Housing Crisis solutions

[Aslockton]

I watched the Tonight programme last night which seemed to suggest the rise of 2nd home owners and airbnb is causing the lack of housing.

What's the solution? If I were in change...

1. Prevent Landlords increasing rents by more that 2% a year (straight away)
2. Tax all rental profits at 40% (starting next year)
3. Rise stamp duty on non-primary residence purchases to 20% (straight away)
4. Double council tax on 2nd homes and airbnb (straight away)
5. Waive capital gains tax on all second property sales for 2 years. (This will encourage 2nd home owners and landlords to sell up)
6. Make it law that tenants have to be offered the home first (if landlords sell) and the price will be determined by an independent adjudicator (like lease sales are).

Are these ideas unreasonable/ bonkers or both!!
If I had a second home, I would be tempted to sell up.

How about - building some more housing? It's the only thing that will get prices to fall and provide homes. More social housing needs to be built too.

Limit 2nd homes in holiday destinations? New build estates maybe a good percentage (is 50% too much?) should be council houses to increase housing stock!

It won't solve the crisis but one change should be to tax rent at source. I have a former colleague living in a tax haven with three rental properties in London, paying virtually no tax on the income nor on any capital gain. Foreign landlords ought to pay tax at the very least, preferably they should be banned from all but super high end property.

What happens where I am:
-developer promises large percentage of social housing, gets planning permission and meets requirements. Council celebrate the partnership and sell land cheaply
-developer claims issues/ costs require less social housing. Council allow this in order to carry on
-developer stalls, claims further issues. Social housing is eventually reduced to about 5% and segregated by the time anything is built.
-council officials in time become employees of the developers or share holders

Let councils use static caravans to get their housing lists down, it would support jobs in the caravan industry as most of them are built here. Many councils have plots of land they aren't using, in Sheffield there are quite a few schools that have been closed & flattened but the land is going to waste, I live next to one that has planning permission for 65 houses & a rest home, it's been empty for 20 years, they could have it up & running in 3 months, just needs utilities laying on. The government could subsidise the purchase of the statics or allow councils to buy them VAT free. I would happily live in one instead of my flat.

I'm not sure forcing people to sell second homes would make much difference in the long run.

The big companies that own a lot of housing would probably continue to do so, so you'd be looking at people with one or two second properties.

But if you release a lot of houses on the market, what happens?

Well initially prices would probably go down, which would be good for the people who are in the band of not being able to buy... but then can, which will be great for them, but I suspect relatively few people would be in that situation.

What would effect more of the less well off people would be that with the reduction in number of rental places the rental prices would go up, so more people would be not able to afford to rent, I suspect in far greater numbers than the ones who would be able to buy.

But also if prices go down guess what the big rental groups would think.... Whoopee, I can add to my stock.

So the people that would gain would be the big rental companies who could buy more housing and charge more rent.
The people that would lose out are the people with one property to rent, and the majority of renters.

People need to be able to rent. There's many reasons you may need a shortish term rental eg moving area for job and can't sell house quick enough, temporarily relocating, divorce etc. if landlords can't make a profit they will pull out of the market meaning there will be no rentals. Also how you ever booked a self catering holiday? I've been going to Cornwall self catering for all my life.

Personally I think that all holiday rentals should be registered and capped at a certain amount in an area. Second homes that are not being let should have very high taxation. Landlords with up to 5 properties should not be punitively taxed as long as rents are fare

Hammering landlords will just result in them selling up and people becoming homeless

There are houses but they are in areas with no jobs or transport too jobs so they are pretty useless

People can't afford to buy houses right now they just can't

Social housing needs a shake up no pensioner should be allowed to keep a three bed Social housing property when they live alone

Yes immigration is an issue everyone gets put in a diverse area which happens to be big cities causing more issues there

Overseas investments half my town centre is rotting its also owned by overseas and they set the rent so high its never rented it sits and rots they don't want to rent it out however it could have easily been converted into housing

Pricing caps on rent would be a great idea for example my Social housing rent is £450 pcm private is between £550 and £650 (more desirable part of my town) someone has recently converted a shop into flats one bedroom "flats" no parking tiny spaces no outdoor space etc £850 plus a month who is going to pay that? No-one can afford that? There needs to be a cap a proper LHA valuation years ago a man would come around every year and asses your rent rates for benefits purposes this needs to happen again

Yep, I saw a news feature on Sky news today about the rental problems in Ireland. It said there was something like 700 properties available to rent for a population of five million

Are you in the East Midlands to East of England by any chance as that sounds very similar to the city I'm in.
Huge population boom, but mainly from commuters (not just people moving to the UK to work, but also people priced out of London) rather than childbirth.

news.sky.com/story/amp/young-people-in-ireland-face-terrifying-rent-crisis-due-to-chronic-housing-shortage-12687688

Why do you think this would help? Why penalise people offering much neeeded housing? Do you think that suddenly all these renters will be in a position to buy or even want to?
How are you going to house: students? Young people just starting out? People who do not want the responsibility of home ownership? People here on secondment? People who can't or don't want or would not be able to get a mortgage?
When my husband died I invested in a small house and flat for a steady income as my kids were very small. The people I rent to are either students who stay for two/three years, or just want to rent a place they could not afford to buy.
Second homes that remain empty for 90% of the time should perhaps have sone added taxation. So should a limit on foreigners bulk purchasing flats to park their money that they leave empty.

The idea that London newbuilds are left empty by investor-buyers was investigated by academics, at the instigation of the Mayor of London, and found to be false.

The illusion that this might be the case is caused by the fact that it can be up to two years after completion before a building is fully occupied.

It's always been obvious to me that this idea was false, as it makes no economic sense. If you own a property that no-one lives in, you are throwing away income you could have had with every month that goes by. Why would someone motivated by money do that, year after year? If it was the case that wear-and-tear outweighed rent, no-one would ever be a landlord.

I would abolish all tax relief on mortgage interest for individual landlords. (Corporations could still get tax relief.)

I would make rental income on secure tenancies tax-free for corporations, hopefully encouraging large investors including insurance companies to get into the residential landlord market.

I would change the benefits system to make payments to each adult individual, rather than each household, so that who you lived with would never make a difference to what you were entitled to. This would make it more attractive for people to share housing.

My tennants could never afford to buy the house. If they could they wouldn't be renting it. If it wasn't for the thought of making them homeless I'd get rid of it tomorrow. Not sure exactly where they move too as it a three bed semi with drive and garage I'm renting for under 1000 within 50 minutes direct line to London.

I don't think they have a countless abundance of better offers.

If I wasn't living in rented for dh work I'd had never bought it but I'm not regretting getting on the property ladder so far. If I hadn't bought it, I most definitely would be in the situation of never offording to buy today.

If there was more council housing but there isn't. Plus the days of btl being attractive and well and truly long gone.

I'm a LL
I largely agree.

Perhaps I would have a wealth tax on residential property, with the proviso that any tax on rental income from a property should reduce the wealth-tax pound-for-pound, so the property is not being taxed twice.

Genuinely think the LA's need some post war prefabs/tiny homes on some land, or as someone said some modern static caravans. Each should be well insulated and cost effective to heat.

At least as temporary accommodation whilst families await more substantial housing on the waiting lists. Or simply for small families , 2/3 bedroom prefabs/lodges.

Each site should come with a play park, dog walking area, laundry facilities, and housing/advice office 9-5.

If you were to place 3/4 of these sites in some LA's with 25-30 prefab homes/lodges on them, you'd drastically improve the housing list/housing crisis.

I was homeless with a 5 year old, if someone had offered me a little 2 bedroom lodge/prefab I'd have no issue taking it whatsoever.

The biggest issue is obviously lack of new building though. The Nimbyiam really needs to stop.

Agree the biggest problem by far is population

but I'd like to see the empty offices and high street shops converted rather than build on green space.

Bring back mortgage interest relief for people buying their home, I know it wouldn't be much but every little helps.

It's very simple.

Build more houses. Anything else is a waste of fucking time.

When I say more, I don't mean the 5 or 10 that got built under the last government push. I mean 2 or 3 million. Like wot we did in the 1920s.

However decent affordable housing doesn't make pots of cash for Tory donors - both in and out of the UK. So it will never happen.

Tenants pay the council tax so doubling that doesn't help at all!

I have a tenancy with (what was Council) and now a HA. I have a life long tenancy that can be transferred within that HA. I exchanged my house to a flat. I exchanged from a 3 bed house with front and back garden to a 2 bed first floor flat. The lady I exchanged with had a young boy, girl and another baby expected. I’ve had right to buy since early 90’s…I don’t believe in right to buy.

@sst1234

You hit the nail on the head. The abundance of cheap credit has also somewhat inflated prices but fundamentally it’s a problem of supply.

As a housing researcher and this thread is excruciating for me to read. (I clicked on this link against my better judgement.)

Unfortunately, most politicians bow to so much of this illogical nonsense despite knowing better and thus the cycle continues in perpetuity…