Yes, trivially.
How do they get it back? If they have to repay the government when they move, that'll make moving upmarket much more difficult. The government will then start having to subside "second time" buyers.
No but you have a God given democratic right to whinge about it.
Tim, Your question to me :
referred to my comment to you :
which I agree is equally as immature as your original comment about cars and deliberately so.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes
Yes, I've heard of them, but a requirement of both symbolic and more meaningful gestures is that they should be capable of making an impact. Although one could make allowances for the wording by the OP, if one takes it literally I think it is meaningless as a gesture because it can't possibly have any effect, either in practice for the reason I gave, or symbolically because it won't be noticed.
You can only patronise someone if they are prepared to be patronised! I'm not, and I have read some stuff by de Bono.
Too early to say what impact if any this may have. The petition was only set up yesterday.
I thought we had established that one should try not to take it too literally
You noticed it
In article , snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk writes
Much too early then.
No, you had commented thus, but that's a long way short of establishing it.
But not in a positive way :-)
OK Several points:
Go ahead with your strike. If you are outpriced of the market that will have no effect anyway.
Lending of the banks is already regulated - the Mortgage Code of Business, as overseen by the FSA does just that job. Individual lending decisions, quite rightly, remain at the discretion of the banks/b socs. After all, it is their commercial decision.
How does the governments schemes to help bridge the gap between house prices and the affordability faced by first time buyers prop up the market exactly? If they did NOT do this the properties would simply be bought freely and let....
...
You seem not to understand the fundemental principle of economics - the reason house prices are high and have in recent history been escalating is because the demand for housing exceeds the supply. It is called inflationary pressure. Go read a book and come back when you know what you are talking about.
MC
If you conducted yourself less like a know-it-all pompous prick then I might have bothered replying to your simplistic O-level economics.
You don't seem to understand economics either: if there had been a shift in preference towards housing, leading to a move along the demand curve, then rents would have risen too.
Thus the Mystery factor we're looking for has something to do with
*buying* houses. Can it be coincidence that there's a credit bubble ongoing and houses are bought with credit?Inflation is quite low actually. What we have is an *asset* inflation.
Uh-huh.
FoFP
And yet, you did.
Prat
On the contrary . I replied simply to point out to you that you came across as a pompous ignoramus. I did not reply to your 'simplistic O-level economics' although I see that M. Holmes has and has ripped your "schoolboy economics" to shreds. Would you care to disagree with him ?
No doubt. But it is *also* because, unlike practically everything else we buy in everyday life, the overt price of a house is only somewhat related to how much we pay, and what matters to most of us -- and esp first-time buyers -- is how much we have to pay.
Most of us will want to buy the best house we can afford. This may be, say, #10Kpa. In that case, if we ignore fees and profits, and if we assume a 25 year mortgage, then at 0% interest we will buy a #250000 house. At 1% interest, that has dropped to #220K; at 2% to #195K; at 5% to #141K; at 10% to #91K; at
15% to #65K; at 20% to #49.5K [and at that level, some #9900pa, or 99%, of our mortgage is initially going in interest]. If, as has happened in reasonably recent history, interest rates drop from 15% to 5% or so, then *for that reason alone* houses that cost #65K will, as sure as eggs is eggs, rise in price to #141K. Every 0.25% cut in interest rates will add something like #8K to the price of a #200K house, assuming that the same people are chasing the same houses and are prepared to spend the same money.Of course, at 15% inflation, a #65K house will be worth #2M after 25 years; or, equivalently, our #10Kpa mortgage will be costing us only #303 in real terms by the last year, leaving us with shedloads of money to upgrade to a better house.
Equally of course, the real picture is much more complex than the above suggests. But you do have to look at the whole picture, not just "Ooh! Starter homes used to be #X and are now #Y, which is N times salary! Scandal! Something Must Be Done!" As ever, the problem is that governments that do Something are almost invariably doing the Wrong Thing.
wrote
Are you not going to come back until you're old & wise enough to buy a house?
Now you're being really silly aren't you ?
wrote
You started it!
That reminds me of a joke:
A man walks into an estate agents and asks what could he buy for £250k in this area ?
Estate agent says; 'we have a nice studio flat just come on the market'
Man says; 'great I'll offer £100k for it!'
Estate agent; 'that's taking the piss'
Man; 'you started it!'
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