Dominic Frisby of the Guardian wrote this post
The link was posted on Facebook on an MP's page
The following comment was posted first.
It's about time they had a shake up of journalists at the Guardian. This is one of the most ridiculous articles on house prices I've ever seen. Mr Frisby is completely obsessed by the "filthy rich" and "hard done-by poor" and his thinking has suffered as a result. The actual reason that the price of housing goes up is the same as anything else that people buy, it's nearly all down to supply and demand. If houses stop selling, then prices will drop. If they start selling well, the price will rise. How on earth can prices be soaring, if no one is buying them? If that were the case we would be seeing "For Sale" signs all over the place, but we are seeing just as many "Sold" signs up as well. So who are the people that are buying houses right now? I have bought and sold houses for many years and I know the market quite well. In fact I've just moved house recently and sold a smaller house that I'd spent money on to improve, to move into a larger one that needed some work. I had so many people wanting to buy my previous house that I got more than I asked for it. I didn't demand the money, I was "offered" it for a quick sale. But there were no shortage of people wanting to buy it off me, so the price could not have been too high. If the government want to make it easier for people to buy houses, they need to get the banks to loosen up their purse strings to allow young people much better access to mortgages, then they need to abolish Stamp Duty altogether as it's an exorbitant, unfair and unnecessary Tax that really does hammer the young people that are trying to get onto the housing ladder. So for goodness sake stop going on about house prices being too high. Whatever they are selling for is the correct price for the day!!
This was my response. I spent ages writing it so I thought I would preserve it for history plus I wanted to give the first commenter a piece of reality. Her/His name is not mentioned here so if he/she does object then I'll remove his/her comment
Have to say that is one of the best articles I've ever read. Despite the comment below saying that Frisby is obsessed by the filthy rich ( which of course they are Rich as Croesus) if he read Who Owns Britain by Kevin Cahill , then he'd realise that 70% of Britain is under private hands and they get paid handsomely by the Common Agricultural Policy payments that form part of our rebate. The poor are suffering because of poor interest rates, what savings they did have are now withering, in fact the best way of making sure you have a decent pot of money is to put it into property because at least that way house price inflation ( or the only interest that is worth getting) will put the value of your money at par whilst real inflation is in the 10-15% mark. when they say inflation is at 2 % I laugh at the telly because I know that with the 375bn of QE our prices have almost doubled since 2008. What £1 would buy you in 2008 now you need to spend £2. If you refer to £1 of property in 2008 now you would probably need £3 ( due to negative inflation in house prices which didn't really last that long) . Its horrendous, I'm not poor but Im hardly able to keep up with the inflation that is really out there, so if I am finding it difficult, people with half my salary/income must be having kittens daily about how to spend the money.
if you want to know who are the people who are buying right now? The ones who have been in their house long enough and who are now trying to downsize unsuccessfully Or those who have been in a property in London and are now moving out. Those who have played the property market and are now in a position to move are buying, Those with larger incomes are buying, but the poor are increasing. Anyone over 45 who bought early enough in their life will have enough to move house. It is quite clear that Frisby has actually hit the nail on the head and has upset the applecart judging by the 1116 comments and the cognitive dissonance of the first commenter. There are a host of for sale signs around, primarily because theyve been on the market for ages, sometimes up to a year because no one can afford to buy them, unless its someone moving sideways having sold a similar property. If your house is perfect, turnkey like the first commenter's then yes it will sell because they want to either rent it or live in it, No one has the time or the energy to do a fixer upper with the busy lives that people lead these days. Some do ( dont get me wrong but in the most part if you are a stressed out worker the last thing you want to be doing on your weekend off is renovating your expensive mortgaged house. Mortgages when offered are now the cheapest theyve ever been. I used to have to pay 350 a month on a £30000 mortgage. Nowadays that will service a debt of £78000, There are empty houses out there, and there is plenty of land, yet the houses that are built these days are smaller and smaller. and yet getting pricier and pricier. Some houses I walk into I wonder why they were built at all you can barely swing a cat in them.
London house prices are crazy, And as for the rents.... in fifteen years the house prices have risen to almost three or four times 2001 values. Thats inflation. And its outstripping wages. Real inflation if you add in house prices has made what would cost £ 35000 in 1997 now would cost £350000. I feel sorry for the first commenter because he's not prepared to see the reality of the situation. Your house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Yours was probably in a very good location, handy for whatever, and with its walk in turn key condition attractive to everyone who had made the money or had a mortgage offer on the table. Your buyer was probably a cash buyer who had sold a different property.
But youve forgotten one thing. Wages haven't risen with the same rate that housing has. They have risen with " the other rate of inflation" meaning that people can still eat, but they cannot buy the same kind of house that their parents did at the same age with the same inflation adjusted wage.
