by jacksonnic on 7/20/16, 5:37 AM with 5 comments
by ZeroGravitas on 7/20/16, 7:19 PM
Everyone in the UK is incentivized to buy a home, and to buy a home larger than they need. Even if they don't want to own a home, or a large home, or don't want to own one right now, they need to be on the housing ladder or property inflation will price them out of the market later and they'll be turning down government subsidies that everyone else will take. On the other side, being a tenant sucks in the UK.
This has lots of bad effects, and it benefits basically no-one as were all running faster to stand still. Perhaps estate agents and older people who bought property a long time ago and with no children that they'll need to help to buy homes if they don't want them cluttering up the place are the only winners.
It's a systematic problem, and it's been encouraged because lots of people thought they were benefitting, but really they were just stealing money from their kids. We could have just run up the national debt instead and saved ourselves the bother.
Rich people who buy investment property here are just taking advantage of this phenomenon, they're not causing it.
by lathiat on 7/20/16, 7:11 AM
by garagemc2 on 7/20/16, 7:17 AM
House prices being are due to a lack of building, due to classic British nimbyism. They are not the fault of poor migrants or rich migrants.