Monday 7 April 2008

The housing crisis

Here's more of this "affordable" nonsense:
THE cost of renting property in Edinburgh has soared as the city's affordable housing crisis deepens.
Unless houses are empty, they're affordable by someone. There's no God-given right to be supplied with a house wherever you want and at a price chosen by you rather than by the market. I'd like to live in Heriot Row, but it's not affordable for me. For some, it is.

Anyway, where there's a will there's a way:

A MAN who lives in a house subsidised by taxpayers has made a £200,000 profit from selling other properties in the last year.

It is understood Derek Fyvie pays only £200 a month to live in housing association flat in the Grange.

But the Evening News revealed last year that the 59-year-old, originally from north Edinburgh, also owned at least five properties which he let

Surely everyone can do that. The "affordable" problem is solved. Or am I missing something?

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comment made on previous template:

Neil Craig
The reason for house prices is only to a small extent the cost of building them. It is primarily the cost of getting permission to do so. 
 
To be fair there may be some problem with the libertarian solution of buying up surplus military land & erecting a 300 floor skyscraper on the Castle site but it would certainly solve the housing problem. 
 
While I think there is need for some social restriction on housebuilding we could certainly reduce it to the level that it only pushes up national prices by about 10% rather than 150%

20 May 2008, 18:49:49 GMT+01:00