Edinburgh Anarchists

Anyone on the average salary (that’s £25,000, more than most people globally could dream of) knows that buying a home to live in has become virtually impossible. This isn’t the story usually told in newspapers (who have very profitable property supplements), where rises in house prices are prayed for as fervently as visions of the Madonna in Ireland, with just as much basis in reality.

If you had a house before prices went crazy, you have a huge amount of pretend money. If you didn’t, you won’t. Ever. A house no longer costs 3-4 times your salary, it’s 7 or 8.

Now some minor government functionary says: fugged abaht it. You ain’t getting one. Rent forever. Raise kids in a place where you can be turfed out at the whim of one of the Propertied Classes. Don’t decorate. Don’t even put posters up. No you can’t insulate better, pay the ever-increasing heating bill instead.

Which we knew anyway. What’s the solution?

Here’s one. Since there’s a drought of nice, secure council / social housing since the introduction of the Right to Buy in the 1980s, why don’t we level the playing field a bit?

Let’s not abandon the Right to Buy, let’s extend it to privately-owned homes. If I’ve lived in a place for a certain number of years, it is mine, treat it the same as if it were a mortgage. Landlord’s got their money back several times over.

It takes the sound principle of ownership by use, the proven popularity of right-to-buy and it’s a win in terms of increasing equality.

What do you think?