Houses could cost £40,000 to £80,000

Neil · Houses could cost £40,000 to £80,000

Checking some house prices early in the last century I found that even with relativel posh ones it does overall look like most prices fit in the band of £600 to £1,200 which with changes in the Retail Price |ndex are equivalent to £40,000 to £80,000. This is a pretty good band to be sitting in today if you are buying a house.

Our current planning system system has not altered much from the Town & Country Planning Act 1947 though before that was the first Housing and Town Planning Act 1909, to which there followed: Housing and Town Planning Act 1919, Town Planning Act 1925 and Town and Country Planning Act 1932.

I can think of no technological reason, other than this planning system which would account for house prices rising about 4 times in real terms. Indeed with JCBs, off site manufacturing & new materials it would be reasonable to expect them to have risen slightly less than the overall RPI. If so this means that something like 75% of the cost of housing is government bureaucracy & restriction of supply.

We clearly could have houses at that price now if the government would merely let the free market build.

From http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot....008/07/house-prices-then-now.html