Housing remedy within our grasp

Sep 4 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

CALCULATING how the value of your house has grown over the years is a pleasant way to while away a few minutes.

It is comforting to think that our homes are not only sheltering us, they are also an investment that could ben- efit us or our family in years to come.

Britain’s property market is on the up – but don’t start celebrating yet.

Today’s news that house prices across the region have increased more than four times faster than the average wage will be hard to take for those struggling to get a foot on the property ladder.

In particular, Warrington residents looking to secure themselves a home face a mortgage nightmare – price tags there have shot up seven times faster than salaries.

Even Halton, at the lower end of the scale, makes sad reading if you are a first-time buyer. Prices have risen more than three times faster than pay.

The survey by the TUC highlights just how the situation has spiralled out of control.

For many first-time buyers, no matter how hard they work and save, the truth is they face saddling themselves with a huge mortgage if they want to become homeowners.

And many of them will live in dread of interest rates rising, forcing their already steep repayments up further.

So what can be done? The Government is looking to build 3m new homes by 2020.

Yet, in Liverpool, rows of terraced streets are tinned up, left to rot by speculative property developers – many of whom live several hours’ drive away.

If only the owners of these neglected streets could be forced to develop them into good-quality, low-cost housing.

What a difference it would make to our inner-city communities, and what a difference to young people struggling to afford their first home.

Sadly, it seems schemes where JCBs tear up fields and trees to make way for new-build are the way forward.

And our green and pleasant land is fast becoming a featureless ocean of Tarmac and red brick.