I agree -people see this as the primary function of a house. The primary function of a house is to live in it. I see no point in crippling yourself financially because you want to play some weirdy “property ladder” game.

As a place to live then no I don’t – My house is somewhere I live – I have no plans to move (unless we win the lottery). I have always thought houses as a place to live but don’t see why if I can afford it I can’t have a nice place

As for a rental property (which I don’t have) then its an investment decision just like shares/ pension etc are

It is not. It is a non productive asset. It just stores value, it may return rent which represents an opportunity cost of not investing. Shares or banks deposits can be used for productive business investment, and are as such real wealth generators. It is a shame so many economists and governments have lost that basic fact.

Supply and demand a limit on mortgage size in relation to income will definately lower activity on the market on the demand side so price will be lowered. A house which cost 45k in 2002 should only cost 57k (with inflation at 3%) in 2010 but instead costs 110k why can't anyone see this as ridiculous.
And it's a con and trick of the market because if a job pays 20k in 2000 in 2010 the same job is likely to pay 24.5k but now if you want a house you have to get a mortgage at over 4.5x your yearly wage to get a miserly 2 up 2 down instead of just over 2x.
So for a single person a 2 bed house is a luxury even on 25k a year so for someone on 15k of 12k it's an implausability.
But why is not the country up in arms about this.

Criminal Justice Bill.

metaphorical arms.
Thing is we are bothered about MPs taking a few quid more than they are entitled to but we aren't bothered about the cost of purchasing a house to be 5 tiems a persons income for a first time buyer.

In some areas it is 8 or 10 times income, that is unsustainable. And why house prices have a lot further to fall.

+1
definately
My dad said this was coming back in 2005 and I said it also since he said it mind no one believed it until it happened.

It might be a non productive asset in that a house does not produce anything but it is a valued investment vehicle.

Also a good rental sector is needed otherwise the workforce is unable to move around

Return on cash is around 2% in a reasonable account. Rental return is around 6 – 8% and the possibility of a capital gain as well

In the end its supply and demand. We are a small country with a high demand for housing and a very limited supply

True, but how many actually do?


Yes but the fact is that most buy to lets are mortgaged up to the hilt, so the rental covers the interest, but the real reason for people getting into rentals is the capital gain on top which has been excessive and created a bubble.


There is plenty of space, that is a typical estate agent quote.

Thats because developers do not want to build social/affordable housing. FOr them the profit is tiny when compared to those lovely 4/5 bedroom double garage executive houses they always want to put up. If they do build "affordable" (and that definition is usually laughable) its substandard, cant swing a hamster 1/2 bedrooms (if your a midget) flats.

Err me at least 3 times when I moved for work from the SE to the Midlands , then to the North and now back to the SE. Without a good rental market I would have not been able to


There is plenty of space where people don’t want to live / no jobs. Where there are the jobs then people want to move and so need to rent



Well if I was a builder I would want to build items that gave me the most profit
But its often the council that stop small scale building through the planning rules so stopping ordinary people from building a house

I am in support of a decent rental market, but it does not have to be solely private. The council should have property available for this to move into an area, even swap with someone who wants to move in the opposite direction. Yes but if there are no jobs in the area, then rents would fall and so would property prices. That should make business creation cheaper but we all know how sticky property prices are on the way down. That slows job creation.

The creation of jobs in an area is down to governments industrial policy, without one jobs move to the areas of safest growth, most likely the south east.

Only to a very limited amount. Successive governments have spent Billions trying to get firms to move away from the SE up to the Midlands / north with very little success.
Were they have been successful is when they move government departments (DVLA for example).
While manufacturing may want Greenfield sites the service industry want to be near its clients and a lot of them are down south

Well several central government departments are in the process of going North ( mostly Manchester ) and the BBC is being forced to spend huge amounts of our money in moving North ( mostly Glasgow and Manchester ) as well.