Housing

Uncategorised

High cost of living will make our competitiveness suffer

28/10/2008
A combination of high costs and poor quality is seldom a recipe for success – not for goods and services, and certainly not for countries. There is a danger that Britain will lose its most qualified people if they prefer a better and cheaper life abroad. It is equally likely that Britain will fail to attract highly skilled foreigners who are deterred by its reputation as an expensive and unsatisfactory place to live. Both would be equally disastrous for Britain’s economic future. And for this reason alone tackling the problem of Britain’s high cost of living is worth every effort.

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Uncategorised

Haus proud

01/09/2008
New houses in Germany are cheaper than their British counterparts and on average 50 per cent larger. Given that the two countries have a similar population density, what’s going wrong in the UK?

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Uncategorised

Is the Green Belt sacred?

22/08/2008
The ‘green belt’ description has elevated imagination over reality in Britain’s planning system. To the public, the areas it refers to seem to be much needed reserves of nature in an overcrowded, concrete Britain. They are, or at least they are believed to be, the last remnants of what was once England’s green and pleasant land. To say anything against the concept of the green belt thus seems to smack of treachery. But we need some hard-headed thought about why and how we protect land from the development we need.

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Inside Politics

Falling off the catwalk

16/05/2008
Let there be no doubt: a much stronger housing supply is needed to deal with the huge backlog in demand. If you are serious about this you have to accept that house prices could stabilise and even drop. No wonder the Government’s housing policy is falling off the catwalk.

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Inside Politics

The wrong kind of house price falls

11/04/2008
The Prime Minister’s reaction to the news from the housing front was as hapless as it was helpless. But given his record dealing with the housing market when he was Chancellor you wouldn’t have expected anything else.

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Uncategorised

Solving Britain’s housing crisis

30/03/2008
If there is one topic that over the past decade has steadily climbed up the ladder of political priorities, it is housing. In the first years of the latest housing boom, which started in the mid-1990s, rising house prices were almost universally regarded as a good thing. As prices went up, people felt wealthier. And wasn’t a steady rise in house prices also a sign of economic strength?

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Uncategorised

Property perestroika

19/11/2007
The British seem to be fixated with house prices and follow the development of the property market like the weather report or the latest football results. Prices have been going up and up in the past, and if annual house price inflation occasionally drops to a mere five or six per cent, commentators clamber ever more frantically to predict a slump.

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Inside Politics

The Gracious Speech: Housing

11/11/2007
Once again, the government has announced grand plans for faster planning and more affordable housing. But given its record, it is doubtful whether grand plans will finally become grand designs.

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Capital

Das britische Wirtschaftswunder – Schein oder Nichtschein?

08/11/2007
Insgesamt sind die Briten heute nach 15 Jahren Wirtschaftswachstum so hoch verschuldet wie nie zuvor. Das werden sie spätestens dann schmerzlich merken, wenn sich der Wohnungsmarkt abkühlt. Denn dass auf den langen Immobilienboom eine Korrektur folgen wird, gilt als sicher. Dann wird sich auch zeigen, was der Aufschwung der vergangenen anderthalb Jahrzehnte wirklich wert war.

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Inside Politics

Housing U-turn?

19/10/2007
Hopefully the debate about PGS is over and the discussion can move on to making the tariff work. If properly designed, it could both strengthen local democracy and help to build the houses this country needs.

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