Ancestors

Toot

Written by Dr Craig Dalȝell on 2025-01-17 at 16:45

My article in this week's Common Weal newsletter.

On how Scotland could bring the price of houses down by stopping giving massive subsidies to landowners.

https://commonweal.scot/to-build-houses-first-buy-the-land/

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Descendants

Written by Ben Thompson 🐕 on 2025-01-17 at 18:10

@thecommongreen very well said.

I don't though like the framing that there is any "additional" cost to higher build standards. To my mind, the price of a house is based on what the market (whether social or private) will bear, and if we increase the build cost through demanding e.g. passivhaus standard, all that happens is we push down the cost somewhere else. Ideally developer profit in the short term and land value in the long term.

Realise I'm probably speaking to the converted here!

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Written by Peter Brown on 2025-01-17 at 19:42

@jbenjamint @thecommongreen in other countries (eg Germany) what you pay for in a new house is the build cost. This used to be the case in Scotland when we had feu duty and 100% of what you paid the builder was build cost. The land cost was paid as feu duty at a fixed rate in perpetuity. (Obviously with inflation it graduated to almost nothing)

Build quality was far better since none of your payment went towards land costs. Nowadays, the more expensive the land the smaller & tackier the house.

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