[youngtaff]

But what problem does move to the US actually solve in this case?

House builders don't seem to have a problem acquiring land and rights to develop it

Indeed there're permission granted for over 1mn yet to be build residential properties in the UK

The problem is UK house builders drip feed houses on to the market to keep their profits up, and slow down building when house prices fall

[pjc50]

> what problem does move to the US actually solve in this case?

None of the specific ones, but the general problem of startups that the UK is a poor environment for funding.

Source for million unbuilt homes: https://www.terraquest.co.uk/news-and-insights/more-than-a-m...

It's not sounding like a very simple to resolve problem :(

[youngtaff]

Lack of tradies is part of the problem but house builders tend to rely on sub-contracting so they don't have to bear the cost of employment, training etc and want someone else to solve the problem for them

House builders essentially buy land, get planning, pay a bunch of sub-contractors to slap together a house and then sell it to some poor sap

Saying they build houses is a bit of a misnomer in my view

[sjducb]

They get away with drip feeding because there’s no competition, because it’s really hard to get permission.

A simpler planning system would allow smaller developers to operate and they would buy, build and sell as fast as they can.

The reason big developers drip feed is that they have 100 identical houses in the pipeline so they don’t want the price to drop at all, because it affects the price of the houses in the pipeline.

The small developer sells quickly so that the cash is available for their next project.

[bcjdjsndon]

> The reason big developers drip feed is that they have 100 identical houses in the pipeline

So they'd expedite things to avoid risk surely? Doesn't make sense

[sjducb]

If you dump 100 new houses onto a small town you will cause a crash.

My town has a population of 15000 people, ~250 houses are sold per year and there is a development with permission to build ~400 new homes.

[bcjdjsndon]

> If you dump 100 new houses onto a small town you will cause a crash.

This has never happened once... There are plenty of developments built bigger than that that do t cause a crash

[sjducb]

That’s because big developers drip feed the houses onto the market…

[bcjdjsndon]

Why would you begin building if prices are falling? Why would you see that it requires drip feeding because you're so close to losing money, and go ahead with the £100m+ project?

Besides that, they sell plots before they're even built so why are they drip feeding in those cases? You'd be racing to get it built before materials cost rise even more

[jimnotgym]

Small developers struggle to get hold of land though. You have to be in the know to get hold of building land

[sjducb]

Agreed, Thats why the planning system needs to change.

[jimnotgym]

Hence Andy Burnham's threat to build council houses again. It is a good threat, get on with building the houses before we reduce the demand

[bcjdjsndon]

Except he will come to realise the UK relies massively on house prices continuing upward. Construction is 20% of UK GDP. So many people and businesses in the country rely on it.

If house prices fall, or even stagnate, it'll start a chain reaction that leads to recession.

Its basically free economic growth, and UK made it's money largely from empire anyway, so now the empire has largely fallen it's no surprise the country has been cutting public services for nearly 20 years and still isn't breaking even

[jimnotgym]

Not necessarily true though... building houses for the council requires builders too

[bcjdjsndon]

The entire UK only built like 1500 or so council houses last year