Bloody French! (S C A L L O P S)

[Scomber]

It's a bit simplistic to blame the locals for selling houses as holiday cottages. Quite often those houses may come on the market because of deceased parents, children already have moved elsewhere for careers etc, so the house is sold for what they can get. Perfectly understandable.
It's the councils or the government who should take the lead in preventing such rampant inflation, and a good start would be by a property tax on second homes, or trebling council tax on second homes.
If someone can afford a quarter of a million pounds for a wee cottage in a village as a holiday home, they could afford it at half the price plus the hefty taxes for the privilege. They still have the opportunity and the locals can buy houses on a level playing field.

+1

 

[steve yates]

Absolutely. But they can't then complain that locals can't live in the places where they grew up.

Why not? Just because they are landed with a windfall and take advantage of it, does not mean that they have to agree with the system that created their isolated bit of good fortune. That's like saying folk who drive should not complain about congestion on the m25 etc.

Plus it's not simply house inflation that makes places unaffordable to the locals, it's the lack of skilled/professional/high paying work.
The average terraced house or flat in the uk is circa £200k, and the ave salary for waitress/shop/bar work is circa £15k pa. In the pretty areas of the uk that tend to become holiday areas, those are the kind of jobs going. There is not much call for accountants, lawers, engineers, solicitors, doctors in places like megavissey, to take one at random. The kids have to leave to follow prospects, that's kind of natural, but if they wanted to return to set up home and a family, they are pretty stuffed.

How will someone doing those jobs ever be able to afford to buy a house where they live ? It didn't used to matter when there was proper council housing, but it does now.

Apologies to the op for the thread drift.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Why not? Just because they are landed with a windfall and take advantage of it, does not mean that they have to agree with the system that created their isolated bit of good fortune. That's like saying folk who drive should not complain about congestion on the m25 etc.

Hmm. I see what you mean, but isn't it a bit more like people who drive their children to school complaining that they need to do so because the roads are so busy with people driving their children to school? Nobody is individually culpable, everyone is individually quite entitled to grumble but the problem they are grumbling about exists because of the behaviour of a group of which they are part.

Basically, a classing example of Tragedy of the Commons.

Plus it's not simply house inflation that makes places unaffordable to the locals, it's the lack of skilled/professional/high paying work.

Tell me about it. The only work here in SW Scotland is farming, seasonal hospitality and wiping old people's bottom. OKm I simplify a little, but not much.

The average terraced house or flat in the uk is circa £200k, and the ave salary for waitress/shop/bar work is circa £15k pa. In the pretty areas of the uk that tend to become holiday areas, those are the kind of jobs going. There is not much call for accountants, lawers, engineers, solicitors, doctors in places like megavissey, to take one at random.

I wonder if that will change? Historically Mevagissey probably would have had at least some professionals. My local town is only twice the size, but maintains two medical practices, a cottage hospital, two veterinary practices, an accountancy business, three law firms ... and an academic engineer. The internet make decentralising a lot more possible, so perhaps we'll see better paying jobs move back into places from which they have disappeared. Maybe.

The kids have to leave to follow prospects, that's kind of natural, but if they wanted to return to set up home and a family, they are pretty stuffed.

They are stuffed everywhere. The flat I bought as a young lecturer for 2.5 times my salary is now worth 3 times a full professor's salary.

 

[Seven Spades]

They are stuffed everywhere. The flat I bought as a young lecturer for 2.5 times my salary is now worth 3 times a full professor's salary.

This is very misleading. Interest rates are very low so whilst the capital cost f houses are very high the repayments as a percentage of net income is lower than in the 80's when house prices were 3* salaries. The danger is that should interest rates continue to increase then house prices will under perform wages whilst the cost of servicing the loans increase. This is fine for new purchasers but bad news for the economy and existing property owners.

 

[JumbleDuck]

This is very misleading. Interest rates are very low so whilst the capital cost f houses are very high the repayments as a percentage of net income is lower than in the 80's when house prices were 3* salaries.

True, but even so most lenders cap at 4.5 x salary which still puts that flat waaaaay out of reach of 2018 me.

The danger is that should interest rates continue to increase then house prices will under perform wages whilst the cost of servicing the loans increase. This is fine for new purchasers but bad news for the economy and existing property owners.

We desperately need a house price crash. A proper one - down 80% in London, say, and 50% in t'North.

 

[Seven Spades]

We desperately need a house price crash. A proper one - down 80% in London, say, and 50% in t'North.

Yes and 7 million unemployed to go with it.

Our economy is driven by equity withdrawals from house sales, businesses are operated by bank loans secured on houses. A house house price crash would result in manhy businesses closing as their overdrafts are withdrawn so do you really think that would be a good plan.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yes and 7 million unemployed to go with it.

Our economy is driven by equity withdrawals from house sales, businesses are operated by bank loans secured on houses. A house house price crash would result in may businesses closing as their overdrafts are withdrawn so do you really think that would be a good plan.

Our economy is crippled by the amount people are putting into house purchase and rental. It is only in the Daily Mail that out-of-control inflation in one of the necessities of life is seen as a good thing. So yes, a monumental crash would be fantastic news for the economy as a hole. Less good for people counting on cashing out of the Ponzi scheme, but meh. Nobody deserves to get rich on the back of inflation.

 

[Seven Spades]

You really don't have a clue do you. Your policies would simply bankrupt the country, have your been to the Robert Mugabe school of economics?

 

[JumbleDuck]

You really don't have a clue do you. Your policies would simply bankrupt the country, have your been to the Robert Mugabe school of economics?

I am not the one celebrating ridiculous levels of inflation in one important area. Yes, a price crash would reduce the ability of people inheriting homes to splash out on (foreign run) cruises and (foreign built) cars, but it would also enable many, many more people to afford housing, which means they could spend money on other things. Which would be good for the economy. Don't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail.

 

[Tranona]

I am not the one celebrating ridiculous levels of inflation in one important area. Yes, a price crash would reduce the ability of people inheriting homes to splash out on (foreign run) cruises and (foreign built) cars, but it would also enable many, many more people to afford housing, which means they could spend money on other things. Which would be good for the economy. Don't believe everything you read in the Daily Mail.

Rising house prices have little to do with inflation id feined as a fall in the value of the currency.

It has (just about) everything to do with good old fashioned supply and demand. Too many "living units" - that is people or groups of people who need to live in one dwelling) and too few dwellings.

There are of course lots of reasons for this on the demand side - changing nature of family units, increasing life spans, immigration, property used as a store of value, opening of market to non resident investors and so on. Plus of course an imbalance of supply and demand geographically, mainly owing to the changing nature of the productive economy.

On the supply side the main restriction is government control over the allocation of land, made worse by a physical shortage of land in the areas of highest demand.

So, simple combination of uncontrolled demand and heavily controlled supply equals higher prices (however you measure "price").

The only way prices will fall is if you control demand or increase supply. Neither are easy in this political climate despite all political parties agreeing that is the problem.

 

[Oldfellah]

It is very sad that when we are lauding Brexit as the way to get our fishing back it is sobering to note that unlike other European countries our government has seen fit to sell our fishing quota's to other countries. It would seem that 88% of the fishing quota's for Wales up to Scotland border has been sold to Spanish boats and most of the North sea to Dutch boats. So, Brexit will make no difference, as the sale of fishing rights is nothing to do with the EU but a decision made by the UK government.

 

[steve yates]

One simple way to rein in the house price inflation in the uk would be to change the ridiculous buying process.

Remove gazumping, and at a stroke, one would see houseprices increasing at a slower rate.

The other of course would be widespread council housing, making rent affordable, which would have a big impact on he buy to let market and the first time buyers market as a whole. Of course, that's not going to happen again sadly.

I speak as one who is currently developing a property to sell at the highest price I can get, and who will eventually be looking at a rental portfolio probably; so while I will be benefiting from the situation, I still think it's nuts. And unsustainable. The british obsession with owning their home has a lot to answer for, but far worse than that is the culture that has arisen of seeing their houses not as homes, but as vehicles to get rich. The irony as that most of them are in serious debt to have this "investment".

 

[Mark-1]

The only way prices will fall is if you control demand or increase supply. Neither are easy in this political climate despite all political parties agreeing that is the problem.

Yup, you need more land or less people.

Is making more land really that hard? Go Dutch and fill in the Wash?

 

[Champagne Murphy]

Just remembered I took this pic in Dieppe over the summer. There were literally tons of scallop shells on the dockside area, they must be pulling some of them out of the oggin.

 

[Babylon]

Re: Bloody French!

Ten years ago my parents sold their house in Glasgow. My father was a man of strong principles, one of which was not to profit by house price inflation. They sold the house, to someone who needed it and could not afford much, for what they paid in 1961 + RPI shifts, which came to about 40% of market value. Lost me a packet in inheritance, but I admired and admire them for it.

Just out of interest, does the buyer still own the house?

 

[Pagetslady]

http://news.sky.com/story/uk-and-fr...rench-fisherman-attack-british-boats-11484706

According to a Brixham fisherman interviewd on Sky, this took place 40 miles off French coast, with a French Naval vessel doing F' all.

(Title amended for clarification only) Mod.[/QUOTE
]i don't remember anybody mentioning 40 miles, I did hear however somebody saying the French have a 12 mile limit, and the English fisherman claiming they were 14 miles off did I hear this incorrectly?

 

[Pagetslady]

Re: Bloody French!

In my view all dredging should be banned in British waters once we exit the EU. Dredging destroys the seabed.
Some people seem to have the romantic notion that fishermen are the farmers of the sea. Nothing could be further from the truth for bottom scraping shell fishermen. These fishermen destroy our seabed for their own gain. The environment they destroy is ours as British citizens not theirs as fishermen. Ban the lot of them from UK waters for ever.

How can they be considered farmers of the sea, they do not reap what they sow as farmers do, they feed their livestock. What do fishermen do other than deplete the natural stocks.

 

[Tranona]

It is very sad that when we are lauding Brexit as the way to get our fishing back it is sobering to note that unlike other European countries our government has seen fit to sell our fishing quota's to other countries. It would seem that 88% of the fishing quota's for Wales up to Scotland border has been sold to Spanish boats and most of the North sea to Dutch boats. So, Brexit will make no difference, as the sale of fishing rights is nothing to do with the EU but a decision made by the UK government.

No, it is not made by the government but by the owners of the quota - that is the fishermen themselves who have decided itv is in their best interests to take the money rather than actually go fishing. Part of this is because most of the demand for the seafood is in other countries, particularly France and Spain. come down to Poole or Brixham/Plymouth and watch the daily line of trucks (some having come from Scotland) on their way over the channel taking seafood caught in UK waters.

Then go out and try and buy squid, langoustines, lobster, spider crab scallops, cuttlefish, whelks, brill, megrim, sole, pollack etc in a UK high street.

 

[Tranona]

One simple way to rein in the house price inflation in the uk would be to change the ridiculous buying process.

Remove gazumping, and at a stroke, one would see houseprices increasing at a slower rate.

The other of course would be widespread council housing, making rent affordable, which would have a big impact on he buy to let market and the first time buyers market as a whole. Of course, that's not going to happen again sadly.

I speak as one who is currently developing a property to sell at the highest price I can get, and who will eventually be looking at a rental portfolio probably; so while I will be benefiting from the situation, I still think it's nuts. And unsustainable. The british obsession with owning their home has a lot to answer for, but far worse than that is the culture that has arisen of seeing their houses not as homes, but as vehicles to get rich. The irony as that most of them are in serious debt to have this "investment".

Gazumping is rare and only occurs when demand exceeds supply. In some circumstances it works the other way when it is the seller demands a premium at the point of contract exchaning. it is impossible to change the system when most buyers are not in a position to proceed using their own money but are reliant on others who are unwilling to commit without carrying out all the checks to protect their own interests.

The problem with public housing is that taxpayers in general are required to subsidise the housing costs of tenants. While we have a society based on property rights as ours has been for centuries it is politically impossible to interfere with the market.

Owning property is not an obsession for most, it is a normal reaction to living in a market economy where land and housing is a scarce resource.

 

[3571]

Re: Bloody French!

How can they be considered farmers of the sea, they do not reap what they sow as farmers do, they feed their livestock. What do fishermen do other than deplete the natural stocks.

Those sustainably harvesting Shellfishermen re-seed the sea many times a day, they return to the sea sometimes large numbers of animals under the Minimum Landing Size. Combined with very impressive survival rates this means a regular harvest in the very same places year in and year out....it doesn't get any more re-seedy than that.