House prices - are they worth it?

Should a seller have to pay CGT on the difference between purchase and selling price when selling their house - or be allowed to carry forward any losses as with the CGT rules now ?

If it was such a punitive CGT would house price inflation be more in line with CPI or less ?

Should farming land be compulsory purchased by LAs - a 10% (?) premium to farming land price before the LA gives planning permission to build so the " community " benefits from the planning permission rather than the land owner - or disused / derelict land be compulsory purchased if left derelict for x years ?

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My feeling is that houses should be places for people to live and make their own, not investment vehicles, assets on a balance sheet or part of someone’s pension plan. I think as a society we’ve taken a wrong turn where house prices are now so closely linked with politics that successive governments have felt the need to manipulate prices upwards (help to buy pumping billions into the market on top of usual lending multiples, supply squeeze caused by decades of laissez-faire policies, NIMBY planning departments and no public sector building).

I think CGT should be charged on people who own more than one home. It should be a really unattractive investment so the properties return to the market for people to buy and make their home. Buy to let and the spiralling growth of the for-profit landlord has really ruined things for the next generation and that’s the enemy of progress if you ask me.

I don’t think compulsory purchase is fair unless it’s being landbanked or is derelict (I live near HS2 and think what they’ve done to communities is disgusting). If you own a farm then that’s your home and your livelihood and possibly your ancestors home & livelihood. You shouldn’t be forced to sell for anyone - if it’s such a great need the surely the price will be so high that you’d want to sell up.

There is no shortage of homes in the U.K. there’s a shortage of homes available to buy or live in for an affordable amount of money because of Buy to let.

Personally I have rented a new build in London for nearly 4 years and I overlook about 50-100 apartments which have been empty for 4 years, and when I walk to work I walk past homeless people every day. It does not make any sense,

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I remember watching a Sarah Beeny ( ? ) property show about people buying property and then basically painting them and then selling, seeing a "profit " of 60k on a 400K purchase - it was their only ā€œhomeā€ this type of activity should have been CGT liable as it was purely done to turn a profit not have a house to live in, it did in fact create a hot property market by the very nature of people seeing it as easy money - everybody became property developers almost overnight , prices went up partly because of it.

I have a problem with those shows and people that do up houses and selling them for more. However, private small landlords I do not have any issue with and don’t think tax should effect them.

Houses are worth what someone is willing to pay.

My business is in property.

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Not a dig at you personally but the ā€œproperty businessā€ forces young people and single adults into the rental sector, forcing them to waste obscene amounts of money on rent and making it extremely difficult to ever buy their own property.

Houses should be homes, not investment pieces or part of a ā€œportfolioā€. House prices in the south and south east are at least 30-40% inflated

EDIT: I just want to say I would love houses everywhere to be cheaper as I am the young adult that can’t afford one. I would love houses to be homes but I don’t feel like it would happen.

Houses have always been investment pieces back into history like the Middle Ages. It has actually only been in recent history people have actually bought their own houses. This we can all agree on.

It has always been true that people will be at a disadvantage sometimes when going from rental to buying your own house. Also with areas people want to live in are more expensive than others. There are houses that people can afford it’s just the choice of moving far away or renting near where you want to be.
(Sorry if I’ve gone completely off or make no sense)

I think houses will always be investments to be honest and don’t think it will change.

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Yeap true and it’s only been since the 60’s that working class families have been able to afford their own homes on mass. It’s just got considerably worse since they’ve become ā€œmain streamā€ investments.

Personally i’d tax those with more than 1 property considerably so that there is a better supply of houses which would help keep prices lower and more affordable for younger people

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What is your opinion of people buying a very cheap house and then spending money and time into it and then selling it for more. Buying then another house and doing it up for more. They would only have one house at a time but it would also be a massive investment after doing up many houses.

EDIT: would like to say I am a law student and love a discussion like this. Love to hear opinions about this stuff and love to get you thinking.

Absolutely true. I advocate a massive increase in social housing for this reason.

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No objection to this if it’s a single property at a time as it doesn’t significantly decrease the housing stock nor significantly push the value of similar homes up over a short period of time

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I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. At the end of the day it is business - supply and demand.

Plenty of people buy items cheap and sell them for more. Be this in the sales, in bulk, damaged so that they can repair themselves etc. Is this not the same thing but on a bigger scale?

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Would you say it’s the companies that should be taxed or people also that privately rent out a very small amount of houses too?

if thats a business , shouldn’t it be taxed - if that is the intention in the first place to do up and sell on, maybe there should be a 5 year live in it rule ?

At the moment it’s a 6 month rule but I don’t think that is long enough in my opinion.

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Both. It should be done on a sliding scale e.g. (rough numbers here!) under 5 houses you pay 1.5x some kind of tax, 5-10 2x tax etc. That would then mean it’d be unattractive to buy up and bank lots of property

and I think these can be got around if you don’t do it too often

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I can agree on that. The worst thing is if someone is a single parent and are helping fund their children with renting out another house they own (any story like that) and then to make their way of income taxed.

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I’m not super clued up on property but don’t they have stamp duty and all sorts of other costs that they need to pay after the sale of their first property?

I know plenty of people who much prefer to rent over buying. There are plenty of pros and cons for both so by favouring buyers and tipping the scales in their favour, won’t it effect the ones who like renting?

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Also another thing is what can make houses prices go up? Train stations being put in (I know where I live we are having another train station so the houses around it will more than double)
Not people’s fault the government put a train station next to their house.