Housing crisis ? What housing crisis ?

KeepPumping
ANOTHER zombie resurrected by you! WTF are you playing at?

Well yes, the bankers had a great scam running pretending that basic flats were worth half a million quid, surprisingly (or maybe not?) the public seemed to fall for it?

They're not the problem - a few months here and there isn't an issue. The problem ones are the ones left empty for several years if not decades. Often due to the owner being in a care home and in not fit state to deal with selling the home - the council get a legal charge on the house to cover the care home fees they are having to pay.

We've had one on our small road - we moved in 29 years ago and it was clearly unoccupied back then - over the years/decades it got more and more decayed and was finally sold at auction around 3 years ago and the new owners had to do a complete refurb job that took a year. So at least 26 years empty. Apparently, talking to neighbours, she died in her care home about 10 years ago, but the council didn't seem to be in any rush to deal with the house sale.

Another was a friend of my late mother who had no family. She went into a care home in 2010, and her house is still unoccupied and getting more and more derelict. She is still in the care home, 16 years later. That's 16 years of her house being empty and unused, again going rotten.

Same in our "High Streets". Lots of empty/derelict flats above empty/derelict shops. Often because the council won't grant planning permission for change of use back to residential as often the "flats" above were converted into storage etc when the High Street was booming, so no longer have "dwelling" planning permission. Councils often include entire roads/areas in their local plan as "commercial" so automatically reject planning applications to convert back into residential.

Councils need to get a grip. In a lot of cases, they have the power. There's just no urgency to deal with unoccupied properties and in the case of town centres, they're obsessed with "big plans" for developments which take decades to happen, but more often than not, never happen.

Not sure why people think empty properties are just somewhere in the middle of nowhere. There are plenty already on bus routes, near amenities etc.

Councils prefer people to live near schools. More than two or three miles, the council has to pay for school transport.

It costs more per household to send a bin lorry to remote and isolated households, it costs more to provide health services and electricity, and broadband. It costs more to maintain a long road and sewers and drainage.

When my dm died, she left a 30yo 3 bed bungalow. It took 5 months to gain probate, another 2 months to clear and clean the house, give it a fresh coat of paint and tidy the garden.

She died in February, the house went on the market the following January and was sold in April. So no-one was living in it for 15 months despite our best efforts.

There must be thousands of similar cases every year.

The government I suppose. They don't seem to want farmers either.

It's Adam Mark Explores. He sometimes does paranormal stuff, which I'm not personally interested in, but the houses he finds are amazing. Full of things from previous owners.

Natterjack toads, is it?

Who is the mysterious 'they', who don't want people living in the countryside? 🤔

The "crisis" is that the empty houses are in the wrong place due to decades of London Centric governments and the regions being starved of investment/growth.

increase council tax exponentially. So 6 months free. Then 50% for the next six months. Then 100% for the next year. Then 200% for the next year, until it either becomes more expensive to keep it empty than to just sell it at a loss, or they are paying so much in council tax the money goes towards improving services for local residents anyway.

There is a housing crisis. 10 empty, uninhabitable houses in a bog doesn’t disprove that.

Yes if you are unable to get a mortgage or low earner.

@steppemum Annual property tax would help 'nudge' people into downsizing into more appropriate sized accommodation and would also help developers who are holding housing as an ever appreciating asset to sell.

Double/triple council tax on empty properties would also work.

If your house isn't selling - reduce the price.

But of course there’s a housing crisis. Just because there are empty houses, doesn’t make them suitable for living in.

Mortgages are difficult to get without good deposits, rents are high.

Empty houses are often derelict. Properties are left to go to ruin purposefully by owners in the hope they will be able to demolish and build more profitable homes on them.
You could renovate the ones above and put 10 young couples in them but then people will moan when they invariably claim benefits as they cannot get to the available jobs due to living remotely.
Council housing was sold off, rents are extortionate.

Is affordability an issue in Neath? Quite a few properties for sale below £100K on Rightmove.

It's not so much lack of houses, it's affordable houses & affordable rents that's the problem.

The BBC article is largely guff - this is an attempt at a new build development which has stalled due to money issues.

https://nationaldailypress.com/2025/03/1-2billion-new-eco-village-still-has-no-schools-or-gp-16-years-since-work-began/

I do find things like this interesting though.
So, there are about 10 houses there, (may be more, was looking for front doors)
Good sized ones too.
The question is, if the council took it or was given it, and then placed 10 families in it, they would have to make sure there was a road and a bus route.

In the big scheme of things, how much would a road and a bus route cost, compared to the cost of housing those families elsewhere?
I presume the families woudl pay rent too, so there would be income.

I do often think that we are unable to look at the big picture because themoney comes from 2 different purses.

It’s the sort of channel I’d spend 18 hours a day watching!

I think your OP is a little disingenuous.
Just because a house is empty doesn't mean that it can be put into circulation.
Many empty houses are owned by people who have no intention of selling them.
It is well known that houses sit empty and unused, there used to be huge squatter movement in London that repossessed them.

So what do you do?
Forcibly repossess any house which has been empty longer than 1 year? 3 years?
What if the owner has had it on the market trying to sell. Should they lose the value of the house?
Should we forcibly buy any empty houses? With what money?

Honestly sounds like a police state to say that if you leave the house empty the government will take it.

Do we fine people for owning an empty house? What does that mean if the owners can't pay a fine?

And as always, the houses that sit empty because they are owned by rich investment banks/people won't mind about paying a fine, because somehow the rich never seem to pay for anything.