Guest blog: Shelter's Chief Exec on the rise of unaffordable housing

[JessMumsnet]

This week, to highlight the fact that housing is increasingly unaffordable for many, Shelter published research which showed what our weekly shop would cost if food prices had risen to the degree that housing costs have done over the last decade.

In this guest blog, Shelter's Chief Exec Campbell Robb warns that unless something changes, the next generation will find it even tougher to get a stable and affordable home.

What do you think? Are you struggling to get on the property ladder, with rising rents making it increasingly difficult to save for a deposit - or are you worried for your children's prospects? How do you think the situation could be improved? Post your URLs here if you blog on the subject, or tell us what you think here on the thread.

Your taxes aren't all spent on the poor, that's a ridiculous thing to say.
Didn't Milton Freedman show a good few decades ago now that a surprising amount of them will go straight back to the rich?

Buy to let investors own more than one property but they only get one vote and only need one house to live in. Once enough houses are in the hands of buy to let investors, the housing market can be allowed to correct without losing the next election

I am just going to adjust the turbo on my zimmerframe

So I will get my coat/emo/te/1.gif

Typo

I will get my coat then lol

As neither myself or husband has an pension fund to which our employers contribute, why is it seen as so wrong that we use a couple of btl properties to plan for our retirement? Others in society have generous state funded pensions but we aren't up in arms that these aren't available to us.

And it is worth reiterating xenia's point that any income we make is taxed at the higher rate and that we will be subject to CGT upon sale. Really not sure where the issue is?

But - its not jealousy and there is no problem with being rich, its just that rich people need to have respect for the less well-off and stop thinking wealth is some sort of divine license to be 'in the right' about everything.

If you are wealthy, don't just tick legal boxes and justify wealth as being all from hard work as oppose to the 'lazy poor' as if we were back in the Victorian age. All normal people want a purpose and a job and do their best to get one.

If you want to work hard and get wealthy, then you have to be fortunate in your health, qualifications, domestic situation etc - there is all sorts of unseen support which gets taken for granted.

Very true, GG.

OBface, have you not read the posts that explain how people who btl push the prices up so that others can't afford to buy or rent?

I don't think the rich do think they have a divine licence to be right about everything.Indeed I often find the left more unforgiving and more sure they are right than the right. I think for example most politicians mean well. The left seem to think only their lot mean well.

The buy to let market has ensured many renters are much better housed than in the days of rent controls and security of tenure for life. The public like a whipping boy and I can see that some frustrated with their own lives or situations might seize on landlords as some kind of devil incarnate. Most landlords are pretty good. They work hard and if property prices do not rise they will sometimes make a loss or certainly so little profit it can often not be worth their time dong all those repairs and dealing with tenants who were stupid enough to let the both overrun twice - recent cases in press over that.

A lot of taxes go on pensions and the poor. I agree some of them go on other things as well. I also think the rich spend their money better than the state and a low capped flat tax would probably mean the poor do better overall. Private philanthropy tends to achieve more than the state ever manages.

So whom do people think do more good - someone like I am in a house bigger than their basic needs with no buy to let properties or a taxi driver in a 3 bed in Essex with 2 buy to lets? I would argue the latter - he ir she is making homes available to those who need them and probably spending more on repairs, using services of tradesmen who need the money etc.

galloping - in my family the rich work hard and the poor are lazy. health and domestic situations have been equal. qualifications have been significantly different but thats been reflected by the effort (or lack of) at school

i take it your one of the 'did well' ones of your family dreaming?

yes because husband and i have worked hard at school/uni/work. whereas my bil never worked hard at anything and my brother got saddled with a lazy wife (now ex thankfully) who refused to take paid employment of any kind.

But surely there is a need for landlords? Unless there is a complete overhaul of the housing system (which realistically isn't going to happen anytime soon) people will always need houses to rent.

FWIW, I bought our BTL at the peak of the market in 2007 (though I was only 27 so plenty of time before I'll need to draw any equity), the same year as I bought my own first house so prices were already inflated. We managed.

And how else are we meant to save for our retirement when we have no employee contributions towards a pension? As I said before, I'm not up in arms that others get great provision in the public sector but think it's only fair that others are allowed to ensure their future security through BTL.

in my family there has been me hit with ill health when i was doing really well and it taking a toll on that progress and there has been my sister who has always worked hard, done the right thing, been the good girl who chose only to have children when she was in a stable marriage and then her husband went and had an affair whilst she was pregnant with triplets leaving her to raise them solo. she continued working hard and is doing 'ok' but you can imagine how hard that has been compared to if she had been raising those children in the 2 parent, 2 income steady life she chose to conceive them in.

also in my family i've seen the difference in class - my mum's side (her sister and their kids predominantly) were very middle class and had money and the expectation of money and success. they valued education and were perfectly prepared to pay for it for their children (and to encourage and direct them in the direction of good paying, good progress qualifications and careers) and to subsidise their lives whilst they gained it. they helped their children buy their first homes and when they died left them a lot of money to pay off mortgages and buy second homes to let on top of their very good personal incomes. my mother's parents lived most of their lives and had their children in india and came back to england with money to buy property outright in a cheap market.

my dad's side of the family were working class poor. his father and uncles and aunts were tied into farm labour with which a house came and they couldn't seek other better paid employment because it would make them homeless. salvation came in managing to get a council house in 50's and therefore being able to seek employment that actually paid a living wage whilst being able to keep a roof over their heads. their children were expected to leave school at 15 regardless of winning places at grammar school and showing great promise for high achievement. they were expected to get a job and start paying to the household keep.

the difference of class, having capital or not, having education or not were really in my face you know? i can't pretend they don't exist. also my health situation and my sister's unexpected single parenthood have emphasised for me the realities of life not all being about 'doing the right thing' and 'being good' and 'work hard and you'll do great'.

life is more complex.

and the picture is bigger than one generation.

yes agree life is complex. i think most people don't mind paying tax to help out people who've tried but through bad luck/ill health are having problems. Its where people have taken life choices based on the fact that they don't want to exert lots of effort and then expect others to subsidise this where it grates.

our parents are all from working class stock. my husband was brought up in mining area with very poor parents.

i'm a strong believer in giving kids a good education. that way they have opportunities available if they wish to take them.

Swallowed of course life is complex and there is a element of luck at play for most people who have suceeded financially as well as the other factors you mentioned.

I myself had leukemia at 16 and missed both my final GCSE and first A level year at school (though still took the exams) and also missed out on the cheaper properties buying my first property at 27 in 2007 at the peak of the market.

I'm still a firm believer though that, while you can, you should work hard and take you opportunities where you find them.

it's not really even luck is it? luck sounds magical. it is complex social factors such as class, health (and yes that's a social factor as is disease very often - it interplays with class, gender and allsorts), generational wealth or lack of, access to capital, access to education, natural ability or lack of etc etc etc.

it's not 'just hard work' or 'just luck' or hard work plus luck. it is a complex social system of class and socio economic inequality that streams the majority of people into their 'place'. it's not accidental either. the powerful and wealthy preserve their power and wealth and to do so need a lot of people to be kept in place beneath them.

look at one example of what the tories did - they immediately rocketed the price of education beyond what most could afford with the result of reducing social mobility and making education a commodity that was of value again by being scarcer and who does that advantage? the wealthy who can afford education and thus pass on the inequality to the next generation reproducing the system. this isn't about party politics btw - that's not my point - my point is that those with money and power can manipulate the system to keep that money and power and look after their own. much like these interest rates.

swallow - despite being a tory i agree with you about buying education. if you look at most of the leading people in companies and public sector orgs the vast majority have had a private education. not only are class sizes smaller but they seem to provide people with leadership skills - something which the state education system doesn't even touch on.

many of those people can't be the brighest in our country - they just happened to be lucky to have wealthy parents whilst those like us who have to use state education just have to take their chances best they can

yes and the gap will widen with university being too expensive for the working classes now. i know you can 'borrow' the money but realistically how many working class people who got degrees do you know who are earning enough to make 35k of debt before you even get to saving for a mortgage desposit or your old age look viable?

social mobility is definitely being closed down as hard as possible.

swallow - same applies to lower middle class as well though. i always thought i'd be desperate for my kids to go to uni, but i'm having doubts due to the cost

there's no such thing as lower middle class anymore imo if there ever really was. there's those with loads and the rest of us.

Hang on, the new student fee system means you do not pay a penny in fees unless and until you earn over the threshold £20k or whatever it is instead of fees up front and the more poor you are the more likely you ALSO get non returnable grants, not available to those with richer parents who choose not to support them at all. The new university system is very very skewed towards the children of the poor. If they are not bright enough to go on line to see that as a doctor say they might find it possible to repay student debt and have a richer life than if they leave at 16 to work in a call centre then perhaps they are not bright enough to go to university.

Yes, luck does play a part but people move up and down in social mobility not just up and up. My grandfather was a miner. I am a single parent. I support my children alone like your sister with her triplets, except I had 5 to support not three so in a sense she had it much easier than I did, didn't she and also you say she is still working and so am I so she and I will probably do okay.

Of course some people will get ill and there will be no one rich or poor on this thread who has not had some dreadful things happen to them in the course of their life - that is how life is but some will keep on trying (many of the things I do fail and some work, but I always assume it will go well and keep on attempting things). Some will get ill because they chose to eat junk food, not to exercise and not do the things which aid physical and mental health or drink or smoke themselvesi nto ill helath and others will get il because their parents bestowed on them genes which led to that and others simply randomly but on the whole most landlords have only 1 or two properties, they work very very hard to get to that position, never make a fortune and treat their tenants well. They are just the sort of very hard working entrepreneurial people like your local shop keeper who are the back bone of this country and need its support not hatred.

'lower' middle class would imply progression - those who are socially climbing. without social mobility it doesn't exist. and that's why it's clogs to clogs in two generations as they say dreaming. you've done well worked hard etc and climbed up a bit but come the hard time it can all be lost in the passing of a generation re: can't afford education as prices have gone up or can't afford housing because of market.

those who've climbed a bit have no stability. those with generations behind them of success have capital to fall back on.