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Comment by codex | Hacker News Reader

This kind of housing boom is a direct result of the concentration of wealth in the top 1%. As wealth concentrates, the things that rich people buy inflate in price.

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I believe the overwhelming majority of the buyers at the top end of the London market are foreign. So it does have something to do with wealth distribution, but not the distribution in Britain.

I think it's more about more and more nations' economies growing and entering the global economy. When that happens you will get new millionaires and billionaires no matter how little inequality a country has.

So you don't think it has anything to do with easy access to credit and loans?

Or building codes restricting things to an arbitrary height, or the fact that the aristocracy still owns the majority of the land in the U.K[0].

[0]http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari...

It's probably best not to cite Johann Hari* given there are probably other sources able to establish the same point.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Journalistic_contr...

These people had easier access to loans anyway because of their ability to pay. All the subsidy does is make it a no-brainer when it comes to where to invest their money. People put their money into whatever gives them the best ROI and for the last decade or so that's been real estate. All it does though is drive prices up and the middle class out.

It's a result of low interest rates and mortgages being the only way that most people can leverage themselves.

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