The picture above shows just a few of the thousands of empty homes that represent the complete collapse of the housing market in Spain. That collapse was inevitable given the circumstances of the banking crash in 2008 after the they had gone completely insane and invested in over-valued properties for which there were no viable customers. With prices far beyond the reach of most people and far, far too many on the market even the banks couldn't find enough sub-prime borrowers to support this madness. Many of these empty houses were intended for sale to British buyers - those whose over-valued properties allowed them to take on another mortgage to invest in their dream of a place in the sun. Property values in Britain have, in fact, remained reasonable stable despite the nature of the crisis, though the sudden reluctance by the banks to lend has led to a shuddering halt for the Spanish housing boom. How has this been achieved in Britain? In a word - supply. Successive governments have kept housing in Britain in short supply by refusing to build more and, as a consequence of the ever-increasing demand, have managed to sustain a property price bubble that is nothing short of criminal. The Tories, faced with such a threat to their personal wealth in unearned property value increases, have gone one better and made housing totally unavailable to an entire generation of young people. Now local councils, in the wake of the iniquitous bedroom tax, are preparing to demolish - that's right, demolish - housing stock because no one can afford to rent them. And this is how the Tories have "revitalised" the housing market. Unable to do anything remotely moral in terms of demand and keep the value of their property portfolios intact at the same time, they have resorted to managing the supply. In other words overcrowding in slum conditions and rising homelessness is a price worth paying as far as they are concerned - as long as someone else is doing the paying. They call this a recovery when it represents only a return of the insane greed and utter selfishness that got us here in the first place.
Monday 15 July 2013
Tories "Revitalise" The Housing Market.
The picture above shows just a few of the thousands of empty homes that represent the complete collapse of the housing market in Spain. That collapse was inevitable given the circumstances of the banking crash in 2008 after the they had gone completely insane and invested in over-valued properties for which there were no viable customers. With prices far beyond the reach of most people and far, far too many on the market even the banks couldn't find enough sub-prime borrowers to support this madness. Many of these empty houses were intended for sale to British buyers - those whose over-valued properties allowed them to take on another mortgage to invest in their dream of a place in the sun. Property values in Britain have, in fact, remained reasonable stable despite the nature of the crisis, though the sudden reluctance by the banks to lend has led to a shuddering halt for the Spanish housing boom. How has this been achieved in Britain? In a word - supply. Successive governments have kept housing in Britain in short supply by refusing to build more and, as a consequence of the ever-increasing demand, have managed to sustain a property price bubble that is nothing short of criminal. The Tories, faced with such a threat to their personal wealth in unearned property value increases, have gone one better and made housing totally unavailable to an entire generation of young people. Now local councils, in the wake of the iniquitous bedroom tax, are preparing to demolish - that's right, demolish - housing stock because no one can afford to rent them. And this is how the Tories have "revitalised" the housing market. Unable to do anything remotely moral in terms of demand and keep the value of their property portfolios intact at the same time, they have resorted to managing the supply. In other words overcrowding in slum conditions and rising homelessness is a price worth paying as far as they are concerned - as long as someone else is doing the paying. They call this a recovery when it represents only a return of the insane greed and utter selfishness that got us here in the first place.
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