Housing - the silent crisis?

[CrisisTime]

The shocking state of housing in this country for anyone who didn't get on the gravy train in earlier decades, that is.

The homelessness. The sheer costs of housing. The tiny rooms and tiny houses. Storage rooms converted to miniscule 'bedrooms'. The dirt and dilapidation of so many rentals. Increasingly greedy landlords and letting agents. A cool house-share like The Young Ones would never exist now. The gentle landlord I once had (a vicar's wife) and her relaxed tenants - is no more. Just the sheer lack of decent affordable housing for so many.

300,000 more people coming to UK every year as well, which makes bad matters even worse, if they could be worse that is.

Is any politician from any party ever going to do anything on this issue? All I ever heard is daft initiatives that are a drop in the ocean.

It's risky buying too - prices may fall ( we sold our last house at a loss). Houses are quite hard to sell in some areas of the UK at present and prices are dropping. Not everyone wants to buy. Some want the flexibility of renting. Also it's a very regional issue. The houses my parents grew up in cost about £60k (NE England and not a nice bit) and you can get even cheaper ones.

Most mortgages prohibit landlords from letting to housing benefit claimants.

I think letting people borrow more and removing the very rigid lists lenders and the Government has for mortgages would help, many more 95% mortgages and letting the lender assess the person as an individual - are they in a job where pay will rise, have they a good history of savings or do they spend every penny, what support do they have from family if things go wrong rather than tick tick cross boxes on forms to decide who can borrow.

Multiples to borrow on a mortgage are often more than 3x salary these days as interest rates are so very low by the way.

Actually planning rules should allow for the development of various types of housing. I'd like to build an 8 unit home with 1 bed to 4 bed units. Council says no. I can build one big house though for one family though that would be unaffordable to the 99% of local families in the area.

Oh and go take a look at shelter. It's a great charity but their stats are off sometimes. I know in my area the vast majority of people renting get HB. I know because I'm a LL.

I think there are a lot of people who move in and pay themselves. After 2-3 months they all of a sudden qualify for HB.

For the poster whose LL increased their rent by 40%. That is the problem. It should be illegal to do that. I never increase rent by more than 5% and that's if I've had expenses come up or are coming up which are higher than I thought. Average increase is 1-2%.

My town has been praised for building so many new buildings.

Residents disagree. Roads are gridlocked.

Janet
The multiples are only a maximum of 5 at the moment, 3 is standard (hence quoting it). But deposits are still huge, theres the quoted 10% but actually when we spoke to the bank recently they wanted 20% and this was before we had got to the nitty gritty of credit history.The multiples rule used to be in place and house prices were sensible to reflect that, they then started doing self cert mortgages for everyone and house prices went crazy. Now going back to multiples but without the price adjustment just doesnt work.

huge developments are not the answer. People just need to be able to buy the houses they are renting!
Prince charles had it spot on, small developments in each town (i would argue they should all be council homes), keep families near each other for support in old age and with children.

thesun id imagine your local community has taken a massive battering as a result too. It also pushes existing house prices up, as the houses aren't sold cheap. They are sold for what a 3 bed house goes for in that area. So locals who could buy before get pushed out by people from neighbouring more existing towns. they are also up against land lords buying them to rent out. In the same way tesco encourages you to buy 3 tins of beans instead of the 2 you went in to, a developer would sooner sell 3 flats to one landlord.

keep families near each other for support in old age
Is that feasible in the modern world where people leave the family of origin in search of wider job or life opportunities?

Why should landlords expect to increase rents at all, wages aren't going up, landlords want to award themselves a pay rise when no one else is getting one
Yes they can argue that the coSt of living is rising, the cost of living is rising largely because housing costs are increasing
Its a racket

Its surprisingly easy tbh

No, it was surprisingly easy ''for you''

All these comments about it being ''surprisingly easy'' show an extreme lack of insight into the fact that everyone is not living the same life as you.

Not everyone has the same circumstances
Not everyone has had the same opportunities

Would you still have the same opportunities if you had never been given the chance to go to Uni, if you hadn't met your partner? Not all 24 year olds have the chance to go to Uni and are settled down with a partner, which obvs makes it oh so much easier..

I agree houses in certain parts of SE insane and I am not talking about exclusive parts of London or the Home Counties just many commutable towns which were once for normal workers now utterly out of reach for most

I think the inability to save a deposit either because of college fees the need to rent prior to buying and rents being v high combined with the need to often be in permanent employment at a time of shift towards temporary or rolling contracts doesn't help

Yes there will always be those who buck the trend and have a mortgage at 21 or something - but yes there are many many trapped and unable to move on either in terms of buying or improving their rental homes

GardenGeek really interesting perspective - can I ask where about you are in the midlands that the commute to London is an hour ish?

garden if you and your boyfriend split, your screwed.
Thats what happened to me, owned at 18. ex was abusive and now I'm stuck

It shouldn't be that hard to pick yourself up again. It shouldn't be that unless you get it right first time, right job, right partner, right area that your able to have a secure affordable home.

For us a relocate wouldn't be easy, DH is self employed with 10 staff we would have to make them redundant to buy. Let alone aging parents, kids at school etc etc
There is also a knock on affect to people having to move to buy, as then it pushes locals further out as well. Its not the answer to the housing crisis, although it was the answer for you.

What needs to happen is to move away from the obsetion of london and make it attractive for alot of jobs/companies to move north to Manchester / leeds /Birmingham spread the jobs arounds

To do this the government needs investment such as the high speed rail way etc because the houses are cheap in the north for a reason there is far less jobs so less want to live there so making it appealing for companies to move north would be best for the country

I would be concerned about negative equity following a house price drop if I was buying now...not to mention the increase in repayments when interest rates go up

There is a need for better infrastructure e.g. Roads and railways and high speed broadband but it shouldn't just be funnelling people into London ever faster or the problem if London spreads through the whole country.

I live in an area which is commutable to London in 1.5 hours. A lot of people live here and commute so house prices reflect the fact that the area is 'cheap for London' not 'what do people working here earn'. People who do work in my city have commutes themselves of 1.5 hours from cheaper places so it just spreads.

It is a scam that rent is more than mortgage.

That fact makes it inevitable that people will try BTL and get someone else to pay the mortgage.

How about a law that you are only allowed to rent out properties with no mortgages on them ? It would almost make the Land Registry worth it ...

Why should landlords expect to increase rents at all, wages aren't going up, landlords want to award themselves a pay rise when no one else is getting one

Changes to btl tax rules have increased the tax bill for a lot of landlords, with the blindingly obvious except to legislators consequence of leading them to increase rents to cover the difference. Not everywhere, but you do see it.

GardenGeek

Great find😄 We fit a long time looked at Herts and parts of Kent for commuting to London and were gob snacked at the prices for in all honesty very normal houses -clearly we were looking in the wrong places!!

Anyway I also agree being in a couple helps - regardless of if buying or renting it's so expensive as a single person and carries far more risk also in a couple of one has a lower wage or less secure role the other can help as a single person it's so hard

As someone else up thread said - I do wonder what will happen to those left in this situation at 40pkus who aren't fortunate to inherit a house from parents

Yes this above confirms my views.

1. It is a SE issue. Young people can and do buy particularly when they are graduates and buying as a couple outside that area.
2. The amount of deposit is the worst thing in the SE. You can buy a house for £325k - my son did last year at end of a tube line and commute from there to London so most dual full time earning graduate couples can support that level of mortgage BUT to save up a 20% deposit is £65k which is £32,500 for each in the couple to save.

As soon as you either are in a cheaper house price area than the SE or else you only need 5% deposit then on that £325k then that 5% is £16,250 div 2 = £8125. It is not impossible for our two Londoners to share a bed room in a shared house for £800 a month or live with parents for 2 years plus and save their £8125 and buy the little house at end of tube line. However it is very very hard for them to save up for a 20% rather than a 5% deposit.

I disagree that "most dual full time earning graduate couples" can support that level of mortgage on a house for £325k. Graduate salaries where I work (in London) are 21k with no chance of them going a great deal higher than that.