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?

I agree with the OP that building lots of new builds in rural areas doesn’t help. The new builds are often too expensive for local people to buy so people from outside the area move in.
I do agree that more town centre accommodation should be available instead of empty shops. Local market towns have lots of empty shops. There are also many empty pubs, some have been empty for over 10 years as the planners will not change the use to residential without a significant battle. These areas would make really good low price rental accommodation for people living and working in the area.
Much more social housing is needed, it is still being sold off locally.
And finally, holiday cottages. These are the little cottages in the towns and villages that were cheap to buy or rent, 10-15 years ago. Whole streets in local market towns are holiday lets and some villages it’s over half the cottages are holiday lets. In a nearby market town 2 bedroom bungalows on 1970s housing estates are now being let for holiday accommodation. The village of staithes had a few years ago less than 10 cottages occupied full time in the old part of the village.

I don't understand it either. Surely someone on the council register or stuck in a B&B won't be able to afford the 350k needed for a 3 bed rabbit hutch new build anyway. In my area we've had thousands of the things thrown up on every scrap of land, and usually they have to be heavily reduced because no one wants them or can afford them.

We keep hearing this "only x% of the UK is built on" as though that is some massive gotcha moment. Huge amounts of the UK are wet, waterlogged - or in danger of becoming so rather soon - and/or important for wildlife and biodiversity. Other areas are important for food production. We know how dangerous and short sighted it is to simply concrete over such areas and expect everything to be ok.

If we build all the houses Angela wants in the areas she wants, it will never be enough and we will have done incalculable harm in doing so. Developers are the one who do the investing and selling - are they really going to create such a glut of product that they see the profits of their investment falling away before their eyes?

The UK is one of the most nature deprived countries in the world, and this government want to make it more so. Simply building more and more and more isn't the answer.

There is nothing ‘supposed’ about the housing crisis

I love the way you assume that the government give a crap about any of us. But also - there are 700,000 empty homes in the UK. Since the 1980s, 2 million council houses were sold. There are 1.2 million people currently waiting for social housing. "Market rates" for renting are just as high as landlords can get away with - hording resources and renting them back to people for huge profits is not a business. It would appear that you are in a very fortunate position where none of this impacts you negatively, therefore you find it annoying.

The government has been hammering landlords with taxes. Landlords just pass the cost onto tenants. Tenants can’t afford to save for a deposit.

There is a huge housing crisis but I think they need to stop building and start using houses that are current unoccupied or in need of refurbishment. In our area they need to ban all air b&B type let's because these are badly needed as homes.

They need to do both. They need to do everything and anything they can.

I do think we need more social housing. The enormous push for shiny new housing estates that are £££s isn’t really going to solve stuff. Also infrastructure. They want to build a new housing scheme in a local village where parking and traffic is a nightmare. I think we need more housing but also need to consider how additional burden on already struggling roads, sewage and local doctors will be managed.

I agree. Lots of houses have sprung up near me recently, 4-5-6 bedroomed homes at £650k and upwards. This is what happens when you rely on developers to fill the housing need - they're not interested in building the smaller properties (although they have to provide a quota) because that's not where they make their biggest buck. Their should be proper council-provided homes available for rent, at reasonable rates.

The OP isn't being unreasonable. The "plan" to cure the housing shortage really shouldn't be just to build more, often in unsuitable places. We need radical policy changes to bring more existing homes back into residential use, i.e. tackle the huge number of empty homes, the ever increasing number of holiday lets, etc., convert huge swathes of semi empty town centre ex-retail premises back into housing, develop brown and grey field sites, etc. These are places were infrastructure is already in place, i.e. drainage, power, amenities, public transport, etc. Then we need a national plan to spread out the jobs better, transfer some away from the concentration in a very small number of big cities and get them back into the regions, smaller cities, towns, etc - all perfectly feasible due to the internet etc and WFH. Instead of moving "problem" people to the run down areas, move the decent jobs to them and get the workers moving to them which would invigorate them.

The vast majority of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of houses that have been built within a three mile radius of my home in the past 40 years have been three, four or five-bedroom houses, many of them on what was previously farmland and about a mile away from the centre of the village (where the schools, shops and services are located).

I think what we need more of is higher density housing, within easy walking distance of shops, doctors surgeries etc. So, not more of the crammed-in housing estates, with large houses on tiny plots of land, but flats, maisonettes and the like, with communal green spaces.

I kind of agree there's hundreds of houses for sale in my part of the country . I agree there needs to be more social and affordable housing but from the estates that keep growing where we live there might be a handful of affordable houses (and that's debatable seen as the starting rice is usually 180k for a 2 bed semi shoe box) the rest are all 3 and 4 beds at a quarter of a million plus. And I live in a deprived area.

There are 3000 new houses being built in the town I live in and the cheapest is going to be £360,000!

There’s nothing “supposed” about it.

I'm glad I've found someone on the same page!

Cities and town centres are perfect for flats and young people who want somewhere central and lively rather than a mid terrace house surrounded by young families on the edge of rural villages that have been over expanded.

The only ones who don't want it are rich investors looking for a nice safe return on office building rent with low risk. It's no coincidence people are being pushed back to offices.

Exactly. It isn't NIMBY ism to suggest there are alternative solutions to just building and building.

Given the numbers who will be coming into Britain over the next 5 years, 5 out of every 7 of Rayner's mythical 1.5 million homes will be taken by immigrants. She was challenged by Trevor Phillips on Sky about this and avoided the question like she'd lost her ears.

We need to stop foreign ownership by people who do not live and pay tax here.

We need to heavily regulate the holiday property market and tax the shit out of AirBnB income.

Compulsorily purchase of the 1,000,000 empty homes at below market rate by local councils to be used for social housing.

Doing just those 3 things would alleviate us having to pave over any more of the countryside. We wouldn't need the 1.5 million homes Rayner is obsessed with delivering.

London and the South East is short of water now. How does forcing another 500,000 houses on them make that problem better? It's fucking nuts.

In the north east there are lots of ex colliery houses sitting empty, they should tear them down and build similar if they're not fit for purpose. You can find them on youtube if you search mining ghost towns UK or whatever. New builds are hideous scourges on the countryside

Privileged person is sick of hearing about a crisis that doesn't affect them.

How novel.

Exactly - it won’t and you’re not stupid.

Developers will make money though…

We don’t have a housing crisis. We have a problem with builders wanting ongoing easy money. We can build houses anywhere. We can’t produce food anywhere. We should not be building anything on any greenfield sites until ALL brownfield sites have been developed. Jobs are largely in or near towns. Houses should be built near jobs not in the middle of nowhere. That’s just contributing to climate change so it’s a double whammy.

This x1000

There is a housing crisis as there are simply not enough homes of all types (social rent, private rent and sale) for those who need them.

Frankly NIMBYs whose own homes were built on fields at a time when house prices were very low have had far too much ability to block much-needed developments for too long. The government is absolutely right to put a stop to it so that homes can be provided for those who need them.

But you also have people playing the system.everyone round here knows you get evicted by your landlord,you don't help yourself and find another house ,you wait and get evicted,from there you get temporary accommodation in a local town ,while you wait to be allowed to bid on houses you want .
Temporary accommodation being a premier inn.
I know of two families in the last year who went in to temporary accommodation in a b and b ...both had parents who worked and could afford to rent ,but wanted the security of a council house .so the whole family in one room with 4 beds a microwave and kettle for the best part of a year ..but they say it was worth it to get their new build council house.
One of these families had£50 grand in the bank from the sale of their house .
And the other had two good incomes ,and a child doing GCSEs in that one room they all lived in for a year ..
I know that's only two families,out of millions ,just seems odd to me ,to put their kids though all that ,rather than rent