I feel sad to the people of UK. Among the biggest of their problem, somehow, just slipped from the attention of their representatives in the government – house price rise.

The problem is very serious – for example, about 2 years ago I can bought a house in my area in Birmingham for about 50.000 pounds. Now it’s almost impossible to get even an ugly house here for less than 100.000 pounds, with 150.000 pounds being more realistic.

I’m happy that I won’t need to buy a house here, but I dread to think about those who can’t afford one, and therefore have to pay 400-700 pounds (or more) every month for rent.
Just a few days ago I saw a girl on TV saying that her salary is about 500 pounds a month. And I was wondering why most couples are both working in this country…

Investigative reporting done by a few journalists uncovered the fact that many of the rich are buying houses as investments, with some owning up to 100 houses ! (or more ??) Those are either to be rented, or worse, left empty – waiting for the price to rise, and then sold at bloated margin.
Absolutely insane… and these are happening while the little people are enduring the pain caused by that – working like robots everyday to just pay rent and a bit more for food, or homeless for being unable to even rent one.

And all the government did was to raise the interest a little bit – enough to stop the poor from getting a mortgage to buy a house, while the rich can still afford them.

There are more that the government can do :

# Shorten the time allowed for the property to be empty to 3 years (it’s set to 12 years at the moment), before the property considered in public domain and can be claimed by the government, or any squatters – since there cases already where local government can’t even manage their own properties very well (so many are left empty for years).

# Implement progressive house tax – first house is not taxed, but more than that will be taxed, with the next house taxed even more than the previous one.

# Do projects to provide affordable (and decent) housings.

# Etc.

Each of the suggestion above can’t do much alone – but when implemented together, then hopefully it’ll make house becoming MUCH more affordable to the little people.

After all, everyone should have the right to a decent housing.
Anybody disagree with this should be kicked out from his home and try living on the streets of UK in winter !