Do I have to bring out the cake analogy?

I'd imagine that the idea of property as a source of investment and buy to let has a lot more to do with that than migrant workers. Especially given they tend to be in low income work, in areas where house prices are high.

That said, there are a lot of British landlords and 2nd home owners who would be f**ked by a large scale reduction in migrant workers.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (23 Feb 2016 1.16pm)

Any excuse to show this again...

[Link]

This is a previous thread with a good conversation between myself and Penge eagle. on house prices and the effect of immigration. [Link]
My basic point is that between 2003-2013 2.3 million dwellings in England moved into the private rented sector, using ONS figures of average house hold size of 2.3 people per household that is space for 5.29million people. Adjusting the figure I used earlier to take it account all immigrants not just EU migrants, you end up with 2.5 million or 1.1 million dwellings, this is conservative as it likely that immigrants tend to live in larger households. So the demand from buy to rent is nearly five times that from immigrants.
The last five years have also seen the lowest levels of housing building since 1969-70, which was as far back as the official figures I was using went.

This is just a straight impact on the housing market and isn't about social or other economic benefits or costs of migration, but to blame immigration for high housing prices is wrong and misleading. Poor government planning and the buy to rent market fueled by low interest rates, high property and rental price inflation and housing benefit have had far more effect.

Edited by Ketteridge (23 Feb 2016 2.46pm)

One supporter of hacking argued that without it "you will do away with the courage and pluck of the game, and I will be bound to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week's practice -Blackheath secretary at first meeting of the F.A

Atlee's government built 1 million houses between 1945 and 1950. 80% of which were council houses with subsidised rent (about 1/4 of the cost of privete rentals)

More than 1/3 of the council houses sold off through 'right to buy' are now owned by landlords with property protfolios. Hardly the land of home ownership! In fact home ownership is only 9% higher now than before 'right to buy'.

When Atlee's government were in power, 80% of Gov spending on housing was on capital investment (building and maintainance). By 2000 85% of Gov spending on housing went on the demand side, housing benefit of which around 45% of the £23 billion housing benefit bill goes to private landlords who have driven up rents year on year because of a housing shortage..

From 2009 to 2012, rents rose by 37%
Between 2001 and 2011 house prices rose by about 94%.
The housing benefit bill doubled in the 3 years between 2009 and 2012.

In 2013 there were 5 million people on housing waiting lists in the UK. For years there has been underinvestment in housebuilding. This is the cause of the current crisis in housing, although yes, immigration doesn't help but is not the reason for the shortfall.

Edited by nickgusset (23 Feb 2016 4.03pm)