To be sick of hearing about 'the housing crisis'?

[GoldfinchFeather]

This is related to the thread about Angela Rayner wanting to build 1.5 million new homes. Is anyone else sick to the back teeth of hearing about the supposed housing crisis in this country?

I live in a semi-rural area, and the amount of house building around here over the last few years has been crazy. Hundreds of houses appearing on pretty much any vacant piece of land, turning what was once a small village into something that feels closer to a town in size. Roads getting busier and busier, and and all the while nothing has been done to provide any new facilities like doctors or schools.

I understand people's frustration of not being able to buy a home. But surely just concreting over more and more of the countryside is completely unsustainable?

If the housing crisis is really so bad, why isn't the Government taking more of an innovative approach? How many town centres/high streets have empty shops that could be converted to residential use? Or properties that have stood empty for years and haven't been brought back to market? Surely just through that, there would be an enormous surplus of homes available, and less need to concrete over more and more of the countryside?

@twinmum2007 that's not the case. Our birth rate is falling. It's now at its lowest since 1977. The lowest before that was 1940.

The population growth is due to extended life expectancies plus immigration. The extended life expectancies are actually masking how significant impact of the falling birthrate is, which will create further huge problems with a growing proportion of elderly people compared to working-age population.

Currently much of this gap is being plugged with immigration but that isn't a long-term solution because birth rates are dropping off a cliff in every country outside sub-Saharan Africa, so options for immigrants will be very limited in future decades. This is why many developed countries are implementing family-friendly policies to encourage people to have more children (free childcare, tax breaks, additional tax allowances if you have children, etc). The UK is doing nothing about this (just as it does with every long-term and entirely foreseeable issue like NHS, pension and social care funding models, water security, food security, environmental change protection measures e.g. flood defences) so it will not be a pretty picture in a few decades' time.

In terms of current housing the pressures are due to necessary immigration due to bad planning, poor education and resulting skills shortages; plus people living longer, plus many more people living alone than in previous generations; plus terrible policies penalising landlords with a tax regime so punitive that many have left the market so there are fewer properties available to rent; plus less strict laws on foreign property ownership than most comparable countries; plus very high taxes on property purchases compared to other countries therefore bad distribution of housing type to household size; plus terrible quality of new build houses due to poor regulation so few people wish to buy them.

What's wrong with that? Benefits do not help with mortgages and council waiting lists are like ten years in most areas so where do you expect someone broke with kids to live? I mean fair enough if you think fuck the adult but what about the kids?

We are nowhere close to "replacement rate" with birth rates so it absolutely is not a case of people having more than one baby per adult. We have the opposite problem. As does almost every country on Earth, outside sub-Saharan Africa.

Interestingly there is no record of any country or civilisation in history having managed to reverse population decline once it sets in because the effect is exponential. That is why competent Governments are extremely worried about this and doing everything they can to reverse it before it is too late and there is population collapse.

because they should have been building social housing. Not starting this shit show. Where millions of pounds go into landlords pockets. Private landlords shouldn’t need to pickup the shortfall.
believe me I am thinking of the kids. Private rentals aren’t secure or stable. It’s shit renting with kids

I’m happy to be corrected, I just remember his speeches on it selling it as giving freedom to people in receipt of benefits. Which it obviously did, it just meant being a landlord became more attractive (especially with interest only mortgages) which fueled the buy to let market. It also helped keep their waiting lists down.

Whilst working in a school the number of families who were relocated out of the area and away from family, friends, school and job was distressing. First caused by the bedroom tax, and by private landlords upping the rent by disgusting amounts or evicting tenants. I knew families who were living in their cars or in one case riding night buses as temporary accommodation meant they would be split up.

There needs to be more thought about the wider impact. Both car parks in our rural village have been built on, meaning there is now no parking, and at least 3 businesses have closed from people not being able to park in our village. Or they park stupidly and people are hurt, several children have been hit by cars - due to the way our village is structured there are few other safe places for parking, so people are parking on corners etc.

The school was already oversubscribed but with 100+ extra houses/flats it's causes significant challenges for local residents, especially those living in the social housing at the edge of the village. They are now outside of catchment due to more children in centre of village, but many don't drive and struggle to get their children to other primaries, public transport isn't great due to rural location and parents are having to pay for taxis to get to less good schools than their village one, worsening the poverty trap. The school can't expand as the only space near them has been built on and children are being pushed out of their local commuinity (which is very focused around the school) as a result. It's very sad.

I live in a small town in the midlands, my house is worth £120k-ish. Until recently I was a councillor, from doing ward walks of properties as well as seeing the list of buildings where they've been abandoned and we don't know who the owner is, there are probably 40-50 terraced houses in the estate around me that are not in use. It seems crazy that we have these empty affordable buildings that aren't being brought back into use before we build elsewhere

Well they haven't every time they build a new estate they only have to do about 5% or some such low number as social housing. Waiting list is ten years in my area and that was while living in a house share with kids so the highest priority.

So me and many people I know find private landlords what else do you expect people to do? Live in a house share for ten years? No thanks I managed a year of that bs I like my personal space.

Not all landlords are evil btw are you chairman Mao? there's plenty of nice ones out there sometimes it's even the tenant that's the problem shitting the place up and not paying rent for months

@SpikyPompoms Housing developers do sell houses easily enough because they build where there’s demand. They are priced to sell. What business model would work with empty new builds everywhere?

I love the glib assertion that we must build on brownfield sites. If only.., They need cleaning up! Who is paying? The Housing Association? The new home owner? Then how to get PP. Often these sites are in designated work areas. Not residential areas. The planning departments don’t change the designation. My local high street had an empty shop at one extremity. Several private homes between it and the next shop. Did it get pp to become a house? Eventually after years of wrangling. It’s made far too difficult to change the nature of a zone. Various unused offices in my large town have exactly the same issue. They sit there semi derelict! In the town centre. Why? In a work zone. They need to be compulsorily purchased and homes built instead. We are inept at doing this.

That is why competent Governments are extremely worried about this and doing everything they can to reverse it before it is too late and there is population collapse.

Will the governments succeed? As far as I know Japan and Korea haven’t reversed their population decline - not sure about anywhere else.

Highly unlikely based on historical data. They may mitigate the severity and speed, though.

I expected previous governments to address the situation and build more social houses, stop right to buy. private renting should be a choice, it shouldn’t be an only option. more so when you’ve children and need stability to make sure they can go to the same school as their siblings.

I’ve not said anything against landlords or tenants. I never would, like all walks of life there’s shit on both sides.

when generation rent ‘retire’ there’s going to be a huge tax burden. It’s why McCarthy stone are ramping up their build to rent model. The government (and previous) need to be doing the same.

not sure why you seem so angry with me, If you look at my posts on this thread you’ll see I’ve been renting as a family for over an decade and have paid out over £300,000 in rent. We’ve had to move with 6 weeks notice. My kids have never decorated their room, having pets is a pipe dream. We have never moved out of a starter home because it’s all we can afford as rents have gone up so much. We’ve never had a garden we can really enjoy as we will never see it flourish, and I’ve had near breakdowns over never having a real home.

Not angry with you sorry if it came across that way I'm also a renter who can't own pets and has no garden etc so I get you.
I've seen some "built for renter's" homes advertised on Rightmove recently they seem extremely overpriced for what they are compared to other places. Not sure what the deal is with them?

I’ve seen flats built like that near Wembley. They seem great for people new to the area, singles who have moved for work.
not so great for families, but I can see how they fill a purpose.
like I say, renting should be a choice. It shouldn’t be our only option

@BourbonsAreOverated we have a nice development in Bath like this built by legal and general - the plus side is you are very unlikely to be booted out- the downside is very expensive for what they are when you can get a nice 2 or 3 bed more homely type house or flat here for less than one of these 2 bedder flats. I'm guessing it's mainly young couples wanting funky and very modern or single high earners who aren't yet buying

The price of homes is affected by the price of land. Bath is not cheap. Building costs are not rock bottom. You cannot get something for nothing. Maybe go back to prefabs?

@TizerorFizz indeed - but they do look quite poor value against many other choices. As I say though they do have the advantage of relative security, nice fittings and 10 minutes walk to town , good bus route etc - but at around £1800 a month for 2 beds -

New is always expensive! No wear and tear. Offset rent against travel that would be necessary living out in the sticks and maybe not so bad. Close to restaurants, theatre, etc. so possibly very attractive to some.

@TizerorFizz yep there is - I think what I was saying though it's not going to be a solution to the issue if they are priced even higher than the general market for young families or singles etc - although it does help a bit with overall supply

Well yes, if people are willing to downsize into them or earn enough for the rent!

There is a housing shortage. But it could be helped with people being prevented from buying 2nd, 3rd homes etc.
It's mad that because you have money you can buy what you like and leave others without.

We have second home owners here. To be honest most of them are in areas where there are no buses, trains, schools nearby. No jobs nearby. Yes they're beautifully isolated if you're on holiday. Our council has properties in these areas even the homeless don't want

Broken families & mass immigration need to be addressed ASAP.

We'll still need to build more for those already here, but rate of increase of demand is totally unsustainable

Same is happening round here and none of the houses going up are going to help the situations many of mentioned on here. They are being built to make the most money possible for the developers - large houses with en suites etc close to desirable villages.
There are lots of empty areas around that would give people better public transfer access to the town and they could also build upwards.