos a ladder?

NOUN

Complete disorder and confusion.

Game of thrones reference.

Conservatory

relax carry on wrote: »

How is chaos a ladder?

NOUN

Complete disorder and confusion.

During chaos you can climb to a higher status. It’s a quote from game of thrones. Little finger starts the whole war off to use the chaos to go from being a lowly brothel owner and civil servant to nearly becoming king of the north. I won’t spoil the story though.
I’m not 100 per cent but I think he says it when he puts a blade to ned starks throat.

Shenshen

Conservatory wrote: »

Now an actual answer rather than the usual smart Alec’s. I would counter that with saying dropping the prices temporarily could allow local authorities to use the hotel money they waste on buying up houses and the struggling workers on rent allowance could afford to buy getting them out of the poverty trap. Builders could sell the house with ten percent profit and refuse to sell if the price is too low like any other product.

So the local authorities would not house homeless families - for how long, in your opinion?
Don't get me wrong, I think it's absurd that anyone has to be accommodated long-term in a hotel. However, the reason behind this is that there is not enough social housing out there.
If you changed the law today to only allow the local authorities to buy, they'd have to turf out the families who currently at least have a roof over their head in order to free up money (and I don't even have the numbers to see how long a local authority would have to save the money spent on housing a family in a hotel before they'd have enough together to purchase a house).

Billy86

Maya Late Plane wrote: »

Chaos is a pit.

A pit with a ladder, though!

Conservatory

Billy86 wrote: »

A pit with a ladder, though!

In the sewerage game it’s called a manhole

Billy86

relax carry on wrote: »

How is chaos a ladder?

NOUN

Complete disorder and confusion.

WARNING: It's Game of Thrones, so naturally this 80 second clip features both fairly gory violence and a degree of nudity.

It's also from the middle of the third series so if anyone randomly happens to be watching for the first time and hasn't got there yet, best to avoid the video below.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Conservatory wrote: »

In the sewerage game it’s called a manhole

In the real sewage game it's just a stinking hole though.

Billy86

Conservatory wrote: »

In the sewerage game it’s called a manhole

Gedoutta he'ya witcha fancy word things!

Conservatory

Maya Late Plane wrote: »

In the real sewage game it's just a stinking hole though.

I don’t recall that one was it made by Mattel or hasbro?

bnt

I don't claim to be an economist either, but the last financial crisis a decade ago got me very interested in the topic, like an amateur air crash investigator after a plane goes down. The fundamental problem is that housing has become financialised - meaning that people with lots of money have turned away from other forms of investment (businesses, stock markets, commodities) towards housing, because that's what makes them the most money. Not just directly, in property itself, but also in the debt incurred on property (mortgages).

Not everyone is aware of the fact that when you take out a mortgage, it's a liability to you (because you owe that money), but to the bank that mortgage is an asset. It's one that is basically guaranteed to make the bank a profit as long as the holder keeps making the payments. The bank doesn't sit on those assets: they are sold at a profit by the bank to investment banks, who package them up as "mortgage-backed securities" and allow investors - people with money - to invest in them.

Which is great as long as the money keeps flowing in, but if the mortgage-holder can't make the payments, and payment insurance can't keep up, then the "asset" can lose its value. That's what happened a decade ago with the subprime mortgage crisis, where "subprime" refers to the borrowers: people who should never have been sold mortgages in the first place. So why were they sold, then? Because the mortgage brokers made a profit and weren't on the hook, and then neither were the issuing banks, which sold the mortgages off to investment banks like the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, which went tits-up when the money stopped rolling in. Oh, and just to add insult to injury: what happens to house prices when more buyers have access to easy credit? Boom. Bust.

If your eyes are glazing over at this point, that's financialisation of property: your home is making more money for other people who already have money, and are just looking for a good "return on their investment". To me it's starting to boil down to a simple choice: in a mixed "semi-socialist" economy like we have here in Ireland (as in most of Europe and the UK), what is the role of government in the housing market? Should they stay out of it almost entirely, as they do at the moment, or should it be more like health care, where they provide a basic service at taxpayer expense? I think that's a good analogy, since the current situation with housing in Ireland is really not good for the financial and social health of the country as a whole.

kneemos

Makes as much sense as most economists.

bnt

kneemos wrote: »

Makes as much sense as most economists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F48yWWtySBw