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?

Which is partially caused ironically by the shortage of housing. High housing prices mean that many people cannot do essential jobs and have to work for the private sector in order to earn enough to pay rent or buy a home. A personal assistant to a hedge fund manager can earn £60-90k (and you can probably commute in from Essex and work remotely for part of the week) , why would any young woman in her right mind opt for nursing! Supermarket managers earn £60k. So we have to import lots of foreign nurses who also bring their own dependents.

Government cuts mean that universities have to rely heavily on international students which also contribute to immigration

And high housing prices are caused mainly by low interest rates and also explosion of wealth in the top 1% (which goes into assets). Landlordism.

The one size fits all way of living would be awful. I'm aware that many people don't yet have the opportunity to live at the level they want to but I am not going to lower my bar so that other people feel better about it . The school sports day version of housing. right there's no competition, everyone is equal ( some more than others) and you all get a winners badge just for taking part . It will be shit homes badly maintained by shit councils on a colossal scale .

there could be different tiers of housing in my ideal scenario.

Basic apartments for rental at the bottom - for the poorest

Affordable 2-3 bedroom maisonettes with little garden for the bottom maisonette for rent - for essential workers, young families who can't afford to save for a deposit, graduates

2 -3 bedroom Maisonettes for sale (capped at four times the median salary in the local area with the caveat that they can only sell it to local people who earn below a certain threshold) - for families and young professionals (those who don't want to spend too much on housing at the start of their careers).

-Some houses too for those willing to spend more but that would only be 20% off market value

My idea is that the council should buy up lots of streets of run down victorian housing and convert them into maisonettes as a start. in a way mortgage interest rates rising might be a good opportunity. It could be a silver lining in what is a bad situation.

Many families and landlords wouldn't be able to afford the mortgage. the state should take over the mortgage and the family (living there) should be allowed to stay there for as long as they need. In exchange, their properties would become state controlled (though not wholly owned by the state) and they can only sell them to people who earn below a certain threshold. The state will of course not be paying off the mortgage for free and the owners would be expected to contribute what they can afford to the mortgage (capped at council rent rates).

I am a mortgagor so have no vested interest. But I think that in the long run, people being so overleveraged on the roof over the heads with little earning potential was a recipe for disaster anyway.

And there isn't and never will be any government or local council with the brains or desire to implement / maintain or finance any of it .

Why can't the 'State' do a build to rent scheme? Admittedly there's initial investment. But it would pay back. Or buy subsidised modular housing blocks that you could connect up in time to make your house bigger. Regarding those that bemoan one-size-fits-all, have you looked at your average town and high street recently? Spending 25K on a kitchen which is glorified storage, a bucket and hose with a drain, a work top and a couple of white goods is kind of weird anyway isn't it? Many homes don't look that different from each other. Oddly the Victorian utilitarian terraces hold up quite well. But housing should consider privacy, parking, spaces, access to local amenities etc. Or create national service, where many get to contribute on essential infranstructure. Building your house is kind of a ingrained human desire.

"siphoning money straight out the state"

This says a fair bit, these are the quango's, the quasi private and private firms which make money.

A single National Housing Service, would remove such companies, and stop the parasitic drain on public finances, "our money".

"I’m willing to spend a lot of money to have respectable neighbours." - unfortunately more money spent on living in smarter neighbourhoods is no guarantee of respectable neighbours.

In a council house, you may get verbal abuse.

In a smart neighbourhood, you will get lawsuit abuse. A simplistic example would be "boundary disputes" over inches of land.

The issue having once bought and then discovering the neighbours samurai sword collection, is that it is not cheap to shift.

As I mentioned earlier, capitalism just doesn't eat its children. It nudges families have less or no children.

I have explained the basic math, a few posts above.

The money you would have instead, is the money saved between the difference of the potential mortgage to the rent.

Mass immigration is need based, if there were no jobs, no one would want to come here. We can forever argue that the locals will not do certain jobs and hence we need immigrants to do these jobs, but this then needs people to look within themselves.

The housing crisis is legislation led, again, I have pasted my own personal experience of wanting to re-do a house, answer "NON" from the council.

People in countries die of famines and starvation due to either corruption, nature taking its course with droughts or floods, mis guided policy (China in the 50's).

And this is the problem, created entirely by fragmented councils with their own policies. That is why I say, have a National Housing Service, which is national, not local.

I read that as insect family.

Yeah the fallacy of getting good neighbours. We have respectable people living close by, but they are pretty selfish, and will take a mile given an inch, given any opportunity. Housing could be built in such a way that people don't get under each other's skin as easily with a bit of clever planning. My Mum used to moan about her neighbours when living in a semi, moved to a detached, still moans about her neighbours. Just read MN. We need DMZs! Perhaps a healthier society would not exhibit as much problematic behaviour. There's a thought.

And hence my suggestion, of having a National Housing Service.

As I said, I have lived in council housing, and thereafter in one of the most expensive areas in Britain, the "bad neighbours" are there in almost equal quantum.

In a lower earning area, bad neighbours may give you the dirty look or let their dog growl at you.

In a "smart expensive area", bad neighbours may engage lawyers to sue you or let their poodle poop on your doorstep.

That is fine then, I hope not, but I think Britain will fall off a cliff. And when such problems come, they are magnified in nature, at one stroke the NHS, and public transport may stop working. And then the police strike because the Government cannot pay them, and crime shoots up.

At this juncture, the smart neighbourhoods will need to hire their own security, as it happens in the USA, Brazil, Pakistan, parts of India, Thailand.

Absolutely- with the best housing provided to those who are best connected while the rest of us live in poorly maintained inefficiently managed housing as happens everywhere they have this system.

Why do you think that would be any better? Housing associations and councils are notoriously bad at getting value for money. They spend about twice as much as building the same house as the private sector. Their housing is poorly managed and maintained despite them spending far more on it than the private sector. Why do you think an even less accountable and more bureaucratic system would be better?

ultimately the private sector has to offer housing that people want to live in, and they generally do. Yes, we need more housing (of all types) but forcing us all to live in crap housing isn’t the answer.

@HarrowToCroydon The issue having once bought and then discovering the neighbours samurai sword collection, is that it is not cheap to shift.

What's wrong with a samurai sword collection? Come to the country our neighbour has a gun collection. I mean if your happy that in London your housing allowance off the government gets you a 1 bedroom flat whilst I can have 2/3 acres of land your welcome to pay my mortgage.

Life isn't meant to be equal, biology means some humans have better talents than others hence earn more. If I choose to spend that income on a lovely house for us why should X down the road on benefits get the same. Our mortgage is 11% of our take home, if you went down the route of government housing I bet my tax would go up more than that.

The 6 monthly referendum is designed to weed out such practices, not exact, but similiar to some northern european countires where you can peek at your neighbours tax return, but the neighbour knows it was you who peeked.

"Why do you think an even less accountable and more bureaucratic system would be better?"

Absolutely not, what I am suggesting is a system which is open, where every expense is logged and visible for anyone to see, and for anyone to comment on, with the "anyone" not remaining anonymous.

As I mention a few times before, the current system of fragmented councils arranging their own repairs is open to low level corruption.

You lack understanding of the issue. You are proposing rented government housing for all - that’s not analogous to you living in council housing in the uk in the 70s. Rather it’s like Eastern Europe under communism (where my family lived). Not nice I’m afraid.

housing associations and local authorities are not private, they are public bodies. Unfortunately though, they do often end up being run for the benefit of certain groups over others both in the uk and overseas. A housing association is a particular type of organization like a charity. You need to learn more about these things.

Your calculations are just made up though. Housing associations and councils don’t provide housing for a lifetime at a lower overall cost to the inhabitants than purchasing. That’s even allowing for the fact that housing associations and councils are providing housing at subsidized rate - they receive and have received many billions over the years to build these houses from central government.

because while you might think you are a big shot with your big house, unless you have £100k to pay for cancer treatment (as nhs has crumbled due to lack of nurses and essential staff who cant afford to do their jobs due to lack of affordable housing) as well as a lot of money to pay for live in help/expensive care homes, you would have to sell your house to pay for that. Your big house is of no use to you when you are 98 and in diapers except as an asset to sell to buy you the basic services the state cannot afford to provide..I assume you don't want to change your own diapers or ask your kids to change your diapers for you.

I am in the same boat, I have a 400k flat in London and I am completely writing off the value of it as i know it will mainly go to care home fees and medical bills in future.

I have a meagre household income of £130k, maybe it can rise to £250k but that will not insulate me from the pain of having to pay for private healthcare in future. that will cause me to lose my only asset after years of paying mortgage interest. So i am better off in a state with a functioning state subsidized healthcare system as at least i wouldn't have spent years paying mortgage interest in order to sell it back to rich people in exchange for medical treatment.