Soaring property prices are not good news for everyone

From: Sandra M Francis, London Road, Hastings
For Sale signs. SUS-210816-151810001For Sale signs. SUS-210816-151810001
For Sale signs. SUS-210816-151810001

I am most concerned by the way constant house price rises appear to be lauded as good news. For many of us this is far from good news. Anyone who does not own property is finding it increasingly hard to find the money for a deposit: many locals have been simply priced out, particularly if they live and work locally.

I have noticed that artificially inflated salaries are often quoted, inflated given that people working in London are moving to the coast; there are even more people moving away from the capital since the start of the pandemic, with the onset of mass home working.

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The rental market is just as difficult for anyone who lives and works locally, rentals have gone through the roof with the effect that it can literally take an entire month’s salary just to pay the rent; government help covers only a fraction of the rents demanded, since local reference rents bear less and less comparison to reality.

This incompetent government state that they want to make work pay, but the reality is that many workers are struggling to provide the basics to their families as rents and mortgages soar; I am appalled by the greed of landlords and agents who are willing to squeeze the last penny from tenants; and by the failure of successive governments to build social housing, or subsidise the rents of the needy to any acceptable extent.

No wonder homelessness is predicted to be back on the rise, indeed with the ending of measures to prevent eviction and the uplift in universal credit, many families will be forced into abject poverty, while the well off are laughing all the way to the bank.

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