PokerTime

That's the point SJ. It's no longer about the relativity of pricing, but finishing at a point of maximum profit and value.

Some good posts there and I completely agree with SJ and DaveC on the problem in doing anything. People have become greedy. They don't want to see a slow in growth, and they don't want to see a depreciation in value. What government, seeking votes, wants to rock the cart? In fact, Thatchers right to buy it is argued, was more about swinging Labour voters to the Conservative party than anything else. A theory that has some merit when considering that LAs were not allowed to replace stock sold off. In Turn New Labour had to appeal to the home owners of the South for exactly the same reasons. So they in turn allowed schemes like buy-to-let and other cheap investment opportunities. Nowhere in any of this is there a constructive policy of balance. Shameful given that were are talking about something that is essential. Atlee and Beveridge, and even Horace Cutler would be turning in their graves. SJ posed a question, how bad does it have to get before we finally do something meaningful about it? It's a good question. There is plenty of debate about housing amongst MPs, but no-one is really pushing for any of the measures discussed here. Mesasures that would all help in some way. Boris Johnson has faced strong opposition in the London Assembly. No-one is really tackling the problem head on in spite of a torrent of warnings about where it will all end. http://www.london.gov.uk/media/assembly-press-releases/2014/04/assembly-highlights-weaknesses-in-mayor-s-housing-strategy Just on Jeremies question about measurement of priced out long standing communities. It's not a thing so easy to measure in big cities, but it can definitely be measured in rural towns and villages. Villages have traditionally stayed a constant social mix for centuries. They are not the magnets cities are. So when you have a given constant that suddenly shifts (in a matter of decades) from being a community of young through to old, to one of just old, then I think thst is a measure of something. Granted, some young people will leave to pursue careers and a different life, but not all. There is a constant complaint from born and bred villagers and rural communities that they have had to move to cities to find a home. There is also a measurable trend of bankers buying up in villages in the South East and home countries that has sky rocketted prices too. These are measurable changes that have forced local average people out.

I think it's started by one (as you rightly say Loz) and exacerbated by the other. The end place is still one with over half of all social housing being sold (since the 80s) and a third of all former social housing no longer being affordable (private landlords).

Are you an angry person ????? There are no rights and wrongs in any debate but to reduce any sensible discussion to outdated battles between left and right is just nonsense, and seems to be something you like to do. At least you acknowledge that big business lobbies MPs..now take at look at who funds the Conservative Party for example and you can fook ya boots all over again! And what is the deal of calling every lower demograhpic enclave a sh+t hole? Of course the poorest can't spend money on homes they rent a) because they don't have any money and b) they don't own it. But that's not what we are talking about anyway. We are talking about balanced and well adjusted economies that look atfter the interests of all (as best they can)....which is why social housing has a place as much as luxury apartments. It's about balance. ?325k is not a pitance but again, half the people living in London won't inherit anything like that, if anything at all. It's not an argument to justify anything!

Yeah ????, like most people are inheriting properties worth ?1million. What planet are you on?

But we don't live in an economy where everyone will be able to buy a home. In London, the percentage of home owner to rental is much lower than it is for the rest of the country as it is at 58%. 42% of people/housholds have to rent. It also frustrates me that whenver people talk of social housing they only reference the large estates built in the 60's. This not the bulk of social housing. There were many programmes from 1890 onwards building all kinds of homes, most of which were well built and still stand today. Social Housing is not an evil. Poor design and town planning is. The only way to stop the hosuing inflation is to reduce demand, and the most effective way to do that is to increase affordable stock (both rental and for sale) and mass building will do that. Why can't the house you buy grow in value of 30% over 30 years? Every has got so used to recent annual growths of 10-18% that it's made too many greedy. That just can not go on, and any argument seeking to protect that is born out of self interest and greed - not any rational overview of housing policy and economy. We are now at the point where the government is guaranteeing loans to first time buyers...well that's how the US sub prime market began. Your suggestion of tax breaks it just one of keep the pyramid working in it's present form. That will only make things worse.

Buy-to-let is not the bulk of private rental housing anyway Loz. Only around 20% of housing up for rent is mortgaged. The buy-to-let market has also tended to target former LA homes (which is why 40% of all homes sold under right to buy are now in the hands of private landlords). So it's part of the problem imo that has lead to the erosion of social housing. It should never have been introduced as a product.

In reply EDLove.... There are areas like Notting Hill for example but Kensington and those areas have always been affluent. Having said that, areas like Chelsea have had long standing social housing (much of it now sold off). If we look at areas that have been tranformed over say the last 30 years, then the picture becomes clearer. Take Shoreditch for example. The first ever social housing (barring things like alms houses etc) was built in Shoreditch (in 1890!). So we are talking about homes specifically built to replace slums and house the poor. It was the start of something in London that has been around for over 100 years. Southwark is one of the biggest social landlords in Europe. There is a lot of originally built social housing around Tower Bridge for example - Why? Because the east end docks employed countless lower paid workers and governments at the time wholey believed in providing affordable housing within reach of the docks for those workers. Now we have governments arguing that poorer workers should move to the suburbs and bus in (at further expense of course). It's good town planning having been replaced with investment greed. And as always is the case with economic greed, people and quality of live don't matter. Canary Wharf is less than 30 years old...yet do we really believe the traditional working classes of those areas should be replaced with city bankers? Clearly yes, when looking at all the riverside developments. But just what does that add to the area and community? How do we measure that? The free market does not care about anything but money/profit. That's why it has to be regulated and is regulated in many ways. When regulation is removed, you get bankers fixing and cheating Libor rates (a much bigger flame to the banking crisis than the sub prime market in the US). At present many poorer paid workers can live in zone 2, thanks to social housing. But if you are on min wage and having to commute from Zone 4/5/6 then it costs considerably more than ?2 a day. Remember min wage is around ?250 after tax and deductions. At least half will go in rent, leaving not much for everything else, and especially hard if you have children to support too. No-one is saying the porest paid should live in Chelsea, but if we keep selling off the zone two social housing, then there will be problems. Just to add that living in a social home is not a perk! They are small and basic properties. But I also think that the squeezed middle classes maxing out on mortgages are not in a healthy position either. I don't think they should have to pay 9x salary any more than the poor should be forced out. The whole market is rotten. Everyone is having to work too hard for something as essential as a roof over their head. I couldn't agree more regarding creating employment elsewhere and attracting business etc. I absolutely agree that has to be the answer long term. There has been a drain to the South since the 80's. None of the industries or mass employers of the North have been replaced. It's a real gripe of mine that all government seems to care about is the SE economy. There were regional development agencies formed in 1998 to try and address this (by New labour). The coalition abolished them in 2012 to save money! They gave millionaires a tax cut but shut off funding to bodies charged specifically with economic regeneration in areas of high unemployment. That sort of thing completely highlights Camerons party for the incompetent bunch they are.

Oh ????...how wrong you are. Take a look at how much an electoral compaigns cost and who funds that. Look to America for an even better model. I have friends that work for companies whose sole aim is to lobby MPs on behalf of wealthy corporations and clients. It's nothing to do with right or left, but basic economics. Plutocrasy IS at play and every major writer on the ethics of economics agrees with that view. We live in a bottom up economy...not top down. All the evidence and data supports that. That's why things like inequality and upward social mobility can be measured. If you want to talk about electoral reform, then yes we can have a discussion on how unrepresentative the current system is of what people really vote for. It does need reform imo. Yes, around 70% of homes are privately owned. So what? That's not this issue here. What we are talking about is a trend that will see those homes owned by a smaller percentage of the population if things go on as they do. Already, many people inheriting property have little to show for it once tax is paid and the proceeds split between children. I agree and I disagree Loz. As a nation, party stronghold's haven't changed much in a century. Most people still tend to vote as their parents do/ did. It's estimated that as little as 300,000 floating voters actually can decide a general election. If we had a representative electoral system, we'd mostly have hung parliaments, which is actually a truer reflection of democrasy. At present, too many people are not engaged in politics, too many people just follow parents and we have a system where a party can get majority power even though less than half the population voted for them. If a party wants to control parliament and claim the mandate of the people, it should have to work far harder to engage public support than it currently does.

I think it's a valid suggestion Zebedee. Anything that slows the inflation down is worth considering. It's the same with Land Tax. It we tax land over labour then some argue that would lead to a fairer distribution of wealth. The problem is that all governemnts are self serving and are funded by the interests of the super wealthy. This is one of the fundamental problems with capitalist democrasy. We no longer have democrasy but plutocrasy. And shifting that power balance is an impossible task for the common person. Even if you decide you want to do something and join a main political party, you have no power to change anything. The machine is well and truly oiled. I think this is why I argue so strongly that the poor have as much rights as the better off. We are all trapped by this tax heavy capitalist system. There is no alternative for anyone to escape to (unless they have serious money). Veering totally off topic I know but there's a great documentary called 'The Four Horsemen' that argues that were are in the final stages of empire before collapse, and makes comparisons to other empires, like Romans and Egypt to illustrate the point. It's worth a look.

Yes the poor do EDLove. Because it's the poor that do the jobs that most people don't want to do. We are not suggesting that traditionally wealthy areas suddenly have social homes thrust upon them. But areas that have long standing poorer communities and accomodation to house them should stay. Just on HB. Their have always been caps, set at a average of local rents. What this government has done is set a one size fits all cap, below the average, and therefore forcing the unemployed out of London. Anyone can lose their job. It's not a huge step from self sufficiency to bankruptcy. The real issue with London are the million or so workers on min wage. There is a suggested London Living wage, which acknowledges the higher costs of living and working in London, but yet is not enforced!!!! This is where social housing has an important role to play, but we are forever diminishing stock, and not replacing it. The Heygate development is a disgraceful exercise in social cleansing. Nick Stanton, the leader of the Liberal Democrat council at the time went on the politics show and said 'A place so close to central London should not be so poor'. His solution to that was not to regenerate the local economy and to increase opportunity for those living there, but instead to demolish the entire community and move the rich in. It's exactly this kind of thinking that is destroying the social fabric of London as a melting pot of culture and community. Someone above touched on security of tenure in private rented housing. I think this is also an important point. Rented property becomes seen as a short term step until one can buy. Turfing people out every six months so that the rent can be doubled is never going to benefit anyone but the landlord. And now the coalition want to attack the secure tennacies of social housing too! Preferring new builds from Housing Associations (where tenants have less rights) to new builds from LAs.The message is loud and clear. Tenants don't matter.

No Jeremy that's not what I'm trying to say, as you well know. We are becoming a country where no-one on a below average wage can afford to buy. It's not loaded language to say that the housing market is over inflated. We have NEVER had an average salary to average house price of 9x. It is ridiculous to suggest that only those with above average salaries should be allowed to live in London, but that's where we might be going. Where do those in the pricier areas expect their nurses, cleaners, bar staff, road sweepers etc to live? There are ways to get the balance right. Rent controls, mass social home builds, etc. Anything that takes the heat out of demand will slow the housing market and return it to more normal market forces (allowing salaries in time to catch up). Private homeowners have no more right to an easy gravy train than the right they say the less well paid don't have to live in their areas.

If you look at the prices of those properties you are still seeing around 400k for a three bedroomed flat/property, with annual service charges on top. How is that affordable to a small family on below average wage?

And you couldn't afford to do that now Sophron...that's the point. It's interesting that you cite investment. That is part of the problem....that housing has become an investment over a home. And that long time span you mention that comes accross as being deserving.....doesn't time span also make those born and bread a little deserving too? People of all economic backgrounds need to live in London to work, and London needs people of all economic levels to work as a city too. Southwark is not Kensington or Chlesea (or Marylebone) and never has been. ED is NOT central London. Yet when something is decided to be done about the poor design and social housing of Elephant and castle for example, the solution becomes one of building sizeable amounts of unaffordable private property over affordable housing. It's profiteering at it's worst, with no interest in community, dressed up as urban regeneration, but regeneration for who? certainly not the previous community, some of whom had also lived there for decades! We need a range of homes in all areas, not a ghettoisation of London from the centre outwards for the above average earner only, with the poorest being scattered on the fringes. There was an interesting documentary on TV this week about Brent council having to move larger families out of London because there is nowhere they can live under the Housing Benefit Cap. This has meant displacing families from Brent (hardly a glamourous borough) to cities like Manchester and Birmingham. We are not just talking about the pushing out of the lowest earners from London, we are actually seeing forced deportation of some of the poorest families to cities they've never even been too. Surely the time has come to say that the private market is not going to correct itself unless government intervenes.

But what does coming good actually mean? It means middle class more often than not. People move from areas for all sorts of reasons. London is different though and many people get trapped. They come here for work, don't earn enough and then can't leave because the area they came from still has no jobs. As an economy, we haven't progressed at all since the 70's if you look at many parts of the country. Also Sophron, when you made that first step onto the property ladder house prices were significantly lower compared to salaries. If you were starting out on that same journey today, you'd find it much harder. And THAT is the issue. Even young professionals in London are unable to buy. Thay can't save deposits because too much of their salary goes on rent. If they have no parents with the finances to help out, they are stuffed. We now have a housing market in London that is for the better off only, irregardless of how many hours a person works. Humans need communities, be that family, friends, whatever. I don't think it is too much to ask for people to be near family and communities they feel comfortable within. The less well paid get stuck with the poorest of everything. Poor schools, poor housing and they pay most proportionately for everything. We absolutely need to take the steam out of the housing market. A mass affordable/social house building programme would do that and it can be done within 5 years (we've done it before) and that's what people should be lobbying their MPs for. Also, funding should be restored to the decent homes scheme to enable LAs to bring existing stock up to scratch (instead of the poor workmanship delivered by companies tendering for ridiculously low budgets). Changes should be made to the rules on right to buy, buy to let, and foreign purchasing. Obviously the best way to slow the market would be to let normal market forces do their thing, but for the last 20 years, at the first sign of first time buyers drying up, sucessive governments have changed the rules to keep the first time buyers coming. Help to buy is absolutely the worst policy and when interest rates go up (as one day they will) we could see the same kind of problems as experienced by the US sub prime market. NO-ONE in power is thinking rationally about this issue.

I haven't seen the plans etc but it does frustrate me that after thousands of tax payers money was spent on these facilities just a few years ago, we are now being told yet more money is to be spent. It's like road schemes that get done only to be dug up a few years later! The credibility of the councils planning department to design anything that works first time is very questionable imo.

But we are not born into a level playing field either Jeremy and spiralling house prices are making upward social mobility for the poorest impossible. SI get very frustrated at the 'I'm all right so what does it matter?' response of the haves. Everybody works hard, from the poorest paid cleaner to the hopsital consultant, and in many jobs (and parts of the world) the porest work hardest, work the longest hours etc. Their place in the pecking order being nothing more than an accident of birth. So I think it is right to have discussions about how we close that gap, and create a fairer society where the majority can live to a certain level of comfort, and not just the few. Housing is becomming a major factor in the quality of life debate. People need to look outside of their own lives just a little bit more I think.

There's been an exodus of London born and bred out to Kent for some time now. Government policy seems to be that affordable housing should be for key workers only. So in it's purest form, London could end up as a ghetto for the better off with just keys workers dotted here and there to provide the essential services they need. I don't think for one minute that would happen but there are certainly political ideas out there that seem to think that's how it should be. Within all of this, there is no debate around community, and what that means. As for 'gentrification' for want of a better word, it's no mystery. As prices rise in one place professionals seek other areas they can afford. There's no hiden agenda to it. It's just people finding places they can afford to buy within their means. There are many towns and villages in the South East (and much of the most desireable parts of the country) where the children of parents will never be able to afford to buy. I thinks its right to ask what damage that will do to local communities long term, and to local economies too.

BECTU are useless when it comes to campaigning on pay rates. Have been for years. I fully support the Ritzy workers. No-one in London should be earning less than living wage.

They are debating this on Question Time now, and specifically London. Harriet Harman is on the panel.

I agree Fox. It's just another aspect of not being able to do anything in this country without paying someone off for a licence. Next we'll be needing a licence to speak at Speaker's Corner!

I guess that means the gym fees will be increasing too then :(

Numbers, you are referring to a Labour Party Manifesto idea of 1959 !!!! (an election they lost btw). The form of the idea that influenced Thatcher, was actually first proposed by the Conservative controlled GLC's chairman of Housing in the Late 60s. When the GLC was lost to Labour no sales were allowed. When the same Chairman of Housing became GLC leader in 1977 the idea came back on the table. Horace Cutler was a good friend of Thatcher, but was never advocating a scheme based on free market principles. That was all Thatchers doing. You can try all you like to pin this one on Labour but it's just nonsense to suggest that a vague general idea made part of a party manifesto in 1959 is somehow responsible for what Thatcher delivered. I think the points about policy being shaped by votes is an important one. It transcends all aspects of housing, both private and social. Markets can be regulated to correct imbalances but housing seems to be the poisoned chalice no party now dare tackle in any kind of meaningful way. It is all about votes. It is also all about keeping a culture of home ownership over rental going - essential to keep the fodder churning into the bottom of the pyramid scheme. And that won't change until private tenants are given more protection over length and security of tenancy. After all, who would want to rent when they can be turfed out every six months, and have no say in the decor of the home they pay a huge proportion of their salaries for. Worse than that, the coalition seem to think social hosuing should be stripped of it's protections (set in law) and operate under the same conditions s private rented property. Well that's just no solution to anything - completely dreamt up by people who have no conception of life at the bottom end.

But Labour were not responsible for the Right to Buy scheme numbers. They weren't even responsible for the restricted regulation allowing LAs to sell porperty prior to that either (as I wrote above, that came into existence under the Conservative government of 1936). I don't think anyone is blaming those who buy through right-to-buy to be fair. It is fair however to criticise the policy as a whole. It has absolutely contributed (along with many other things) to the housing crisis. And 40% of those 1.9 million homes bought have been sold on to private landlords. In real terms it's a reduction in affordable housing by a third accross the country. Yet we haven't seen a closing of the gap between rich and poor (it's now as wide as it's ever been and getting wider), just as we haven't seen a dramatic increase in those earning average and above wages. Salaries have not risen in line with the cost of living. Any idea that we'd become a democratic nation of property owners with a better distribution of wealth as a result (the Tory line), has been shown for the nonsense it is. I agree with the comment above 'a ploy to woo labour voters' (one reason why New Labour could not revoke the right-to-buy scheme) . And in turn New Labour sought to woo the home owners of the South. There are 1.8 million people/households on council waiting lists accross the country. If LAs have been allowed to replace the homes sold, the picture would now be very different, and far healthier.

You are spot on rahrah. That is absolutely the fallacy of right to buy and getting people onto property ladders. I mentioned earlier how before right to buy, the salary to house price equation meant that many council tenants who were in full time work were able to buy homes on the private market. It was a myth perpetuated in the aftermath of the 70s recession that right to buy would somehow liberate people. You are spot on about the one time windfall and the consequnces. And just to add (for numbers benefit) that the legislation prior to 1980 (allowing a council to sell property) had been introduced and in existence since 1936. The government of the time was Conservative and one Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister! Sadly Jeremy is right LadyD. These regulatons were desigend to prevent instant 'profiteering' (for want of a better word). You might be better staying in the home for five years (and/or rent rooms if you want to) until you are clear of those regulations. There might not be the finacial gain you expect otherwise.