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?

This is part of the problem - families who previously lived in one house, now live in 2. Divorce is nuch higher than it used to be, and that's not a bad thing, as a chunk of that will be women escaping controlling or abusive relationships. But the reality is that is does place more pressure on the housing system, when 2 parents each rent/buy a seperate house, demand has gone up so prices go up.
There was a thread on here last week where the OP stated that the government should subsidise 2 full houses for families who seperate, to enable more equal custody - most disagreed but this post did highlight the impact on housing of couples seperating.

@SunnySideUK77
There are lots of empty areas around that would give people better public transfer access to the town and they could also build upwards.

Building upwards would save building over more greenfield sites, but I don’t think tower blocks are popular with everyone in UK.
For example, there are a couple of flats of 800 sq ft for sale in London in the World’s End Estate in Chelsea, one for £575,000 and one for £695,000.
Then, 100 yards or so across the Kings Road there is a flat of 760 sq ft in a Victorian terrace in Lamont Road for £1,200,000.
Having said that, there are big high rise developments being built elsewhere in London so someone must want them, unless they are all being sold to overseas buyers as investments.

@Bushmillsbabe absolutely & I don't feel like it's talked about enough.

I really think that family values should be taught in schools. We teach the "what" of contraception, but why don't we teach the "why"- that you need to seriously think about whom you want to have kids with, when you're financially, emotionally etc ready for kids, factors to consider when buying a house.

We teach the "red flags" for abusive relationships (rightly so!). But this is bare minimum. Why don't we teach the basics of how to sustain a happy relationship (give & take, each having personal lives etc).

Of course, there will sadly always be a need for separation & divorce. This isn't me blaming anyone for being separated!! But I think combining education with family support could keep more families together & functioning better. This would have positive impacts such as improved mental health outcomes, reduced pressure on housing, crime etc.

Could you possibly let me know the name of your town?

most of them are in areas where there are no buses, trains, schools nearby.

This sounds idyllic, where is it?

North Wales.

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?

A quick Google would have gone at least some way towards educating yourself about various initiatives and the raft of new Permitted Development Rights introduced over the last 5 years trying to do exactly what I think you're getting at (spoiler alert: it's not very successful and doesn't solve the housing crisis)

I agree about building upwards. However with a quality reliable public transport system nationally it would transform the housing market allowing people to live more spread out and would boost our economy. Also employers incentivized to allow work from home or work from a local hub wherever possible, to discourage avoidable commuting.

http://www.peterbarberarchitects.com/edgewood-mews2

this is an example of really well thought out homes. They’ve really thought about what is attractive to people and how to build communities. They’ve also squeezed more in, with less loss of space than a traditional development

I live in a town, and I can assure you that they are building more "houses" here than on green fields.

We've gone from one 70s tower block to looking like Canary Wharf. They've built on every last scrap of under-used land. They are completely repurposing the town centre to be more residential. They are knocking down council offices, B&Q, etc etc to build more tower blocks.

The idea that the countryside is most affected is wrong. They are massively increasing density in cities and towns. Have you seen Manchester lately?

@anon666 yep- I drive through Wiltshire and Somerset via the A303 quite regularly and still looks like vast amounts of countryside to me -

Yep there's the odd bit of development along the way and quite a few new developments on edge of Frome , but the development isn't just randomly everywhere in countryside. I've spied the odd bit of building of say 6 houses out in proper countryside but that's about it - most is focussed on edge of towns and cities, here in Bath it's all around a particular basin that was pretty derelict anyway and is quite central . My own personal bugbear is far too much student mini hotel type stuff- for god sake put them in the vast amounts of shared houses we have - and leave proper new development for social housing or over 55 rentals etc ( which we have very little of )

We're getting ribbon development. From our village into the town off the main road about two miles are fields. They're building estates on them. It's stopped for now because of the economy.

Another village on a main road they're building social housing. I looked at planning last night. The next phase 109 properties 30% social housing.

Affordable housing is still too expensive for most so they'll be part rent their blurb says.

It's very similar in my area. I live in a suburb of a small city. Phase 1 of a three phase apartment complex has just gone up 10 minutes away, and at least six tower blocks are in the process of being built as part of an enormous development a short walk from there. Just around the corner phases 3 and 4 of another tower block development are going up, and there are smaller blocks of 'luxury apartments' dotted around in between. One of the luxury blocks is going on the site of a luxury house built just five years ago. They're going to demolish it to make way for them, what a waste This is all within a half mile radius.

The roads around the developments are tiny, the sort that have cars parked on each side so there isn't enough space for two cars to pass, and they're in very poor condition. There's also a railway line in the centre of the whole thing and only two roads which cross it. One of the two roads is a narrow residential street.

The prices are massively inflated and unaffordable to the average person. One of the blocks is for renters, prices start at £1750pm for a 50 sqM 1 bed flat which is significantly higher than equivalent rentals in the area. In a nearby development they're asking £400k for a 1 bed. Their websites have a dedicated section for investors.

No additional GP surgeries or schools, obviously. In fact, a local school on a 2 acre site has just been sold for several million to make way for more developments.

None of these developments is motivated by the need for people of all incomes to have secure, good quality, affordable homes and access to education and healthcare. They're motivated by greed and focused on maximising profit. The developers of my block cut corners to save time and money. We're the ones paying the price, stuck with enormous service charges, unable to sell and move on with our lives while they're laughing all the way to the bank.

@TheFatCatsWhiskers1 are you in Bath? I've posted about this earlier on in thread - we def have some of this going on here , all very similar , but a large amount of it is for student billets for overseas students mainly Asian and happy to pay silly money for a mini studio flat ( or more likely their parents are)

Read an interesting article the other day. Pension funds are investing money in property development. Their high street investments are not producing the returns these days so they're becoming landlords in domestic developments. The Americans have been investing, Asians. They've spotted a lucrative gap and can walk all over our councils. With our government promise of more homes it's inevitable.

No, not Bath, a bit bigger than that. The enormous student developments went up here a few years ago. They said it would free up private rentals but private rentals have dropped off a cliff.

We are nowhere near population collapse. I was making the point that UK births and deaths have reached equilibrium. A stable population is a good thing and allows sensible planning by governments. However, our government seems to want to increase our population by massive net immigration - last year - something like 750,000.

Why is a decreasing population - which would free up housing without building more - seen as a problem? When an increasing population - which is currently depriving millions of people of the chance ever to buy a home - seen as a catastrophe?

So its not a housing crisis but a family breakdown crisis

Because we are also getting older at the same time. If you look at the numbers of workers to pensioners over the last 50 years, it's got smaller and smaller. Who is going to pay for retired people?

The young people, at any cost apparently.

Perhaps the "retired people" need to accept that they need to pay more tax and stop voting for tax cutting parties in elections!

It's time that the tax burden was shared more fairly among the full population and that we stopped taxing workers more than pensioners.

With the stress of trying to keep on top of my housing costs and the battle to find a better job in my struggling field no government wants to invest in, I’m going to assume I’ll be dead by then.

Retired people receive around 12k a year. You rea have think they should be taxed on that amount?

If they've private pensions they do pay tax BTW

They should be taxed exactly the same on the same level of income as a worker. I.e. if a worker earns £12k and pays no tax, then fair enough the pensioner with a total income of £12k pays no tax. But if the worker earns £25k there's no reason on Earth why they pay more tax than an pensioner with a total income of £25k.

But they do pay tax HMRC are aware of all income state and private pensions and tax accordingly.