Me 'ouse is me pension

[Old Greg]

No graph or it din't happen.

So you're saying it did happen?

[vetran]

we are a million plus dwellings short with the population growing by 1/3 million a year.

until we build our way out of it house prices will continue to grow.

[Whorty]

If you want to buy a more expensive house (and you can finance it), then a 20% drop on the value of both your house and the house you buy works in your favour.

True ... I was going to add that to the 'forced' sell, but it's kind of built into the 'sell, but can hold on for a price they want' as they aren't really being forced to sell.

I can see more people doing what we did 5 years ago ... selling our 1000 sqft flat and buying a 3500 sqft 6 bed house with 2 acres of land for the same price. The virus has passed us by in our village - no cases, and life has pretty much gone on as before.

Could be an interesting 2-5 years as the 'new normal' starts to bed down.

Could end up with a glut of poor quality city centre flats*, and an increased demand for larger properties in the countryside.

*wasn't it Leeds that had this problem even when the market was booming?

[PCTNN]

we are a million plus dwellings short with the population growing by 1/3 million a year.

until we build our way out of it house prices will continue to grow.

it's a difficult situation because the more houses are going to be built and the less space there will be for farms and the great fruit picking industry of uk2.0

[scooterscot]

we are a million plus dwellings short with the population growing by 1/3 million a year.

until we build our way out of it house prices will continue to grow.

Nahh - when the BTL'ers collapse and the baby boomers 2nd home brigade fold there'll be a stack of supply. Not to mention the number of homes already lying empty around the country.

Number of empty homes in England rises to more than 216,000

[Whorty]

Nahh - when the BTL'ers collapse and the baby boomers 2nd home brigade fold there'll be a stack of supply. Not to mention the number of homes already lying empty around the country.

Number of empty homes in England rises to more than 216,000

Ok .. let's work with your logic ....

Most of those BTL properties are occupied, so it's not like putting them on the market is going to produce spare housing capacity. The people currently renting still need somewhere to live.

Today, as Vetran says, we have a shortage of good housing stock compared to demand. We're a small island, so this is only going to get worse.

We are too city centric; the 'new normal' of working from home, and hence housing can be built in more remote locations, will certainly help. But only if companies allow further WFH once the lockdown eases and don't insist on travel back into the cities.

Those empty houses you mention will either be in very poor, undesirable areas where there is no work (mid Wales ex-mining towns spring to mind) or are very poorly maintained properties where a buyer cannot get a mortgage and hence will be picked up by developers and flipped.

And let's be honest, 216k properties is hardly a massive number, especially if they're in the wrong part of the country.

[BABABlackSheep]

True ... I was going to add that to the 'forced' sell, but it's kind of built into the 'sell, but can hold on for a orice they want' as they aren't really being forced to sell.

I can see more people doing what we did 5 years ago ... selling our 1000 sqft flat and buying a 3500 sqft 6 bed house with 2 acres of land for the same price. The virus has passed us by in our village - no cases, and life has pretty much gone on as before.

Could be an interesting 2-5 years as the 'new normal' starts to bed down.

Could end up with a glut of poor quality city centre flats*, and an increased demand for larger properties in the countryside.

*wasn't it Leeds that had this problem even when the market was booming?

I agree.

Also, don’t forget that millions of extra people are working from home now because of covid-19, and large corporations are asking why they are paying fortunes renting office space in cities when there is no need.

Suddenly you have a triple whammy, no one one wants to live in cities in case of another lockdown, no one needs to live in cities as offices will close there, and many of the bars and restaurants will close due to the loss of earnings from the people who no longer work in the city and frequent them.

[vetran]

Nahh - when the BTL'ers collapse and the baby boomers 2nd home brigade fold there'll be a stack of supply. Not to mention the number of homes already lying empty around the country.

Number of empty homes in England rises to more than 216,000

Buy to let - the clue is in the name. Where will their tenants go? As they can't get on the property ladder they will probably not be that well off.

You note the growth in empty homes are in coastal towns not Notting hill. People don't want to live in Portsmouth because there are no jobs. This may change for the few who still have jobs working remotely down in their country houses ah a return to Victorian values.

so out of 27.3 million registered households (a growth of 4 million since 1996) 216,000 spare houses by the sea are going to satisfy the demand.

Total number of households by region and country of the UK, 1996 to 2017 - Office for National Statistics

We need to slow population growth, create jobs out of London & SE and build a million+ houses.

[vetran]

it's a difficult situation because the more houses are going to be built and the less space there will be for farms and the great fruit picking industry of uk2.0

You bothered to look at robot fruit picking and the various modern culture methods where we can create food in a cave/top of buildings.

[Old Greg]

Ok .. let's work with your logic ....

For Christ's sake man, don't do it!