Tara wrote:servodude wrote:richlist wrote:I don't think anyone has mentioned the shortage of housing. We aren't building enough, there are more buyers than there are properties in some areas of the country. There is also a massive shortage of rental property. Doesn't supply and demand influence sale prices ?
I think it was mentioned earlier
And the fact that at the last record there were 600k empty properties (or 2 years+ worth of proposed building) in the UK
Not sure how it all adds up but it feels a bit like the market might be a bit manipulated
Of course it is manipulated. If the correct number of houses were built in the UK then there would be no shortage and house prices would then move closer to a reasonable multiple of average UK earnings instead of the current 12x average earnings.
But no government wants a house price collapse when they are in government and so the correct number of houses to meet demand are never built by the government of the day.
So UK house prices are largely manipulated by various schemes such as never building enough houses, help to buy, right to buy, absurdly low interest rates, in order to keep UK house prices artificially high.
It’s a bit like a Ponzi scheme.
How are you deciding the "correct" number of houses to be built?