Housing

[teamsaint]

The housing issues in the UK are just exacerbated by buy to let .

The principle cause is lack of supply.

This is a simple issue. Build more houses and flats, private and public .

[amateur51]

The housing issues in the UK are just exacerbated by buy to let .

The principle cause is lack of supply.

This is a simple issue. Build more houses and flats, private and public .

Well summed up teams but the 'value' put on building land is another issue too. The big supermarkets,particularly Tesco, have deliberately accumulated huge 'land banks' which they sit on while they wait for local authorities to cave in and grant planning permission. This sequesters land that could be used for housing.

We need a party with the political will to take these people on and build public housing under a national house-building programme We also need a change of heart amongst those who have 'bought' Thatcher's dream of home ownership - it's anti-social and as we know results in massive increases in the 'value' of existing housing.

[ahinton]

The housing issues in the UK are just exacerbated by buy to let .

The principle cause is lack of supply.

This is a simple issue. Build more houses and flats, private and public .

I don't see how you figure out that the buy-to-let arrangements exacerbate the problems of housing in UK. Not everyone wants to or can afford buy their own home, so there needs to be sufficient rental property in both private and public sectors and buy-to-let surely helps to encourage the former - doesn't it?

WHilst lack of sufficient supply is indeed an issue, do you really have some rooted objection (and, if so, what is it?) to having decrepit and unused properties renovated to provide new homes? - not instead of building new ones from scratch, of course, but as well as doing so.

[ahinton]

Well summed up teams but the 'value' put on building land is another issue too. The big supermarkets,particularly Tesco, have deliberately accumulated huge 'land banks' which they sit on while they wait for local authorities to cave in and grant planning permission. This sequesters land that could be used for housing.

Then wouldn't that be just one of several arguments in favour of renovating existing dilapidated property currently not in use to create new homes without even having to acquire new land and the right to build housing on it?

We need a party with the political will to take these people on and build public housing under a national house-building programme

Political will alone would not be enough; such a programme would have to be funded and no party in government can source such funding other than out of taxation; given just how many new homes are needed and the costs of acquiring the land and building them all, the sum required would be so great that the government would almost certainly have to make more cuts in other necessary expenditure in order to do this - and I don;t think that this would go down too well, especially after all the cuts to which we've already been subject.

We also need a change of heart amongst those who have 'bought' Thatcher's dream of home ownership - it's anti-social and as we know results in massive increases in the 'value' of existing housing.

I don't agree. Yes, the Thatcher home ownership dream was indeed very badly marketed and encouraged many to take on debts that they could not always service, but someone has to own the property and if that's mainly buy-to-let landlords this could also be seen as "anti-social", couldn't it? The "value" of existing housing is driven by the market but, as such, it can as easily be driven by the rental market as by the purchasing one - one has only to consider the exorbitant rents that can be charged in certain areas to realise that landlords as well as those who buy and sell housing can fuel artificial inflation of housing prices.

[jean]

I don't see how you figure out that the buy-to-let arrangements exacerbate the problems of housing in UK. Not everyone wants to or can afford buy their own home, so there needs to be sufficient rental property in both private and public sectors and buy-to-let surely helps to encourage the former - doesn't it?

Cart-before-the-horse argument if ever I saw one.

People cannot afford to buy their own homes because the cheaper properties are snapped up by the buy-to-letters.

What must be so particularly galling for those unable toi get a mortgage is that they may find themselves paying just as much (or even more) to rent as they would have done if they'd been able to buy the same property.

one has only to consider the exorbitant rents that can be charged in certain areas to realise that landlords as well as those who buy and sell housing can fuel artificial inflation of housing prices.

Exactly.

[Beef Oven!]

People cannot afford to buy their own homes because the cheaper properties are snapped up by the buy-to-letters.

Nonsense.

Buy to-let, in times of a short-supply of housing irritates me as much as it might you, probably - but talk sense, please.

[jean]

Nonsense.

Not entirely my own idea, however. A few years old, but things have if anything got worse:

As the rest of the property market struggles, buy-to-let mortgage lending is booming as investors snap up cheap homes and take advantage of low mortgage rates.

And in a way you can’t blame them, with interest rates so low, savings aren’t providing the additional income they once did so many people are joining the buy-to-let bandwagon and seeing a healthier return on their cash.

So while first time buyers struggle to get a mortage and raise a deposit, the baby boomers and those with a bit of money tucked away are making a killing.

The impacts of this are huge. Aside from growing resentment this causes between the have (several) homes and the have nots, buy-to-let played a massive part in the last housing market boom, and collapse. Fewer homes available for sale inflates prices, create spiralling demand and, well, the rest is history.

[amateur51]

Then wouldn't that be just one of several arguments in favour of renovating existing dilapidated property currently not in use to create new homes without even having to acquire new land and the right to build housing on it?


Political will alone would not be enough; such a programme would have to be funded and no party in government can source such funding other than out of taxation; given just how many new homes are needed and the costs of acquiring the land and building them all, the sum required would be so great that the government would almost certainly have to make more cuts in other necessary expenditure in order to do this - and I don;t think that this would go down too well, especially after all the cuts to which we've already been subject.


I don't agree. Yes, the Thatcher home ownership dream was indeed very badly marketed and encouraged many to take on debts that they could not always service, but someone has to own the property and if that's mainly buy-to-let landlords this could also be seen as "anti-social", couldn't it? The "value" of existing housing is driven by the market but, as such, it can as easily be driven by the rental market as by the purchasing one - one has only to consider the exorbitant rents that can be charged in certain areas to realise that landlords as well as those who buy and sell housing can fuel artificial inflation of housing prices.

My point is that, in the face of inadequate public sector housing supply, home-ownership is theoretically and practically anti-social, just as the ownership of water services is.

Not one unit of public housing has ever been built without some private money. It's the period of the loan and a reasonable fixed rate of interest that makes it work, or not. We need to revisit Building Society models too. Freeing up land, by compulsory purchase if necessary, is key too

[teamsaint]

Well summed up teams but the 'value' put on building land is another issue too. The big supermarkets,particularly Tesco, have deliberately accumulated huge 'land banks' which they sit on while they wait for local authorities to cave in and grant planning permission. This sequesters land that could be used for housing.

We need a party with the political will to take these people on and build public housing under a national house-building programme We also need a change of heart amongst those who have 'bought' Thatcher's dream of home ownership - it's anti-social and as we know results in massive increases in the 'value' of existing housing.

I agree that the supply of land, both brown and green field, is the fundamental problem.

personally, I would allow those with land banks to cash in by re zoning for residential use where appropriate, but taxing the profits at high rates.

I don't see the dream of home ownership as a problem. A really good, affordable, civilised rental sector would start to rebalance how we view ownership/rental anyway.

[amateur51]

I agree that the supply of land, both brown and green field, is the fundamental problem.

personally, I would allow those with land banks to cash in by re zoning for residential use where appropriate, but taxing the profits at high rates.

I don't see the dream of home ownership as a problem. A really good, affordable, civilised rental sector would start to rebalance how we view ownership/rental anyway.

No more buy-to-let schemes and no more home ownership scvhemes until the public secor waiting lists are reduced by 60 per cent at least.

Why? A friend rents a one bedroomed flat in the same area as I do. She rents from a registed social landlord @ £100 per week. I rent from a private landlord at 2.5 times the weekly rent of my friend's place and my landlord bought at a huge discount under Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme. Madness!

[ahinton]

Cart-before-the-horse argument if ever I saw one.

People cannot afford to buy their own homes because the cheaper properties are snapped up by the buy-to-letters.

Not in all cases, no; they can't afford to buy them because they're too expensive and part (though not all) of the reason for this is that the cheaper ones are snapped up by whoever snaps them up - not just the buy-to-letters. The price of residential property is market driven by everyone who buys it, whether for their own use or to let; even local authorities cannot escape this, because they'd only stand a chance of being able to fund vast swathes of new social housing by charging exorbitant rents for it just like some of the more speculative buy-to-let landlords do, thereby effectively tarring themselves with the same brush.

What must be so particularly galling for those unable toi get a mortgage is that they may find themselves paying just as much (or even more) to rent as they would have done if they'd been able to buy the same property.

Exactly!

[ahinton]

My point is that, in the face of inadequate public sector housing supply, home-ownership is theoretically and practically anti-social, just as the ownership of water services is.

On what grounds do you see these two factors as inextricably linked? Local authorities can't just spend unlimited hundreds of millions on new social housing unless either the stock is already there or they invest in more land on which to build it AND they can borrow enough money to enable them to do it (which, if interest rates begin to rise, might well prove to become an intolerable burden); to the extent that they can do it at all, they'll become landlords that find themselves having at times to resort to charging exceptionally high rents for it in order to recoup at least some of their investment and contribute towads the cost of their borrowing towards making it (AND they have to find the finds to insure and maintain it as well as just buy it). I don't see how ownership per se of housing or water services is "theoretically and practically anti-social", since someone has to own and maintain both of these things, be they private individuals and companies or public authorities.

Not one unit of public housing has ever been built without some private money. It's the period of the loan and a reasonable fixed rate of interest that makes it work, or not. We need to revisit Building Society models too. Freeing up land, by compulsory purchase if necessary, is key too

Your first sentence is certainly true, not least because there is no money other than private money; "public money" is money that's come from the private sector, except when it derives from profits made on that money by local authorities or government. Local authorities have no control over interest rates. Compulsory purchase of land on a scale large enough to enabgle the building of sufficient homes would simply prove litigious and court cases could drag on for decades. I repeat - what's so wrong with either the public or private sector getting hold of existing decrepit property and renovating it to provide new homes?

[ahinton]

No more buy-to-let schemes and no more home ownership scvhemes until the public secor waiting lists are reduced by 60 per cent at least.

But how could such a reduction, welcome though it would be, be achieved?

Why? A friend rents a one bedroomed flat in the same area as I do. She rents from a registed social landlord @ £100 per week. I rent from a private landlord at 2.5 times the weekly rent of my friend's place and my landlord bought at a huge discount under Thatcher's right-to-buy scheme. Madness!

It looks that way, but no one can control how much rent is charged by public or private landlords and, even if they could and rents were reduced across the board accordingly, HM Treasury would take in a whole lot less tax!

[french frank]

Yes, the Thatcher home ownership dream was indeed very badly marketed and encouraged many to take on debts that they could not always service, but someone has to own the property

Eh? What have I missed ? Someone did own the property - the public. But Thatcher forced councils into giveaway prices and then legislated to stop the councils reinvesting even the paltry revenues in new housing stock.

[amateur51]

On what grounds do you see these two factors as inextricably linked? Local authorities can't just spend unlimited hundreds of millions on new social housing unless either the stock is already there or they invest in more land on which to build it AND they can borrow enough money to enable them to do it (which, if interest rates begin to rise, might well prove to become an intolerable burden); to the extent that they can do it at all, they'll become landlords that find themselves having at times to resort to charging exceptionally high rents for it in order to recoup at least some of their investment and contribute towads the cost of their borrowing towards making it (AND they have to find the finds to insure and maintain it as well as just buy it). I don't see how ownership per se of housing or water services is "theoretically and practically anti-social", since someone has to own and maintain both of these things, be they private individuals and companies or public authorities.


Your first sentence is certainly true, not least because there is no money other than private money; "public money" is money that's come from the private sector, except when it derives from profits made on that money by local authorities or government. Local authorities have no control over interest rates. Compulsory purchase of land on a scale large enough to enabgle the building of sufficient homes would simply prove litigious and court cases could drag on for decades. I repeat - what's so wrong with either the public or private sector getting hold of existing decrepit property and renovating it to provide new homes?

Renovation has been tried certainly to my knowledge since the 1970s but do you mean privately-owned or publicly-owned properties. What's the evidence that there is so much property in need of renovation that doing so would go any way to sorting out the local authority waiting list? I don't mean there isn't any, I'm just interested in up-to-date data.