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’m coming back to this after my tenant and I both had a conversation over the last two days with the council about his housing benefit.

Currently he pays £400 two estate agents have valued the rent as is at £950

The council is refusing to allow him any more than £550

so what do you do?
accept nearly £400 a month less than it is worth at market rates
or increase it to market rate and evict him for arrears / tribunal etc

I want to compromise with the tenant and council. I want £750 and they cover the shortfall and he stays

This is what I lived in until I was 30. It was the norm then for single people not living with their parents. It is only in the last 30 odd years that people have expected to rent a whole flat as a single person.

Some of these comments.

Housing is a basic human need and therefore a human right in a civilised society. We all complain about the tent cities and the squalid homes some people are living in.
There should be no profiteering from housing. You have a spare house to rent out, fine You have more than one and it’s at social housing rates only.

There was nothing wrong with Right to Buy. It enabled people that consistently paid their rent to the council could afford to get on the property ladder. The issue was the stock wasn’t replaced.

How’s it stopping them getting on the ladder? Plenty get in the ladder without cash injections from deceased parents

The reason the government ( Thatcher) wanted to sell off the council housing stock is because most of it was built just after WW2 and coming up for costly repairs. The money from it was not reinvested in housing stock because it was against the Conservative government policies of a large state.

There was nothing wrong with Right to Buy. It enabled people that consistently paid their rent to the council could afford to get on the property ladder. The issue was the stock wasn’t replaced.

1. and those of us who had worked too hard to be allotted a council house (or who were luckier with our health tbf) but not been given an inheritance / family support living in a family home, and had consistently paid rent to a private landlord just had to suck up that inequality, despite working hard? Have you not heard working people getting fed up of working for everything just to pay for everything while ending up with nothing themselves? Cos it’s very, very real. Bloody wish someone had given me a council house I could then buy for cheap instead of working hard only to find the economy had changed and wanted rich landlords instead.

2. who was supposed to pay to ‘replace the stock’ and supply this endless leak of public assets into private hands? No, public assets should have always stayed as public assets. The constant leaching of public funds to private individuals, whether rich or poor, is exactly what has and is continuing to bankrupt the public purse.

This is true. Obviously. But I think it's reasonable to prefer market conditions that deliver low prices rather than high prices. (If we banned agricultural equipment, food prices would rise and the market would clear (if allowed to) I think this would be a much worse state of affairs)

But also, the ratio of houses:people matters a lot here. And I think OP's point that people who rent all their lives could have uncomfortable retirements is valid.

I think OP's analysis that right-to-buy is a major driver of the problem is wrong. If you have high immigration and low housebuilding, house prices go up. If you want house prices to go down you either need more houses or fewer people.

There was nothing wrong with Right to Buy. It enabled people that consistently paid their rent to the council could afford to get on the property ladder. The issue was the stock wasn’t replaced.

The discounts were too high. People could too easily buy and then resell at a whopping tax free profit. It was unfair to people who had to rent privately to whom the discounted purchase option wasn't available. It basically favoured a very small section of society, giving them options/windfalls not available to others, so basically highly unfair. But yes, councils should have been able to buy/build replacements but that would have been difficult due to the discounts given which meant the money they received on sale wouldn't pay for a like for like replacement, so council housing stock would have been depleted even if they'd been allowed to replace as they'd probably only have been able to replace one for every two or three sold.

Nail on the head on both counts.

Mass immigration was never thought through. None of these decisions were ever thought through any further than ‘what will net us the most votes in the next election’. I remember once seeing a clip of Tony Benn talking about the Americans being badly governed in the ? Early 00s I think, and thinking that for a supposed socialist he was massively out of touch and elitist already.

Spot on! I've been privately renting for years and have nothing left at the end of the month (low paid). And yet there are people who may have started out on a low income,given a council house for life, and are no longer on low incomes so could easily afford private rent. Tenancies should be reviewed periodically and if a tenant has the means to pay privately, then they should. I honestly can't believe that a millionaire can be in council housing.

I don't think private renting is something to aspire to. You are paying for someone else's asset, and have nothing to show for it.

Tell me about it. I don't CHOOSE to pay someone else's mortgage, but I have no choice as there are no council houses!!

That is not the fault of the people living in them though.
If you constantly means test the tenants, and evict them when they earn too much, then no one will strive to do better.

So you think it's OK for, as an example, a couple earning £300k per annum to be renting a council house, but a person earning £26k a year has to scrimp and scrape and never even have the opportunity to save for a deposit?

You’ve have the use of their asset? Ie you’ve used it in a consumable basis (and as a result avoided the full costs of home ownership).

This is no different to paying for phone contracts, leasing cars, TV subscriptions. Something you pay for and get the use of.

Vast numbers of people from outside Europe have come to the UK to stay long term since we left the EU. Europeans tend to come here work and pay taxes then go home again after a few years. Plus it gives us all the freedom to go and live somewhere warmer and cheaper if we want to also.

I never said I did. I don't know the figures but I would guess that the amount of people earning that much and still in council housing is very small.
Maybe look up the figures before getting mad about it.

So you would be ok with your housemate asking their date over for a meal and either making yourself scarce or playing gooseberry. And of course you would also be ok with their date staying over and you possibly having to wait for the bathroom in the morning

There definitely should be a cut off. Maybe the same £100k income level that is used for childcare and personal allowance, so pretty high so as not to affect too many people. Someone with an income over £100k really doesn't need a discounted rent council house.

Chelsea Pensioners arent in their 50s

My DS lives in an HMO with five others. They all have "overnight" guests occasionally. You can't avoid it really. He's accustomed to it because of the 3 years he spent in Uni accommodation where they likewise shared kitchens and bathrooms etc and still managed to cope with overnight guests!

Same difference. I had to move for studies and work and have not been able to live at home since my early 20s.

Do you have a source that says EU workers only stay for a few years?

Pensioners, in private rentals, are treated the same as younger people in private rentals. Any help with rent relies on income/savings.