<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>FartyMcFarter</author><text>&amp;gt; House prices aren&amp;#x27;t that tightly linked to incomes. House prices are more strongly influenced by interest rates and availability of credit.&lt;p&gt;I believe banks in the UK don&amp;#x27;t lend you more than 4.5x - 5.5x of your income, regardless of interest rates.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Reason077</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;House prices aren&amp;#x27;t that tightly linked to incomes. House prices are more strongly influenced by interest rates and availability of credit. And, of course, supply&amp;#x2F;demand fundamentals (ie: population change vs. number of housing units in an area).</text></item><item><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a bunch of potential solutions, but no-one directly benefits from them in the short term.&lt;p&gt;Any attempt to fix it will be met with sob stories about old ladies in multi-million dollar homes being &amp;quot;forced out of their homes&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So we&amp;#x27;ll all just sit and watch as things slowly spin out of control.</text></item><item><author>nly</author><text>Housing is anything from a third to 50% of the average UK earners take home income. Median house price to median income ratios are at historically high levels[0], and rents are now also rising[1]&lt;p&gt;Either wages need to rise or house prices need to fall.&lt;p&gt;[0] If you look at somewhere mundane like Essex the median &amp;#x27;affordability ratio&amp;#x27;, as measured by the Office of National Statistics ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tinyurl.com&amp;#x2F;x5jatcx8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tinyurl.com&amp;#x2F;x5jatcx8&lt;/a&gt; ), was 4.5 in 2000 but is now north of 10. And yes, low interest rates help with monthly affordability but house prices have gone up ~4 fold in the last 20 years while the multiple of your income banks will lend has not, and peoples capacity to save a deposit that is 4x bigger has not.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thisismoney.co.uk&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;buytolet&amp;#x2F;article-9969349&amp;#x2F;Rents-rise-13-years-tenants-flock-UK-cities.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thisismoney.co.uk&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;buytolet&amp;#x2F;article-9969349...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Job vacancies surge past one million in new record</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58543554</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>I wasn&amp;#x27;t making a claim about what impacted house prices the most.&lt;p&gt;If I was, then I&amp;#x27;d say a system where the government basically gives you free money&amp;#x2F;tax breaks if you buy a home, is the root cause behind the things you mentioned which then drives house prices.&lt;p&gt;The point is, without fixing that issue, you can&amp;#x27;t solve it by wage rises.&lt;p&gt;People who don&amp;#x27;t even want homes are buying them, either as outright investments that they can sit on for years, or as something they also live in, but need to treat as an investment, rather than a home.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Reason077</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;House prices aren&amp;#x27;t that tightly linked to incomes. House prices are more strongly influenced by interest rates and availability of credit. And, of course, supply&amp;#x2F;demand fundamentals (ie: population change vs. number of housing units in an area).</text></item><item><author>ZeroGravitas</author><text>Wage rises without solving the housing issue is only going to raise house prices further.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a bunch of potential solutions, but no-one directly benefits from them in the short term.&lt;p&gt;Any attempt to fix it will be met with sob stories about old ladies in multi-million dollar homes being &amp;quot;forced out of their homes&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;So we&amp;#x27;ll all just sit and watch as things slowly spin out of control.</text></item><item><author>nly</author><text>Housing is anything from a third to 50% of the average UK earners take home income. Median house price to median income ratios are at historically high levels[0], and rents are now also rising[1]&lt;p&gt;Either wages need to rise or house prices need to fall.&lt;p&gt;[0] If you look at somewhere mundane like Essex the median &amp;#x27;affordability ratio&amp;#x27;, as measured by the Office of National Statistics ( &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tinyurl.com&amp;#x2F;x5jatcx8&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tinyurl.com&amp;#x2F;x5jatcx8&lt;/a&gt; ), was 4.5 in 2000 but is now north of 10. And yes, low interest rates help with monthly affordability but house prices have gone up ~4 fold in the last 20 years while the multiple of your income banks will lend has not, and peoples capacity to save a deposit that is 4x bigger has not.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thisismoney.co.uk&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;buytolet&amp;#x2F;article-9969349&amp;#x2F;Rents-rise-13-years-tenants-flock-UK-cities.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thisismoney.co.uk&amp;#x2F;money&amp;#x2F;buytolet&amp;#x2F;article-9969349...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Job vacancies surge past one million in new record</title><url>https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58543554</url></story>