Feeling really thick about all the new housing

[BuckingFrolics]

There's a house shortage and new housing is going up everywhere.

What I feel thick about is, who is moving into these new houses? The ones near me are damn expensive and definitely being bought by well heeled folk.

So is that the people moving into the new builds are them releasing capacity in eg 2 bed places, which get bought by FTB leaving rented, which makes way for people to move into rented from eg B&B?

I don't see why we're not just building loads of smaller places for the increase in single householders.

Why all these 3,4,5 bed "luxury" houses? Surely what is needed is affordable modest housing?

Can someone explain how and why this model works?

All new builds have to have a percentage of the stock that are housing association or affordable. So you ought not see it as it isn’t necessarily visible but it’s about 20%

I don't understand how it works either, specially when I see what has been advertised as 'affordable housing' being sold for above average house prices.

I don't understand it either, we need more social housing. Thats for certain.
But all the new builds near me are far too expensive and are in noway affordable, they are just in line with what a similar property goes for. But they are nearly all bought by buy to let landlords, theres an area about 5 miles away which are sold off plan abroad before they even have a chance to come to market here.

Maybe I'm naive but i can't see we need to build the numbers talked about, surely we just need to be able for people to afford to buy the house they are currently renting? As they would have done 20 years ago.

I don’t understand it either. Our town has an amount of houses it has to build in the next couple of years. There have been two developments already completed in the town and they are pretty much exclusively second homes. Why the hell should our green spaces be taken away to be built on and so people can live in them 3 weeks a year?

Local rentals are going for about 130-150% per month of 90% mortgages. Unfortunately, the lenders impose such tough affordability tests and high deposits that very few young families can afford them.

We have a lot near us too, they advertize them as being affordable. But that is only if you part buy so own 50% and rent the rest. Doesn't sound affordable at all to me if you are paying both a mortgage and rent.

To be able to afford a house near me you need to be able to borrow £400,000-£500,000 so that’s earning £100,000 for the mortgage lender to lend to you.

Flats are £250,000 upwards so that still £50,000.

And that’s what these “affordable homes” are going for.

Baffling isnt it?
1000 new homes built where I live and about 5% are HA.
Rest are from £200-500k
Which is 2 bed semi to 5 bed detached.

The scandal that is the Heygate estate at Elephant and Castle proves your point, OP. Of the completed blocks, all units so far have been bought by overseas investors. Southwark Council should hang their heads in shame.

And wasn't the block of flats built next to Tate Modern (the one that everyone can look into from the new viewing gallery) notorious for the fact that somehow the developers got away with including no affordable or social (can't remember which) housing? Also Southwark Council.

Battersea another appalling example of what housing has become in our country. Piles and piles of flats which get bought by foreign investors and are then left empty. There needs to be more control like in Canada.

It’s not about affordable housing it’s about developers making millions. One director got a £60 million payment. You have to be careful buying new housing, some of them are leasehold, by having the help to buy payment they can be unsaleable in future as prices are not rising enough. If you are thinking of buying one never use the builders lawyers even if cheaper always get your own.

The bigger houses make more money for the builders I think and because the builders can mostly build what they want, that's what they do. If the government built the houses then they could build what's needed.

Well I'm glad I wasn't the only one finding it confusing. Absolutely I think build small houses for people - ordinary people - to live in. But round my village in SE, no way could eg my working kids ever afford these massive places.

Capitalism. Bah.

The scandal that is the Heygate estate at Elephant and Castle proves your point, OP. Of the completed blocks, all units so far have been bought by overseas investors. Southwark Council should hang their heads in shame.

This is happening all the time, flats are built, brought up by investors, rented out to people who will need housing benefit , which is paid for by the councils, benefit bill skyrockets. People are shoved in flats to small for their families. It’s so depressing.

We need good quality council houses that in the long run pay for themselves.

I don’t even know if they’re being rented out - they could just be sitting empty.

The scandal that is the Heygate estate at Elephant and Castle proves your point, OP. Of the completed blocks, all units so far have been bought by overseas investors. Southwark Council should hang their heads in shame.

The shameless social cleansing fuckers.

And E&C becomes another bland Pret-land.

Where did all the residents end up?

Decanted , mainly , @SomethingOnce.

You are right re social cleansing . People are told they will be rehoused but miles away . Liverpool. Birmingham, Stoke etc .. miles away.

Fuck knows. I mean, I have no doubt that the Heygate needed tearing down but I’m not sure I get why that means displacing the people who had made their homes there. And even if they had built affordable or social housing they’d be rabbit hutches in comparison to the original flats.

Do you know if the residents were totally scattered or ‘decanted’ in clusters to the new places? Was everyone sent so far? I mean, no disrespect to the good people of Stoke, but that’s going to be a culture shock for the average south Londoner...

I feel every time I pass through E&C.

And that’s before we even get to the financials.

Anyone know what’s going on with the Aylesbury?

Same here, loads of expensive flats going up that will most likely end up on air bnb. All the old family housing have turned into HMO's filled with students. Locals struggle to buy and end up having to move out of their home town 🤬

Capitalism. We are told our town needs more housing for our growing population. There are proposals to re-designate an area of grade 1 arable farmland that is currently in the greenbelt for housing. However, it is obvious that this will be for top end executive homes with gorgeous rural views, when what is needed are smaller homes/flats for younger and older people.

It's a disgrace.

All housing developments of more than 6 dwellings must provide 40% social/affordable housing stock on greenfield developments and 30% on brownfield developments unless a sting argument can be made for lack of need.

@shadowboy @atalune that isn’t universally true. Some councils will have restrictions which say x% of new builds on the site must be affordable (this usually means shared ownership, which can still be expensive) but it’s not mandatory on all sites and I have many without any social housing amongst my current workload.

OP, people generally can buy these plots and yes, to some extent it frees up property further down the chain. But the country currently builds so few new homes it’s not making the impact it should.

The reason high end properties are sold is the profit margin which is, to some extent driven by land prices and construction prices. However developers will still expect 25% plus margin. Very big luxury houses often struggle to achieve this so it’s not the bigger the better, but it is very area dependant.

Housing benefit like a pp said. Landlords buy, rent to people claiming. Most of them are in work but couldn't afford the rent otherwise so housing benefit tops it up. Altogether across the country this costs more than £10 billion a year in benefits. So really how it works is that we're all subbing expensive housing.