London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · September 10th 15, 06:08 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 11:52:10
on Thu, 10 Sep 2015, remarked:
I'm more inclined to blame Clement Attlee's green belts. At least in
London and its immediate surroundings there is little land left to
build on unless you first knock something down.
Whereas where I live in Mid-Cambs, a place with a severe housing
shortage, the vast majority of new homes are on green fields sites.
Assuming the developers can be bothered to build them, which for a
couple of the developments north of Cambridge they can't.

Are you sure it's because they can't be arsed, or because they don't
have the necessary capital, or because there is insufficient labour
available with the relevant skills at the price they're willing to pay,
or any other reason?

They've already bought the land (which is perhaps half the cost),
there's no shortage of labour, but they know that having added it all
up and included the stealth taxes of s106/affordable housing subsidy
they don't expect enough people will be able to buy the houses in the
current economic climate.

They can afford them but not at the profit level they want.

The gross profit on developments like this (which doesn't account for
the marketing or head office admin fees) is about 20%

Why would they build houses and sell them for 80% of the market price,
and lose money doing it??
--
Roland Perry