Nope. Still no inspiration. So here's a nice little article from the London Evening Standard singing the praises of Home-Owner-Ism and explaining how it helps to create a free and fair ociety:
Young Londoners are giving up hope of buying a property before middle-age with prices up to 30 times average income, a survey reveals today. More than half of first-time buyers in London expect to wait at least 10 years before investing. A further six per cent — one in 12 — say they will not be able to afford to buy before 2030, according to the YouGov survey of Londoners aged 18 to 30.
As the political parties pledge to support home ownership, 37 per cent of young Londoners said they would delay starting a family if they could not buy a home, and 22 per cent said they would put off getting married...
Belinda Porich of the National Housing Federation*, which commissioned the poll, said: “Young Londoners are giving up hope of ever being able to afford their own home before middle age.”
Affordability is particularly acute in the capital with house price to earnings ratio ranging from 8.5 in the cheapest borough, Barking & Dagenham, to 29.5 in Kensington and Chelsea... Of the young people surveyed, 58 per cent said they would need help from relatives to buy. More than half thought they would need at least £10,000 as a deposit and 11 per cent said it would be more than £40,000.
* To be fair, the NHF is quango, being the umbrella group for Housing Associations, who enjoy generous taxpayer support and tax exemptions while having much the same freedom of action as commercial developers or landlords and, unlike local councils, a more or less complete absence of democratic control, so the responses are bound to slightly exaggerate the situation.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
The Leaders' Debate (2)
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2 comments:
Whatever happened to "choice"? If all these people can't afford houses in London - and yet are committed to buying a house (and can't you see that word "investment" rearing its misused head again) they have the choice to (a) sit and moan about it and wait for prices to fall (which they may or may not do), or (b) go somewhere where prices are lower. The inconvenience of moving location, job and all else may be unwelcome, but that's in the nature of the beast.
Or of course, they could blag their parents into equity release or some such to give them money for a larger deposit. The parents took all that value tax-free over the years anyway so it would seem equitable.
FT, I think (a) is the sensible option. (b) is not an answer, because although houses might be cheaper elsewhere, wages are lower as well.
Your final option has a pleasing symmetry - when prices really crash then both generations will be mired in debt, and the parents will realise that what they thought was a 'tax free gain' actually had no real value at all - the parents and the children together would have been better off if prices had stayed low throughout.
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