The more things change... PricedOut in this month’s Prospect Magazine

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:07:53 GMT

The more things change, the more things stay the same...

Crazy mortgage lending, greed, hubris, global financial meltdown and an economy changed forever – it’s now all pretty familiar, right?

But one of the most puzzling things about the credit crunch is how little the economic and housing commentariat has changed to reflect the devastation the crunch wrecked on pre 2007 received opinion. A large group of talking heads, media darlings and policy makers - who didn’t see the crisis coming or even contributed to the boom - are still out there talking. Kirstie Allsop, Gavyn Davies and recently the academic and part time journalist Stephen Nickell.

PricedOut Newsletter – April 2010

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:38:15 GMT

PricedOut Newsletter – April 2010

Dear PricedOut member,

Last month saw the launch of PricedOut’s response to a controversial Treasury paper that has recently been released on the role of the UK Private Rented Sector. The Treasury paper is potentially disastrous for First Time Buyers and Owner Occupiers in its:

Calls for further tax breaks for buy-to-let investors;
Calls for larger, institutional investors such as pensions and insurance firms to enter the UK buy-to-let market;
Failure to acknowledge the impact that the buy-to-let sector has had on UK house prices over the last 10 years;
Failure to acknowledge or address the social consequences of the exponential growth in buy-to-let over the last ten years.

PricedOut’s response paper outlines our key causes for concern and recommendations arising from this paper. It outlines new research that we have conducted, including the fact that the buy-to-let sector has created a net loss of nearly 650,000 homes at the expense of First Time Buyers.

Our key recommendations presented to the Treasury in our response are:

Removing the current tax advantages that buy-to-let investors have over First Time Buyers;
Reversing the change in Capital Gains Tax, increasing it from 18% to 40%;
Improving tenants’ rights, reflecting the fact that 87% of people who currently rent do not do so by choice;
Increasing the regulation of the buy-to-let sector by the Financial Services Authority.

To read our response in full, please see: http://www.pricedout.org.uk/Download/Treasury_Consultation_on_the_Private_Rented_Sector.pdf

We would welcome your feedback on our response, either via the website forum, or via email. We have also created a function on our website to email the Housing Minister, John Healy, and express your concern with the Treasury paper.

Getting Involved

If you would like to get more involved with the campaign for affordable houses, please contact katy@pricedout.org.uk. We would particularly like to hear from people who are interested in:

Organising local protest events;
Representing PricedOut at a local authority level;
Writing features for the website;
Press work, including print media, TV or radio;
Join the PricedOut facebook group and invite your friends to join too.

With best wishes from,

The PricedOut team