Marxist Corner

Oh god, there is so much factually wrong with that, where to start?

That’s just your personal interpretation, I’ve argued about *opportunity* not demanded something for nothing- you haven’t really tried to debate any of the points I’ve raised either about how tough it is for young people trying to get on in life. Did you read the article about millennials being the first generation to fare worse than their parents? Why don’t you debate the actual facts.

Where can you get 100% mortgages at the moment? Boris is pondering a move to bring in 5% mortgages.

Most young people are only able to buy because they are lent/gifted the money by parents because raising 15k for a deposit is bloody hard work when rents are so high and statistics indicate that millennials are paying in the region of ~40% of their income on rents. How are you supposed to save? It’s not exactly like wages are keeping up with the cost of living let alone the cost of housing. You might point to schemes like help to buy but if you look at the effect that has had on the property market it is abundantly clear that it made littler material difference to people trying to get on the ladder, it just helped first time buyers who *already had the money* buy a bigger house than they were going to and in the process artificially boosted house prices and raised lots of money for developers that famously went in the CEO of Persimmon’s back pocket. Help to buy and the lowering of interest rates to record lows is socialism that benefits YOU the home owner because it boosts prices and protects you from a price crash, with help to buy funded by the tax payer. The housing market is a “free” market that needs socialism to help prop it up. Still hate socialism now do you?

Anyway all I ask is that there is something left for the generations that come after to us in order for them to have secure housing but the trends are progressing towards more young people being priced out of housing security and into expensive rents. Even if Boris dangled 5% mortgages in front of me I’d still vote Labour because I‘m not the sort of person to abandon my principles. Housing should be about shelter from the elements, a basic right, not a tool to build an investment portfolio and profit from.

Go on then what is factually wrong, the 12 year high in first time mortgages, higher mortgage interest rates in the 80s, more government help schemes today, very low mortgage rates today, no stamp duty breaks in the 80s, no 100% mortgages in the 80s other than for council right to buy, in fact I could add that today lenders offer higher multiples on salaries than in the 80s.
So Oldie which of those facts are wrong.

You obvs wouldn’t get on with FG then as he’s a migrant from Europe .... living in France of course.
So house prices have gone up because scroungers have come over and taken benefits yet they’ve also managed to buy all the housing stock ..... whilst scrounging benefits . Adds up !
Also I thought you’re lot were welcoming of anyone from all parts of the world as it should be equalised to work here ... rather than Europeans getting things easier ?
I think we know what you are Oldgas , you know what you are .

Oldgas is a well balanced poster.....


......a chip on both shoulders.

And what about Thatcher and successive governments failing to build more social housing to replace what was lost during right to buy? Reckon that had any effect? Or opening up housing as an investment vehicle through buy to let? Or encouragement of wealthy foreign nationals (mainly Russians) to use British housing stock to launder their money whilst leaving those houses empty? No? It was all just immigration? Because the Sun told you? Right. Okay.

Who remembers that Conservative classic ..... for every council house we sell we’ll build two more ? People believed them 🙄

Ok.
Let's start with a genuine free market rule.
If supply is constricted, which housing was and is, and then the Government introduces a taxpayers funding for house buyers, called "Help to Buy", what happens to house price inflation? You know the answer and in so doing further suppressing the ability of those further down the income ladder to buy a home as they will never afford the mortgage repayments resulting from said price inflation. The near ten year stagnation of real wages from 2009 refers.

Completely insane.

I bought my first house in 1974 and then replaced that in 1977.
I seem to recall the interest rate on the mortgage was 12.5% or thereabouts.
In the early 1980s, 1981 I think, it rose to 14.3%.
Why because in those days the interest rate was controlled by the Treasury, that would be a Tory led Treasury.
The same Tory Government that had made a pig's ear of monetary policy and an absolute disastrous fiscal policy.
Relevance?

They are doing it again.
Thankfully they cannot mess with the BoE rate due to the reforms brought in after 1997 (which they opposed), but they are making stupid decions like "Help to Buy" without addressing the supply side.

Stamp Duty breaks and other fiscal stimulus like that are only there to try and stimulate a flat lining economy.
They would have been far better to use that taxpayers cash to build homes, creating jobs, stimulating the economy and helping to suppress house price inflation.

But they didn't.
Now we have a hyper inflated housing bubble which, unless we get very lucky the pandemic caused contraction in the economy will burst.
Leaving people in negative equity (you advocated 100% mortgages, further insanity), still a supply totally incapable of meeting demand, but with unemployment leaving even more people with little ability to finance a mortgage.

At which point banks pull their mortgage products. Fuelling stagflation.

You think this is the right way to run an economy?

People like 365 are caught up in this economic illiteracy.
I am very surprised you support it.

Yep, nailed it.

Let’s be fair of course francegas supports it, he has done alright and has retired abroad, it’s not his problem anymore and presumably his kids are set up for life too. So he can sip champagne and watch the fight for resources from a distance with his feet up. I just wish he wouldn’t believe this whole “you just have to work hard” stuff that a lot of boomers buy into because as you have explained it’s a different era now. Hard work in and of itself is rewarded with stagnant wages unless you can innovate or afford to re-train.

In some ways the housing bubble it’s very clever political policy because it keeps pushing house prices up which is a vote winner with 60% of the electorate, plus fuelling further division into the haves vs the have nots. The haves being the people who have access to large house deposits.

One question, don’t the government have some hand in setting the interest rate? It appears to have been set artificially low since time immemorial to avoid the sort of housing bust that we saw in America in the mid 2000’s.