the distortion of any normal or sustainable relation between house prices and people’s incomes

Housing costs taking their toll of society-Business-Columnists-TimesOnline

Housing costs taking their toll of society
James Harding, Business Editor

One of the unplanned but most intractable legacies of the Blair decade is the distortion of any normal or sustainable relation between house prices and people’s incomes. If that link is not already broken it is certainly stretched to the limit.

The rate of price inflation may be slowing, just, but remains obstinately high.

The question that always accompanies fresh data showing a fast-growing housing market is: are we headed for a crash? The short answer, at present, is no.

Yesterday’s quarter-point rise in rates will not make much difference and was not intended to. Few of the most vulnerable borrowers pay higher mortgage interest immediately just because the Bank’s rate has gone up.

A run of four rate rises must, however, put more pressure on new buyers. Allowing for high prices and higher interest rates, they are likely to have to pay a fifth more interest each month than a year ago.

But in London, which is again driving the price increases, interest rates have the least effect because far more properties are bought with bonuses or foreign money.

The squeeze on incomes must eventually tell. Next month’s new selling regulations may cool the market a little more. But there will not be a price crash unless there is a much sharper rise in unemployment than currently looks likely.

Nonetheless, there will be a price to pay for the continuing rise in house prices. As existing borrowers see their budgets stretched, consumer spending and economic growth will suffer, perhaps at just the wrong time. And more people will be excluded from decent housing.

This will not only raise shrill demands for regulation and subsidy. It has a social cost for those excluded from the housing market.

First-time buyers and lenders are resorting to evermore bizarre and unwise tactics to get a foot on to the bottom of the property ladder. Buy-to-let investors are pushing up the price of flats and houses, making it harder and harder for young people to buy a home.

So long as house price inflation outpaces growth in ordinary people’s incomes, the drive to buy at almost any financial or personal cost will continue. General inflation was only beaten when people became convinced that policy would keep price increases low and relatively stable.

At root, the problem is a chronic shortage of housing in key areas. There is a need for many more homes in London and other cities.

Homeowners may not want this to happen, hoping instead to be bailed out by inflation. But the price we pay for the rising housing market is more than just economic.