I thought of a good system in the summer for Britain to allow ordinary people to buy houses. I was thinking of it in the context of houses in villages where people buy holiday houses or commute houses so the locals get priced out, but it works more widely than that.
So if you have lived in an area for x time -- like five years, or ten years -- and the bank will lend you three times your salary, and you have a deposit saved, such that you could buy a house if it only cost four times your salary, then you find a sensible house within walking distance of your parents or where you're paying rent and the government pays the difference, and owns that % of the house forever, or until you sell it, or until you become rich and buy them out, at a % rate, not a number rate. The government is investing in people's houses, and mostly (house prices mostly rise) making a moderate long term profit.
As well as community building and the other positive social effects, this would have the incidental benefit of preventing financial crises like the current one in the US because people wouldn't be desperate enough to take out crazy mortgages.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-11-25 12:56 pm (UTC)So if you have lived in an area for x time -- like five years, or ten years -- and the bank will lend you three times your salary, and you have a deposit saved, such that you could buy a house if it only cost four times your salary, then you find a sensible house within walking distance of your parents or where you're paying rent and the government pays the difference, and owns that % of the house forever, or until you sell it, or until you become rich and buy them out, at a % rate, not a number rate. The government is investing in people's houses, and mostly (house prices mostly rise) making a moderate long term profit.
As well as community building and the other positive social effects, this would have the incidental benefit of preventing financial crises like the current one in the US because people wouldn't be desperate enough to take out crazy mortgages.