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'''Figure 1''' shows house price inflation by area 2010-18. The average for the UK is 27%, but this varies widely across the UK regions. Greater London has seen the highest house price inflation (61.53), as would be expected, while Scotland has seen the smallest increases at just 2.82%. The graph also includes where wages should have been by 2018<ref>Wages growth https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45487695</ref><ref>Institute for Fiscal Studies - 10 years on, had we recovered from the crash - https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13302</ref>, or rather how far they are behind where they would be if the economy had carried on growing. Residents of London are the hardest hit in terms of getting on the housing ladder as their wages have not kept up with general inflation while house prices have soared. Areas around Greater London have also seen fairly high house price inflation, which could be partly explained by increasing house prices in Greater London pushing more buyers further out from London.
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In theory, under normal circumstances, there should be a natural house price correction. Once house prices reach an unattainable level there should be a slowing down in growth. This has not be seen due to a number of factors. Firstly the government through [[Economy - Quantitative Easing|Quantatitive Easing]] has made vast sums of money available to the financial markets. It is in the interest of the financial sector to make mortgage loans with this money. While the money is made available to them at zero interest rates, they can loan the money out at much higher interest rates. This tends to lead to banks and building societies offering far higher multiples of salary to lenders to keep the money rolling. These loans then end up in the money markets where they multiple, based on the logic that prices will keep rising. Higher multiples, rather than helping lenders onto the housing market, tends to push up prices beyond what can be afforded. As the multiples increase the percentage of a lenders salary spent on mortgage repayments increases (see figure 3 for more details). Under the section [[#Government purposely Inflating prices|Government purposely Inflating prices]] you can see how, when the government have detected a slowing of housing market, they have introduced measures to ensure continued inflation.
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At the introduction of the help to buy scheme, the house builders saw a significant increase in profits due to them adding the 20% into the price of the house. The reality being that the help to buy scheme was a major success at propping up house price inflation.<ref>Guardian: Help to Buy mostly helped house builders boost profits 21st October 2017 - https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2017/oct/21/help-to-buy-property-new-build-price-rise</ref> Duncan Stott of the PricedOut group said at the time “Help to buy should really be called ‘help to sell’, as the main winners will be developers and existing homeowners who will find it easier to sell at inflated prices. Pumping more money into a housing market with chronic undersupply has one surefire outcome: house prices will go up.”
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One of the ways the first time buyers could previously move up the ladder was by family assets becoming available as the older generation died. This wealth staying in the family was very important to those who were not wealthy as it provided a large boost to their financial prospects. One of the biggest assets has always been property. This has been particularly important when a generation could move up the housing ladder and accordingly create a more valuable asset to pass on to family members.
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The government has began to target this asset as:
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It is also worth noting that once a policy like this is introduced it can easily follow the same route as student marketises fees, with the yearly amount increasing. This policy would in reality asset strip the elderly in our society.
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===Who are the Social Market Foundation===
The Social Market is just one example amongst a number of think-tanks lobbying the government to change policy to the benefit of the private corporations. They describe themselves as... [http://www.smf.co.uk/ ''"The Social Market Foundation] (SMF) is a non-partisan think tank. We believe that fair markets, complemented by open public services, increase prosperity and help people to live well. We conduct research and run events looking at a wide range of economic and social policy areas, focusing on economic prosperity, public services and consumer markets. The SMF is resolutely independent, and the range of backgrounds and opinions among our staff, trustees and advisory board reflects this."''
And let's look at what their Director, James Kirkup, said:
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