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

Why is it that people that move out of urban areas to cutesie little villages that immediately want to draw up the NIMBY drawbridge?

@FeetLikeFlippers
that is right.

Obviously there IS a housing crisis but building expensive houses on green belt land is not the answer. There needs to be a serious reform of the rental laws so that people can afford to rent and not all be obsessed with property ownership, but that won’t happen because so many MPs and members of the House of Lords are property owners who benefit from the current system. As with many of our social problems, it’s down to a minority of obscenely wealthy people who are terrified of losing any part of their obscene wealth and care more about protecting it than about the welfare of an entire country.

That,

the housing crisis comes from the necessity of easy access to jobs/schools/amenities and the high demand as of course no one really buy a house for a year or two…most of the time.

where location is prime, rent goes up and up making it impossible for people to put aside to buy, let alone getting out of any emergency housing.

where location isn’t prime, rent is still high but not a lot of jobs so it is a long commute to wherever you need to go and then hoping for equity to buy « closer to ».

Limits on buying won’t be anytime soon happening as it literally brings money to big companies such as JPMorgan…etc. People whom succeed to have a cut from this should be allowed, it doesn’t mean it is not a horrendous situation.

A limit on the rent might be better but again…not happening anytime soon as the houses are mortgaged as let to buy/buy to let and it is the bank making money.

So. Yeah. Here we are.

Build flats in offices instead. I know of one enormous new build office building that was hardly rented for 20 years. It lay practically empty. Only recently it had flats converted in to and is buzzing.

The only bit I agree with is that more facilities should be built to support new housing. Also definitely agree that the most housing needs to be social housing at affordable rents.

@MellersSmellers 100% agree -

There absolutely IS a housing crisis, OP
But like you I'm not convinced it's one of supply, more like one of AFFORDABILITY, and therefore it won't necessarily be fixed by building more.
Think about the many government policies over the years that have brought us to this place - land falling outside of IHT so land prices going sky high, tax breaks for landlords, right-to-buy, restrictions on Councils re-investing council house sale receipts in building, no restrictions on overseas buyers of UK properties....and so on.
We need imaginative solutions in the round.

Yes, sick of hearing about it because it’s been going on for centuries. Watching old YouTube videos of slum landlords in London especially. It’s never ending

I'm sick of hearing it too.

The fertility rate and size of the established British population is falling. The "housing shortage" is caused by population increase due to high net immigration. That's a simple fact. Britain is full.

Just noting that you are not living in temporary accommodation without access to cooking facilities, and no space for personal possessions.

You are commenting from a place of comfort where you obviously have no empathy for people who are living an incredibly difficult life!

Completely agree with this. It becomes circular money doesn’t it.
this is going to become an increasing issue when generation rent retire / too sick to work. Imagine how big that benefit bill will be. McCarthy Glenn have already foreseen this as an issue with their ramped up building for rent. Local governments need to be doing the same. Or all our tax money will be going off shore

I'd like to see more housing built for and owned by local authorities who then become professional landlords rather than social landlords. It would reduce the stigma and do much to make rents more affordable and housing stock maintained to decent standards. The flow of rent and housing benefit would be back into LA coffers and we'd see more community cohesion either more secure tenancies.

It was doable after WWII when we were even worse off financially.

@Scottsy200 Im assuming you were not married. If you were, you would have had a share of the house. Women need to wise up.

What we also have is couples separating and requiring 2 homes and then are not happy about what the state offers. Surely being housed is better than a hotel B&B?

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

Said by someone with a secure home presumably?

My friend works in lettings. Currently getting over 100 applicants per property. That's just for (very expensive) private rentals. That is a housing crisis.

Short sighted comment.
It takes years, decades even to save enough for a deposit. Fertility starts to decline in your late thirties for most women. So who would be having children? Not many people.

You already see certain people using "low birth rates" to justify more immigration. Do you want your grandchild to be the only English child in their school? I'll be called a racist for even saying this but take it from someone who went to a school that was 90% Muslim mostly Pakistani and saw my brother get beat up regularly no you do not want that.

@justasking111 indeed- I tried to persuade my FIL to go for one but nope he wanted 3 beds and a garage and a small garden so has bought a bungalow instead - but I posted to show they are about but 'at a price' and if it's a couple of course you both have to be on the same page . If you can pay £400k or so upwards and can afford £10k a year service charge then they can offer a fab life style provided you don't mind being surrounded by other over 60s a lot of the time . I see the Avonpark bus dropping them off here in Bath regularly too . People always seem to look happy .

Its a con. Someone buys it at 70 they only own it till they die then it passes back to the seller. Their children cannot inherit from it.

Our family were in temporary accommodation for 5 ish years. Normally it's much longer with my council so I was lucky in a way .

With council children of the opisite sex can stars till their 10 . But even after that it can take years with bidding . Children of the same sex can share till 16/18/21 depending on your council policy.

After a break up me and my 2 children (one of them his) were evicted from our family home because it belonged to my ex. There’s no way even with benefit assistance and me working that we could afford to private rent a 3 bedroom house, we were put in a hovel of a hotel for emergency accommodation and have since been moved to a 2 bed flat so me and my 6 yr daughter have to share a room and a bed.

we have been informed it could be 3-4 yrs wait before we can get a 3 bed property, so no it’s not a “supposed” crisis

If you accept house developers are the only companies that build houses, they need to make a profit. I’m sick of hearing that they should not. Why do we think business should not make money? No builders = no homes.

The type of house agreed on a development site is down to planning permission. Up thread we say families don’t want small houses, so we complain about larger ones. The truth is, no developer builds a house that won’t sell and they are not charities. If anyone has ever been to a public inquiry on proposed developments, you would be amazed what local residents say about the mix of housing offered! In affluent areas its executive houses with no social housing at all if there has to be any housing built in the first place. That also includes proposals for unsightly brownfield sites based on traffic generated! We don’t want housing near us.

It’s up to planning what is agreed and what type of house is required for social housing based on need. Smaller developments are not required to have social housing. There are some developments that are totally social housing. We actually need to scale up building to meet the government’s targets but we can never do that if development companies are stopped from making a profit due to them not being allowed to “line their pockets”. Building is a business and land for the next development must be acquired and the huge costs of our prolonged planning process costs way too much. It’s 10 years sometimes. If we do want homes, we have to remove some barriers to building.

All local authorities have growth plans. They know where housing is proposed and they plan schools. Obviously the NHS knows too. Now LAs are having to find sponsors for schools, the speed of opening is not just down to the LA. Lack of control can mean lack of action.

There are also many retirement properties in multi flat complexes lying empty. They are notoriously unpopular to buy, when they should be much sought-after on paper given our rapidly ageing population.

One problem is that the service charges are crippling, but I also think older people don't necessarily like living exclusively with other old folk. There's a feeling of being in God's Waiting Room - it's almost like a care home setting.

Why not keep the buildings but make them more of a mixed community? Maybe some of the flats could be lower cost social type housing for carers? Or key workers with young families? You see great social results when young children and old people mix in care homes. I've seen something like this on a documentary from, I think, the Netherlands.

It really annoyed me that the government had a golden opportunity to spread and lower housing costs around the country by incentivising employers to encourage home working where possible. instead they listened to corporate office owners and pret and concentrated everyone back into big cities not all of whom need to work there. Keeping rents higher.

A big part of the problem is developers getting planning permission then not building.

The land owners are the ones making serious profit. Developers do well but not as nearly as much as those that own the land.
Land owner auctions off a parcel of land. All the developers will know how many houses they can get on it. The only way to win the bid is cram in more houses. Land supply is very constricted in this country the planning act is from another era.
You could cut house prices and have nice spaced out houses just need the land to be released. Obviously will have the you are concreting over the countryside comments.