To be sick of hearing about 'the housing crisis'?

The government has been hammering landlords with taxes. Landlords just pass the cost onto tenants. Tenants can’t afford to save for a deposit.

I love the way you assume that the government give a crap about any of us. But also - there are 700,000 empty homes in the UK. Since the 1980s, 2 million council houses were sold. There are 1.2 million people currently waiting for social housing. "Market rates" for renting are just as high as landlords can get away with - hording resources and renting them back to people for huge profits is not a business. It would appear that you are in a very fortunate position where none of this impacts you negatively, therefore you find it annoying.

There is nothing ‘supposed’ about the housing crisis

We keep hearing this "only x% of the UK is built on" as though that is some massive gotcha moment. Huge amounts of the UK are wet, waterlogged - or in danger of becoming so rather soon - and/or important for wildlife and biodiversity. Other areas are important for food production. We know how dangerous and short sighted it is to simply concrete over such areas and expect everything to be ok.

If we build all the houses Angela wants in the areas she wants, it will never be enough and we will have done incalculable harm in doing so. Developers are the one who do the investing and selling - are they really going to create such a glut of product that they see the profits of their investment falling away before their eyes?

The UK is one of the most nature deprived countries in the world, and this government want to make it more so. Simply building more and more and more isn't the answer.

I don't understand it either. Surely someone on the council register or stuck in a B&B won't be able to afford the 350k needed for a 3 bed rabbit hutch new build anyway. In my area we've had thousands of the things thrown up on every scrap of land, and usually they have to be heavily reduced because no one wants them or can afford them.

I agree with the OP that building lots of new builds in rural areas doesn’t help. The new builds are often too expensive for local people to buy so people from outside the area move in.
I do agree that more town centre accommodation should be available instead of empty shops. Local market towns have lots of empty shops. There are also many empty pubs, some have been empty for over 10 years as the planners will not change the use to residential without a significant battle. These areas would make really good low price rental accommodation for people living and working in the area.
Much more social housing is needed, it is still being sold off locally.
And finally, holiday cottages. These are the little cottages in the towns and villages that were cheap to buy or rent, 10-15 years ago. Whole streets in local market towns are holiday lets and some villages it’s over half the cottages are holiday lets. In a nearby market town 2 bedroom bungalows on 1970s housing estates are now being let for holiday accommodation. The village of staithes had a few years ago less than 10 cottages occupied full time in the old part of the village.

They have build a shitload of homes near me. Can we afford one? Can we fuck! Not without an absolutely hefty deposit which we can't save because our rent is so high. We earn decent money too.

The population is increasing faster since the turn of the century, with the biggest increase due to immigration. The government need to be stricter with immigrants, like they are in NZ and Australia

Did I say it was the "only" solution?
Why don't you move onto a brownfield site or a flat then? It's always someone else's responsibility. Someone else who should sacrifice the pleasant house in a nice location... We should all be doing our bit, you can't just demand that other people shouldn't want the same things you already have. It won't work.

Clearly doesn't affect you

Meanwhile some if us are stuck in overpriced rental properties with landlords who don't even do the legal bare minimum to make their houses that we pay over the odds for to make like them safe but we don't have any chance of moving because the next landlord down the road wants us to earn a frankly ridiculous amount for another subpar property.

To echo some of the posters - I am from the EU and when I first moved to the UK many years ago, I was really surprised at the British obsession of living in a house with a garden (even if the garden is the size of a stamp).

There is just not enough land to build on, realistically. There should be more flat developments for different budgets etc, inside the cities, rather than expanding into the countryside.

Do you think there isn’t a housing crisis?

What’s your own housing situation?

I think it’s easy to complain that there is no housing crisis if you have secure housing. Stunning lack of empathy from the NIMBY op 🙄

Yes they buy the land, I've no idea of the background as to why the farmers are selling though. Doesn't change the impact on the deer that live there though

But the issue with stamp duty is that it reduces the number of moves people are prepared to make, makes them less likely to move for work, and less likely to have a house that meets their needs, and any tax on house moves still has the same issues.

People should not be financially penalised for choosing / needing to move house. They should be incentivised to do so instead.

Such a lazy, brainless insult.

I agree. I think if they built flats with people living in mind (better insulation, sound proof) they would be a long-term option lucrative option.
I like flat living, I find it much more practical on one floor, shared gardens i can enjoy and don't need to worry about gardening. There are a lot of positives. But they are seen as negatively and not sought after therefore not much thought or investment goes into building them to be realistic accommodation and they prefer to focus on houses which isn't cost-effective, affordable to many people and take up a lot of space.

Flats if built with thought could be a great option for families on a tight budget. (Bills would be cheaper, in one flat I lived in never had to put heating on, as my flat was toasty from the other properties heating 😂)

The UK is the most densely populated country in Europe apart from Belgium and The Netherlands. It feels overcrowded. It doesn't matter what % of the land is built on if we are too densely populated. Our closest neighbour France has a very similar sized population to us. France is 551,000 square km, UK is 244,000 square km.

This is really interesting,what your saying.i was recently driving round one of the new build sites near me ,and there was huge houses with gardens and front drives ,really nice streets all nicely planned.then I turn a corner and I felt shocked to see what were clearly social housing,two rows of two up two down houses no side access all in a row, 15 on one side and 15 facing ,and in the middle just tarmac with numbers for parking.
No grass ,so that's where the children will play amongst the parked cars .all the doors identical and no car charging access like every other house ..and these 30 or so identical houses were surrounded by huge individual houses ..it was shocking and sad the lack of thought gone in to the social housing

The issue is that the remaining land will become increasingly less available for food production. Water is diverted from the houses to agricultural land, coupled with climate change means that a considerable percentage of the non-developed land is or will be considered flood plane.

I wish the government would fund a huge research project into soundproofing buildings. There are some beautiful flats near us that an acquaintance moved into. He loved the flat but could hear absolutely everything his neighbours did and they could hear him so he moved out to a house.

Humans are social creatures but people don't want to hear and smell their neighbours when they are in the privacy of their own homes, hence why many people don't like the idea of living in a flat.

@Duckinahat personally I'm more pro a sales tax on moving of 2% of value. That's for everyone

Hence those that have never bought before or dont have anything to sell don't hit this tax at all

Right to buy sold off the council
housing stock. This is the main issue. There are loads of houses to buy, but no social care housing stock which is the real issue. The government are also crippling landlords , so there are few rentals now as well.

Long post to say "not in my backyard".