Britain is losing the housing war. We must stop the blockers. Embracing friction is now necessary. No one will love every change, but they may come to appreciate what it makes possible.
High house prices are not a function - primarily - of a supply shortage. The ONS stats indicate that we have built roughly enough dwelling units to cover the population increase. Except for immigration - possibly / probably.
High house prices are a function of government failure. Failure not only with planning but principally with taxation policy, subsidy policy, currency failure and unwarranted currency expansion.
In the UK we tax production - labour, capital and entrepreneurs - and subsidise and / or under-tax land. And land is parasitical.
So to sort out house, aka land , prices you must:
Have sound money and stop credit expansion.
Shift tax from wealth creating production to rents
Stop landlord subsidies like housing benefits etc
Sound Money is the key. And you'll have fun getting that past The Blob. The idiot socialists and the rent seeking Tories.
Rather than the NIMBY/YIMBY approach I'd say it's more about trust and the social contract between us the citizens and the government.
The government has spent several years importing people, legally and illegally, against the wishes of the majority of voters. We do not trust that any housing built is being built in the interests of voters.
Nowhere in this article is immigration mentioned and yet I would say it is a serious concern of the NIMBY brigade.
High quality housing, for high quality citizens, on estates that are well connected and well served by infrastructure are the least contentious. If that can bring new pupils for village schools, new doctor surgeries, new community centres and sports facilities then there would be something in it for local people. They might just go along with it.
But we see a failed 14 year Tory government that imported millions, directly opposing the will of the people. We now see that policy now continuing under Labour and nothing being done about illegal immigration.
The Uniparty need to own that failure. It will take a long time until people are ready to tolerate building the housing to deal with it.
I agree that trust in government matters, esp vis-a-vis immigration. My focus here was more structural rather than motivational, though. The planning system we have produces under-supply regardless of what people think housing is ‘for’. Even in a UK of zero net migration, we’d still be rationing homes through discretionary local vetoes because what we've set up was inevitably going to lead to distrust anyway, hence the YIMBY/NIMBY focus. That’s why the system itself needs reform, so outcomes don’t depend on perfect trust in government.
Exactly. Once the Act passed and nationalised our development rights, housing outcomes stopped being driven by demand and started being driven by local vetoes. That’s why trust alone can’t fix this. The institutional setup itself produces under-supply and resentment.
You raise some good points. Maybe one day in the distant future we'll get some semblance of a government willing to undo the damage. Either way, bad planning amplifies the effects of cheap credit by locking supply, including the aftereffects of our current system.
Serendipity strikes again - this link was in my inbox today
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-have-homes-become-so-unaffordable
Worth a read.
High house prices are not a function - primarily - of a supply shortage. The ONS stats indicate that we have built roughly enough dwelling units to cover the population increase. Except for immigration - possibly / probably.
High house prices are a function of government failure. Failure not only with planning but principally with taxation policy, subsidy policy, currency failure and unwarranted currency expansion.
In the UK we tax production - labour, capital and entrepreneurs - and subsidise and / or under-tax land. And land is parasitical.
So to sort out house, aka land , prices you must:
Have sound money and stop credit expansion.
Shift tax from wealth creating production to rents
Stop landlord subsidies like housing benefits etc
Sound Money is the key. And you'll have fun getting that past The Blob. The idiot socialists and the rent seeking Tories.
Rather than the NIMBY/YIMBY approach I'd say it's more about trust and the social contract between us the citizens and the government.
The government has spent several years importing people, legally and illegally, against the wishes of the majority of voters. We do not trust that any housing built is being built in the interests of voters.
Nowhere in this article is immigration mentioned and yet I would say it is a serious concern of the NIMBY brigade.
High quality housing, for high quality citizens, on estates that are well connected and well served by infrastructure are the least contentious. If that can bring new pupils for village schools, new doctor surgeries, new community centres and sports facilities then there would be something in it for local people. They might just go along with it.
But we see a failed 14 year Tory government that imported millions, directly opposing the will of the people. We now see that policy now continuing under Labour and nothing being done about illegal immigration.
The Uniparty need to own that failure. It will take a long time until people are ready to tolerate building the housing to deal with it.
I agree that trust in government matters, esp vis-a-vis immigration. My focus here was more structural rather than motivational, though. The planning system we have produces under-supply regardless of what people think housing is ‘for’. Even in a UK of zero net migration, we’d still be rationing homes through discretionary local vetoes because what we've set up was inevitably going to lead to distrust anyway, hence the YIMBY/NIMBY focus. That’s why the system itself needs reform, so outcomes don’t depend on perfect trust in government.
Is not the prime fault with the 194?? Town and Country Planning Act? Did that not de facto 'nationalise' land?
Exactly. Once the Act passed and nationalised our development rights, housing outcomes stopped being driven by demand and started being driven by local vetoes. That’s why trust alone can’t fix this. The institutional setup itself produces under-supply and resentment.
Yep. That post WW2 Labour nationalisation spree has proved to be a total disaster in so many ways. e.g. Nationalised Health Shambles.
But, the elephant in the room is bad money and out-of-control central banking (also nationalised in 1947/2000). See my comment below for why.
You raise some good points. Maybe one day in the distant future we'll get some semblance of a government willing to undo the damage. Either way, bad planning amplifies the effects of cheap credit by locking supply, including the aftereffects of our current system.
Yeah. It is double trouble