"Bob Mannix" wrote in message
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"Doctor Drivel" wrote in message
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"Bob Mannix" wrote in message
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Everyone seems to be under the misapprehension that land (and houses)
have an intrinsic value. As things stand, in this country, it is as
close to a free market as you can get (although not perfect as Dr D will
point out).

It will and you are in cloud-cuckoo land the housing market is rigged.
Read Who Own Britain by Kevin Cahill. he goes into it.

The value of land is entirely extrinsic and is "whatever someone is
willing to pay"!

But when an artificial shortage is created then there is a shortage of
building land AGAIN, only 7.5% of the UK is settled and 5% of that is
parks and gardens FACT!!!! I have given facts in a previous post. What
didn't you understand? Most homes in the UK are built by about 20
companies. In no other western country is there such a monopoly. I am
not giving a half-baked opinion. I am telling you how it is. Stop
telling yourself lies. You have nothing to gain by doing so.

I never argued with any of your figures, just said that the "value" of a
house was "whatever anyone was willing to pay for it".

You wrote: "As things stand, in this country, it is as close to a free
market as you can get" I pointed out this country is not a free market in
land and homes at all, which it clearly is not and I gave some basic facts.
The planning system is Stalinist based on centralised quotas. Only a few
companies build, and have built in the past 60 years, the vast majority of
the ticky-tacky homes in the UK. Most have cardboard walls - literally -
and that is what Paramount boards are, cardboard egg-shell with plaster on
the outside. The so-called free market is so wonderful the UK has the
oldest energy inefficient homes in the EU.

Extracts from Unaffordable Housing Fables and Myths by the Policy Exchange:

"Britain has amongst the oldest and pokiest houses in Europe - not the fault
of architects but the result of the remorseless and misguided logic of
planning policy."

"Our housing compares poorly by international standards too. Britain has
some of the smallest and oldest housing in Europe, and what is being built
now is even smaller than the existing stock. Yet despite this, house prices
in the UK have risen much more strongly than other developed countries,
meaning that despite real growth in our incomes we are not able to afford
more and better housing, in the way that we can afford better cars and food
as we get wealthier."

"The conclusion that we can draw from these statistical comparisons is that
British housing tends to be older than elsewhere in Western Europe. Because
they are older their efficiency, in terms of heating for example, tends to
be less. The houses tend to be smaller, with more, but smaller, rooms. New
houses tend to be even smaller on average than existing houses. In addition,
house prices rise faster in the UK so that, year on year, housing in Britain
has been getting more expensive relative to that in the rest of Western
Europe.
It used to be a widely-held British view that 'our' housing was better than
that in continental Europe, that no Frenchman would invite you back to his
house because it was so small and poky - 'that was why they all eat out in
restaurants'.Whatever may have been the truth of this folk myth fifty or
sixty years ago, the statistical evidence shows that it has no factual basis
now. If fifty years of planning has achieved one thing, it has demolished
that myth; it is now Britain that has the oldest, pokiest, housing in
Europe."

"Compared with other countries, the standard of living in terms of housing
has fallen over the years, both relatively and sometimes absolutely "