OBSERVATIONS

1. The price of houses is ludicrous largely because of shortage of supply.
2. Homes are too expensive, everybody is having to pay too much for their homes. They are little more than a crude box, why do they have to cost so much?
3. The main reasons are population growth, the shortage of land, more people living alone and, probably, archaic building design and construction.
4. People who have large families are impoverishing the rest of us by causing a continuous shortage of housing and hence upward pressure on prices. Immigration is also part of the problem.
5. Last year (2001?) house building was at it's lowest level since 1924.
6. The self-indulgent one- upmanship that drives many people to demonstrate their supposed superiority by the size and extravagance of their home is causing builders to build expensive houses that yield bigger profits, not the low priced ones that are most needed. 
7. Little low priced accommodation specifically designed for single people seems to be built. Most single people would probably be quite happy to live in small flats in tower blocks.
8. Too much of the price of a house is the price of the land.
9. It is vital that a way is found to produce attractive low cost housing for everyone. The shortage of land and hence it's high price is probably the biggest problem to be overcome. The best solution to this is to bulldoze all the big detached houses in the suburbs that belong to the Fat Rats (in a just society there will be no Fat Rats able to pay for these extravagant piles) and replace them with high density housing.
10. The second biggest problem is how to make low cost, high density housing attractive to live in. High density implies high rise which implies flats. The main drawback of flats is lack of privacy due to poor sound proofing between adjacent units. It would seem to be quite easy to design blocks of flats so that horizontally adjacent units don't share common dividing walls (by sacrificing some space to sound absorption barriers, passage ways, storage areas, communal areas) thus almost eliminating the problem in that direction. Sound isolation in the vertical direction is a bigger problem but it isn't likely to be insurmountable.
11. Blocks of flats could be made much more attractive to their residents by providing them with rooms for social activities (condominium* style?) This could help with the noise problem, ie. there could be cinema sound TV rooms and Hi Fi rooms in the basement where the sound would be confined. *I think the most common meaning of the word condominium in the USA is a self contained residential unit which includes a wide range of facilities such as gyms, sports facilities, restaurants, bars, hairdressing salons, shops etc. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary it means "Joint control of a State's affairs vested in two or more other States".
12. It looks as though old people, particularly those who are single, won't be able to afford to live in conventional properties soon due to the inadequacy of pensions. Special buildings that meet their special needs have to be designed and built. Large condominiums that enable them to look after themselves (and each other) as far as possible, that provide all the social, recreational and health facilities they need and that are economic to run seem to be necessary.

1. All new homes to be designed and equipped for energy saving. The following features to be compulsory:- wall insulation; external insulating shutters for windows (these might incorporate solar panels); solar collectors on the roof; wind powered generators inside the roof if they would be cost effective; fluorescent lighting; rain water collection, storage and treatment provision (for washing and/or garden irrigation); efficient heating, ventilation systems with proper condensation prevention.
2. Existing homes to be fitted with the above features where it is worthwhile as quickly as is practical.
3. All home building for the foreseeable future to be designed for single people with limited resources, to be high rise and to incorporate social and recreational facilities. A high priority to be given to research directed at the problem of sound propagation between flats. Combining residential and office accommodation in one building so that the latter forms sound insulators between the former (outside working hours at least), might help matters. Wind powered generators to be sited between high rise buildings. Solar panels to be sited on the roof, balconies and wherever else they can be cost effective without being eyesores..
4. Any new towns to be advanced in design to maximise energy saving. All-electric transportation within the towns to be an essential feature. The layout of the towns to be optimised for efficient transportation. All passenger transportation to be by elevated, guided, automatically routed small, lightweight, publicly owned vehicles.
5. The Party's proposals that effect a significant redistribution of income should make many large detached properties in the suburbs unaffordable. These can be demolished to make room for advanced design, socially acceptable redevelopment.
6. The building of new "executive" and other posh homes will be banned. Existing fancy detached homes (starting with the most expensive but excluding those with particular architectural merit) will be bulldozed to make room for space and energy efficient, probably high rise, modern homes for the poorest people and those for whom there is no suitable accommodation, ie. the old, the single etc. (there will be few filthy, rich people able to afford extravagant detached homes in a just society).
7. The new buildings will be designed and constructed to achieve high energy efficiency. They could be designed to incorporate wind power generators if this is practicable. For example, the buildings might be cylindrical towers in groups of three arranged in triangles, stacks of small wind turbines would be placed in the three throats between the towers where any wind would be accelerated to the highest speed. The triple tower arrangement might be the best from the insensitivity to wind direction point of view. This arrangement could be more efficient and less unsightly than conventional free standing wind turbines. The turbine noise problem should be manageable. Other advantages of arranging the towers in groups of three would be that bridges between the towers could provide escape routes in the event of fire and make the consequences of lift breakdowns less serious by providing some redundancy. Two of the concerns that make high rise buildings unpopular could thus be largely eliminated. More advanced fire extinguishing systems probably need to be developed for high rise buildings. Something based on ducted CO2 or oxygen depleted air might be an improvement on water based systems. Another development that high rise buildings would probably make possible is the construction of highly efficient city transport systems linking the buildings, again, probably, by means of bridges between them. The most annoying and most difficult problem of life in flats is probably the noise transmission problem, a solution is needed urgently. Should conventional hi-fi systems with loudspeakers be banned from flats? Should there be segregation of noise tolerant and noise intolerant people in flats? Should flats have one room that is particularly well sound proofed? There used to be an establishment called The Building Research Station that could have investigated these things, I expect it has been privatised now and serves the narrow, conservative interests of the building industry.
8. The only people who perhaps need to live in houses are families with children under ten? years old. The needs of gardening enthusiasts and Do It Yourselfers can probably be met without them having to live in houses.
9. We don't want architects, structural engineers etc. wasting their time designing ridiculous, strange shaped, novelty buildings or mock Tudor and mock Georgian mini palaces for fat rats, we want elegant, beautiful, impressive, technologically advanced, efficient, comfortable, durable, adaptable, economical, enjoyable, easily maintainable, easily buildable (ie. based on standard designs) palaces for ordinary people. This isn't much to ask for, is it?

1. The workforce, or some sections of it at least, almost certainly needs to be more mobile. Moving house therefore needs to be made a much quicker and more straightforward process.
2. One of the main causes of delay is the chain. This isn't a problem with car sales, why should it be a problem with house sales? It is because there are dealers in the car market who buy cars off sellers and sell them on to buyers, estate agents only advertise properties and provide liaison, valuation and perhaps financial services to buyers and sellers. On average, homes are more than ten times the price of cars. Cars are not repositories for a large number of possessions, homes are. Being without a car or renting one for a short period is far less of a problem than being in the same situation with one's home.
3. Should Local Authorities buy and sell properties and use any profits to help pay for public services? Local Authorities could provide much more comprehensive information about prices, price movements, price histories etc., could deal with registration of ownership and would have planning information at their fingertips. They could make the Solicitor's role redundant, which ought to speed up transactions substantially. They could pay an interim price for properties when buying them then make an additional payment if the sale price was substantially better. The interim price would have to be pitched low to minimise the risk of losses. Substantial losses might be claimed back from the seller, small ones might be offset by profits on other sales.
4. Would it be beneficial for the state to provide low interest bridging loans?
5. Would it be a good idea to make estate agents become house dealers?
6. If so, how could they be prevented from using their superior knowledge of the housing market to make excessive profits?
7. If the gross profit (dealer's selling price minus purchase price) made on a particular sale was excessive, could they be made to accept a fair profit and return the excess to the original seller?
8. Would it be possible to devise a formula that would determine the fair profit from the dealer's selling price, his gross profit as defined above and the time he took to sell the property?
9. Could/should the role of dealer be taken by a non-commercial organisation such as the local authority or would this make buying and selling properties even more of a trial?
10. Should properties go to auction if they are not sold by other methods within a set period, a month perhaps?
11. Would it be beneficial and more efficient if all property sales had to be by auction?
12. Should local authorities have a Property Registrar in the same way that they have Birth, Marriage, Death Registrars?
13. Should properties have Maintenance Histories and Satisfactory Condition Certificates equivalent to car Service Histories and MOTs?
14. Should Solicitors have any role in buying and selling property, they appear to be responsible for a lot of the delays in the process and to be over-qualified and hence overpaid for the job?

HOME LOCATION & THE ENVIRONMENT

1. Far too many people are travelling excessive distances to work, this is bad for the environment. In order to meet our responsibilities to the world population as a whole we need to reduce commuting drastically or make it much more energy efficient.
2. Should there be stiff tax penalties to discourage people from commuting long distances to their work?
3. Would regulations be more effective and satisfactory?
4. Should people be given a higher priority to housing near their place of work?

1. Most people should live in flats, they are more efficient than houses in every way. Many rich people choose to live in flats, even high rise flats, for most people they are far less hassle than houses (provided they are satisfactorily sound-proofed). The only people for whom houses might be necessary are those with young children. The need at present is low cost, energy efficient accommodation so the Party would put a ban on the building of houses, it is probably necessary to demolish many of those that already exist.
2. A minimum height of ten? storeys might be placed on new blocks of flats.
3. High rise buildings would make efficient transport systems feasible. Small, automatically controlled, electric vehicles could pass between them and through them at different heights so that junctions could be largely eliminated. Gradients could also be largely eliminated so that the vehicles would require very little power. A medium sized, circular, high rise town could be built so that every part was in walking /lift /escalator distance of every other part, no vehicles would be needed at all within it. It wouldn't be possible to incorporate heavy manufacturing plants into such a town but light manufacturing and offices would present no problem. Industrial estates and out of town shopping sheds, screened by tall trees etc., could be near to the towns and be linked to them by a suitable transport system. Schools and hospitals would probably have to be satellites just outside the main town construction too.
4. There is no reason for high density, high rise towns and cities to be a blot on the landscape, they could be visually stunning and very pleasant to live in. Versailles was a high density development in it's time, Manhattan is now. In any case, most of the current, suburban, housing stock is completely devoid of visual distinction or merit. We are so used to rows of standard, bay-windowed, semis with pitched roofs and gables sitting on little patches of garden we don't realise how awful they are. Clusters of tall (and medium height) buildings set in landscaped park land and recreational space could be far more attractive.