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.

OBface, I don't think it's people like you who are the problem, tbh. You've explained why you made the decisions you took, and you're right, people will always need landlords.

The problem comes when lots of people do it on a huge scale and the govt encourages it. I suppose the solution would be a decent state pension for everyone (or is there one already?). Or maybe more regulation of the housing industry? Inheritance tax? Taxes on second homes? There's so much that could be done, it seems to me - some of which is being done, but not enough or too late or undermined by another tax that penalises the people who are supposed to benefit ...

Great posts, Swallowed - privilege and lack of go back centuries.

it is a mistake to talk about these issues in terms of individuals. where you are is part of a chain of people - from your parents, your grandparents and beyond. social class also isn't just about how much money you earn - it's how much privilege you hold and that includes inherited capital and security and security in knowing that the system will make decisions in your favour because the system is people like you.

you can bet that all the eton boys and establishment think of themselves as an 'us' and serve the interests of that 'us'. down here though we're all supposed to see ourselves as individuals with our success or failure entirely down to our own individual merits, choices etc. it's very handy for 'them' to have it that way.

we're an us from an us a generation before us and before and before. just as they are a they that has been socially reproducing itself and it's privilege for generations and generations and generations. a few exceptions of self made people who make it through and are held up as shiny examples of how we can all make it if we work hard enough do not disprove the very carefully constructed and reproduced rule. having more money than your parents, having been to uni, owning your own home or holidaying abroad do not make you part of 'them'.

this whole individualism, meritocracy bullshit is just a way of keeping us stupid and divided.

thanks solo. i really do think this whole meritocracy, divide and rule and i worked harder than you did crap among the masses is a massive derailing technique. we are part of a much bigger picture over time and power and influence. maybe that offends people's sense of agency or individuality but it is true none the less.

Plenty, plenty of people work really hard, often over 18 hours in every 24. Hardly any of us are rich.

It's not true that hard work = getting rich. It might be true that few people will become rich without working hard (unless they inherit their welath), but you can work hard all your life and still be on the breadline. More so today than at any time in our recent future in the UK.

It's simple maths. We all have 24 hours a day. If hard work led to riches, all people would have to do is work all night, and they'd be rich. Doh ...

recent past.

wealth

When I was younger I went out with a guy who was very controlling and his family seemed to have a lot of bad luck and his dad had died young. However I also found out that his grandad had been in prison etc.

He really didn't like the fact that my dad "sat on his bum all day" but we had quite a good standard of living. I said why don't you do ex, y , z with your life then you could earn good money. Oh no, I want to drive a lorry. Don't want to work in an office etc etc. He hadn't bothered at school and in the end we broke up. He had no aspiration. he drifted from job to job and lied about being sick when he wasn't. He used to fall out with people and was quite rude.

Maybe my dd did sit on his bum but he had come from a poor background and worked hard and gone to university in the late 50's when it was more unusual.

It can be down to a bad attitude that people don't get on in life.

Agreed, Alemci. But it isn't true to say that if you have a good attitude you will get on in life.

No, solo but I felt this was a classic example. His best friend's mum was a teacher and she offered to help him get some qualifications as he messed around at school etc and went out in the lorry with his grandad instead of going to school (his mum allowed it?).

It's not divided in the way suggested above. It is not that for 1000 years those born with blue blood are hit all and a lesser species with different DNA are the proles or worker slaves for the rest. Instead those born with good genes, luck, high IQ etc (or even just who look pretty who snap up the rich man) may well do well in one or two generations and those who had a lot very often lose it. Even the Victorians had to find rich heiresses whose families were in trade to bail out the large estates which could no longer make a living from the land. Each generation will have some area in which it is possible to do better than others even if you take us back to living in jungles -0 there will always be the top dog. It is how we are made as a species.

No one says everyone who works hard does well. However you need to work smart too - see women who earn £1000 a day thread. If you encourage teenage daughters into work where they earn £xxx an hour rather than £6 then amazingly they may well earn enough than i f they set their sites at the call centre job.

oh join planet earth xenia or take off completely in your little bubble and don't bother preaching to the peasants anymore.

All the buy to lets are enclosed in little bubble. Bit like a Windows screen saver.

www.moneyweek.com/investments/bonds/ditch-gilts-and-get-out-of-sterling-britain-is-heading-for-trouble-62700

Completely agree that our chances in life are in a large part defined at birth, meritocracy as a result will never work. When I mentioned luck upthread I meant that even if you have had a good start in life, things can still be derailed by illness, unemployment etc. and that as a general rule hard work is still a good mantra to live by. Appreciate though that no that no amount of hard work can equal the privilege that a lot us are born in to (not necessarily monetary privilege just aspirations and a value of education).

But still don't see BTL landlords as root of all evil - I offer a good value service to my tenants. And by making provision for my retirement hopefully will save the taxpayer money further down the line.

it may sound odd but i'm really glad that things went wrong in my life for a while. that i lost everything and had to rely on benefits for a few years. that i was really, really poor and it didn't kill me and wasn't nearly as terrifying as the build up to it was when i was terrified of the house of cards falling.

i think people who have been through that - unexpected single parenthood, job loss, divorce, ill health etc they tend (not all obviously) to remain compassionate and aware for those who are struggling in life. take J K Rowling who still 'chooses' (as in she could easily get out of it) to pay her taxes here and speak up about social injustice and benefits cuts. she was a single mother who had nothing for a long time.

or my sister who by now would probably be a right wing mouthpiece telling us all how we should just work harder and 'do the right thing' like she had (she was a bit like this bless her) until her right thing exploded in her face with her husbands infidelity and the reality of having triplets to raise in another country. now she sees through the right wing meritocracy rhetoric even though by most people's standards (if not her own) she is doing well and is pretty financially secure for the future.

i do actually feel sorry for people who don't see the big picture and who lack compassion, awareness and the sense that we are a 'we' who should take care of each other and care about each other's situations - especially those of the worst off. i'm not a christian personally but was raised as one and many parables spring to mind that fit this perfectly. you can see why it was easier for a camel man to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to achieve spirituality.

The right certainly see the bigger picture and have more compassion and better ideas to help the less fortunate than the left. As I said above all of us rich and poor will have had difficult times. I am sure I am not different from anyone else in that. However having a private sector lettings market has made a massive difference in improving the standard of lettings for those who rent properties than there used to be back in the time of the rent acts, rent control and tenancies for life which did not work and made rented property almost impossible to be had. Thank goodness private sector landlords are prepared to take risks and let out properties otherwise people would not be housed.

when renting was not so profitable house prices were much lower.

people would not 'not be housed' - many would be able to buy who have been stuck in rented and landlords who were wise enough to only rent out properties they owned or near owned (as opposed to the bank owning them) would be able to afford rent control etc.

I don't think renting is particularly profitable even now. The most successful landlords make about 5 - 6% if they are lucky but usually not even that after paying agents' costs, repairs,etc.

Rent control is not on the agenda by any party so is a bit of a red herring to discuss.

If you have £300k and buy a small flat in London with it or house in the regions and if the rent were £50 or even £1000 a year or whatever rent controls might be - I know two men in London who pay sums not too different from that still in the place 40 or 50 years after with security of tenure and rent will not alter. - you would not rent out a property. You would stick the £300k in the building society and earn your 3% on it before tax. Landlords only let out property if they think they will make some kind of gain on the property. Rent controls don't work.

If the state chose to spend a lot of money (money it does not have of course at present as it is virtually bankrupt) on building new council houses that would be another way to make more property available. The new rules to turf out the single elderly person in the 4 bed council house and those on say £100k a year like the rail union man who have social or council housing may help a bit too and are obviously sensible measures when state housing is in short supply.

You keep missing the main point xenia, without buy to let in the form that it has now become those forced into rented due to being priced out of the market would be able to buy. Better for them, better for society.

I also note, having caught up with this thread again, that you ignore all the other points I've made previously and still rattle on and on about how effective the free market has been in this situation.

Like food, water, medicine etc giving the 'market' free reign over an essential such as housing is not good for society as a whole. A recent example where it has become an issue is how horse meat entered the food chain. You need checks and balances, you cannot leave it to the market wholly, not with something like shelter.

I will make the point you miss again.

Without buy to let in the form that it has now become those forced into rented due to being priced out of the market would be able to buy. Better for them, better for society.

Your insistence on pretending that buy to let is doing these people a favour is plainly ridiculous. I will make another point again you refused to acknowledge, breaking someones legs and lending them a crutch is not helping them.

Quite frankly most buy to let 'investors' need protecting from themselves, anyone who bought after 2004 is on a hiding to nothing and should never have been lent the money in the first place. I expect when those chickens come home to roost they'll be after compensation for mis-sold buy to let mortgages. It should have been regulated! they will cry.

Yes, it should have been.

I'm not sure anyone who bought after 2004 is onto a hiding to nothing. We bought a couple of properties in 2007 and see a decent return on them and don't intend to 'cash them in' for another 35 or so years having bought them in our mid 20s.

And not everyone who rents would want to buy. Both our properties are in a university city and we rent to students and young professionals.

True not everyone wants to buy. But those that do cannot because of buy to let.

2007 was the peak of the market, if you sold those properties today what would you get for them? Be realistic and honest with yourself. Would your loss be more than any profit you realised in rent over that time?

You won't know how much you lost until you actually find a buyer.

But in a transient area surely whether or not people can buy is not as relevant. Plus if I managed to buy there in my mid twenties at the top of market it isn't out of reach of the average person. This is an area full of btl properties so your assertion that landlords have pushed house prices up doesn't ring true.

We probably don't have any equity in either property (though I do own another half a btl property which probably has c60k of equity) but as I said before this is a long game for us and we wouldn't look to sell for at least 30 or so years, hopefully longer. Critically, we haven't stretched ourselves so can ride out periods where the properties aren't rented or a hike in interest rates.

you also deliberately miss the point that at the end of the 25years those btl'ers have the value of the property. the pay off is long term - not how much you make a month. i'll say it again - who in their right mind would expect a few grand upfront to pay them hundreds a month immediately plus a huge capital sum in 25yrs time?

stop pretending these poor chaps only make a few bob a month when in the meantime a mortgage is being paid for them and they'll have hundreds of thousands return in a couple of decades.

OB gets it - it's a long game. you don't moan boo hoo i only made £100 in my pocket from retirement fund this month.

a mortgage is being paid for them

Most buy to let is interest only, and the rent barely covers that. Similarly if they have a repayment mortgage the interest portion of the payment is all the rent covers.

They hope for a higher property value. They won't be getting it.

In the meantime they have priced out more responsible people from owning their own home.

that wouldn't be the case here - a 100k house would fetch 5-550 a month. a 95k mortgage would cost what per month including a repayment?

their mortgage is being paid for them.

You probably won't like hearing this but we actually do get a decent return, enough to cover my share of the bills for a year of maternity leave having only been given the minimum statutory amount from work. And how can you say property values won't have risen in 35 years? The house we have equity in is on a interest only BTL mortgage but we have saved any income made from it and paid down the mortgage when switching between products.

I take offence at you saying we price 'more responsible' people out of the market, you know next to nothing about me or any other landlord out there, how can you make such an assertion about my financial responsibility?