Your school closed for polling today, is it?

A well considered thoughtful post.

Landlords invest in property and as such they need a return that justifies that investment. Rents have escalated as demand has grown - simple supply/demand proposition and this will continue whilst ever getting on the property ladder is so tricky.

Builders invest in new builds - limited mortgage availability - so they sell large chunks to investors who have access to funds.

Tory policy in a nutshell.

If you've got cash on the hip, you can make a lot more out of the people who haven't.

Seems like a big turnout at the polling stations but, I can't decide which party will benefit.
Have the younger generation finally got off their backsides and voted or, is it a pensioners revolt ?

Our polling station was the busiest that I've seen it in over 30 years !

Its Capitalism - you take a risk in the hope of that risk being rewarded - if its not you lose up to the value of your commitment

Better to risk and lose than to have never risked at all.

Ours is deathly - perhaps Hilary hasn't managed to get the young out of bed?

True: but the problem comes when the returns that can be made from owning property (not just renting, but holding for capital accumulation) exceed the returns on productive investment (starting businesses, providing capital for existing businesses to expand etc) then it becomes a drag on the economy.

Especially when the high returns from owning property come from the scarcity factor, and the property-owning section of society has a vested interest in continuing that scarcity and not enabling market forces to work better.

The situation is getting progressively worse for each successive generation of young people that enters the labour market (and starts to vote). It won't go away, and unless the government starts to do something about it they will just be breeding a bigger and bigger block of voters who are susceptible to 'radical politics'. Then when an electoral backlash hits them, there will be lots of handwringing and people saying 'how did we miss this?' like the 'liberal establishment' missed the Brexit vote coming. The answer will be, in every time they ignored the situation for young people and just said if they weren't eating avocado toast they'd have a mortgage.

There is also the issue of land banks - companies buying up land and sitting on it, until they either decide to develop themselves or, sell it on for a fast buck - something that Labour has promised to deal with.
I realise that it isn't always a black and white issue but, in many cases, this practice can severely slow down development of new property, either residential or commercial.

I agree but as commercial organisations why would they invest in sites where they cannot develop them and make a return?

It will be a long time before Labour get to deal with this issue?

The investment to make a "return" isn't in question.
However, the validity of buying up land, to hoard it, rather than put it to use, isn't great for anyone - apart from the land owner.

Property is a long term investment so hoarding land fits perfectly with a long term investment strategy.

Apart from if you are a bank. In which case, you are too big to fail.

Completely agree - as a businessman banks inhibit business innovation - I have no truck with them at all

I work for a developer, if we own it and have planning permission we build on it. Sitting on a multi million pound investment is a crazy idea as the longer you wait to get the ROI, the smaller that will be.