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housing is artificially expensive in the UK because the housing stock is delierately held below demand.

I admit there are issues that most of the demand is in areas where there is genuinely a shortage of land, but the actual shortage is nothing like as bad as it appears to be.

also the refusal of government to build council housing to reduce the demand on housing over the last 30 years is cowardly and short sighted. Given the constraints, rented housing doesn't work in the UK because it's more expensive than purchased property.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Fri Dec 11th, 2009 at 05:15:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Given the constraints, rented housing doesn't work in the UK because it's more expensive than purchased property.

For the 4 years I lived in London I could not have afforded the monthly payments on a mortgage on the properties I could afford to rent. Of course that was at the peak of the housing bubble, but still the conventional wisdom was that owning was cheaper...

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Dec 12th, 2009 at 04:46:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
people don't see that interest payments are no different from home rental payments (you're "renting" the money), ie build up no capital. And when comparing renting to owning, you'd need to add up the impact of the amounts (for the difference between your mortgage payment and your rental for an euivalent place) that you'd save and, presumably get income on.

In practice, the main advantage of buying used to be that it represented a form of forced saving, allowing you to build up your patrimony. But with interest-only, 2/28, resettable and other fancy loans where you paid almost exclusively interest, the borrowers did not accumulate any equity unless there was a price increase... but they were on the hook for asset value losses.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Dec 12th, 2009 at 10:14:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In the UK market, property almost always accumulates. The whole point of "buy-to-let" mortgages that were major creators of the recent property bubble here is that you don't pay off the equity, rental pays the interest and inflation increases the capital stake.

keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Dec 12th, 2009 at 10:29:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
that's exactly what I said: interest payment and rent are substitutable, and actual wealth accumulation only comes from asset price inflation, a highly risky bet to make when you carry the risk of the downside (prices going down).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sat Dec 12th, 2009 at 10:58:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Maybe, but that is a twist cos up until a few years ago mortgage repayments were invariably much less than the rental on similar properties. It was saving up the 10 - 20% downpayment that were the problems.

However, what you're demonstrating is that the artificail shortage of property in london was forcing rental into ridiculous areas as well. There are believed to be over a million empty properties within the M25. If they came on the market they'd trash current property and rental prices.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Sat Dec 12th, 2009 at 10:27:02 AM EST
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