to think people are being deliberately perverse about Council/HA..

[fideline]

....housing?

1. Social (council or HA) rents are not subsidized.

2)Social (council or HA) tenancies are not a form of welfare benefit.

It's not that hard to grasp is it?

Beat me to it Truffle.

Truffle please just look up subsidy in a dictionary.

It's not payment 'in kind'.

Also notice this 'As a form of economic intervention, subsidies are inherently contrary to the market's demands. Thus, they are commonly used by governments to promote general welfare (eg. housing, tuition, sustenance)'

It is just the absence of an unjustified price increase.

sub-si-dy

(Economics) a financial aid supplied by a government, as to industry, for reasons of public welfare, the balance of payments, etc

www.thefreedictionary.com/subsidy

Not in UK council housing

UK social medicine yes
UK state education yes
UK welfare payments, many of them yes, often subsidising NMW employers

NOT UK Social housing. It is largely self financing

NO financial aid is supplied by gov't to supress council rents Nursey (see shelter email upthread) Why can you not accept it?

HOUSING BENEFIT is the subsidy that the UK govt provides to promote welfare re housing.

fideline, I don't disagree that the UK housing market is distorted. What I think is an act of willful ignorance, however, is for people to not accept that a below-market rate is a subsidy.

In a perfect market, do you think that below-market rates are a subsidy?

I have a bit of a problem with the term 'perfect market' TBH

I don't believe the ability to house oneself and one's children should ever be at the mercy of a free market. Housing should be available at cost wherever possible.

As should a good basic education to at least 18 and high quality healthcare. We do better than 'cost' with health and schools.

Realistically speaking; I believe govt should attempt to stop all housing costs spiralling out of general reach.

Just been looking for a graphic I saw a while back about what would happen if social housing was abolished. Can't find the darn thing.

Housing is anything but a 'free market', anyway. The roots of the current housing crisis (and it is a crisis) go back to the introduction of ASTs by the dying Thatcher govt. This was purposely done in order to 'encourage investment' in the housing market ie to encourage speculative buying and selling with the object of making house prices increase. It was only partially successful at the time, but the fact that ASTs continued after the house price slump did indeed encourage the kind of speculation that was originally intended, and that has continued to this day. House prices have continued to be kept artificially high by the record low interest rate set by the Bank of England throughout these recent recession years, and are now being shored up further by the Help to Buy scheme. If you want a free and unfettered housing market, then you're in the wrong country.

That's very revealing. It sounds like you'd like to socialize housing across the board.

HOUSING BENEFIT is the subsidy that the UK govt provides to promote welfare re housing.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you arguing that the government subsidizes private LL's through housing benefit? If so, you may have actually used the word "subsidy" correctly here. If in fact it is true that a certain subset of private LL rents would fall in the absence of housing benefit, that would constitute a taxpayer subsidy of LL's.

If you accept this proposition, however, you'd have to also accept that HA properties are subsidized. See the corollary:

If HA rents would rise in the absence of government-set rates, this would constitute a taxpayer subsidy of HA tenants.

I Own a property that I rent out and I charge slightly less rent than identical properties on the same street - does that therefore mean my tenants are being subsidized ?

Of course it bloody doesn't ..................................

Of course it's a subsidy. Are you actually renting your house out at below market value?

Can argue what subsidy should mean all day, but what matters is what it does mean in everyday usage.

When someone posts on some benefit thread "They are subsidised" they mean "if the council houses all burned down I'd have to pay less tax. Every week I have to pay to subsidise them".

Truffle It probably sounds more Socialist and radical than it is.

As Rommel says;

" The roots of the current housing crisis (and it is a crisis) go back to the introduction of ASTs by the dying Thatcher govt"

Until that point all tenants (barring obscure exceptions) had good security of tenure. It was the norm. There was a broad consensus that housing security was necessary, that you could not expect people to live at the whim of the landlord. As a result, LLing was not an attractive short-term or amateur investment. Rents and house prices remained within the realms of sanity. This was less than 30 years ago.

It was the changes Rommell mentions that took the natural brakes off the housing economy, by deliberately arranging it as a more attractive LL investment, for the benefit of investors not for the benefit of people needing homes.

Talking subsidies....

My (council) house was built in the 1940s, and probably paid for within a few years. Maintenance costs the council next to nothing as they don't do any. When our kitchens and heating was done up a few years back, it was European money paid for it. So far as I can see, the rent I pay is almost 100% profit for my council - so the council tenants here who pay their rent and don't get HB or much HB are actually subsidising the home owners, as I presume that pure profit the council make from me every week goes for your facilities, paid for by your council, using money from renting out houses that cost then £300 to build in 1947.

Re. HB, I meant that the financial subsidy govt provides in UK to prevent housing hardship is HB (which benefits all stripes of tenant and LLs) They 'intervene' vis HB not through any mechanism involving social rents.

"if the council houses all burned down I'd have to pay less tax"

But that is the thing that isn't true Back. If anything, they would pay more tax

Perfect example Absolute

I find it utterly depressing that someone who thinks that the basic necessity of shelter not be a vehicle for economically speculative behaviour, with such behaviour explicitly made possible by govt policy, can be considered dangerously socialist.

I don't believe the council is using the almost 100% profit they make each week from me, to build more council houses. And the vast majority of people round here are "homeowners" (well, more likely people with mortgages so their banks own their homes). So from this I infer that I am hugely subsidising "homeowners" round here. Presumably, if say a magical steamroller flattened all the privately "owned" houses round here, leaving only the council and HA housing, then I'd have less of you to subsidise.

Logical?