Waterfront flats plan for IBM's UK HQ as housing market goes bananas Office space leased by IBM at its UK headquarters could become waterfront apartments – if a planning application submitted to Portsmouth City Council is approved. The North Harbour Unit Trust, which filed the paperwork, wants a ”partial change of use to 108 residential units" at Big Blue's base in the Lakeside development on …
This gives me the idea for a great business model - get your employees to pay to buy your office space at an inflated residential value, force them to provide a "home office" for your business at their own expense and escape any liability for business rates at the same time!
Offer them a mortgage that can only be redeemed by hours worked and the balance of their wages in tokens for the company shop and you have the perfect vision of future employment.
"But, as he said, this is a well-targeted scheme and it has helped tens of thousands of people get on the housing ladder and to have mortgages.
The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, said the Help to Buy scheme was simply too high: "We've said it should come down much closer to average house prices. A number below £400,000 would make much more sense than £600,000 which is far too big a house price for the taxpayer to be guaranteeing mortgages. "
And you think that stops the gullible?
Some people are so blinkered by new builds and a scared of a bit of hard work, they overlook the older ones, with bigger gardens, better areas and a lot better built.
I know this for a fact as where I live houses back onto the M42 and near where I used to live several years ago they are virtually under the M5.
Yes the old area is a crap hole:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.485972,-2.023418,3a,75y,7.53h,83.46t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s33Wr7QwKiEqe93no6AvUrw!2e0
The U.K. government is now doing exactly the same thing as the Dutch government has been doing: pumping money into the housing market. This drives up prices to an unrealistic high, stimulating people to buy, because it will keep rising, until it won't.
Then you have lots of people stuck with high mortgages, that cannot sell their house (overpriced and the seller can't lower the price because they need to somehow pay off the mortgage) and then suddenly the market collapses, banks topple and need to be saved by the government.
What a great plan, gaining some short-term financial growth for long-term crisis. My compliments to the U.K. government for making the right decision here!
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