They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
Surely a negative yield could be claimed against income tax so that wouldn't work, while a large number of BTL landlords couldn't give a stuff about yield, and are interested only in capital appreciation.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. SNIP
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
I think that it will be a similar system to determining whether someone is a second home owner for the purposes of calculating SDLT. You sign a declaration to your lawyer saying that you don't own a second home. If you are found to be lying, then you are committing an offence of some sort and would have to pay the money back.
I think 'first time buyer' will be defined as someone who has never owned property in the UK, or anywhere, and if you are a couple, then this applies to both of you.
It is an outrageous loophole that you do not have to be a British citizen (as far as I can see from the form). Nor is there any restriction on ownership of property outside the UK. There is nothing to stop eg a wealthy French banker who owns a multimillion pound house in France from using HTB if he happens to be based in London for a year or two. In London it is arguably more likely that buyers will have this kind of profile than your average Darren and Tracey who grew up on a Dagenham council estate. An appalling waste of taxpayers money.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
Surely a negative yield could be claimed against income tax so that wouldn't work, while a large number of BTL landlords couldn't give a stuff about yield, and are interested only in capital appreciation.
In the circumstances Max describes, there wouldn't be any appreciation.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
What good does it do to tilt something that is broken? It is no less broken for being tilted one way or the other. The housing market needs to be fixed, not tilted.
The 1997 Labour landslide was fuelled, in no small part, by a delayed reaction to the widespread negative equity and repossessions of the early 90s. I can understand why governments want to prevent collapses in house prices at all costs. But in refusing to allow the housing market to properly correct to a sane level, Brown, Cameron and May have wreaked enormous cumulative damage, especially to the younger generations.
The issue is you need to normalise interest rates which should reduce the excess capital seeking yield from property. And you need to deflate house prices without crashing the banks
They haven't done much but without the ability to move the fundamebtal issues I'm not sure there is much they could do.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
Private BTL buyers now have a significant disincentive, in that (almost uniquely) they are now going to be clobbered by not being able to offset interest against tax. That's a pretty nasty measure by any standard. That, togehter with the stamp duty disincentive, tilts the market towards owner-occupiers and first-time buyers in particular.
Prices dropping significantly would be a disaster: supply would be reduced, the housing market would seize up, and mortgages would be heavily restricted (making it harder, not easier, for young people to buy). And of course you'd get the negative equity/repossessions problem. We really, really don't want to go there.
The move to encourage corporate vehicles for letting is a bid to professionalise the market, which pretty much everyone agrees is a good thing. The UK is unusual in not having much in the way of corporate landlords in the housing market. There is a hell of a lot of investment money potentially available for build-to-let, on a large scale, if we can get it right, and that will help the housing crisis enormously.
There is no magic bullet - it's a question of balancing multiple policy nudges.
The business world might be better - certainly more prudent - if debt interest were not tax deductible. Indeed wasn't Trump, before his election, proposing changing accounting rules along these lines?
There will no doubt be a certificate that applicants relying on the exemption will need to sign. Provided they make the consequences of false declarations sufficiently robust only committed fraudsters will take the chance. There will be the usual pleading about innocent misrepresentation but on it's face the parameters are very clear.
The approach doesn't seem to be very different to, say, self-assessment, which starts with honesty and the consequences of being caught.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
The whole point is that it would increase supply and reduce house prices. The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
The firm my brother works at has one mortgage where It has been in place for in excess of 200 years (albeit with the contract renewed every so often). So long as asset coverage is good and the interest and principal is paid as scheduled why should this be a problem?
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
Surely a negative yield could be claimed against income tax so that wouldn't work, while a large number of BTL landlords couldn't give a stuff about yield, and are interested only in capital appreciation.
How would there be any capital appreciation? If anything they would be looking at huge paper losses that will only ever increase.
Jeremy Corbyn says he was never meant to be called "Jeremy" at all. The Labour leader said his parents had agreed a name for him shortly after his birth, in 1949 - only for his father to change his mind on the way to having it registered, without telling his mother.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
What good does it do to tilt something that is broken? It is no less broken for being tilted one way or the other. The housing market needs to be fixed, not tilted.
The 1997 Labour landslide was fuelled, in no small part, by a delayed reaction to the widespread negative equity and repossessions of the early 90s. I can understand why governments want to prevent collapses in house prices at all costs. But in refusing to allow the housing market to properly correct to a sane level, Brown, Cameron and May have wreaked enormous cumulative damage, especially to the younger generations.
The issue is you need to normalise interest rates which should reduce the excess capital seeking yield from property. And you need to deflate house prices without crashing the banks
They haven't done much but without the ability to move the fundamebtal issues I'm not sure there is much they could do.
Does the government not have the ability to allow interest rates to rise? Yes I know that's a BoE responsibility in a direct sense, but by setting the economic framework in a particular way they could ensure that the BoE has to set interest rates on a path back to normal levels.
Genuine question - why didn't any banks crash in 1989-95 when house prices as much as halved in the overheated bits of the south?
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
Look at the size of the CLPs in those places and how they have grown since 2015. Labour's vote share went up 3.6% in England in 2015, the Green vote went up by a similar amount. It wasn't all in university seats.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties. I don't think it will necessarily ramp up house prices, nor result in a transfer of wealth from first time buyers to property owners. SNIP
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
I think that it will be a similar system to determining whether someone is a second home owner for the purposes of calculating SDLT. You sign a declaration to your lawyer saying that you don't own a second home. If you are found to be lying, then you are committing an offence of some sort and would have to pay the money back.
I think 'first time buyer' will be defined as someone who has never owned property in the UK, or anywhere, and if you are a couple, then this applies to both of you.
There is nothing to stop eg a wealthy French banker who owns a multimillion pound house in France from using HTB if he happens to be based in London for a year or two.
Point 2 of the FTB declaration form
" I do not own, and never have owned any interest in land, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere"
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
But BTL buyers still have a massive advantage in that they can buy with interest-only mortgages. In the long run this far outweighs the higher stamp duty they have to pay. And Osborne's changes to the tax deductability of interest only apply to individuals. A BTL company, which many landlords use, can still allow 100% of its interest cost against tax. If the government really wanted to create a level playing field it would require all mortgages on residential property to be on a repayment basis and set a maximum mortgage term. But that would cause prices to drop and upset the Tories core support base.
The firm my brother works at has one mortgage where It has been in place for in excess of 200 years (albeit with the contract renewed every so often). So long as asset coverage is good and the interest and principal is paid as scheduled why should this be a problem?
Because the availability of finance is the primary driver of house price inflation. If finance was more difficult to get - as it used to be - prices would be lower and more people would be able to afford to buy. Corporates will almost always be able to get longer finance terms than private individuals as they have an indefinite existence, are not likely to default through illness, redundancy etc and probably don't mind if the debt is never repaid as long as they can finance it. So if we want private buyers and corporates to have an equal chance in the market it has to be regulated to make sure that is the case and this means regulating the terms on which finance is available.
They are helping the good guys who are able to play in the market, at the expense of the bad guys, whereas the fundamental problem is that the market is beyond reach altogether for very many people. Yes, a model where a minority own and the majority rent might work in economic terms (and indeed is our history), but politically one of the things that makes people look more favourably upon conservative politics as they age is the gathering of responsibilities such as home ownership. The Tories currently offer little to tenants; even the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
I don't disagree with that, but as Phil Hammond rightly says there is no magic bullet and this is a long-term problem. The stamp duty change is one measure amongst several. It helps first-time buyers, and is therefore welcome, but it doesn't address the fundamental problem. Obviously increasing supply is ultimately the key requirement, and you don't do that by measures which clobber housebuilders, as some have suggested.
It can be done by forcing private landlords out of the market by forcing yields down. A yearly 3% surcharge would completely decimate the private rental market for all but the highest yielding units (those that require a huge investment or completely newly built). It would force landlords to either give up or invest in new builds and extensive refurbs.
Surely a negative yield could be claimed against income tax so that wouldn't work, while a large number of BTL landlords couldn't give a stuff about yield, and are interested only in capital appreciation.
How would there be any capital appreciation? If anything they would be looking at huge paper losses that will only ever increase.
hmm. The stamp duty bribe turns out to be a £600m transfer from future taxpayers to existing property owners.
No wonder the tory client vote are cheering on Hammond.
The conservatives are ideologically bankrupt, using the levers of the state to enrich themselves at the expense of the next generation.
Are there any conservatives prepared to call out this b*llshit?
Combined with the effect of previous measures, the government has now massively tilted the low-end housing market in favour of first-time buyers, and massively against buy-to-let buyers.
That's what you want, so I've no idea why you are complaining.
What good does it do to tilt something that is broken? It is no less broken for being tilted one way or the other. The housing market needs to be fixed, not tilted.
The 1997 Labour landslide was fuelled, in no small part, by a delayed reaction to the widespread negative equity and repossessions of the early 90s. I can understand why governments want to prevent collapses in house prices at all costs. But in refusing to allow the housing market to properly correct to a sane level, Brown, Cameron and May have wreaked enormous cumulative damage, especially to the younger generations.
The issue is you need to normalise interest rates which should reduce the excess capital seeking yield from property. And you need to deflate house prices without crashing the banks
They haven't done much but without the ability to move the fundamebtal issues I'm not sure there is much they could do.
Does the government not have the ability to allow interest rates to rise? Yes I know that's a BoE responsibility in a direct sense, but by setting the economic framework in a particular way they could ensure that the BoE has to set interest rates on a path back to normal levels.
Genuine question - why didn't any banks crash in 1989-95 when house prices as much as halved in the overheated bits of the south?
They can move interests from a technical sense but the economic impact ex housing would be bad. The economy needs to get back to normal rates but it will be a while before it is healthy enough.
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
IMO the quickest way back for the Lib Dems is to become the NIMBY party...something that their experience in pavement politics and hyperactive campaigning hypocrisy well qualifies them for. Here in the leafy home counties, housebuilding on green belt and other inappropriate sites is being steamrollered through by Tory councils and a Tory government on an industrial scale. A quick glance at the anti-development posters littering the lamp-posts of Surrey and Sussex suggests that many in these Toriest of areas do not agree with Hammond that building 300,000 new houses per year is a good idea. Which party should a NIMBY vote for today?
They can move interests from a technical sense but the economic impact ex housing would be bad. The economy needs to get back to normal rates but it will be a while before it is healthy enough.
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
IMO the quickest way back for the Lib Dems is to become the NIMBY party...something that their experience in pavement politics and general campaigning hypocrisy well qualifies them for. Here in the leafy home counties, housebuilding on green belt and other inappropriate sites is being steamrollered through by Tory councils and a Tory government. A quick glance at the anti-development posters littering the lamp-posts of Surrey and Sussex suggests that many in these Toriest of areas do not agree with Hammond that building 300,000 new houses per year is a good idea. Which party should a NIMBY vote for today?
As a national approach that is not a good one for a party that has tended to pitch to younger voters.
Just perusing the second estimate of GDP and one piece of data stuck out to me, GDP has grown by just under 10% since the crash while per capita GDP has grown by just 2.4% over the same period. Enter Corbyn.
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
The whole point is that it would increase supply and reduce house prices. The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
The whole point is that it would increase supply and reduce house prices. The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
Your taxi driver friend would benefit from falling prices and the size of the mortgage required being much smaller than before. Suddenly he's in a position where he is able to buy.
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
Though I suppose pushing the "potential candidate" line would be amusing.
The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
That's not true. Both the UK and the Republic are in the Common Travel Area (CTA) so there's no border between them.
Not being in Schengen means you need a passport to move between the Republic and Schengen, or North and Schengen, it does not mean you need a passport to move between the Republic and North.
Quite. I regularly travel by ferry between the UK and ROI without a passport, or indeed without any personal identification.
Just perusing the second estimate of GDP and one piece of data stuck out to me, GDP has grown by just under 10% since the crash while per capita GDP has grown by just 2.4% over the same period. Enter Corbyn.
It's since the pre-crash peak. But, yes, 2.4 % growth over a decade is unimpressive.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
Look at the size of the CLPs in those places and how they have grown since 2015. Labour's vote share went up 3.6% in England in 2015, the Green vote went up by a similar amount. It wasn't all in university seats.
Yes, Labour support has risen in most seats the Lib Dems lost to the Conservatives, sometimes very sharply.
Many people who buy sub £300k houses are not first time buyers. Already, there is no stamp duty on houses under £125k, which would be those ordinarily within the reach of first time buyers, so for these people there is no change. There are also people moving up the housing ladder and downsizing, and also buy to let landlords that buy properties between 125k and 300k. The budget move helps FTBuyers to compete with these buyers on such properties.
When my wife and I bought our previous house jointly, she was a first time buyer but I was not. Would we still have qualified?
And - this is not an uncommon occurrence I wouldn't have thought - what about immigrants who own property back home but have never bought anything in the UK? Do they qualify for FTB status? And if not how can the authorities know what they own overseas?
We have had these incentives in Australia for quite a while. They don't make the slightest difference to housing affordability as prices simply increase to compensate. It is just a way of propping up a housing bubble.
To answer your question, the criteria will be restricted to the UK and depends who was listed on the property register in the past, but generally all buyers need to have never appeared on the register before to qualify.
Interesting thoughts. Son 2 owned a house.... well was buying one..... back in the 90’s. Then he sold it and went abroad. Now it’s just possible he might be coming back. Is he a FTB or not? (probably the latter, I suppose). Grandddaughter Elect is very unhappy. They moved into a £250k house in August, and of course paid stamp duty. Whether the house would have gone up £2k plus in the meantime is of copurse a different matter.
Granddaughter Elect should be happy.
Her house has just gone up in value* by about £4,250 (250/300*5000)
Tax free of course
Edit: * of course I mean price, not value
It’s only ‘happiness creating’ if she, and Grandson One, her partner, want to sell. Which they don’t. They want/need cash for furnishing..... yes, of course we’ve helped.... and general expenses over and above basic living. Said ‘expenses' include getting married. And while one only needs enough for the ring and the registry office, that’s not the way the world works.
We keep thinking it’s the wrong way round, too, but thwere you go. That’s the world today.
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
Though I suppose pushing the "potential candidate" line would be amusing.
I suppose it’s logical that we have to drop out of the EU culktural progamme. On several grounds.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
Look at the size of the CLPs in those places and how they have grown since 2015. Labour's vote share went up 3.6% in England in 2015, the Green vote went up by a similar amount. It wasn't all in university seats.
Yes, Labour support has risen in most seats the Lib Dems lost to the Conservatives, sometimes very sharply.
There was quite clearly a latent properly socialist vote across the South (where Labour routinely polled 5-10%) - rational enough to acknowledge that FPTP meant they had no choice but to vote Lib Dem to beat the Tories, yet proud enough to stop doing that post-coalition.
The equivalent Tory vote in the North usually stayed in the 15-20% range. This is a principal reason why, ignoring boundary effects, FPTP used to favour Labour so strongly and now doesn't. Their vote under Blair was very efficient - depressed turnout in inner-city seats (whereas Corbyn got giant majorities), terrible vote shares in unwinnable Tory heartlands (but the LDs keeping the Tories busy there too), and Goldilocks vote shares of 40-55% in the Middle England town seats (that are now marginals or, in some cases, fairly safe Tory seats).
They can move interests from a technical sense but the economic impact ex housing would be bad. The economy needs to get back to normal rates but it will be a while before it is healthy enough.
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
Affordability is key - it's why I was telling @HHemmelig that it's interest rates that matter most. The capping of salary multiples have also been a huge. constraint on prices.
The whole point is that it would increase supply and reduce house prices. The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
Lenders are obliged to consider affordability of loans these days (and rightly so). I obviously don't know the personal circumstances of the taxi driver but there's no reason in principle why someone with a steady income from self-employment couldn't use that as evidence to support a mortgage application (let's leave aside Uber and self-driving cars for now). But affordability isn't just about income; it's about outgoings too. If he has a family and a non-working partner (for example), he'd be able to borrow much less than if he's single, all else being equal. Something of that nature might well explain why he can't get a loan (or, more accurately, can't get the loan he wants).
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
The whole point is that it would increase supply and reduce house prices. The point of a huge surcharge is that there is no way to pass it on, someone who pays £1200 per month on a £360k value house won't suddenly be able to pay an extra £900 per month if a 3% surcharge were introduced to the landlord. The landlord would have to sell. Once you take it across the whole market we're suddenly unlocking up to a million homes, mostly in London and the SE where yields are lower than in the North and Midlands for owner occupiers. There isn't a housing shortage so much as a shortage of housing available to purchase. Removing units from the rental market and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
How good are his records of income and do they match what he told the tax man?
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
Though I suppose pushing the "potential candidate" line would be amusing.
I suppose it’s logical that we have to drop out of the EU culktural progamme. On several grounds.
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
Well, I’m not an activist any longer but I agree.
Me too. At my age of course I worry about the side effects of Corbynism, but I know that my younger self if living in current times would likely vote for him.
But never for the cynical machine politicians of co-called 'moderate' Labour.
IMO the quickest way back for the Lib Dems is to become the NIMBY party...something that their experience in pavement politics and general campaigning hypocrisy well qualifies them for. Here in the leafy home counties, housebuilding on green belt and other inappropriate sites is being steamrollered through by Tory councils and a Tory government. A quick glance at the anti-development posters littering the lamp-posts of Surrey and Sussex suggests that many in these Toriest of areas do not agree with Hammond that building 300,000 new houses per year is a good idea. Which party should a NIMBY vote for today?
As a national approach that is not a good one for a party that has tended to pitch to younger voters.
Why shouldn't the Green Party fulfil such a role?
Because the Green Party is full of people who have no idea about politics and are not interested in so being. Indeed, they make a virtue of it: they like being ineffective because their very failure legitimises their anti-mainstream stance.
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
.
In such a scenario, where do people who cannot get a mortgage or want to rent short term go?
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
In my experience, most leasehold flats are mortgageable.
They can move interests from a technical sense but the economic impact ex housing would be bad. The economy needs to get back to normal rates but it will be a while before it is healthy enough.
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
Affordability is key - it's why I was telling @HHemmelig that it's interest rates that matter most. The capping of salary multiples have also been a huge. constraint on prices.
The stamp duty change is all about affordability which is why those (correctly) noting it will push prices up a bit too are missing the point. Plus of course the FTB owns the house eventually (as opposed to the stamp duty which is lost forever).
It's worth noting that affordability of mortgage repayments is at historically normal levels: it's the interest rates that are abnormal. Plus expectations have changed [for the better] and governments haven't met them. https://twitter.com/resi_analyst/status/925708897998065664
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared into the long grass.
.
and putting them into the owner occupier market will ease a lot of the current housing shortage.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
Your taxi driver friend would benefit from falling prices and the size of the mortgage required being much smaller than before. Suddenly he's in a position where he is able to buy.
A major fall in prices won't help him if he is ineligible for a mortgage because he is too old and his employment is regarded as unreliable (not sure what his exact circumstances are, but the rules for mortgages are very tight). Nor if the leasehold flat he lives in is regarded as unmortgageable. A fall in prices would have significant knock on consequences for existing first time buyers who are highly leveraged: ie negative equity meaning that they are stuck paying higher interest rates and unable to move/sell. Politically this could be disastrous for the cons. Its a case of careful what you wish for.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Indeed,
My Ward in east London has about 5000 homes, and between the last two censuses one property went from owner-occupation to tenanted on average every three days throughout that ten year period. Simultaneously what were Tory leaning areas are now strongly trending Labour.
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
Though I suppose pushing the "potential candidate" line would be amusing.
I suppose it’s logical that we have to drop out of the EU culktural progamme. On several grounds.
Istanbul hosted it in 2010!
'the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states'
Turkey is/was at the very least a "potential candidate" state. In fact there are literally dozens of recent posts on here suggesting that until the recent coup unpleasantness, she was on the cusp of joining the EU.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
Look at the size of the CLPs in those places and how they have grown since 2015. Labour's vote share went up 3.6% in England in 2015, the Green vote went up by a similar amount. It wasn't all in university seats.
Yes, Labour support has risen in most seats the Lib Dems lost to the Conservatives, sometimes very sharply.
There was quite clearly a latent properly socialist vote across the South (where Labour routinely polled 5-10%) - rational enough to acknowledge that FPTP meant they had no choice but to vote Lib Dem to beat the Tories, yet proud enough to stop doing that post-coalition.
The equivalent Tory vote in the North usually stayed in the 15-20% range. This is a principal reason why, ignoring boundary effects, FPTP used to favour Labour so strongly and now doesn't. Their vote under Blair was very efficient - depressed turnout in inner-city seats (whereas Corbyn got giant majorities), terrible vote shares in unwinnable Tory heartlands (but the LDs keeping the Tories busy there too), and Goldilocks vote shares of 40-55% in the Middle England town seats (that are now marginals or, in some cases, fairly safe Tory seats).
That's all correct. If the Conservatives had led Labour 42-40% in 2001, on the distribution of votes in that year, Labour would still have won an overall majority.
And on all this politics stuff I think the LDs are criticised unnecessarily because they had the audacity to actually want to be in power.
They didn't handle it brilliantly after that, but nor did the Cons. I think that is as much down to the Cons' arrogance as the LD's not quite realising that they were the governing party and hence shouldn't be criticising "the government" quite as much as they did.
My guess is that a large part of the 2010 LD vote was composed of people who are now very comfortable voting for a Corbyn-led Labour party in England or the SNP in Scotland. They were never centrists, they were anti-Iraq war left-wingers. For that reason, the LDs were never going to survive contact with the Tories.
How many anti-Iraq left wingers are there in Cheltenham, Truro, Southport, Cheadle, Taunton, Yeovil, St Ives or the dozens of other middle England seats that they lost to the Tories? It was probably a factor in the 10 or so left-leaning university seats the Lib Dems held, and in the many good second places they got in Labour inner city seats in 2010.
Look at the size of the CLPs in those places and how they have grown since 2015. Labour's vote share went up 3.6% in England in 2015, the Green vote went up by a similar amount. It wasn't all in university seats.
Yes, Labour support has risen in most seats the Lib Dems lost to the Conservatives, sometimes very sharply.
There was quite clearly a latent properly socialist vote across the South (where Labour routinely polled 5-10%) - rational enough to acknowledge that FPTP meant they had no choice but to vote Lib Dem to beat the Tories, yet proud enough to stop doing that post-coalition.
The equivalent Tory vote in the North usually stayed in the 15-20% range. This is a principal reason why, ignoring boundary effects, FPTP used to favour Labour so strongly and now doesn't. Their vote under Blair was very efficient - depressed turnout in inner-city seats (whereas Corbyn got giant majorities), terrible vote shares in unwinnable Tory heartlands (but the LDs keeping the Tories busy there too), and Goldilocks vote shares of 40-55% in the Middle England town seats (that are now marginals or, in some cases, fairly safe Tory seats).
That's all correct. If the Conservatives had led Labour 42-40% in 2001, on the distribution of votes in that year, Labour would still have won an overall majority.
Tories in some of these seats need to vote LibDem. QED.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Indeed,
My Ward in east London has about 5000 homes, and between the last two censuses one property went from owner-occupation to tenanted on average every three days throughout that ten year period. Simultaneously what were Tory leaning areas are now strongly trending Labour.
If private renting disappears, and the only choice is between owner occupation and social housing, that will probably benefit the Conservatives electorally. But, it would make it far harder for people to travel to other parts of the country to take up new jobs.
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared long grass.
.
.
I'm not sure I understand your plan, but it seems to me that the actual problem is that many people have no access to the housing market. No way of getting on to the housing ladder. The taxi driver I spoke to yesterday is 44 and cannot get a mortgage, even though he had a sizeable inheritance last year and has been working self employed with a stable income for 20 years. And, we are in a town which is affordable, his rented flat is worth about £120 - 150K. For whatever reason, he cannot get a mortgage.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
Your taxi driver friend would benefit from falling prices and the size of the mortgage required being much smaller than before. Suddenly he's in a position where he is able to buy.
A major fall in prices won't help him if he is ineligible for a mortgage because he is too old and his employment is regarded as unreliable (not sure what his exact circumstances are, but the rules for mortgages are very tight). Nor if the leasehold flat he lives in is regarded as unmortgageable. A fall in prices would have significant knock on consequences for existing first time buyers who are highly leveraged: ie negative equity meaning that they are stuck paying higher interest rates and unable to move/sell. Politically this could be disastrous for the cons. Its a case of careful what you wish for.
Very well put. You could add the psychological "wealth effect" of all homeowners. When house prices fall, they feel poorer and there is evidence that they curb spending. The opposite happen with house price increases as they feel richer and reach for their credit cards even though the value of the house cannot be realised until it is sold.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Bit harsh.
I am not BTL landlord, but I can understand, in a world of pensions trauma ( caused by a variety of reasons), why the (predominately?) middle aged sought BTL as a way of creating an enhanced pension pot and steady inflation proofed income in old age.
Now combined with very low interest rates that have driven up the market anyway, the demand for bigger deposits (no more 100% mortgages these days?) from lenders, and increasing demand from more household formation and population growth and we have arrived where we are, which I'm sure is not where we'd like to be. However, many "leeches" were reacting logically to their own circumstances and are part of a chain of events unconnected to them per se.
It looks like the Department of Culture, Media and Sports misled candidate cities bidding for EU Capital of Culture. The rules state explicitly that the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states participating in the EU cultural programme. There isn't a slot for candidate countries in 2023.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
Though I suppose pushing the "potential candidate" line would be amusing.
I suppose it’s logical that we have to drop out of the EU culktural progamme. On several grounds.
Istanbul hosted it in 2010!
'the scheme is open only to member states, candidate members and "potential candidate" states'
Turkey is/was at the very least a "potential candidate" state. In fact there are literally dozens of recent posts on here suggesting that until the recent coup unpleasantness, she was on the cusp of joining the EU.
Turkey was more than just a potential candidate state, it was an officially recognised candidate state that was joining the EU at the time.
en the promised abolition of letting agent fees seems to have disappeared long grass.
.
.
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
Your taxi driver friend would benefit from falling prices and the size of the mortgage required being much smaller than before. Suddenly he's in a position where he is able to buy.
A major fall in prices won't help him if he is ineligible for a mortgage because he is too old and his employment is regarded as unreliable (not sure what his exact circumstances are, but the rules for mortgages are very tight). Nor if the leasehold flat he lives in is regarded as unmortgageable. A fall in prices would have significant knock on consequences for existing first time buyers who are highly leveraged: ie negative equity meaning that they are stuck paying higher interest rates and unable to move/sell. Politically this could be disastrous for the cons. Its a case of careful what you wish for.
Very well put. You could add the psychological "wealth effect" of all homeowners. When house prices fall, they feel poorer and there is evidence that they curb spending. The opposite happen with house price increases as they feel richer and reach for their credit cards even though the value of the house cannot be realised until it is sold.
On a related point, many people nowadays have little or no pension provision and see their home (or portfolio) as their pension fund. If their intention is, over coming decades, to sell up or downsize and live off the equity, the amount passing to the next generation in inheritance will reduce and surely act as a downward drag on property values?
That's all correct. If the Conservatives had led Labour 42-40% in 2001, on the distribution of votes in that year, Labour would still have won an overall majority.
Tories in some of these seats need to vote LibDem. QED.
Some did. But Kennedy was to the left of Blair, and the Lib Dems were explicitly positioning themselves against the Tories (decapitation and all that). They could (should?) have been busy long-term positioning themselves to replace Labour, but I understand the temptation of pecking like vultures at the scraps of blue Blair left them.
Essentially Blair was unbeatable (again, under FPTP) until he personally became damaged goods. Even then it was his own party that brought him down.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Indeed,
My Ward in east London has about 5000 homes, and between the last two censuses one property went from owner-occupation to tenanted on average every three days throughout that ten year period. Simultaneously what were Tory leaning areas are now strongly trending Labour.
If private renting disappears, and the only choice is between owner occupation and social housing, that will probably benefit the Conservatives electorally. But, it would make it far harder for people to travel to other parts of the country to take up new jobs.
Harder to see it as more difficult than now. Both private and public sector has growing difficulty in attracting people to London, other than at the very top and (arguably) very bottom of the Labour market
Which means he is a f****** arse-hole. Still the imperial attitude has not left some Tories. They think the world should snap to attention at their beck and call. Things have moved on.
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
Well, I’m not an activist any longer but I agree.
I think I have an explanation for the low polling of the LibDems.
The LibDems (like the other parties) is a coalition (or an Alliance). It consists of Social Democrats (like me) and Economic Liberals (like Clegg and his mates who ran the coalition).
It worked as a protest party when there wasn't much difference between Tory and New Labour but it is exposed now there are two distinct policy options on offer.
If you are a social democrat, dubious about austerity, dubious about marketisation of public services, concerned about public services and fairness in society, you can vote Labour. Corbyn's policies are social democrat. That's why I'm attracted to them.
If you are an orange booker economic liberal, believing in markets for everything, minimising the state, then you can vote Tory. The only reason not to vote Tory is the Tory approach to Brexit. That's keeping the LibDems alive in patches such as Richmond.
The Labour coalition of social democrat v. Tory lite is being sorted in favour of Corbyn.
The Tory coalition of one nation v. UKIP lite hasn't been sorted yet.
FPTP makes this a political mess that is profoundly undemocratic.
If we had PR this wouldn't be such an issue. Government would alternate between a social democrat coalition and a one nation liberal coalition.
Speaking as a party member and candidate in recent council elections who has now resigned from the local party I can tell you that any resurgence won't come from the ground up. I thought it would but the GE being called in the middle of the county elections turned those elections in to a national vote of confidence in the Tories - just a few weeks ahead of the GE. This was pre-Dementia Tax when Theresa May was at her peek of popularity - the result was council gains for the Tories and losses for Lib Dems, who up to that point had been winning council by-elections from all parties.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
There is no hope for the party nationally because we don't have a core message. we have opposition to Brexit but so what? Brexit will happen in 2019 end of? What then for the party?
In council elections we've only ever achieved anything when we were the anti-Tory party and Labour weren't a viable option because they were distant third last time...there are activists up and down the country now writing their Focus's or their by-election literature who will never be able to use the "Winning here" or "Don't waste your vote on Labour".
The Labour bubble will only burst once their young activists face the disappointment of a Labour Government getting in to power, not being able to deliver on its promises and wrecking the economy - until that point there's no way back for the Lib Dems
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
This would be the same Richmond Park which still voted Tory in June
Lenders are obliged to consider affordability of loans these days (and rightly so). I obviously don't know the personal circumstances of the taxi driver but there's no reason in principle why someone with a steady income from self-employment couldn't use that as evidence to support a mortgage application (let's leave aside Uber and self-driving cars for now). But affordability isn't just about income; it's about outgoings too. If he has a family and a non-working partner (for example), he'd be able to borrow much less than if he's single, all else being equal. Something of that nature might well explain why he can't get a loan (or, more accurately, can't get the loan he wants).
Well, ultimately I don't know his circumstances. Possibly a history of financial problems. Could be lots of things. Maybe he is just poorly advised. I was laughed out of my high street bank four years ago when I asked them if I could get a mortgage. It turned out that they wouldn't lend me money, but two years later I went to a mortgage broker and they found me a mortgage without any problems at all. In those two years, prices locally had shot up about 30%.
The bottom line is that a lot of people fall in to this category of not having access to the mortgage market. But what it actually comes down to is that the monthly cost of the property is still going to be about £500 per month, it doesn't really make any difference if he is renting or paying off a mortgage. If he isn't eligible for a mortgage, he is still going to have to pay £500 per month, or else he is homeless.
Basically, the whole system is broken. In a rich, advanced economy people should have a basic right to good quality, secure housing. We are in a situation now where a large minority of people don't fall in to that category, Hence Corbyn. A Frankenstein of our own creation.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Bit harsh.
I am not BTL landlord, but I can understand, in a world of pensions trauma ( caused by a variety of reasons), why the (predominately?) middle aged sought BTL as a way of creating an enhanced pension pot and steady inflation proofed income in old age.
Now combined with very low interest rates that have driven up the market anyway, the demand for bigger deposits (no more 100% mortgages these days?) from lenders, and increasing demand from more household formation and population growth and we have arrived where we are, which I'm sure is not where we'd like to be. However, many "leeches" were reacting logically to their own circumstances and are part of a chain of events unconnected to them per se.
They are still leeches. How many of them could have invested in an ETF and just taken the dividends and capital gain? Instead they chose to "invest" in houses where people live. They are parasites who leech on the young and low paid, whose money is moving in the wrong direction. Young people should benefit from the old spending their money, instead the old are leeching off the young to top up their pensions.
Very well put. You could add the psychological "wealth effect" of all homeowners. When house prices fall, they feel poorer and there is evidence that they curb spending. The opposite happen with house price increases as they feel richer and reach for their credit cards even though the value of the house cannot be realised until it is sold.
On a related point, many people nowadays have little or no pension provision and see their home (or portfolio) as their pension fund. If their intention is, over coming decades, to sell up or downsize and live off the equity, the amount passing to the next generation in inheritance will reduce and surely act as a downward drag on property values?
The increased supply itself ought to act as a drag on property values. This is all a consequence of the baby boomer bulge working itself through the system.
IMO the quickest way back for the Lib Dems is to become the NIMBY party...something that their experience in pavement politics and hyperactive campaigning hypocrisy well qualifies them for. Here in the leafy home counties, housebuilding on green belt and other inappropriate sites is being steamrollered through by Tory councils and a Tory government on an industrial scale. A quick glance at the anti-development posters littering the lamp-posts of Surrey and Sussex suggests that many in these Toriest of areas do not agree with Hammond that building 300,000 new houses per year is a good idea. Which party should a NIMBY vote for today?
There will be a number of voters in the Home Counties who will vote LD locally in opposition to more housebuilding on the Green belt and countryside but still vote Tory at general elections
Lenders are obliged to consider affordability of loans these days (and rightly so). I obviously don't know the personal circumstances of the taxi driver but there's no reason in principle why someone with a steady income from self-employment couldn't use that as evidence to support a mortgage application (let's leave aside Uber and self-driving cars for now). But affordability isn't just about income; it's about outgoings too. If he has a family and a non-working partner (for example), he'd be able to borrow much less than if he's single, all else being equal. Something of that nature might well explain why he can't get a loan (or, more accurately, can't get the loan he wants).
Well, ultimately I don't know his circumstances. Possibly a history of financial problems. Could be lots of things. Maybe he is just poorly advised. I was laughed out of my high street bank four years ago when I asked them if I could get a mortgage. It turned out that they wouldn't lend me money, but two years later I went to a mortgage broker and they found me a mortgage without any problems at all. In those two years, prices locally had shot up about 30%.
The bottom line is that a lot of people fall in to this category of not having access to the mortgage market. But what it actually comes down to is that the monthly cost of the property is still going to be about £500 per month, it doesn't really make any difference if he is renting or paying off a mortgage. If he isn't eligible for a mortgage, he is still going to have to pay £500 per month, or else he is homeless.
It matters to the lender. A renter only needs to find £500/mth this month (and to the end of his notice period); a mortgage borrower needs to find £500/mth every month for 25 years.
There's no great loss to a landlord if the tenant can't afford the rent, gives notice and leaves (assuming another tenant can be found); there's a big loss to the bank if the borrower can't afford the repayments.
That's all correct. If the Conservatives had led Labour 42-40% in 2001, on the distribution of votes in that year, Labour would still have won an overall majority.
Tories in some of these seats need to vote LibDem. QED.
Some did. But Kennedy was to the left of Blair, and the Lib Dems were explicitly positioning themselves against the Tories (decapitation and all that). They could (should?) have been busy long-term positioning themselves to replace Labour, but I understand the temptation of pecking like vultures at the scraps of blue Blair left them.
Essentially Blair was unbeatable (again, under FPTP) until he personally became damaged goods. Even then it was his own party that brought him down.
And part of the explanation why Liberals have tended to do better when the Tories are unpopular, rather than Labour. And so why Clegg's 2010 performance is unfairly compared to Kennedy's - gathering votes and seats was easier during the Blair era with the Tories in the hands of a series of wacky leaders. With an unpopular Labour government the 2010 LD performance was historically very respectable.
TBF to Davis that sounds like an idiot diary secretary rather than anything else.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
That's not true. Both the UK and the Republic are in the Common Travel Area (CTA) so there's no border between them.
Not being in Schengen means you need a passport to move between the Republic and Schengen, or North and Schengen, it does not mean you need a passport to move between the Republic and North.
Quite. I regularly travel by ferry between the UK and ROI without a passport, or indeed without any personal identification.
I was struck by how chipper the PM seemed yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if behind the scenes we are a lot closer to an exit deal than all the bluff and bluster suggests.
An exit from Brexit deal with the cabinet.
od of time a "transition", in practice an extension, gives both sides what they want most.
Of course we need be seen to be moving towards an end goal, so the Withdrawal Agreement will talk about new relationships. It might include a UK commitment to practical steps to ensure a relatively soft border. The Irish would be allowed a say over those steps before any final deal is agreed. At some point those contradictions will need to be resolved but that's for later, after we have Brexited and after the "transition" has started.
Canada does not count as hard Brexit. A FTA is not hard Brexit to anyone but the most diehard Remainer for whom staying in the single market and leaving free movement in place is sacrosanct
An FTA is a Hard Brexit to the Irish and was a Hard Brexit to the Leave Campaign before they moved the goalposts after winning the referendum. It results in a newly hard border between north and south Ireland when it was soft before. I'm OK with referring to it as Hard Brexit. Definitions need to be useful.
There already is a border between North and South Ireland as neither the UK nor Republic are in Schengen and so you need a passport to enter both. A FTA which largely avoids tariffs between North and South is not hard Brexit
The CTA absolutely states that you can pass between the UK and RoI without a passport on any route. That the ferry companies and airlines prefer passport to identify you to them, doesn't mean they insist on it. (Wouldn't you know, using alternative identification on a Ryanair flight from UK to Ireland is a chargeable option!).
The Irish check ID on ferries into Ireland - the British don't in the opposite direction....
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Indeed,
My Ward in east London has about 5000 homes, and between the last two censuses one property went from owner-occupation to tenanted on average every three days throughout that ten year period. Simultaneously what were Tory leaning areas are now strongly trending Labour.
If private renting disappears, and the only choice is between owner occupation and social housing, that will probably benefit the Conservatives electorally. But, it would make it far harder for people to travel to other parts of the country to take up new jobs.
Harder to see it as more difficult than now. Both private and public sector has growing difficulty in attracting people to London, other than at the very top and (arguably) very bottom of the Labour market
For individuals a problem, sure, and for Londoners to an extent, but if it means that more people decide they want productive lives in Birmingham/Manchester/Newcastle/etc etc why is this bad for the UK? Surely part of the issue of the past 30 years is we have become too reliant on London/London is too dominant/London is so different there is a schism mentally between it and large parts of the rest of the country.
A solid piece from TSE and very little with which I, as an LD, can disagree.
[snip]
As I've said before, the Party I joined in 1980 was destroyed by the Coalition and I do appreciate the irony. There is a new LD Party now with a new generation of activists - some of the traditional areas have revived, others haven't while pockets of new activity have emerged. They are learning the old lesson of building national strength from local strength.
Oddly enough, the "breakthrough" of the Alliance came when you had a "national" party like the SDP grafted on to a "local" party like the Liberals. The SDP brought a lot to that and not just money but a way of functioning at national level that had always evaded the Liberals.
The future ? As TSE suggests, the coming rounds of local elections will be interesting - next year in London will we see further Conservative reverses and will these include Richmond and Kingston returning to the LDs ? Not inconceivable though the headlines would be Labour advancing into Wandsworth (the recent Thamesfield by election suggested a solid swing to Labour though whether its enough to take the Borough remains to be seen).
I would be looking at the 2021 County elections for some insight - the Conservatives had a remarkably good round in 2017 and the extent to which those advances can be held may be indicative of prospects for the GE.
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
This would be the same Richmond Park which still voted Tory in June
By 45 votes!! No, actually it isn't. The local elections are for the Royal Borough of Richmond upon Thames which includes Twickenham which is less Tory. Also EU nationals can vote in the local election but not in the general election.
Speaking as a party member and candidate in recent council elections who has now resigned from the local party I can tell you that any resurgence won't come from the ground up. I thought it would but the GE being called in the middle of the county elections turned those elections in to a national vote of confidence in the Tories - just a few weeks ahead of the GE. This was pre-Dementia Tax when Theresa May was at her peek of popularity - the result was council gains for the Tories and losses for Lib Dems, who up to that point had been winning council by-elections from all parties.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
Tim Farron bears a lot of responsibility. And so do the members who elected him without ever properly probing his weak point - which took all of about 48 hours in the GE to become a huge millstone.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Bit harsh.
I am not BTL landlord, but I can understand, in a world of pensions trauma ( caused by a variety of reasons), why the (predominately?) middle aged sought BTL as a way of creating an enhanced pension pot and steady inflation proofed income in old age.
Now combined with very low interest rates that have driven up the market anyway, the demand for bigger deposits (no more 100% mortgages these days?) from lenders, and increasing demand from more household formation and population growth and we have arrived where we are, which I'm sure is not where we'd like to be. However, many "leeches" were reacting logically to their own circumstances and are part of a chain of events unconnected to them per se.
They are still leeches. How many of them could have invested in an ETF and just taken the dividends and capital gain? Instead they chose to "invest" in houses where people live. They are parasites who leech on the young and low paid, whose money is moving in the wrong direction. Young people should benefit from the old spending their money, instead the old are leeching off the young to top up their pensions.
Like tax dodging, it's rational, but socially undesirable.
Nowadays you meet people who seem to think that 'managing' a few houses is actually a worthwhile job.
They can move interests from a technical sense but the economic impact ex housing would be bad. The economy needs to get back to normal rates but it will be a while before it is healthy enough.
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
Affordability is key - it's why I was telling @HHemmelig that it's interest rates that matter most. The capping of salary multiples have also been a huge. constraint on prices.
The stamp duty change is all about affordability which is why those (correctly) noting it will push prices up a bit too are missing the point. Plus of course the FTB owns the house eventually (as opposed to the stamp duty which is lost forever).
It's worth noting that affordability of mortgage repayments is at historically normal levels: it's the interest rates that are abnormal. Plus expectations have changed [for the better] and governments haven't met them. https://twitter.com/resi_analyst/status/925708897998065664
Agreed - that's why prices are so high, because rates are low
Increasing interest rates and increasing proportion spent on mortgages might reduce the amount of imported tat people buy...
Amazing that the EU hasn't been won over by the consistently conciliatory tone of Brexit Britain.
I would say the candidate cities have a good claim against the DCMS for misrepresentation. The Department has a note on its website explaining they were intending to hold the Capital of Culture, that they expected it to go ahead, that it was subject to negotiations with the EU and that candidate cities would incur any bid expense at their own risk. But they were holding a competition and advising on it when it was already void.
What's your legal situation if you invite people to bid on a property that doesn't exist and they incur expense as part of that? This is the exact equivalent.
TBF to Davis that sounds like an idiot diary secretary rather than anything else.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
Glad I wasn't the only one thinking that.
As it's the civil service, I imagine the solution to their incompetence will be to promote them.
TBF to Davis that sounds like an idiot diary secretary rather than anything else.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
Blame the civil service. Seems to be the first instinct of Brexiters as their project hits the rocks.
The desired end point is that he lives in the same flat, ideally worth/costing a bit less, and what he pays in rent now he pays as mortgage in the future. This is how it used to be for the majority of people when I was younger.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Indeed. It's about creating a while new host of owner occupiers and decimating the private rental market and getting leeches out of the market. Private landlords are nothing but parasites taking advantage of a market where young people and lower earners have been locked out.
Bit harsh.
I am not BTL landlord, but I can understand, in a world of pensions trauma ( caused by a variety of reasons), why the (predominately?) middle aged sought BTL as a way of creating an enhanced pension pot and steady inflation proofed income in old age.
Now combined with very low interest rates that have driven up the market anyway, the demand for bigger deposits (no more 100% mortgages these days?) from lenders, and increasing demand from more household formation and population growth and we have arrived where we are, which I'm sure is not where we'd like to be. However, many "leeches" were reacting logically to their own circumstances and are part of a chain of events unconnected to them per se.
They are still leeches. How many of them could have invested in an ETF and just taken the dividends and capital gain? Instead they chose to "invest" in houses where people live. They are parasites who leech on the young and low paid, whose money is moving in the wrong direction. Young people should benefit from the old spending their money, instead the old are leeching off the young to top up their pensions.
Like tax dodging, it's rational, but socially undesirable.
Nowadays you meet people who seem to think that 'managing' a few houses is actually a worthwhile job.
Indeed. I genuinely believe we should completely eliminate the private rental sector for existing property, only new builds should be eligible.
Speaking as a party member and candidate in recent council elections who has now resigned from the local party I can tell you that any resurgence won't come from the ground up. I thought it would but the GE being called in the middle of the county elections turned those elections in to a national vote of confidence in the Tories - just a few weeks ahead of the GE. This was pre-Dementia Tax when Theresa May was at her peek of popularity - the result was council gains for the Tories and losses for Lib Dems, who up to that point had been winning council by-elections from all parties.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
Tim Farron bears a lot of responsibility. And so do the members who elected him without ever properly probing his weak point - which took all of about 48 hours in the GE to become a huge millstone.
Yes, but our alternative choice was Norman Lamb. I have huge respect for Norman - he is a great guy and has single-handedly propelled mental health way up the political agenda - but being an outstanding team member doesn't necessarily make for a great leader. He is tainted by his support for tuition fees, and sadly he is steady rather than interesting. And his name is Norman.
TBF to Davis that sounds like an idiot diary secretary rather than anything else.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
Blame the civil service. Seems to be the first instinct of Brexiters as their project hits the rocks.
The e-mail *was* from a civil servant. People in that position should have the nous to be able to word a communication to a foreign PM's office (and to know who the PM is).
As a LibDem, I agree with all that, including that the Party I joined in 1983 was destroyed by the Coalition.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
No - I'm repulsed both by citizens of nowhere and the nationalise everything screw the economy approach equally. I guess that makes me a blue Lib Dem.
It strikes me the party has gone out of its way to irritate almost all its support groups. Students over tuition fees. The radical (left) element attracted by 'no more broken promises' in 2010. Soft left over NHS. Civil liberties and green campaigners by compromises without wins in coalition. Simply going into coalition repelled the 'outsiders' (many straight to UKIP despite the policy clashes.) |Personally as a Christian it has been a tough year to be an LD with Farron pushed out over his faith - another group alienated.
I don't have much confidence in Vince. He was a huge loss in 2015, either as leader then or ideally as number 2 on the economy. We had no decent economic spokesperson - instead Susan Kramer was the treasury spokes. Nice lady by all accounts, but totally ineffective and sidelined in the Lords. Tim should have insisted Norman Lamb did it.
But now I don't see the radical edge from Vince that we need to get back into the limelight. If it was up to me the core message would be 'Government for the little guy' all about a more corporate approach at the top of Government - interviews & appraisals for all gvt ministers and top civil servants, expenses / disciplinary issues outsourced to a business body etc, and a more personal approach at the bottom - far more discretion over bureaucracy at local level, big attacks on welfare sanctions, immigration incompetence etc. Prioritising proper recall procedures for MPs / Councillors, reforming the private member bills to prevent talking out and allowing members of the public a ballot linked to the petitions system to present 'private citizens bills' All citizen first not big machine - I think that would get a hearing.
I also worry about Jo Swinson as leader - the impression I get is that the key policy priorities would be gender-free passports and safe spaces. That just wouldn't be the party for me sorry. On the other hand, Layla Moran looks like a superstar in the making and well worth watching.
Lenders are obliged to consider affordability of loans these days (and rightly so). I obviously don't know the personal circumstances of the taxi driver but there's no reason in principle why someone with a steady income from self-employment couldn't use that as evidence to support a mortgage application (let's leave aside Uber and self-driving cars for now). But affordability isn't just about income; it's about outgoings too. If he has a family and a non-working partner (for example), he'd be able to borrow much less than if he's single, all else being equal. Something of that nature might well explain why he can't get a loan (or, more accurately, can't get the loan he wants).
Well, ultimately I don't know his circumstances. Possibly a history of financial problems. Could be lots of things. Maybe he is just poorly advised. I was laughed out of my high street bank four years ago when I asked them if I could get a mortgage. It turned out that they wouldn't lend me money, but two years later I went to a mortgage broker and they found me a mortgage without any problems at all. In those two years, prices locally had shot up about 30%.
The bottom line is that a lot of people fall in to this category of not having access to the mortgage market. But what it actually comes down to is that the monthly cost of the property is still going to be about £500 per month, it doesn't really make any difference if he is renting or paying off a mortgage. If he isn't eligible for a mortgage, he is still going to have to pay £500 per month, or else he is homeless.
It matters to the lender. A renter only needs to find £500/mth this month (and to the end of his notice period); a mortgage borrower needs to find £500/mth every month for 25 years.
There's no great loss to a landlord if the tenant can't afford the rent, gives notice and leaves (assuming another tenant can be found); there's a big loss to the bank if the borrower can't afford the repayments.
Fair do's. The lender is a participant in a free market, they decide who to lend the money to (albeit in a heavily regulated way). The question is really whether it is right that people are stuck in insecurity and unable to accumulate wealth, to support the profitability of banks.
TBF to Davis that sounds like an idiot diary secretary rather than anything else.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
Blame the civil service. Seems to be the first instinct of Brexiters as their project hits the rocks.
Oh dear - all that is left for remainerdom to worry about - a diary secretary.
Speaking as a party member and candidate in recent council elections who has now resigned from the local party I can tell you that any resurgence won't come from the ground up. I thought it would but the GE being called in the middle of the county elections turned those elections in to a national vote of confidence in the Tories - just a few weeks ahead of the GE. This was pre-Dementia Tax when Theresa May was at her peek of popularity - the result was council gains for the Tories and losses for Lib Dems, who up to that point had been winning council by-elections from all parties.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
Tim Farron bears a lot of responsibility. And so do the members who elected him without ever properly probing his weak point - which took all of about 48 hours in the GE to become a huge millstone.
If it weren't for the gutter, my mind would be homeless.
Yes totally - at least in the past, but I now wonder whether a decade of 0.5% interest rates have not moved some goal posts.
Let's say someone is living with a small or no mortgage and have little desire or need to move (the "settled" middle aged), and their house is worth £300K. Interest rates go up, negative equity strikes and the house is worth £250K at best, which is theoretical to you because you're not going anywhere anyway. However, the pension target you've set yourself of £15K p.a. just got a lot easier. Instead of having to save £500K as now you might only have to save £429K if the yield on your scheme went from 3% - 3.5% as a result of a rate rise.
Speaking as a party member and candidate in recent council elections who has now resigned from the local party I can tell you that any resurgence won't come from the ground up. I thought it would but the GE being called in the middle of the county elections turned those elections in to a national vote of confidence in the Tories - just a few weeks ahead of the GE. This was pre-Dementia Tax when Theresa May was at her peek of popularity - the result was council gains for the Tories and losses for Lib Dems, who up to that point had been winning council by-elections from all parties.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
Tim Farron bears a lot of responsibility. And so do the members who elected him without ever properly probing his weak point - which took all of about 48 hours in the GE to become a huge millstone.
Comments
If you tax yields, then surely those remaining landlords in the market would have to hike up their rents to compensate for the tax bill.
Obliterating the private rented sector cannot be a wise move.
https://twitter.com/eu_eeas/status/933657281979404288
It is an outrageous loophole that you do not have to be a British citizen (as far as I can see from the form). Nor is there any restriction on ownership of property outside the UK. There is nothing to stop eg a wealthy French banker who owns a multimillion pound house in France from using HTB if he happens to be based in London for a year or two. In London it is arguably more likely that buyers will have this kind of profile than your average Darren and Tracey who grew up on a Dagenham council estate. An appalling waste of taxpayers money.
They haven't done much but without the ability to move the fundamebtal issues I'm not sure there is much they could do.
There will no doubt be a certificate that applicants relying on the exemption will need to sign. Provided they make the consequences of false declarations sufficiently robust only committed fraudsters will take the chance. There will be the usual pleading about innocent misrepresentation but on it's face the parameters are very clear.
The approach doesn't seem to be very different to, say, self-assessment, which starts with honesty and the consequences of being caught.
The Labour leader said his parents had agreed a name for him shortly after his birth, in 1949 - only for his father to change his mind on the way to having it registered, without telling his mother.
I am sure he wishes it was Karl.
Genuine question - why didn't any banks crash in 1989-95 when house prices as much as halved in the overheated bits of the south?
" I do not own, and never have owned any interest in land, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere"
I don't know the specifics of 1989-95 but it will be to do with higher lending ratios (salary multiples as as a percentage), the shift to BTL lending (who often have to sell if they are bleeding while o/o can hunker down), changing accounting standards so banks can't "manage" their reporting and lower overall capital reserves.
Basically they are taking more concentrated and riskier bets with less capital and can't lie their way out of trouble
stay classy EU
IMO the quickest way back for the Lib Dems is to become the NIMBY party...something that their experience in pavement politics and hyperactive campaigning hypocrisy well qualifies them for. Here in the leafy home counties, housebuilding on green belt and other inappropriate sites is being steamrollered through by Tory councils and a Tory government on an industrial scale. A quick glance at the anti-development posters littering the lamp-posts of Surrey and Sussex suggests that many in these Toriest of areas do not agree with Hammond that building 300,000 new houses per year is a good idea. Which party should a NIMBY vote for today?
http://ponyonthetories.blogspot.co.uk/
Why shouldn't the Green Party fulfil such a role?
So, if you create policies that force landlords to sell you end up making him homeless, and many other people like him, and reduce the supply of private rented sector houses. It only helps the people who are in the position of being able to get a mortgage. So, middle class kids with parental assistance; people otherwise on the straight and narrow who have managed to save up around £10k. But that just isn't any where near a majority of young people. Nor does it help my taxi driver friend.
Secondly, entry level housing are frequently leasehold flats which are unmortgageable due to management and structural issues and the increasing tighening of rules in this regard (ie post grenfell). So, the only market for these flats are landlords who are cash buyers anyway because no bank will go near them.
https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/933656367285628928
Amazing that the EU hasn't been won over by the consistently conciliatory tone of Brexit Britain.
I think the DCMS will need to fund this themselves.
The challenge is getting from here to there without a traumatic transition period. This is what I think Osbourne hoped he was starting when he began to remove landlord tax breaks. Government will rightly be paranoid about any sudden change for the reasons you suggest; meanwhile young people are increasingly dissatisfied and more people are entering the market at what may well be the top.
Said ‘expenses' include getting married. And while one only needs enough for the ring and the registry office, that’s not the way the world works.
We keep thinking it’s the wrong way round, too, but thwere you go. That’s the world today.
I'm canvassing in Richmond and Twickenham for the locals next May. I think the LibDems have a reasonable chance of taking it. The Tory party is taking a big hit here for its approach to Brexit. Also, EU nationals can vote in the locals and there are a LOT of them here, and they're angry.
I'm down on the LibDem database as a "red Liberal". I increasingly realise that, deep down I'm a Corbynista, and my interest in the LibDems is hammering the Tories here in Rick and Twick to enable a Labour government. I wonder if other LD activists feel the same way as me?
The equivalent Tory vote in the North usually stayed in the 15-20% range. This is a principal reason why, ignoring boundary effects, FPTP used to favour Labour so strongly and now doesn't. Their vote under Blair was very efficient - depressed turnout in inner-city seats (whereas Corbyn got giant majorities), terrible vote shares in unwinnable Tory heartlands (but the LDs keeping the Tories busy there too), and Goldilocks vote shares of 40-55% in the Middle England town seats (that are now marginals or, in some cases, fairly safe Tory seats).
https://twitter.com/marcusleroux/status/933660731203117057
But never for the cynical machine politicians of co-called 'moderate' Labour.
Icy wind today.
It's worth noting that affordability of mortgage repayments is at historically normal levels: it's the interest rates that are abnormal. Plus expectations have changed [for the better] and governments haven't met them.
https://twitter.com/resi_analyst/status/925708897998065664
Nor if the leasehold flat he lives in is regarded as unmortgageable.
A fall in prices would have significant knock on consequences for existing first time buyers who are highly leveraged: ie negative equity meaning that they are stuck paying higher interest rates and unable to move/sell.
Politically this could be disastrous for the cons. Its a case of careful what you wish for.
My Ward in east London has about 5000 homes, and between the last two censuses one property went from owner-occupation to tenanted on average every three days throughout that ten year period. Simultaneously what were Tory leaning areas are now strongly trending Labour.
Turkey is/was at the very least a "potential candidate" state. In fact there are literally dozens of recent posts on here suggesting that until the recent coup unpleasantness, she was on the cusp of joining the EU.
But a test match and GP to enjoy this weekend.
Cheer up, Mr.D.
Perhaps he should have referred to him as EKenny instead?
I am not BTL landlord, but I can understand, in a world of pensions trauma ( caused by a variety of reasons), why the (predominately?) middle aged sought BTL as a way of creating an enhanced pension pot and steady inflation proofed income in old age.
Now combined with very low interest rates that have driven up the market anyway, the demand for bigger deposits (no more 100% mortgages these days?) from lenders, and increasing demand from more household formation and population growth and we have arrived where we are, which I'm sure is not where we'd like to be. However, many "leeches" were reacting logically to their own circumstances and are part of a chain of events unconnected to them per se.
Essentially Blair was unbeatable (again, under FPTP) until he personally became damaged goods. Even then it was his own party that brought him down.
The LibDems (like the other parties) is a coalition (or an Alliance). It consists of Social Democrats (like me) and Economic Liberals (like Clegg and his mates who ran the coalition).
It worked as a protest party when there wasn't much difference between Tory and New Labour but it is exposed now there are two distinct policy options on offer.
If you are a social democrat, dubious about austerity, dubious about marketisation of public services, concerned about public services and fairness in society, you can vote Labour. Corbyn's policies are social democrat. That's why I'm attracted to them.
If you are an orange booker economic liberal, believing in markets for everything, minimising the state, then you can vote Tory. The only reason not to vote Tory is the Tory approach to Brexit. That's keeping the LibDems alive in patches such as Richmond.
The Labour coalition of social democrat v. Tory lite is being sorted in favour of Corbyn.
The Tory coalition of one nation v. UKIP lite hasn't been sorted yet.
FPTP makes this a political mess that is profoundly undemocratic.
If we had PR this wouldn't be such an issue. Government would alternate between a social democrat coalition and a one nation liberal coalition.
From that point on the Tories stumbled and the Labour band-wagon began rolling. The decision of the Lib Dem GE campaign to concentrate resources on target seats left every other constituency party under-manned, under-funded and under-appreciated .Come election day in my constituency we were washed away in to third by a resurgent Labour Party full of activists on the ground. Look at some of the seats in the South West where we were the natural party of opposition - we're now third...and a distant third!
There is no hope for the party nationally because we don't have a core message. we have opposition to Brexit but so what? Brexit will happen in 2019 end of? What then for the party?
In council elections we've only ever achieved anything when we were the anti-Tory party and Labour weren't a viable option because they were distant third last time...there are activists up and down the country now writing their Focus's or their by-election literature who will never be able to use the "Winning here" or "Don't waste your vote on Labour".
The Labour bubble will only burst once their young activists face the disappointment of a Labour Government getting in to power, not being able to deliver on its promises and wrecking the economy - until that point there's no way back for the Lib Dems
The bottom line is that a lot of people fall in to this category of not having access to the mortgage market. But what it actually comes down to is that the monthly cost of the property is still going to be about £500 per month, it doesn't really make any difference if he is renting or paying off a mortgage. If he isn't eligible for a mortgage, he is still going to have to pay £500 per month, or else he is homeless.
Basically, the whole system is broken. In a rich, advanced economy people should have a basic right to good quality, secure housing. We are in a situation now where a large minority of people don't fall in to that category, Hence Corbyn. A Frankenstein of our own creation.
The increased supply itself ought to act as a drag on property values. This is all a consequence of the baby boomer bulge working itself through the system.
There's no great loss to a landlord if the tenant can't afford the rent, gives notice and leaves (assuming another tenant can be found); there's a big loss to the bank if the borrower can't afford the repayments.
I can easily see a conversation between DD and DS along the lines of "No point in talking to X. Can you see if Kenny is available?" and DS assuming it was a first name not a surname.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g186591-s602/Ireland:Crossing.The.Border.html
Nowadays you meet people who seem to think that 'managing' a few houses is actually a worthwhile job.
Increasing interest rates and increasing proportion spent on mortgages might reduce the amount of imported tat people buy...
What's your legal situation if you invite people to bid on a property that doesn't exist and they incur expense as part of that? This is the exact equivalent.
As it's the civil service, I imagine the solution to their incompetence will be to promote them.
It strikes me the party has gone out of its way to irritate almost all its support groups. Students over tuition fees. The radical (left) element attracted by 'no more broken promises' in 2010. Soft left over NHS. Civil liberties and green campaigners by compromises without wins in coalition. Simply going into coalition repelled the 'outsiders' (many straight to UKIP despite the policy clashes.) |Personally as a Christian it has been a tough year to be an LD with Farron pushed out over his faith - another group alienated.
I don't have much confidence in Vince. He was a huge loss in 2015, either as leader then or ideally as number 2 on the economy. We had no decent economic spokesperson - instead Susan Kramer was the treasury spokes. Nice lady by all accounts, but totally ineffective and sidelined in the Lords. Tim should have insisted Norman Lamb did it.
But now I don't see the radical edge from Vince that we need to get back into the limelight. If it was up to me the core message would be 'Government for the little guy' all about a more corporate approach at the top of Government - interviews & appraisals for all gvt ministers and top civil servants, expenses / disciplinary issues outsourced to a business body etc, and a more personal approach at the bottom - far more discretion over bureaucracy at local level, big attacks on welfare sanctions, immigration incompetence etc. Prioritising proper recall procedures for MPs / Councillors, reforming the private member bills to prevent talking out and allowing members of the public a ballot linked to the petitions system to present 'private citizens bills' All citizen first not big machine - I think that would get a hearing.
I also worry about Jo Swinson as leader - the impression I get is that the key policy priorities would be gender-free passports and safe spaces. That just wouldn't be the party for me sorry. On the other hand, Layla Moran looks like a superstar in the making and well worth watching.
@Surbiton
Wealth Effect
Yes totally - at least in the past, but I now wonder whether a decade of 0.5% interest rates have not moved some goal posts.
Let's say someone is living with a small or no mortgage and have little desire or need to move (the "settled" middle aged), and their house is worth £300K. Interest rates go up, negative equity strikes and the house is worth £250K at best, which is theoretical to you because you're not going anywhere anyway. However, the pension target you've set yourself of £15K p.a. just got a lot easier. Instead of having to save £500K as now you might only have to save £429K if the yield on your scheme went from 3% - 3.5% as a result of a rate rise.
Would you feel better or worse off?