To think housing in this country is fundamentally broken?

[BrokenHousingLogic]

Whether you rent privately, rent socially or own, it feels like the system isn’t really working for anyone.

• Rents are high and insecure
• Buying is out of reach for many
• Social housing is under strain
• Landlords and tenants feel pitted against each other
• Local authorities seem overwhelmed

It often feels like people are arguing with each other instead of addressing the fact that the whole structure is failing.

AIBU to think this goes beyond individual choices and points to a system-wide problem?

But you’re not addressing the issue either. You’re just stating facts that everybody already knows.

...and destroy what is left of the countryside. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for two new housing estates.

@Dappy777 We live in the south-west and all the market towns in a 20 mile radius of our village are expanding in every direction. A couple of villages 2 or so miles from the local town will, I guess, have joined up with the town in ten years or so.

@38thparallel A bit of everything. We only lived there for a couple of years before we moved a long way. I believe they became unpopular, poorly looked after, there were problems with lifts, vandalism etc.

On the subject of council / social housing history, there's a YouTuber called Jimmy the Giant who's done some interesting videos on the subject, sociological and political observations about the decline os "estates" etc. I know most people are wary of such sources, but I found them very interesting.

Need much more social housing. It was a mistake selling it off at vastly discounted rates.
I think it's going to get worse, landlords are selling up in their droves.

Oh thats a shame

No we don't, and we cannot continue to pave over more & more land in one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.

'Build more' is the simplistic solution for Labour or Tory politicians who want to want to give massive contracts to their buddies in the construction industry.

It will dampen prices in the short term, but in the longterm, the regular individual won't benefit as much as people think they will. Unless they build a lot of unpopular regulation around them, those houses will simply be snapped up by more landlords, more massive companies like Blackrock to increase their ever expanding portfolios, and then we'll be back to a place of shortage again.

There are so many buildings and house lying empty all over the U.K. I used to see them quite a lot in Manchester and Stockport. Entire floors of buildings just empty. Some of them would take so much money to renovate to modern living standards that I guess builders were put off, but those buildings stand there taking up room.

There are also thousands & thousands of houses in the U.K that are now just let out as holiday homes. Family homes that have now been turned into mini-hotels, with no consent from the wider community, no planning permission, and that has to stop. We've also have many holiday homes - again, very much a luxury asset in a country where people are struggling to get their first home at a scale not seen previously since before 1940s. However the politicians have little appetite to do anything about that as they all want to continue enjoying their lively get-away bolt-holes in the Cotswolds, Cornwall, Wales or Scotland.

Every extra body strains our infrastructure and housing, costs us beyond what we can afford. If we act as a sponge, then we get a society where housing is a money maker for developers and private equity, and they'll exploit their hold on us till a government cares enough to do something, which looks increasingly unlikely!

They're not 'boomer' houses.

Weird way of putting it. It's almost like you have a chip on your shoulder and you somehow want the boomer generation to take credit for houses they didn't even build.

Very few older houses will have been built by boomers, in terms of when they were built and number of boomers able to actually build them, unless you're just referring to houses from the 70s or 80s onwards, or you think Boomers were building Council houses as children in the 1960s?

The new builds of today (and I would include 90s homes in that), seem to be built poorly as routine. Some of them have fabulous insulation, but some of the ones built on leasehold terms seem shit. Flooding, things breaking all the time, serious problems & costs caused by crap roofing.

Old, pre 20th century stone cottages are no picnic either and can have their own problems, but they're often sturdier and preferable to new builds.

Building more houses doesn't seem to be the solution either. I live in an area that has been absolutely destroyed by the building of thousands of homes and a lot of them are sitting empty because no one can afford them. Many have been reduced multiple times, but still they continue to build. There needs to be more social housing. 20 social properties out of 200 on an estate isn't good enough.

@Talkinpeace What is a land value tax? Payable at a ludicrous rate by Londoners while others get a nearly free ride? Who values the land?

@OhDear111
Land value taxes replace stamp duty and are the norm in most OECD countries
because they remove the penalty for moving house
and effectively tax homes that do not change hands for decades at a time.

Just a small point but I also think that the building of rabbit hutch size properties due to deregulation in the construction field was utterly stupid. My DM was looking for a rental property a few years back, and one we viewed was a new build .The agent was very enthusiastic about my Mum being allowed to rent with her cat, and I think it was because in practical terms you could swing one with a millimetre to spare off every wall in the front room. She was also given a card to visit a shop that specialised in tiny modular furniture which was apparently very sought after. She declined in favour of a Victoruan flat above a shop in the end.

*Disclaimer - I am a cat lover and do not advocate the swinging of cats under any circumstances.

Seeing that immigrants are net contributors to the economy and put in more than they take out, you have to start wondering who all these net takers are… oh look. It’s native Brits.

We don’t need to build, we need to decrease the population.

Tougher regulations on LLs too

my parents are in their late 60s and live in a 4 bed detached house that they bought for £120k 32 years ago, my husband and I are in our 30s with a baby and hopefully will have another one day, and live in a 2 bed detached that we paid £475k for. I’m afraid we don’t have space for my parents to move in. If people like my parents were more willing to downsize (or more able to as I am aware downsizing doesn’t necessarily mean moving to a cheaper house) people like us might be able to buy the bigger family houses but alas, all the big 4/5 bed houses near me have approximately 2 people living in them, whilst the bigger families are all living in pokey houses

Problem is round here, you build a 2 bed starter home and it's 500k. 3 beds is at least 650k. Even a 1 bed flat is 350k.
Build as many as you like but they're still unaffordable to the young couples and families who need then. The only people who can afford them are investors who then rent them back to these families at high rents to recoup their investments.

Build enough for prices to drop dramatically, and you'll have a slew of people in negative equity.

You're right - it's lose / lose. I feel very depressed for my kids.

@Sidebend That’s a reflection of a shortage though. It’s scarcity of land and housing in a popular area. Most of us don’t live in the most expensive areas from day 1. We trade up. We live in less desirable areas and commute. The properties would not be built if they were not going to sell. Developers are not that stupid. They are affordable to some - maybe those on 2 decent dual incomes?

As someone mentioned above bungalows used to be a downsize option. Now all the bungalows near me are being developed, becoming multi-storey. And/or expanding to the edges of plots. Some having additional properties squeezed between. They even seem to be worth more as people see them as good development potential. You then end up with no bungalows - no smaller/cheaper properties for people to downsize to. It's a shame as single storey developments could be very low impact, you can hide them with greenery.

A friend's parents went into assisted housing thinking they were doing the right thing, only to find there was barely any assistance. They claim the units are being sold off as flats for 'lots of money' to what they deem 'young' types. And as a result are somewhat lost and lonely, regretting their choice. There's also barely any affordable entry level property.

While there are many vacant buildings that could be redeveloped. At least if there's additional properties it gives people choice, rather then inflation through scarcity. The huge demand can give landlords an easy ride as someone will take it and there's no incentive to compete/improve properties.

Renting has mostly been for moving around for short term reasons or for longer term with benefit support.

You would rent, save up for a deposit for a mortgage then buy, which was much cheaper in the long run. Our first mortgage for a 3 bed house was less than the rent we paid for a 2 bed flat. It was always an incentive to buy due to this, but then both working FT so different for those who weren't.

Unless you get your rent and CT reduction paid for by UC the prices are extortionate! To get onto the housing ladder is also more difficult as the prices are so much higher.

In my day, as a young adult in the late 1990s, if you had a ft job you could prove for a couple of years there was no problem getting a mortgage. Now having 3 jobs but self employed so no fixed monthly rate of income I can't.

The new builds of today (and I would include 90s homes in that), seem to be built poorly as routine. Some of them have fabulous insulation, but some of the ones built on leasehold terms seem shit. Flooding, things breaking all the time, serious problems & costs caused by crap roofing.

I had a drive around the newer built estates in my town recently and I can honestly say they were utterly depressing, the actual houses are nice looking but they build them now utterly crammed in together with tiny roads and driveways, there are cars and vans absolutely everywhere and so many houses looking into each others front and back, when you compare them to the older new builds of about 35-40 years old in my town the difference is marked, they have space around them, are nicely laid out with sizeable driveways and breathing space from the neighbours, it’s pure greed from the building companies the way new build estates are laid out now.

There is housing albeit not enough with rampant uncontrolled immigration but the problem is it's not affordable.

This started years ago when banks started lending against two incomes, result house prices rise. Caused huge problem for families with children which generally now need 2 incomes just to survive.

Then interest only mortgages saw massive surge in price rises.

Rampant house price inflation has suited successive governments as people take more about by remortgaging and spend it in the economy.

The biggest farce was the help to buy scheme which artificially inflated prices. The 'market' should dictate what a house is worth however the government effectively guaranteed the developers profit and kept prices high.

Things I think that would help:-

• stop right to buy of social housing
• buy flats for secure social.housing

(Long term this would stop housing benefit being paid and building the pension pots of landlords)

• stop buy to let mortgages

-Allow history of paying rent to be proof for banks to lend to £x amount without the need for a deposit.

• introduce lifetime mortgage rates like in America. England is quite unusual that it has a mortgage market that refinances every few years. This leads to insecurity.

@Brillopadhair Many councils have a no car or one car policy. They want residents to use public transport so parking is kept to a minimum to enhance density. This enables more homes. If people want space, they have to pay more for it. I bet the homes were sold though. It’s only people with snobby ideals that look down on smaller homes. The people in them just want a home. We would all like a 5 bed executive house taking up acres, but in reality most people know they cannot afford such a house and way more land would be used to build housing if we greatly decrease density. See other posts about this!

I can confirm that the "extra care" facility my Dad ended up in was allegedly council, but was in partnership with the developers. A bit of digging confirmed that said developmers do indeed sell the flats, however, it's not done at all transparently. I have a long and sorry tale about council housing for the over 55s, and I swear there is alot of skullduggery afoot.

This has been decades in the making. I worked in property 30 years ago and people were moving out of expensive areas into cheaper areas to buy larger properties or just be able to buy at all. There were landlords feathering their nests buying up small properties to rent out, at the cost of FTB. Council housing was being sold off at cheap rates and not replaced. Even back then I said it was not sustainable and am surprised that we are only really feeling the effects from this now. I thought it would have happened years ago. There's too much to unpick now, it's gone on for too long and is now at crisis point. There's been no incentive for past governments to fix the problem and tbh most of those in power were probably benefitting from the broken system anyway.