New housing - where are the people who need it?

[MerryTraveller]

This is a genuine question. We are constantly being told Britain needs X,000 new homes and new developments are all over the place. What I don't understand is, where are all the people who need this accommodation? Where are they currently? Or is it predicting what WILL be required within the next 5-10-20 years?
I know that families are often placed in temp accommodation - are there thousands upon thousands of them? What happens to the temp accommodation if all these people are housed?

There are thousands of people in temp accommodation and I honestly don't see how they're all going to get out of it tbh. There just isn't enough social housing to cover everyone 🤷

Dozens of requests a month on our local Fb page for rental accommodation for families, couples and singles suggests there's a massive need for it in this area alone. We're only a town of about 13,000, not that big.

However the new build estate locally have houses which are badly over priced and unsuitable for many and I keep seeing them being reduced. It makes me wonder of phases 2&3 will actually go ahead. We want a 2-3 bed with a garage and they only do 4 beds with garages. The starting prices for a basic 2 bed with one parking spot, pokey garden and no garage is £285k. And no one is paying that then renting it out, you'd make zero profit.

There are over 110,000 households currently in temporary accommodation in the UK. Our council mostly uses Travelodges out of the area.

yes we have young familes housed in the local travelodge or in student accommodation. it's really awful yet we seem to be able to build lots of private estates.

Well, often in their parents' homes. And at the moment, that's the way it'll stay as all these new homes are being priced far above what any normal young person can afford.
In our area, there are mixed housing estates with expensive homes with better off families living in them, side by side with social housing that many of our youngsters don't qualify for.

Many properties have been bought by London based housing associations, and so we have a lot of new people moving into the area.
Over the the last couple of years I have worked with several people who are living in emergency or temporary accommodation due to losing rented accommodation, or having their mortgaged homes repossessed. Very much hoping that they will eventually get secure homes of their own!

Work in social housing, we acquire social housing on private developments to increase our housing stock. We also purchase from the market and build our own. Constant battle to get people out of TA. What is tricky about to get a right mix of houses, different numbers of bedrooms, adaptations etc.

Some of them are in temporary accommodation.

Some of them are young adults who are living with their parents because they can't afford a room in a shared house.

(Some of this parents would downsize if they could only get their adult offspring out of the nest)

The need for property is very unevenly distributed across the U.K.

There are plenty of places where property is cheap because there are very few jobs and plenty of places (Cambridge, London, most i of the Home Counties) where there are plenty of jobs and property is very expensive.

They are living in overcrowded conditions, have commutes that are too long, and many other reasons

Goodness so many people in temp accommodation , in locations they don’t wish to be, in crowded accommodation etc.

governments look at housing needs now and in the future, based on population trends, children becoming adults, people living longer, where employment growth is, and try to ensure we keep pace.

Probably some of them are couples who still live together but are separated, or hate each other/ are in an abusive relationship but can't afford to live separately.

Go for the 4 bed and convert the 4th bedroom into something else

I can't justify a 4 bed at £400k for two adults and one dog. We have an income of £90k/yr between us.

The mortgage alone would be double what we pay now on a 3 bed terraced house and also treble the term - we'll be mortgage free in 9 years currently.

None of these new bills are really freeing up any rental properties - that's the biggest issue.

HMOs, women's refuges (I can say that as proof), people waiting to be evicted from rented accommodation because they haven't got a viable option lined up, homeless shelters, squatting (don't know how many people do it, but even as a disabled person that can't afford rent without benefits, I've considered it).
People move back in with parents.

It’s more kids grow up and leave home. Leave uni. Need somewhere to live. And older people are living longer. So the population is growing. We need to house everyone.

The fastest growing household type is single person households. So whereas a couple would have been in 1 home, they now need 2. But how are they being housed now? Don't know.

3-4 year waiting list for permanent Social Housing in Edinburgh. At last count, 4000-4500 AirBnB properties in Central Edinburgh, most of which will be small 1&2 bedroom flats, exactly the type of accommodation most lacking in a city that is absolutely full of Tenements. Just reading today about how CEC is so overwhelmed that people emergency accommodation in Hotels are going to have to be moved out for most of June and July because said Hotels are expecting a huge influx of guests for Taylor Swift concerts.

So your answer to "where are all these people?", in Edinburgh at least, is they are currently sitting in BnB's, Hotels, or HMO's, and Emergency Private Lets, leased to the Council at exorbitant costs by profiteering landlords, because profiteering landlords have bought up all the formerly affordable small-sized accommodation at prices "normal" residents can't compete with.

I'd imagine it's much the same across the UK, although Edinburgh's particular problem is exacerbated somewhat by people desperate to profit from Tourism, exploit Students, and who know that the Council will pay them ridiculous rates to house people on the waiting list in shabby tenement flats that haven't seen a paintbrush in decades.

That's before you even look at the number of old-fashioned "homeless", who are literally sleeping on the streets or in night-to-night charity beds.