Tuesday 5 January 2016

Reader's Letter Of The Day

From The Evening Standard:

THE Government abuse of the word "affordable" knows no bounds. Describing starter homes, which will cost up to £450,000 in London, as affordable is not just dishonest, it actually damages the city's housing market.

It's easy to claim you're building a record number of affordable homes when you pretend that homes costing almost half a million are such.

Tom Copley, Labour's London Assembly housing spokesperson


Not the most original thought, but one that must be repeated every time the government talk about "affordable" housing. I'd consider something like £150,000 for a house or £100,000 for a nice flat to be at the upper limit of affordable, i.e. three times earnings.

And it's not like things were better when Labour were in charge (London Mayor until 2008; national government until 2010).

5 comments:

Random said...

Worstall wrote this?? Easy to align the incentives - land value tax for local govt.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/01/02/solving-the-growth-ponzi-scheme-get-government-out-of-infrastructure/

Random said...

Also
http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/jan/04/george-osborne-400000-homes-housebuilding-bricks

"The chancellor has promised a major housebuilding programme, but Britain may not have enough bricks and bricklayers"

The morons think "we've got the money!" Not that this will help at all.

Mark Wadsworth said...

R, can you post links as hyperlinks pls? Makes life much easier for people using a mobile.

Random said...

Enjoy

mombers said...

I've written to my current and previous MPs (both Tory w*nkers) to point out that even if £450k can be dressed up as affordable, the 20% discount disappears the day that the lucky first time buyer moves in. After just 5 years, a first time buyer in exactly the same situation, same income, etc will pay at least 25% more for the same house and it will no longer be affordable for anyone. I got a reply from Brandon Lewis, will post it during lunch