[jdietrich]

It is an amazingly intractable catch-22 - if the government increase housing supply then a whole generation who are just about to retire lose almost all of their wealth; If they don't increase supply, a whole generation are unable to afford a home in which to raise a family. Whatever happens, it is almost inevitable that hundreds of billions of pounds will be funneled towards the baby boomers from the young or the yet-unborn.

You know things are seriously broken when a senior Tory minister writes a book entitled "The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future – And Why They Should Give It Back.".

[aes256]

It's a fascinating issue, and one that I think will come to dominate political discourse in the next 10-20 years.

NIMBYism has a lot to do with this, but the whole system is rigged against the young. We have a generation of teenagers, many of whom have a more mature understanding of issues such as student loans than older generations, but are not allowed to have a say.

BRB: Setting up a political party to represent Generation Y. Abolish the minimum voting age, massive housing expansion, force older generations to retrospectively pay tuition fees, reform drug policy, abolish copyright protection, appoint Cheryl Cole as the Queen, etc.

[eli_gottlieb]

No, the solution sounds obvious to me: build more housing stock. Otherwise, the established real-estate values of the Baby Boom owners can never be realized as sales. A commodity that's too pricey won't sell, and the prospective seller will go broke. Only way is to lower the prices.

[jmias]

I realistically believe in this solution but also this is where our current market model would stop stare at the solution... and turn around (the price is hardly going down), imagine being the guy trying to sell the property for some company, would the company acknowledge this solution or wait it out to sell at next buyer, in summary this is where it stags probably being the right solution.