tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6581451605671136237..comments2024-03-29T07:14:55.029+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Boris Johnson's Housing CounterrevolutionPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-32880726450395705062022-06-10T20:19:26.454+01:002022-06-10T20:19:26.454+01:00«As Andrew Fisher rightly notes, banks typically r...«As Andrew Fisher rightly notes, banks typically require a 10% deposit for a house. Average prices are hovering around the £280k mark, but most forms of UC won't pay out if a recipient has savings of £16k an over. And so there's one gaping hole in the mooted scheme. Either the savings roof is abolished or significantly raised, the government massively subsidises prices so they're in reach, or they legislate against the banks to force them to drop the deposit threshold. Whichever way you look at it, the policy can mean handing money over to people the Tories have spent the last 12 years attacking and defaming,»<br /><br />This proposal for an outline of a policy is not targeted at people living in places where houses cost £280k, in those places property owners already vote tory and the rest don't matter.<br /><br />The proposal is transparently targeted at red-wall brexiters living in "the north" in "pushed behind" areas, under the delusion that what switches votes to the right is house ownership as such, rather than booming house prices. But nobody with sense goes hugely in debt to speculate on something that does not rise in price fast.<br /><br />Some right-wingers seem to believe their own propaganda that "people to own their homes", when instead they want to own a government guaranteed way to make huge property profits entirely redistributed upwards, work-free, tax-free, from "losers".Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-51627223562438230462022-06-10T15:00:48.718+01:002022-06-10T15:00:48.718+01:00Or maybe, Andy, the media don't understand thi...Or maybe, Andy, the media don't understand this matter any better than Alexander De Pfeffel does. In which case they're falling down on their job (but is that news?)<br /><br />I always think that "right to buy" is an Orwellian phrase. It should be "right to force the taxpayer to buy you a house."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-67111942351990960452022-06-10T12:42:29.691+01:002022-06-10T12:42:29.691+01:00We should not assume that Johnson and his backers ...We should not assume that Johnson and his backers are worried about workability. Think of the Brexit agreement and the NI Protocol or deportations to Rwanda. It is how it plays with the red wallers and their ilk. They will have heard the headlines and be enquiring now on how they can buy their 'council house'.<br />And just like the opposition to deportations or to details of Brexit the 'Mail' and 'express' will be able to blame lefty lawyers or smirking Starmer for it not operating smoothly and depriving hard working housing benefit receivers of their free born Englishman's right to own. The probability that it will make things worse for others and reduce the social housing stock will be of no concern to them.<br />It could be a vote consolidator.Mcintoshnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24162458169391953762022-06-10T12:29:56.579+01:002022-06-10T12:29:56.579+01:00"PM wants benefits claimants to be able to bu..."PM wants benefits claimants to be able to buy homes."<br /><br />Ahem. This must all about preparing the ground for further UC cuts. "Why the scroungers are all so well off they can buy houses/latest trainers/flat screens etc!"<br /><br />Johnson is surely just about firming up the gammon vote? Angry gammons will make the effort to vote come election day.Shai Masothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452453462950704943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-48773975832012824032022-06-09T22:17:05.932+01:002022-06-09T22:17:05.932+01:00You've also got the issue that Support for Mor...You've also got the issue that Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) payments made as part of Universal Credit and the legacy means tested benefits is currently paid as a loan, on which the government charges interest, which has to be paid back when the property is sold.<br /><br />So what happens to SMI when there is a new tranche of UC claimants who are allowed to divert their housing benefit portion of UC into a mortgage? Will that mean the housing element of UC used in this way also become a loan? Or will they end the SMI to loan thing that was only introduced a couple of years ago? Or will the government simply allow there to be a two-stream benefits system where those who bought their houses years ago when working but fell on hard times such as disability etc will be far worse off than people who may come from one of IDS' families where three generations have never worked but fancied owning their own house? Run that one by the Daily Mail.<br /><br />Also SMI is paid at a standard interest rate, currently 2.09%. I'm not really up on mortgage rates these days but I'd be very surprised that anybody considered 'sub-prime' will find a mortgage anywhere near as cheap as that. So that's another SMI mainstay out of the window.<br /><br />Conclusion; this is utterly unworkable and the fact that the media reported this as a serious policy shows how far they are prepared to indulge this idiotAndyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03710776765139258627noreply@blogger.com