A month after George Osborne announced that growth in
national income would be 1.4% in 2013, the Nationwide reports that during the
same 12 months house prices have risen by 8.4% –precisely six times as fast.
And that is merely the average. While housing remains cheap in parts of the
north, in the hotspots, such as London and central Manchester, prices are soaring
at twice or even thrice that average rate.
What the nascent recovery has done is rekindle property speculation.
Even if it is not possible to invest, build or earn our way out of economic
difficulties, millions of freeholders can once again hope to own their way out
of trouble. After the chancellor was reported to have quipped to the cabinet
that he'd "get a little housing boom and everyone will be happy", the
Daily Express purrs that good times have returned. So what's not to like? For
those who never had the earning power to take up the right to buy, decent
housing has, barring brief recessionary interruptions, become steadily less
affordable over a third of a century. Read more on the Guardian website.
No comments:
Post a Comment