IMAGINE a mortgage free Britain

[HarrowToCroydon]

For a moment, imagine if everyone in Britain lived in Government Housing. Everyone paid minimal rent, the cost to Government was 0 as the rent would cover upkeep and new buildings.

And society was secure in the knowledge that their children too will be housed.

How would you then spend your money which you have saved from paying a mortgage.

Will you be having a lot less stress?

@HarrowToCroydon who says “council housing” has a negative perception? Not in my world. Only snobs think like that.

At the start of my post, I did say, I do not wish for a rerun of communist USSR.

NHS = National Health Service
NHS = National Housing Service

I have posted short while ago, trying to describe the National Housing Service.

I salute you for not having a negative perception. Compared to France, in the U.K. "council housing" does seem to have a negative perception.

While, unrelated to your comment, I have only observed in British printed media articles like-

"Mr. so and so was found murdered in their 8 bed country house, worth £5,750,000"

If you know of any other country where house prices are mentioned in the murder and mutilation press, let me know.

I cannot think of a way.

I am imagining "If this was the case", "If Thatcher had not sold Government Housing, instead built on it?"

It wouldn't work because people inherit property

That said I think it's an absolute travesty that social housing was sold off like it was

It means ordinary people in normal jobs can not afford to live proudly as they did when I was young

Loads of my school friends lived in lovely council houses and led decent lives

That's all been taken away to be replaced by stress and it filters down to how you may treat those around you because you're worrying about paying your private landlord overpriced rent etc

Thatcher fractured Britain and it's never quite got back in its feet for the average normal person

Most European countries have excellent social housing and debt is capped

Funnily enough... I don't imagine a system like that, I remember it.

We had just that arrangement. People who were really well off owned their own homes and there was council housing available for millions of others. It worked really well for decades after WWII, but bloody Thatcher did away with it, sold all the council properties to the sitting tenants for peanuts, and then spent all the money on other things instead of re-investing in building more homes.

One of the defining policies of Thatcherism. 👿

Some people are narrow minded and aren’t prepared to question if there’s a better way. Housing doesn’t benefit the majority in the UK. It needs an overhaul. High house prices and rents hinder mobility and entrepreneurship. The need for a high salary to pay for housing is distorting everything. No wonder our economy is stagnant and working people are exhausted.

*rent is capped

"utter shitshow that exists currently" - 101% agree.

"promotes stagnation rather than mobility" - Yes, this is the hidden long term impact, from which if Britain will recover in the next few decades, only time will tell.

"The need for a high salary to pay for housing is distorting everything. " - This says quite a lot.

Thatcher in her short bloody sightedness seemed to not take into account at all that pretty much most people who bought their council houses for a pittance would pretty much sold them months after for twice the price so house prices have steadily risen since then unlike wages

@MrsTerryPratchett you're not going to get many people agreeing with an alternative system as everyone on MN bought their house with no parental help, no inheritance and they won't be helping their children, who have all bought five bed detached houses aged 25 on their own. Despite it being overwhelmingly evident that most homeowners either bought at the right time or had substantial help, no one ever admits it.
I inherited pretty much my whole house. I pay a small mortgage. This does not mean that I haven't worked hard or that I don't realise that I am very lucky. It does make me feel guilty when smarter, better qualified friends rent and can't get on the housing ladder. Why is it so hard for MN to admit this.

I'd rather have free gas, water and electricity - or at least a system where everyone gets a free allowance that should cover basic need and you only pay for extra.

That all ended by 2007 though

All of us including me could afford property on a really crap wage up until 2000

We could just about afford property between 2000-2007 before the crash because you could self certificate and basically lie about your income to buy whatever property you wanted

There is this underlying emotion that "We have worked hard (for the house we live in)", I see this as a bit of a sad thing, that you worked hard to pay for the house, where you could have spent the money enjoying more time with your family, that you could have spent the money travelling, that you could have spent the money not being frightened what would happen if you are made redundant.

Maybe MN and the house owning classes in general suffer from an emotional NIMBYism whereby having acquired the most expensive asset of their lifetime, if that asset lost value, the unthinkable would follow.

Most people dont realize how housing is linked to everything. A lot of people think that its all right as they have paid off their nice houses and will downsize to help their kids. So its all right for them.

However, I presume that they are not superhuman and will get sick at some point. The medical staff who tend to them need places to live. Medical staff are sought after all over the world and they wouldn't live in a country with socialized healthcare (which doesn't pay them well) and where they also can't afford a decent roof over their head. This would lead to a breakdown in the NHS and people having no choice but to seek private healthcare treatment. private healthcare treatment is incredibly expensive and would very quickly run into hundreds of thousands of pounds (even private health insurance may not cover everything, esp in the UK where its quite crap). So given that most people's main asset is their houses...

Capitalism (the uncontrolled kind) eats its children.

Nightmare neighbours are statistically present everywhere. I would say the current system is worse, where once you purchased your house, and discover that Fred, 3 houses down, is a You Know What, you are truly up s creek.

To get things fixed, if designed properly would require minimal maintenance. It is the ill thought through construction which has niggling maintenance issues.

"Capitalism (the uncontrolled kind) eats its children."

Worse, capitalism, makes people think twice about having children. What then happens when they grow old?

@rosetintedmemories2023 very true. A friend of mine who was a cleaner in the local hospital quit because they do split shifts and she couldn't find anywhere to rent which would allow her to get home in time to enjoy the time between her early shift and her late. She would have to get the bus home, have a cup of tea and then get the bus back again. I mean why would you? So we have one less cleaner and rely on agency staff costing three times the price

Exactly, and this creates a snowball effect. And before you know it, the Government, aka The Taxpayer, aka US, end up paying the three times, that you quote.

I haven't got a mortgage so no thanks

Thatcher, and almost the entire political class, simply do not have a vision beyond 4 years, whose time frame diminishes like a timer.

Yes, there is democracy, but the leaders of this democracy are in survival mode for their jobs.

It would be nice for most but I fear me and my DH would end up in a 1 bed flat. I'd rather work my backside off for more space.

I used to live in a country where the government one day decided to unilaterally claim a bunch of land that had been under private ownership.

Spoiler: it didn't end well...

For the looter or the looted?