The banks and also housing

I agree with a lot of that. It is indeed notable how the rates for borrowers are rocketing but the rates for lenders are not. And there is something very wrong there. I also know that were I to come into a lot of money for any reason and wanted it to at least maintain it's value, bunging it in a bank account would be the very worst thing to do. With inflation as high as it is and interest rates for savers minimal, any money in a bank account would lose two thirds of its real value in as little as a dozen years. If inflation came down its decline in value would be slower but still very real. Shares are too unpredictable. Buying property would be a no brainer.

We have created a society and economy where investing in housing is by far the best option, which is diverting capital away from more economically fruitful investments. And this is fuelling runaway house price and private rent inflation year after year, with the near certainty that when this problem is tackled there is going to be a housing price crash. Refusing to do anything about the problem simply makes housing costs ever more unaffordable to ever more people, a fact which is contributing to the growing impoverishment of millions, and having a distorting and negative impact on the economy. If unchecked this will eventually lead to economic devastation and social unrest on a scale we have not seen for decades. It will lead to a rise in political extremism on both left and right. Yet the longer we delay solving the housing problem the worse the resulting crash that results from solving it will be.

Some means of forcing decent interest rates for savers that bear some connection to the rates charged for borrowers would help but is only a small part of the bigger solution necessary. I agree we need to build a lot more housing, including a lot more social housing. But we also need to build a lot more genuinely affordable housing to buy. We need to ensure that the housing units being built are the ones we most need, rather than the ones which make the most profits for developers because the two are not always the same. All new affordable housing to buy should exclude housing investors like landlords and be restricted to first time buyers or people who need to move into an area from elsewhere for whatever reason resulting in them having to sell up their existing home. And we should use punitive taxes on undeveloped land help by developers to discourage land banking and encourage building. Currently it is too much in their economic interest not to build many more houses than they do now because ever higher house prices maximises their returns.

I disagree with you on right to buy. I think that should be suspended until such time as we have enough social housing to supply the need for it. And it has never sat well with me that those lucky enough to enjoy a cheap social rent also get the chance to buy very cheaply at a price hugely subsidised by the taxpayer, whilst those paying much higher private rents to start with get no such opportunity. I think when it comes to allowing right to buy again something should be done to extend such rights to private tenants too with some measure of limit to their rents, so that private tenants get a better deal that is much closer to the rights enjoyed by social tenants.

 

SRB, I proposed a modification to right to buy, in which it is kept, because it by definition provides affordable housing.
But the modification is an obligation upon councils to replace every house they sell with another, either bought, or built.

Many councils were in financial deep shit and had to clear their debt before they could build new houses.

They should have been able to reinvest the income in new stock. That way we would have more social housing, lower rents and councils would have both more assets and income.