Hey Charles. House prices are not simplistic. The true driver is the international market place and relative prices in places as diverse as N.York, Tokyo, Paris, London etcetera. If a three bedroom flat in Manhatten costs $3m then it pushes up the prices for a similar property in London. Then people realise they are insane and move out to Dorset or Sussex or Wiltshire. Then prices in such places double and people cash in and move out to Northern England or Scotland. Then people realise they are still insane and move to Orkney. They arrive here to find prices still relatively very cheap, but local factors are just as potent as these external factors. They arrive in a place that is in a sustained economic boom with local demand for housing very strong and social structures altering as dwellings become occupied by fewer and fewer folk with the housing stock soon exceeding one per every two people here. On top of all that add the failure of government to provide effective housing solutions for key workers and younger folk across the land and you end up just about where we are. So don't blame the ferryloupers, regardless of the viability of their potential contribution to the gene pool ! PS. I am now formally hassling you to come over and do your happysnaps thing for me. all the best, Simon ----- Original Message ---- From: Charles Tait <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, 6 September, 2007 10:32:20 PM Subject: Re: [ORCADIA] Orkney winters Norman House prices are an issue in UK. If young folk are priced out of existence then our community has no future. Sorry no patronising meant. but our community needs young families and they need houses. Incomers are of course welcome as they have been for 1,000s of years, but the life blood of Orkney is not those who decide to retire here. It is the young folk who TRY to stay. I will not apologise for saying that as without families, children, and community Orkney is dead. You all need to look at what is happeneing in UK, more and more young people are voting with their feet and leaving because of our upside down system. Sorry but when house prices get so skewed by incoming money you can just expect that there will be a reaction - emigration. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message