Ukraine

I seriously hope you are right…what a total nightmare for the Ukrainians

 

I could not agree more… the answers given to the housing crisis are always concerned with supply side economics. But that’s total nonsense while we allow rampant speculation the way we do and cash can be borrowed pretty much for free.

So we have to limit speculation and build decent houses with space for all.

 

I can’t get it to play - but it would be one hell of a short video that dismissed the whole Labour party with its long history of good and bad.

 

After much protest our local council gave permission for a new housing estate locally to provide "much needed affordable" housing for the area.
So there were people looking forward to the build expecting nice starter homes for their off spring.
As the houses went up we walked around them a bit puzzled as their size looked a tad large. Then came the day as the first one's came up for sale.
£350,000. Well that may be affordable in the councilors eyes, but it's way above what's really needed.
It's an attractive estate, and the homes all sold in around 48hrs but it's money that drives the planning consent evidently..if I was a cynic I'd guess a few bungs change hands.

 

Diane always makes me laugh or sometimes cringe. So I'm in two minds with her. On the one hand i like to see her for a chuckle. Then, on the other hand I think to myself, why on earth doesn't Kier Starmer ask her to please avoid interviews.

 

Sure - the maths is fairly easy: if we say average salary in the UK is £25k, mortgages at 4 X income seem sustainable, 4.5 X joint, and at that level of income you're going to need 100% mortgage (which is what I got when I was 24 and getting married) - then affordable is something like £100k to £150k. What you then do in a market where the asset you've just sold for £150k would sell openly for 3 times that is a bit problematic.

The whole economy is completely wrongly geared. I have theories about why - basically that unfettered free economies create serious imbalance - but that's too simple as well. I look at Switzerland where I live and work a bit, and at Scandinavia where I visit as often as I can - mostly with a tent and a fly rod - and I see very successful societies and economies, with high levels of entrepreneurship, and huge levels of government intervention and a deep intolerance ofr inequality and poverty. I can't see anywhere that does it better.

 

Round here house prices have gone up 5 fold since 2000, I bought at £60k and my neighbours are asking £300k for their house.
Buy to let has a lot to answer for, a colleague is desperately looking for a new place before the end of April as his landlord is selling up to take his profit.

 

Agree completely. BtL is a disaster really. It's pure speculation. As such folks really should not complain if it turns out that their gamble doesn't work out. And for the wider benefit of all, that bet needs to not work in the way it has... We used to have a very functional, not for profit rental market protecting the post war poorest. That went in a bang of political expediency with a ban on the one off gains being reinvested for future social housing needs.

And now we have epidemic levels of homelessness, a property market entirely out of reach of anyone not already in it, and a serious crisis which has to be dealt with. Laissez faire economics are just going to make it worse. As always.

 

Don't see what moans and groans about housing or the state of UK politics has to do with a war that is killing many on both sides. If you want to complain about the housing market, take it elsewhere. I am sure it is well down the list of worries for a Ukrainian refugee.

 

OK

 

Slava Ukraini

 

68% of older Russians believe Putin when he says no one in Ukraine has been killed! Only the younger generation with access via their mobile phones get to see what is really happening.

TRUTH - the first casualty of war,
Jenny namaste

 

All this in the news about Russia taking over this town and that facility in Ukraine - as long as sanctions hold - it will only ever be temporary.

Mind you - fighting an armed population of 40 million people - no army is large enough to hold Ukraine.

Putin will lose and he knows it.