Sunday 12 June 2016

Nobody Move or House Building Gets It!

From the BBC

Meanwhile some of Britain's largest developers have also urged voters to back Remain.

House building companies and housing associations, including Barratt Developments and Wates Group, say a vote for Brexit would cause economic uncertainty and damage investment which would make the housing crisis worse.

How? Sorry, but how does it make the housing crisis worse? Are even more people going to come here if we leave, adding extra demand on land?

"What any developer requires is confidence and continued support from their financial investors - and those investors need certainty over wider market conditions," the developers wrote in an open letter.


But if the housing crisis gets worse, that will raise prices and create confidence for developers.

"Leaving the EU would also have an impact on the UK's housing supply chain companies, which employ millions of people across the UK. This could disrupt the production and import of the supplies needed for building such as bricks and blocks. This will further delay and add costs on Britain's house builders."

What? OK, let's roll with leaving the EU affects imports of bricks. How is that going to destroy jobs in brick making? Right now, we import around 400,000 bricks out of a total of 2.2m, something the industry blames on high energy costs. If we stop getting imports, what that will do is mean bricks have to be made here. They'll cost more and that's bad for consumers, but in terms of effects on British manufacturers, that would be a good thing. They'd make more bricks.

2 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Why would they stop selling us bricks?

Tim Almond said...

Well, they wouldn't. I'm just going with their assertion and pointing out what nonsense it is.