Regulations, government interference: Do rents in the UK have to be controlled?

[ahinton]

No!

This is getting confusing, and confused. However, having revised my estimates as to whether collectively in the UK we can somehow afford to build a large number of houses in a relatively short time - see the preceding posts with more detailed calculations, I still believe that a significant majority of the UK electorate will not vote for greater expenditure in this area, whether provided by public bodies, or by some kind of commission of private bodies. The problem appears to be bigger than I had anticipated, and is not getting any better.

Whilst I have no doubt that you're correct about that, it would seem to me to make little difference in terms of what the voters might or might not vote for on such issues (if were they to be given the chance, which is itself not especially likely); the bottom line is that no one can usefully vote for something to be done which no elected government could deliver because there aren't the funds to enable it to do so, which is why I say that it's not just a matter of political will, because will don't pay the bill.

If a project to build, as you suggested, a million social housing units (apartments and houses) were to be designed and costed, it would, I suspect, come in at well over a trillion pounds and in any case rise no end of problems in terms of the possibility even of acquiring sufficient land in order to accomplish it; as to the time that it would take from launch to fully tenanted stock, given all the issues involved, I imagine that HS2/3/4/5 would likely beat it hands down.

[french frank]

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to mull over the actual house building statistics, they're here.

[Sydney Grew]

In a truly fair and unselfish socialistic society, there should be no connexion between housing and "money". Every citizen is entitled to have adequate accommodation without ever paying a single penny.

Every one knows in his heart that that is true.

[ahinton]

In a truly fair and unselfish socialistic society, there should be no connexion between housing and "money". Every citizen is entitled to have adequate accommodation without ever paying a single penny.

Every one knows in his heart that that is true.

Here we go again! But who pays to provide the housing (which is one of the subjects under discussion here)?

[french frank]

Here we go again! But who pays to provide the housing (which is one of the subjects under discussion here)?

I think Sydney missed out the word 'idealistic'. Perhaps everyone who buys their own house should pay a percentage into a fund for those who can't afford one ... but, wait a minute ...

[Dave2002]

If a project to build, as you suggested, a million social housing units (apartments and houses) were to be designed and costed, it would, I suspect, come in at well over a trillion pounds and in any case rise no end of problems in terms of the possibility even of acquiring sufficient land in order to accomplish it; as to the time that it would take from launch to fully tenanted stock, given all the issues involved, I imagine that HS2/3/4/5 would likely beat it hands down.

Perhaps you didn't notice that I amended/changed my view regarding feasibility as a result of trying some simple calculations. broadly I am in agreement with you re the funding.

However, your new guesstimate of over a trillion pounds seems very high to me for 1 million housing units, unless each unit has a very significant level of multiple occupamcy. Allowing at least a mimimum factor of 2 for infrastucture overheads (often "conveniently" ignored by developers, and perhaps also, local authorities ...) then that would come out at £500,000 per housing unit. It should be possible to build luxury houses for that kind of sum!

[ardcarp]

In a truly fair and unselfish socialistic society, there should be no connexion between housing and "money"

Nor between health and money, nor education and money, Your proposition however begs the question should anyone (or no-one) live in a big, posh house?

[ahinton]

Perhaps you didn't notice that I amended/changed my view regarding feasibility as a result of trying some simple calculations. broadly I am in agreement with you re the funding.

However, your new guesstimate of over a trillion pounds seems very high to me for 1 million housing units, unless each unit has a very significant level of multiple occupamcy. Allowing at least a mimimum factor of 2 for infrastucture overheads (often "conveniently" ignored by developers, and perhaps also, local authorities ...) then that would come out at £500,000 per housing unit. It should be possible to build luxury houses for that kind of sum!

No, I did notice - and my admittedly high estimate (not least because, as I mentioned, such estimates almost always fall well short of the actualité) is inteded to be read as all-inclusive - i.e., land, architecture, planning, administration, legal, infrastructural and all the rest in addition to the construction itself; I would anticipate the construction cost per se to represent a not especially large proportion of the overall cost.

[ahinton]

Nor between health and money, nor education and money, Your proposition however begs the question should anyone (or no-one) live in a big, posh house?

...or indeed anywhere at all?...

[ahinton]

Nor between health and money, nor education and money, Your proposition however begs the question should anyone (or no-one) live in a big, posh house?

In UK there's a material difference between health/money and housing/money, though; most state healthcare is provided "free at the point of use" (as the politicians' widely repeated slogan has it) whereas social housing is not.

That said, what in any case is "a big, posh house"? What's the square metrage of floor space above which a house be classified as "big" and what qualifies it as "posh"? What about big houses in poor states of repair that most people would not consider to be "posh" or, for the matter, small ones that are expensively kitted out?

[Dave2002]

No, I did notice - and my admittedly high estimate (not least because, as I mentioned, such estimates almost always fall well short of the actualité) is inteded to be read as all-inclusive - i.e., land, architecture, planning, administration, legal, infrastructural and all the rest in addition to the construction itself; I would anticipate the construction cost per se to represent a not especially large proportion of the overall cost.

I'd already allowed a factor of 2 for infrastructure, though arguably it could up to 3, which would get a bit closer to your figure. Under the incoming rules the CiL is supposed to take care of infrastructure, but the reality is that developers are not going to play fair on thait. Infrastructure should include roads, street lighting, water and sewerage, gas, electricity and also services such as refuse collection, medical facilities, sports and leisure facillties, plus transport services in the area etc. Some cost will eventually be borne by council tax payers, but developers are definitely supposed to make a contribution - even under the existing rules.

Basically, we're stuffed as a country, and the people "in charge!" haven't a clue.

[teamsaint]

I

I'd already allowed a factor of 2 for infrastructure, though arguably it could up to 3, which would get a bit closer to your figure. Under the incoming rules the CiL is supposed to take care of infrastructure, but the reality is that developers are not going to play fair on thait. Infrastructure should include roads, street lighting, water and sewerage, gas, electricity and also services such as refuse collection, medical facilities, sports and leisure facillties, plus transport services in the area etc. Some cost will eventually be borne by council tax payers, but developers are definitely supposed to make a contribution - even under the existing rules.

Basically, we're stuffed as a country, and the people "in charge!" haven't a clue.

Actually, we"re not stuffed, but it suits certain people to have that as the narrative . EG, the conservative s like Osborne who want to roll state spending back to 30/ 35% of GDP.

If our governments decide to spend lots of money on housing, it won't just go into a public spending black hole. Huge amounts would return to the treasury in tax, VAT, NI, and Knock ons from the same sources from growth generated by the housing investment.

This is still a very wealthy country, with a powerful economy, which some predictions have overtaking the German economy in total size within a generation.

[ahinton]

If our governments decide to spend lots of money on housing, it won't just go into a public spending black hole. Huge amounts would return to the treasury in tax, VAT, NI, and Knock ons from the same sources from growth generated by the housing investment.

It's true that there would be some tax kickbacks from such a project provided that most if not all provider firms involved, as well as their contractors, are registered for that purpose and don't source materials and services from outside UK but, again, the question here is whether any such project would be primarily for the purpose of building social housing rather than privately owned housing and that might in itself present something of a problem in that disincentives could be perceived by those involved for at least some of the former, principally that of developers being less able to charge market amounts for selling completed housing.

[ahinton]

Infrastructure should include roads, street lighting, water and sewerage, gas, electricity and also services such as refuse collection, medical facilities, sports and leisure facillties, plus transport services in the area etc.

Indeed - not to mention education facilities and the transport that you mention including rail and air; also, like the buildings themselves, those infrastructural provisions include not only the cost of construction those things tht you mention but also planning, adminstration, legal nd other ancillary costs.

Some cost will eventually be borne by council tax payers, but developers are definitely supposed to make a contribution - even under the existing rules.

Some might, yes but, again, it will be no good trying to extract too much from those of them who don't have the means to pay; that said, the building costs won't be borne by concil taxpayers even if the new homes are social housing to be bought and run by local authorities - only their running costs will be contributed to by those council taxpayers who rent the finished products (and perhaps to some extent by non-local authority tenants as part of their council taxes). Developers "contributions" to the costs of what they do will, as always, have been built into what they charge for their consructions in advance.