Re: Not always joking, it seems

<rkshullat@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Jette <bosslady@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Not applicable in the UK.  We don't have "zoning laws" and ALL
>> houses have to be built to "code".

We have "code" in the US too, but it's pretty minimal -- just basic
standards that ensure that the house won't fall down, the wiring won't
set it on fire, and the gas furnace won't asphyxiate the tenants.

> If I read Wikipedia correctly, US zoning laws = UK town and country
> planning. It's the legal framework that stops someone from, for
> instance, putting a factory in the middle of a neighborhood or
> converting a house to a nightclub without getting permission from
> some official agency.  For new residential construction (at least
> in this area) cities typically set the type (multi- or single-unit)
> and density (units per acre) and (for single-unit construction) the
> developer sets a minimum and (maybe) maximum size for each unit via
> contract on the sale of the lot.

Right.  It's mostly the minimum lot sizes that keeps houses
unaffordable.  There seem to be two main reasons for minimum lot
sizes:

* Keeping out the riff-raff.  In other words, "I've got mine, so
  screw you."

* Keeping traffic from becoming even more of a nightmare than it
  already is.  (Maybe they could allow exemptions for houses whose
  owners pledge not to drive?)

>> My flat (apartment) cost 17.5K when we bought it 27 years ago.  It
>> would now cost 190K to buy the same flat in the same street.  Our
>> income hasn't gone up by the same ratio.  Technically we couldn't
>> get a mortgage to buy our own home, if we hadn't already paid off
>> the mortgage.

>> Oh and although it *looks* like we've made a huge profit, anything
>> more or less equivalent would cost us even more.

You haven't made any profit at all until you sell it.  And as you
point out, you'd then have to spend at least that much for another
place to live.  So all that increased property values do for the
owners is raise their property taxes -- often to the point where
they're forced to sell.
-- 
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html
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