To think this is a ticking time bomb (people priced out of housing)

[Batmanisreal]

It’s becoming clear that there is a problem with people not being able to afford housing like they used to be able to. This has been made worse by the introduction of right to buy by Thatcher in the 80s which reduced the numbers of council houses. The price of housing is going up and up, so more people are having to rent on the private market.

So what happens to these people who are privately renting homes, when they get to retirement age? If they can’t afford their rent?

I was lucky enough to be able to buy my house. I have young children who, by the time they get to the age I was when I bought my house, will probably not be able to afford to buy like I was. There’s a very big chance they will have to rent, possibly for the rest of their lives.

People who rent on the private market are at the mercy of whatever rents the landlords want to charge for those properties. And with more properties being rent out as short-term lets this is only going to make the situation worse.

I worry that we are heading for a situation where elderly people will end up on the streets, because there won’t be enough affordable or social housing to supply them with housing if they become homeless in the event of them not being able to afford their private rent anymore.

As a parent, I just find the whole situation so depressing.

I think this is one of the main problems in the UK at the moment.

If the rental prices are so unaffordable to the extent that no-one can pay them (or will prioritise spending their capital elsewhere) then the rental prices will come down. Thats how markets work.

The only reason rental prices continue to be so high is because people continue to pay them.

@Batmanisreal - I think about this a lot. There must be large numbers of people who can't afford to put meaningful amounts aside for pension, if anything at all, because of rent. So when they have to stop working they'll basically have state pension and no assets - that will not be enough to cover even a bedsit in a lot of places. And quite a lot people will have to stop working earlier than planned because of health problems, or they get made redundant at a certain age and just can't find another job at their age.

Return of workhouses, anyone? Or are we going to start seeing 70-year-old house sharers with someone sleeping in the lounge to lower the rent load?

It’s already a shitshow & we don’t have suitable homes fir the current ageing population which means more hospital admissions.

Too late to fix though.

Well housing benefit helps

I think it is becoming more common for adult children to live at home rather than paying rent to a private landlord. That’s certainly what DD (22) is currently doing. Which is really what my parents/aunts/uncles were doing in the 1960/70s. Living at home until you got married used to be the norm. We’ve accidentally gone back to that.

FWIW - I don’t think right to buy is the only underlying change. The whole buy-to-let market which emerged in the late 90s/early 00s is a significant factor. It encouraged people to make money from other people’s housing needs.

People aren’t saving enough for their pensions and again unlike current pensioners private schemes are far less generous and state pension age keeps moving out. Triple lock will be gone too.

My ex is 50 and in a room in a shared house. He doesn’t work. I assume he will be in a room for the rest of his life. Which is miserable but is what it is.

But people got married much younger then & a lot of local jobs have been lost so unless your parents live near jobs you might struggle to find work.

People will afford housing when older generations die. There are more people alive over 65 than under 15. The tables will turn.

@LifeBeginsToday there will be loads of people in that interim time frame that miss out though.

But that won’t necessarily be enough to cover the cost of the rent though will it? And housing benefit is being replaced by Universal Credit.

And this situation will be made even worse because of AI won’t it? It will make it harder and harder for people to find work.

There’s been some discussion around the Government having to introduce a universal basic income in the future. But that only works in the countries where AI is controlled and is generating the wealth to be able to afford to pay that universal basic income won’t it?

The UK isn’t in the same position as say, for example the US. Which means there won’t be any real wealth generation in the UK to be able to afford to support people who need it.

People will have to move to cheaper areas and/or share.
As a PP said, rents and house prices are high but there are people able to pay.

@Batmanisrealwont the spend on it increase like it has done over the years? The downside of having fewer council homes.

What you will see is more & more young people looking abroad for opportunity as other countries will want young skilled workers. Obviously this just exacerbates things here.

The housing benefit bill will increase substantially.

I don’t think people will be living on the streets wholesale.

Multi generational living will become normalised again, not separating and staying in unhappy relationships will increase too.

The economic blip of the working class having assets and holidays etc will come to an end.

Working class = those that need to work to eat.

The only shock is that it's taken so long for people to notice.

Housing in this country is dysfunctional, and has been since about 2005.

The whole system is broken, my old neighbours have a council flat, they both are well and working and own 2 properties in Mexico. They should be paying market rates like many of us have to.

About 23% of Gen X rent and are coming up to retirement, so this is happening soon. Some of my friends are really worried about what will happen.

Meanwhile there are over 1,000,000 empty properties in the UK. I see the Government have tried to change Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) to make it slightly easier for councils to take them over, but it's still a long and costly process.

If parts of the 2012 act around squatting was amended I suspect this would force landlords to move quicker when faced with an EDMO

Scottish cities have seen a big influx of people from England for the lower CoL and great quality of life. (I am not complaining, I am english-born in Scotland who stayed after university).

The answer individually might be move to a cheaper area, but on a societal level there has to be another solution. There aren't enough cheaper areas to go around!

Another thing that might redress the balance is the fact more people are only have one child now. That means wealth will be concentrated from 2 parents to 1 child, so perhaps that will help the next generation. Social mobility is buggered if that is what we have to rely on though.

We're just a decade or so away from this becoming a massive issue. It's been a ticking time bomb for decades. People will have to share houses in their old age and we will look back at the money we spent helping todays pensioners heat empty bedrooms and shudder.

I don't entirely disagree but at least they haven't bought their council flat then sold it a few years later at a huge profit. The council will get it back eventually