Why do people look down on council houses

[Easystuff]

Just that really why do others look down on council/social houses. I don't understand. There's no special treatment. It's not unusual, it's been about for many years. It's now pretty hard to get social housing. There are thousands of family waiting lists, being made homeless. Through no fault of their own. It's pretty awful out there.

If you have it for life why not update the kitchen and other bits yourself?

I can’t understand living in somewhere substandard in a point of principle.

@Fleur02 because I don’t intend on staying in it for life and grudge paying £1000s for a kitchen for the next tenants to get the all the benefit when at the end of the day the onus is on the HA to keep their properties up to date and In useable condition not rotten cupboards. The HA I’m with own all their houses so rent is to cover repairs and even updates to houses!

It isn't taxpayer subsidised though. It's the opposite: council rents are subsidising you.

Council tenants actually subsidise the rest of us by paying rents that go directly towards public spending through the council and to the treasury.

This is nonsense. The opportunity cost foregone by providing far below market rent means public assets and land paid for by all through taxation are being used to fund the housing at reduced cost. This is a net subsidy from the taxpayer. Rents submitted to central Goverment are reallocated to local Government through the block grants: very inefficient and stupid but to pretend that rent from Council houses is a net benefit to the taxpayer is for the birds.

The rent paid often barely covers house maintenance over the life of a property in many cases and certainly doesn't come close to covering the opportunity cost on the taxpayer-funded asset. That is the whole point of it! Otherwise the rent would be the same as for a private rental. So there's point pretending otherwise, it's just silly, because it would negate the purpose of social housing in the first place which is to provide a subsidised (cheaper than market rate) place for people to live when they cannot afford to house themselves at market rate. That's the whole idea of it.

Rent should be cheaper than a mortgage. It should be substantially cheaper. Paying a mortgage is like putting your money into savings with a very high interest rate. Renting is putting your money into someone else's savings account with a high interest rate. Owners can pay off their mortgages and live in their property for free for the rest of their lives. Then they can sell their properties and get all their money back and typically a huge profit on top of it. They will essentially have lived in their house for free. Long term renters will pay each month until they die and will not see a penny of it back. Why would anyone think rent should be the same as a mortgage?

This is also a huge misconception of the economics.

Firstly, an owner is responsible for all renovations and repairs, buildings insurance, etc and therefore those costs are included in rent therefore rent should be higher than a mortgage if the market functions properly.

Secondly, interest is charged on top of the capital borrowing of a mortgage, not accruing to the homeowner! With interest - especially now with longer mortgage terms - many people will pay back twice or even more than the capital value borrowed to purchase a property. There will be fully owned asset at the end, yes, of uncertain value at that point in time: especially now, the past is no predictor of the future. But this is manifestly not "living in a house for free". Especially when people with mortgages face the fact that were they to lose their jobs, no matter how much tax they have paid they will not have their housing costs paid like people in rented accommodation do.

Three quarters of social tenants receive housing benefits.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/social-housing-lettings-in-england-april-2021-to-march-2022/social-housing-lettings-in-england-tenants-april-2021-to-march-2022#income-and-rent-burden

Wow. That's even higher than I expected. So even though the rents are artificially low, the vast majority of tenants aren't even paying that, so it's even more heavily subsidised than it seems from the headline (already reduced) rates.

There's certainly a need for it but it's not hard to see why those who have to pay their own way at market rates either as owners or private renters may find this unfair given the lack of support they receive if they fall on hard times (particularly those with mortgages. No MIRAS for this generation).

And it seems one of the things that grates most is that those who really were in need when allocated their houses stay in them on vastly subsidised rents long beyond when this is necessary instead of vacating to free up these public assets for others who are now more in need than they are. The tenures really need to be changed to be reviewed every 2-3 years and if there are now people more in need than you, you vacate. Public assets should not be used to permanently benefit specific individuals in a timing lottery in the way that they are, when at a later date others' needs may be greater.

Then why not move now? You seem to be living in something of a hovel by choice and refusing to make it nice.

Social housing isn’t a public asset. The properties are owned by private companies. Why the fuck should people keep moving on? The fact is, more social housing needs to be built but I’m sure you’d moan if it was near you.

I absolutely would.

The first place I bought was on an estate of half private and half social housing.

After a year living there the private half had nice flowers, evening meet-ups to discuss improving the estate and a lovely atmosphere while the social half had abandoned cars, burned mattresses, broken windows, gangs of youths abusing anyone who walked by and deafening music played at all hours.

The residents had taken lovely, new, pristine homes and turned them into a shit-hole.

Fleur02 as you don't live there now, which estate was it? We can then have a Google and see what it looks like now.

@Fleur02 where did I say it was a hovel? I pointed out areas where the HA should be doing their duty as landlords. The kitchen and rough casting need doing hardly makes the rest of the house a hovel 😂. I also cannot afford to buy unfortunately even less so at the minute the rates going up and more deposits being needed

Between Spindrift Avenue and Millwall Outer dock.

This was twenty years ago, I believe that the worst families have since been inflicted on the next unfortunate set of normal people, and many of the houses sold off.

And it seems one of the things that grates most is that those who really were in need when allocated their houses stay in them on vastly subsidised rents long beyond when this is necessary instead of vacating to free up these public assets for others who are now more in need than they are

Well, from the info provided, three quarters of tenants are still in need of their vastly subsidised rents.

Social housing tenants can't win. They are either scroungers with burned mattresses in the front garden, or they have dared to better their circumstances, have oodles of spare income and are occupying houses that they don't need.

I agrée, and yet they still write as though they are hard done-by.

Very few people who’ve grown up around social tenants in recent decades will have any time for this idea that they are salt-of-the-earth good people.

Free?? Our old housing association house was £1050 a month and only a tiny 3 bed terrace, 1 toilet no driveway.
We worked bloody hard to afford the rent!!

Flam put it in quotes, and doesn't think its free.

In my area you can apply if your income is below £65k a year.

And it seems one of the things that grates most is that those who really were in need when allocated their houses stay in them on vastly subsidised rents long beyond when this is necessary instead of vacating to free up these public assets for others who are now more in need than they are

Should their lot improve slightly and they can't get a private rent or a mortgage then where should they vacate too?

And you never received so much as a penny in benefits or tax credits to help you out?

Even if they did, how could that possibly be relevant? They would then, therefore, have received even more benefits had they been renting privately, but the money would have gone to a landlord so the landlord could have a big retirement pot, or extra holidays, or his or her mortgage paid off without having to work for it.

Hate speech against the poor.

The idea is that everyone has a right to affordable, secure housing, not that because some people voted for governments to sell off said housing and do not want rent caps, we should vilify those who do have affordable housing and stop them from staying in it. Why the need to make others suffer instead of making a better society?

The claim is that they worked “damned hard” for the home, but the truth is that other people were working “damned hard” to subsidize them.

The fact is that the vast majority of social housing tenants are being subsidized by other families who themselves are paying more for their housing.

It’s right that we do this, but not right that those receiving the handouts pretend that it’s not happening.

Don't you dare twist my words to support your bigotry.

It's not owned by private companies. And my specific comments were regarding Council housing, that still exists in many areas. Even social housing owned by HAs is publicly funded just via a more convoluted route: people buying houses privately have to pay more per house to developers/ via stamp duty than they otherwise would to make it viable for these properties to be built and then let out at lower rates. Nothing is free/ below market rate without the cost being absorbed elsewhere by others. Again: that's the whole idea of social housing - to provide cheaper accommodation to people who cannot afford market rates - so to deny that it is subsidised it just silly. If it wasn't subsidised in some way then it would cost the same as a private rental.

The idea is that everyone has a right to affordable, secure housing, not that because some people voted for governments to sell off said housing and do not want rent caps, we should vilify those who do have affordable housing and stop them from staying in it. Why the need to make others suffer instead of making a better society?

Huh? Did you click reply to the wrong post? This has no relevancevto my comment that you responded to.