[dogscoff]

will concede that very very few of us can buy a house outright, and that a mortgage is a likely requirement. However at least in this case the borrower will end up with a decent asset at the end... but wouldn't it be better if we could avoid paying double or more of the houses value by having a society of lender/borrowers instead of a society of banks/borrowers.

The other thing to consider about mortgages is that before banks and mortgages, houses were generally much cheaper. They were made of simple, readily avvailable local materials and families would often build their own homes. The technology and materials involved in house building is far more complex and expensive than it was, but in most cases the price of a property is mainly to do with the cost of the land it's built on. If all we were paying for was the bricks and mortar (and glass and central heating and electrics and solar panels=-) then houses would probably be in the same kind of price range as that of a car.

Of course it's all complicated these days by the estate agents' markup, the legal fees involved in buying and registering a home, the labour of the various professionals required to design and build the house to the necesaary legal standards...

EDIT: Am I imagining this, or did I see a thing about a place in Australia somewhere wher, in the absence of building materials (they're in a desert) they dug themselves an entire town out of the rock beneath their feet, and still live there very comfortably now. Need a new bedroom? Get the pick axe Norma...

[ February 14, 2003, 16:48: Message edited by: dogscoff ]