With the moderation in house prices due to the cost of living crisis and increasing interest rates in response to inflation, there is a temptation to think that houses will become affordable again in general.
This won't be the case.
The underlying drivers behind UK inflation are energy prices, which the government has failed to mitigate by either a green energy transition or a cap on gas profits, and quantitative easing during COVID. The money given out in both instances ends up with the top 1%.
As previously discussed the top 1%, who own £3.6M each, use their cash to buy assets - primarily houses. This inflates housing prices. So government policy has dramatically enriched the top 1%.
As described here, people earning a top 1% salary is very different to having top 1% wealth.
As a tax on salary, wherever we are on the income scale, encourages more work, which is counter intuitive to the climate change challenge. As we actually need people to work less and for the top 1% - who are the biggest polluters to consume and buy less. We also need to stop the building on green arable land as part of our climate change fight.
This is why income tax needs to be reduced and replaced with a wealth and land tax.
Regarding council tax, a terrace house around Redcar Central is taxed more than a multi-million pound London townhouse. So we need to tax assets and land. Taxing land and ownership will also prevent greenfield developments and force landlords to sell up properties and free other property to those needing a home.
At this point a billionaire backed propagandist usually pops up with the usual rhetoric and says "all the rich will leave and we'll have less jobs". Firstly they may leave but their money and land can't leave. The assets of the billionaires is what we are after accessing and the land and houses they own are not so easy to emigrate. Also, if the superrich created jobs they'd be investing in investment and enterprise funds not in property and land. Finally, I don't see many benevolent billionaires creating well paid jobs - do you?!