Fixing Our Broken Housing Market White Paper Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government by Command of Her Majesty February 2017 Cm 9352 Fixing Our Broken Housing Market White Paper in PDF Format White Paper Contents Foreword from the Prime Minister Foreword from the Secretary of State Introduction Our […]
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Yes, the housing market is broken.
Would that be anything to do with blessed Margaret Thatcher selling off the council houses?
She sold them off to Tory voters to increase the chances of a Tory election win!
The housing market, which is really the land market, doesn’t work because THERE IS NO (free) MARKET IN LAND.
Every square inch is already owned and they’re not making any more to meet demand.
Land is an asset class like no other but we are bamboozled into believing it is like cars or cheeseburgers or mobile phones or anything else where there IS a functioning free market.
There's No Free Housing Market
What are you on about ?
Of course no more land is being created, actually climate change means it is being destroyed. This does not mean it is an asset class like no other.
Things like fine art, classic cars, etc., are “investments” because they aren’t making any more Van Goghs or 1960s Ferrari’s. That is an asset class almost exactly like land. Though the painting is rather less functional.
How about more traditional asset classes like, for instance shares. Funnily enough companies don’t issue new shares just for fun. Many companies have a fixed number of shares over many years. These assets rise and fall with the fortunes of the company.
Sometimes the shares are split, which is the same as splitting a piece of land into two. Each half is worth, roughly half what the whole piece was.
You are making a category error. Investment asset classes are characterised by having a fixed, or nearly so, supply. If companies could just issue as many shares as they liked at any time the shares would be worthless. See also, money.
Assets and commodities are completely different things. A commodity, a mobile phone say, has a more or less completely flexible supply. A mobile phone is not an investment asset.
That the land is all owned already does not prevent it being a free market. Anyone who owns land can choose to sell it and anyone who can afford the price can buy it. Just the same as with shares, gold, classic cars or anything else.
Land is an Investment Asset