Gone very quiet

[Greza]

According to this Nobel Francis post, another challenge will be the loss of key skilled workers.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fnoblefrancis_ukhou...

[ben5575]

Slow.Patrol said:

Digga said:

What?!?

We have been under-providing housing for decades.

Only because of high net immigration.

Take away those numbers and there is no shortfall.

<snip>

This is nonsense.

[Digga]

ben5575 said:

Slow.Patrol said:

Digga said:

What?!?

We have been under-providing housing for decades.

Only because of high net immigration.

Take away those numbers and there is no shortfall.

<snip>

This is nonsense.

Quite.

The population growth has already happened. Ignoring it, or wishing it away makes no difference.

[ben5575]

Greza said:

According to this Nobel Francis post, another challenge will be the loss of key skilled workers.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fnoblefrancis_ukhou...

Jeez, 350k lost in past five years, 31k knew apprenticeships each year with a 40% drop out rate. And that 2019 baseline is already 150k fewer than 2009.

[M1AGM]

Bit of a tangent but I am currently having a break with my family in Spain. We are staying in a very ‘european’ hotel in a non-english area on the costa. The place is very very quiet, so much so that it’s really quite nice. I was talking to my friendly poolside barkeep earlier who said it was really weird how quiet it is, normally rammed with Spanish etc, he reckoned it was down to the economy.

[fridaypassion]

If holidays are quiet the airlines didnt get that memo prices are crazy this year for flights!

[Fusion777]

classicaholic said:

Still incredibly quiet in engineering, a few enquiries from existing clients but nothing new despite being on 1st 3 pages of google for all our key words, we make fairly large capital machines and these are usually linked to larger projects, everything we were working on has been delayed or cancelled, I am not sure what the new government can do to restore confidence and kick start the economy but its very quiet up here in the North for all businesses I talk to from the baker to large competitors.

Hope everyone else on here is doing better than us!

Electronics manufacturing here, we let some part timers go last week. Lots of products/lines stopped at the moment or experiencing reduced demand. New project pipeline isn’t bad, but some don’t ramp up for 3/4 years!

[M1AGM]

fridaypassion said:

If holidays are quiet the airlines didnt get that memo prices are crazy this year for flights!

Flight was full. This is a hotel that doesn’t really cater to brits so I expect down the road in ‘full english with lager’ world its still busy.

[Saleen836]

ben5575 said:

Greza said:

According to this Nobel Francis post, another challenge will be the loss of key skilled workers.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fnoblefrancis_ukhou...

Jeez, 350k lost in past five years, 31k knew apprenticeships each year with a 40% drop out rate. And that 2019 baseline is already 150k fewer than 2009.

I know a few older skilled workers who have got out early mostly due to more and more H&S rules being implemented and the costs involved to meet their requirements, this mostly applies to commercial construction where most sites now specify that all power tools have to be battery operated, as an example of outlay for me to convert to battery power would involve an outlay of around £4-5k

[skwdenyer]

urquattroGus said:

Scared of extra employment law and other things they might do to make business even harder, they claimed to be pro business and pro growth but will this just be only for big business, and more taxes to fund the bottomless pit of public services.

We're already bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of regulation compared to peer economies - even the US is a higher-regulation environment. We need to build businesses that can operate in the modern world, not bemoan the loss of the Victorian era!

Slow.Patrol said:

Only because of high net immigration.

Take away those numbers and there is no shortfall.

Take away those numbers and the economy would already have tanked, the pensions bill would be unaffordable, and GDP would be way lower. The vast majority of those immigrants were earning wages, paying taxes, and should - in any rational market - have been provided with homes which they were quite able to pay for.

That the market was so irrational and so broken as to be unable to deliver homes is in large part down to lack of Government regulation, coupled with a (rational) desire on the part of home-builders to maximise profits from their land.

You're also ignoring the huge rise in single-person households, in life expectancy, and so on.

Slow.Patrol said:

This is why governments have been paying lip service to immigration since Tony Blair. More people buy more products.

Yes; yes, they do. And England is (famously) a nation of shop-keepers. But for some reason nobody has been wiling to sell them houses.

There's no shortage of building, of course - London is full of aparthotels, student accommodation blocks, expensive flats for those needing a second home in town, and so on.

Slow.Patrol said:

GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation, is a much better measure of economic growth and it has been very static since 2008.

It hasn't been flat. That's being far too generous over the data:



From 1995 Q1 to 2008 Q1, real GDP / capita grew by 32%, or 2.2% pa. It bottomed out in 2009 Q2, having lost 10% in just 5 quarters. It then grew 14% to 2019 Q3 (and was already falling again as Covid struck, thanks to - amongst other things - Brexit), or 1.3% pa.

Since rebounding post-Covid in 2022 Q1, it has fallen steadily ever since, now down to almost 2008 levels - 2.5% drop in 2 years, i.e. a fall of almost 1.3% pa.

In really simple terms, austerity was a bust, Brexit was a disaster, Covid makes the figures complex but we were already falling before it hit, and post-Covid has been a backward slide.

What about real wages?



That's an even clearer failure. Real wages collapsed at the GFC, had actually recovered just in time for the Brexit vote, dropped again following it, and stayed below pre-GFC levels all the way until we started to see major inflationary effects. Today they're still lower than they were back in the early 2000s.

And what about house prices? Well, we all know what that curve looks like.

I know this is neither a political nor housing thread. But in answer to the original question - has it gone very quiet, and why - the explanations we seek are in these trends.

Real GDP dropped. Real wages dropped too. As real GDP recovered, real wages did not. Meanwhile lax regulation (of credit and of builders) led to a huge asset bubble, resulting in real pain in the property market.

Conclusions? Cash is being salted away (rising real GDP / capita has not been reflected in rising wages, implying lots of profit-taking or other parasitic drags on business), consumers are poorer, and what money they do have is being sucked away by housing.

There really is IMHO little substitute for a Biden-style stimulus package, coupled with a very aggressive "buy British" programme to focus spending on these shores. Because what else is there, given Brexit?

And if you removed all the immigrants? Heaven help us!

[CrgT16]

The housing crisis also has a component of price. What is needed is affordable housing really. For whatever reason the housing market here is very disproportionate to the average wages. Average houses should be afforded by average wages but this is not the case.

In the chase for max profit what we end up seeing is a lot of “starter” homes that are of poor quality and will not last the test of time. Estates with tiny plots and houses with tiny rooms all in all to maximise profits.

Build decent houses where people would be happier to stay longer with more generous bedroom sizes and perhaps a little more than a single grass strip that they can garden and people would move less frequently, stopping the property price speculation.

Concern for me is that we end up with lots of new poor quality cheap houses that need to be rebuilt in 10-20 years and are not really a home.

Happy to be corrected but it’s only a perception from a lay person in the subject.

[DSLiverpool]

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

[Digga]

CrgT16 said:

The housing crisis also has a component of price. What is needed is affordable housing really. For whatever reason the housing market here is very disproportionate to the average wages. Average houses should be afforded by average wages but this is not the case.

In the chase for max profit what we end up seeing is a lot of “starter” homes that are of poor quality and will not last the test of time. Estates with tiny plots and houses with tiny rooms all in all to maximise profits.

Build decent houses where people would be happier to stay longer with more generous bedroom sizes and perhaps a little more than a single grass strip that they can garden and people would move less frequently, stopping the property price speculation.

Concern for me is that we end up with lots of new poor quality cheap houses that need to be rebuilt in 10-20 years and are not really a home.

Happy to be corrected but it’s only a perception from a lay person in the subject.

Cheap does no have to mean crap. There are plenty of post war pre-fabs still doing sterling service for their occupants.

The reason few affordable homes have been built is in the detail of the graph I posted a page or so back; public sector building (council houses) dropped out of the running from 1978 onwards.

[monkfish1]

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

They wont have teachers, because as you say, where will they come from? The institutions that would deliver them, and all the other things they say they will do, including house building, are simply not possible because they have systematically been dismantled. It would decades to recover from that.

Add in the wages / income situation as described by skwdenyer, its difficult to see how things can get significantly better, especially from a trading perspective. We are all chasing an ever dwindling amount of disposable income.

[skwdenyer]

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

OK, but what's the alternative? Surely this is one of those situations in which the answer is that we simply have to get it done?

[monkfish1]

skwdenyer said:

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

OK, but what's the alternative? Surely this is one of those situations in which the answer is that we simply have to get it done?

But how? That applies to other stuff like nurses. doctors for NHS, plumbers for the ten fold increase in heat pumps, etc, etc. The list goes on.

Its pie in the sky. It will take a concerted effort over decades to replace the skills lost to get to a point of there being enough people. Past decision to send everyone to univerity are now catching up with us.

[skwdenyer]

monkfish1 said:

skwdenyer said:

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

OK, but what's the alternative? Surely this is one of those situations in which the answer is that we simply have to get it done?

But how? That applies to other stuff like nurses. doctors for NHS, plumbers for the ten fold increase in heat pumps, etc, etc. The list goes on.

Its pie in the sky. It will take a concerted effort over decades to replace the skills lost to get to a point of there being enough people. Past decision to send everyone to univerity are now catching up with us.

I don't think this is the right thread for this conversation in depth.

I think we can all agree there are a huge number of challenges facing the country as a whole, and the new government in particular.

[monkfish1]

skwdenyer said:

monkfish1 said:

skwdenyer said:

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

OK, but what's the alternative? Surely this is one of those situations in which the answer is that we simply have to get it done?

But how? That applies to other stuff like nurses. doctors for NHS, plumbers for the ten fold increase in heat pumps, etc, etc. The list goes on.

Its pie in the sky. It will take a concerted effort over decades to replace the skills lost to get to a point of there being enough people. Past decision to send everyone to univerity are now catching up with us.

I don't think this is the right thread for this conversation in depth.

I think we can all agree there are a huge number of challenges facing the country as a whole, and the new government in particular.

Yes, probably right, other than its impact on those trying to do business in a difficult environment. Which will be directly affected by the actions the government does or doesnt take. Thats sort of relevant here?

[monkfish1]

skwdenyer said:

monkfish1 said:

skwdenyer said:

DSLiverpool said:

What they know but won’t mention is the cost of the infrastructure around the new developments. Schools, hospitals, shops and even emergency cover - are all a factor Rach will not detail. Even if you built the schools where will the teachers come from?

OK, but what's the alternative? Surely this is one of those situations in which the answer is that we simply have to get it done?

But how? That applies to other stuff like nurses. doctors for NHS, plumbers for the ten fold increase in heat pumps, etc, etc. The list goes on.

Its pie in the sky. It will take a concerted effort over decades to replace the skills lost to get to a point of there being enough people. Past decision to send everyone to univerity are now catching up with us.

I don't think this is the right thread for this conversation in depth.

I think we can all agree there are a huge number of challenges facing the country as a whole, and the new government in particular.

Yes, probably right, other than its impact on those trying to do business in a difficult environment. Which will be directly affected by the actions the government does or doesnt take. Thats sort of relevant here?

[ben5575]

The point about teachers goes to my point about housing need.

Whilst people focus on housing numbers (for the record 37% of which is driven by net migration), it's more nuanced than that. An easy (and grotesquely stereotyped for brevity) example of that is affordable houses 'down south' for teachers and nurses and expensive exec homes 'up north' to encourage more investment by providing houses that successful people want to live in.

One of the things that does need addressing is the quality and standards set for publicly funded affordable housing. There is a New Labour mentality within RP's that they should set the example for the housing industry by building to the best standards. All very laudable (and something I've personally championed whilst being on the public sector side of the fence), but my god it's expensive (see Scotland for the worse excesses of this).

Whilst I'm not advocating building to the bottom, there does need to be a better balance. Why is it that Mondeo Man's 4 bed detached house is smaller and less efficient than the housing benefit claimants's equivalent? Why is the tax payer paying this premium rather than providing more houses for the same money?

Another key point is that housebuilding is one of the most risk averse industries out there. It's also a cashflow business. We build to a sales rate as opposed to overall numbers. You can't simply build an estate of 500 units in one go and put it to the market, that's why they take so long to build. If you want to build lots of new houses quickly, you need to enable buyers to transact and/or look at the barriers to them doing so (price, mortgages, SDLT etc etc). Or look at the tenure - you can build 500 family homes in one go with Institutional backing on the basis they're rented.

All subject to previous points about skills!