Tuesday 4 October 2016

Another Home-Owner-Ist milestone looms on the horizon...

Emailed in by Lola from CityWire:

Pensions minister Richard Harrington has said people should be able to use retirement savings to buy a house.

Speaking to New Model Adviser® at the Tory Party conference in Birmingham, Harrington, who was appointed as pensions minister in the summer following Theresa May’s post-Brexit vote reshuffle, said there is an ‘arbitrary’ line between saving for retirement and house purchase.

‘For most people there are two steps in their life [house purchase and retirement] and I think it is legitimate that the government should help with both,’ he said.


Previous Chancellor George Osborne had started gently swimming against the tide with his restriction for interest relief on BTLs and the extra 3% for buying second and further homes, but this man clearly is an utter, utter dickhead.

Sure, most people starting out in life would like to buy/own their own home rather than renting; and sure, retirees with some savings want to collect as much investment income as possible, whether that's dividends or rent from those people who would rather buy/own.

So it is a straight fight between young/poor and old/wealthy over available housing and it is impossible for the government to "help" (NewSpeak for subsidise) both sides as the effects cancel out! It's like sending weapons to opposing armies; good for weapons manufacturers and nobody else.

It would be a lot cheaper (for the taxpayer) and simpler to "help" neither side (again, current Chancellor Philip Hammond has had an outbreak of common sense and will shut down the Help To Buy subsidy at the end of this year) with a resulting fall in house prices. Win win win!


5 comments:

mombers said...

No doubt a requirement to sell your home to fund your retirement before tucking into the private property of the next generation isn't on the cards...

Bayard said...

"Previous Chancellor George Osborne had started gently swimming against the tide"

I'm still fairly convinced that one of the aims of his changes to pensions where you no longer have to buy an annuity was to get a whole lot more money flooding into the property market and keep those house prices going up, up, up.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B yes, but politicians are capable of having confused and contradictory policies. Osborne was full on Homey ( like the pension thing you mention) until the end when he started rowing back a little bit. The sequence of events is important.

Steven_L said...

current Chancellor Philip Hammond has had an outbreak of common sense and will shut down the Help To Buy subsidy

Isn't that only because there's plenty of 90% and 95% LTV mortgages back on the market anyway. HTB served it's purpose.

Mark Wadsworth said...

SL, true, but we must be thankful for small mercies.