"Tony Bryer" wrote in message
...

High land values cascading into house prices

Wrong way round: the house prices determine the land value. You
value a piece of development land by the residual method: value =
sale price of completed development - (build+design+legal+marketing
costs + required profit). If it's a difficult site (contamination,
ground conditions etc) it might have a negative value.

--

I reckon high house prices are due to the obsession with "affordable"
housing and starter homes.
If they'd built thousands of large detatched houses instead, then people
with the money would be buying those, not competing for the smaller houses
that everyone else expects to be able to buy.

The price at the cheaper end of the market drifts up to what the average
first time buyer can afford to pay. It doesn't matter how small or cheaply
you build them, the price will always drift up to that level (unless there
is oversupply, which there is not). It would be better to lay down minimum
plot and room sizes, and not allow tiny houses to be built at all. The
bottom end of the market would then eventually consist of these decent sized
homes instead of the rabbit hutches - but for the same price.