Housing Minister John Healey says something vaguely sensible:
The housing minister, John Healey, has told the BBC that, for some people, having their home repossessed "can be the best option". Speaking on Radio 5 live, he said some households would struggle to keep up with mortgage repayments even if the terms were re-negotiated.
Tory housing spokesman Grant Shapps underlines that the Tories are the True Home-Owner-Ist Party (desperately chasing the Home-Owner-Ist vote, including, presumably, the votes of all those people who were able to buy a repo'd house more cheaply):
"Having previously admitted that he thought it was good for home ownership to be falling, it is unbelievable that John Healey has now claimed that repossession can be the best option. Tell that to the 46,000 families who have been booted out of their homes in the past 12 months thanks to Labour's record recession. This proves once again that Labour ministers have completely lost touch with reality."
If 'keeping the number of repossessions down during a recession' is the relevant metric, then the Tories have nothing to boast about, may I add. The irony being that the root cause of the recession is also the root cause of the house price bubble.
The Lib Dem spokewoman shows that they aren't averse to getting some of the Home-Owner-Ist vote either:
Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson Sarah Teather said Mr Healey "should just shut up... Labour has no idea what life is like for victims of the recession. John Healey needs to get out more before he starts dismissing the misery of homelessness,"
Did you see what she did there? She conflated 'being a tenant rather than a homeowner' with 'homelessness'. This is another example of the new maths; if one family is repossessed and starts renting, and another family that was renting buys the repo'd home, then the net impact on society is precisely nothing. Some have gambled and lost; some have gambled and won, but nobody forced them to do so.
* The middle sentence only appeared in an earlier version of the article, which I cross posted at HPC.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
WE are considerably more Home-Owner-Ist than YOU!
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6 comments:
I'm happy being a tenant and I'm getting a bit pissed off with the assumption that I'm a failure as a man because I refuse to play the game that is buying a house.
I when I was a lad, the new Wimpy estate built on the outskirts of town was nicknamed 'spam valley'. I asked why and my Dad explained that the occupants were sitting in their fancy new houses eating spam for dinner because that's all they could afford after paying the mortgage.
It's a mugs game.
RR, when you say 'tenant', don't you mean 'homeless'? I don't feel very 'homeless' myself, but perhaps we're just deluded?
Well said Rab, and love the article Mark. I hate to defend a Labour man, but I can't understand the furore over his dose of common sense.
I bailed out of ownership in the fallout after the 90s recession. I didn't lose out financially (unless one counts not earning equity) as I sold at thesme price I bought 6 years previously.
I then rented and assessed what to do next. All that time, I was told I was throwing money down the drain. It was only for 3 years but I quite enjoyed the fact that if something broke or fell over, I didn't have to pay for it.:-)
It's nice to own your own home, but as the guy who wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad points out, it's a liability, not an asset.
I love renting. I have no gas, ele or water bill. I pay no council tax, no TV licence, nothing for my Sky TV or broadband. My employer even gives me a mobile.
Not only do I never have to pay plumbers, electricians or builders. I don't have to buy any white goods, furniture or insurance either.
No stamp duty, solicitors fees, HIP fees, mortgage arrangement fees, worrying about interest rates, damp, rot, subsidence or the boiler breaking down.
Hell, I even get 2 drinking buddies thrown in and have so much disposable income I could afford to get rat arsed on malt whisky, fine wine and good cognac and eat takeout every single day if I wanted.
If I lose my job, I don't care, I'll just pack my car and move to wherever the next one is.
When (when? oh Lord) the housing bubble finally bursts, all you tenants will be sitting pretty, though I'll be cursing, because all the HOists will be so shell-shocked they won't be buying any more and I'll have finished doing up this ruin and be wanting to get on to the next one.
Heard this on the car radio driving home last evening; the shock! horror! joy! in the interviewer's voice was something to behold. "Did you really just say that?" she interrupted, repeating it for effect.
Next was to cut to that unbelievable moron Shapps and his asinine comments.
Of course repossession or forced sale is sometimes the best course of action, like amputation of a diseased limb is sometimes the best course of action.
In fact, for the grossly irresponsible borrowers who've leveraged themselves to the hilt to "invest" in a house and then done the MEW bit later to repay their credit cards, I'd suggest repossession should be the first course of action just to teach the lesson of personal responsibility.
I was so angry when I'd finished listening to the BBC drones and pols dribbling on, I had to shut the radio off and get some music playing......
wv: droules. Exactly.
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