I'm over 55 and I have 13 rooms........... .........Tough.............. I worked bloody hard for them.
In what way would someone over 55 with spare rooms benefit someone who is poor living in one heated room by downsizing ?
Seems sensible advice to me. Unless it was feasible to rent them out and cash in that way, I would downsize and use the spare cash to enjoy myself. Hard to quantify if it would actually make any difference to society though, but guessing there are probably more small then big houses it should have *some* effect.
Daft policy, i understand the argument but this is not the solution. We used to have one once. They were called council houses but successive govs, both tory and labour, sold them off to tenants cheaply. Now we have a shortage of homes for poorer families. Wonder how that happened. Doh! Even as a socialist myself I cannot see how burdening those with a few spare rooms with the resposibility to house the poor is so often used by successive moronic ministers. They created the problem and we elect the fuckers to sort the problem out. But it seems they perennially try to shift the onus onto the middle incomes. Rather than accept the responsibility that we fucking well elected them to fucking take. Am I the only cunt that would happily take the shitty but necessary decisions? I'm unelectable as I'm afraid I call a cunt a cunt. We need a Jose Mujica. That guy has my respect. Homes are way too expensive. I'd cut 50% of their value in a heartbeat by a hefty tax to reduce property prices. Sure it will piss off 80% of the population but something drastic needs to be done otherwise our kids will not have anywhere to live. I would also tax foreign investment companies to prevent them hiking property values at the expense of our childrens futures. But where will the investment come to build new homes? If the price we pay for investment is such that our kids cannot afford a home to start a family then that price is too high.
bigger houses for those that need them, smaller lecky consumption for those that don't would free up a lot of capital. would help with new builds and more energy efficient
Most council houses were/are significantly larger, with larger rear gardens than today's crap houses.....
If a wrinkly downsized that would put money in their pocket, the question then is what would they do with that money. I don't suppose a wrinkly would blow it on consumption, which is likely to fuel imports anyway, they are more likely to invest for income.
Surely relaxing planning laws would be more effective then taxing existing stock? I mean how about letting people do as they wish with their property for a radical idea...
While the Planning officials in every Local Authority keep adopting the view they are there to refuse applications, altering the laws would make bugger all difference........
We have small houses becuase developers try to squeeze as many properties as they can into one development. Ive just done a energy planning submission for a client on a plot for 5 apartments. Where once stood a nice 4 bedroom detached property. Each apartment is 50-66m²! Plus theyll want 200k for them. Theyre shit.
I have some sympathy with this viewpoint. House prices have been maintained artificially high for too long simply to balance the books. Yes house prices need to fall but that will have a knock on effect for the economy with the return of negative equity and associated debt write offs. Successive governments have failed to address the issue putting their heads in the sand and hoping for "growth" to come along and solve their problem. Well growth is low, the deficit is creeping back up and labour have the nerve to criticise the government. Pot, kettle, black.
Whilst the UK Government relies solely on the Construction Industry because we have no other 'manufacturing' industry of any substance, the economy will be artifically maintained and at extreme risk of another collapse.
